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Luminary   /lˈumənˌɛri/   Listen
Luminary

noun
(pl. luminaries)
1.
A celebrity who is an inspiration to others.  Synonyms: guiding light, leading light, notability, notable.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Luminary" Quotes from Famous Books



... night, a star finds room to mirror itself in thy little stagnant world, shining through the fat weeds and slime that almost shut out the heavens, pray be careful not to pay too much heed to the high-born luminary. Look to your wriggling; that is your proper business. An animalcule that does not wriggle must be morbid or peculiar. All will tender, in different forms of varying elegance, the safe and simple admonition: 'Wriggle and be ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... moon-ward and noting with satisfaction that the luminary was behind a thick bank of clouds. "Turn back and row to the warehouse steps. I want to look at that fellow." So saying, he quickly threw off his uniform coat with its gleaming shoulder-straps and collar device, stowed his forage-cap under the ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King

... third day after our departure from Seville, we found ourselves at the Cuesta del Espinal, or hill of the thorn tree, at about two leagues from Cordova;—we could just descry the walls of the city, upon which the last beams of the descending luminary were resting. As the neighbourhood in which we were was, according to the account of my guide, generally infested with robbers, we used our best endeavours to reach the town before the night should have entirely closed in. ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... know it," answered Lobelalatutu. "It is that much beyond the village on its far side." And, pointing to the sun, he described with his finger a small arc representing the apparent travel of that luminary across the sky during a quarter of ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... cradle, when the day that is about to be born sends forward no heralding Aurora; but as soon as it begins to rise, the quivering brightness displays its torch. It beholds Phoebus in his joy; it is bathed in the brightness of that luminary so that it might be thought to be itself the native land of the sun, the claims of Rhodes to that honour being outdone.... It enjoys a translucent air, but withal so temperate, that its winters ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... of Summer are upon us, and the vivid rays of the great luminary have a powerful effect upon all creatures, and upon the finny tribe in particular. The water during this month is often so low and fine, that artificial fly fishing is labour in vain, and provided it is not, fish have become so shy and cautious in ...
— The Teesdale Angler • R Lakeland

... and cut the owner's throat for him, so that he may rest at peace, and have no fear of what may happen.' Others have climbed on to their roofs, and occupy themselves there looking at the moon through spy-glasses, thinking that the conspirators are concealed in that luminary, and only waiting for a cloud to obscure it, in order to descend ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson

... the day when at Ajaccio he attended a performance of "Norma," in which the moon was represented by a round transparent disc, lit from behind by a lantern hanging at the end of a string, whose oscillation revealed by turns first the luminary and then the transparency. This was enough to disgust him for ever with the theatre and the opera, whose motionless choruses, contrasting with the sometimes frantic movement of the music, left him with a memory of ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... snowy flowers bathe their charms, when the sun is absent, but lift up their virgin heads, when he looks down approvingly:—but that, sometimes deceived, on some peerless damsel's approaching, they mistake her eye for their loved luminary, and pay to her beauty an abrupt and involuntary homage:—now might they indeed gaze upward, to greet as fair a face as ever looked down ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... sirs, do not the words quoted come to us clean of mystery? Or have you the shadow of a doubt whom they mean, accept and consider the prayer I read you now from the same Vedas: 'O Thou who givest sustenance to the world, Thou sole mover of all, Thou who restrainest sinners, who pervadest yon great luminary which appearest as the Son of the Creator; hide thy struggling beams and expand thy spiritual brightness that I may view thy most auspicious, most glorious, real form. OM, remember me, divine Spirit! OM, remember my deeds! Let my soul return to the immortal Spirit ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... and sister of Osiris and mother of Horus, the three together forming a trinity, which is characteristically Egyptian, and such as often repeats itself in Egyptian mythology, and typifying the life of the sun, Osiris representing that luminary slain at night and sorrowed over by his sister Isis, reviving in the morning in his son Horus, and wedded anew to his sister Isis as his wife; passed into the mythology of the Greeks, Isis became identified first with Demeter and then with the Moon, while in that of Rome she figures ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... that mythical being as the only begotten of the Father, they personified him as God the Son, or second person in the sacred Triad; and recognizing the Sun as the ruling star, very appropriately made him the presiding genius of that luminary, under the title of God Sol. According homage to light as his chief attribute, he is referred to in the allegories as "The true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world," John i., 9; and, although designated as the only begotten of the Father, his co-existence ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill

... address his new celestial bride, and as he spoke a passing cloud rolled itself away from before the moon's face, and the great luminary of the night shone down upon his upturned face. "I accept the omen," said Robinson, with lightened heart; and from that moment his great hopes never again altogether failed him, though he was doomed to pass through scorching ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope

... has been used to excite in me feelings of reverence and admiration. I have been accustomed to consider him a luminary too dazzling for the darkness which surrounds him. From the earliest period of my knowledge of his principles, I have ardently desired to share, on the footing of intimacy, that intellect which I have delighted ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... gilded candlesticks, vases containing artificial flowers, and a large wooden statuette, gorgeously painted and embellished. This image represents the patron saint, Santiago, beneath whose feet burns night and day a small oil lamp. The object for which this luminary is intended is ignored by me for many days, and meanwhile I use it, when nobody is looking, for the lighting of my cigarettes. My authority for this sacrilegious act is derived from my companion, Nicasio, who is a liberal-minded Catholic, and as I find he also performs ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman

... indeed be dreadful, which overspreads the mind, when HOPE, that bright luminary of the soul, which enlightens and cheers it, and excites and calls forth into action all its best ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford

... from the outer world. I trust that M. Jansen, who was dispatched the other day in a balloon to witness the eclipse of the sun, will be more fortunate in his endeavours to discover what is going on in that luminary, than we are in ours to learn what is happening within twenty miles of us. Search has been made to find the peasant who announced that he had seen a French army at Corbeil, but this remarkable agriculturist is not forthcoming. Persons at the outposts say that ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... mechanics had a deep and philosophical reason, when, in the fine discourse pronounced by him at the opening ceremony of the Congres de Physique in 1900, he exclaimed: "The mind of Descartes soars over modern physics, or rather, I should say, he is their luminary. The further we penetrate into the knowledge of natural phenomena, the clearer and the more developed becomes the bold Cartesian conception regarding the mechanism of the universe. There is nothing in the physical world but matter ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare

... into her, until it just struck him that Fitz, nicknamed Skin-the-Goat, merely drove the car for the actual perpetrators of the outrage and so was not, if he was reliably informed, actually party to the ambush which, in point of fact, was the plea some legal luminary saved his skin on. In any case that was very ancient history by now and as for our friend, the pseudo Skin-the-etcetera, he had transparently outlived his welcome. He ought to have either died naturally or on the scaffold high. Like actresses, always farewell positively last ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... "No! His luminary is greater than your own sun; His flowers more fragrant than those on earth. He suffices to Himself. He created intelligence for no subservient purpose; but that with its use, man could be happy in raising himself to Him. He needs no one. He created man, not for His sake, ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... declaring it highly just and expedient to raise a revenue in America. For even then, Sir, even before this splendid orb was entirely set, and while the western horizon was in a blaze with his descending glory, on the opposite quarter of the heavens arose another luminary, and for his hour became lord ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... extraordinary spots on the sun has attracted a more than ordinary degree of attention to that luminary, and to Mr J. Nasmyth's 'views respecting the source of light,' which, though published a few months since, are now again talked about. Mr Nasmyth, after several years' observation, comes to the ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various

... [did so and so] like a sun."[4] To rest a building so important on a basis so frail is fortunately rare with Bergaigne. It happens here because he is arguing from the assumption that Indra primitively was a general luminary. Hence, instead of building up Indra from early texts, he claims a few late phrases as precious confirmation of his theory.[5] What was Indra may be seen by comparing a few citations such as might easily be amplified from every book ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... his couch in his dwelling,—so harassed by his anxieties and cares that he could not sleep, and revolving in his mind all possible plans for extricating himself and his followers from the difficulties which environed them. The moon shone in at the windows, and by the light of this luminary he saw, reposing in their shrines in the opposite side of the apartment where he was sleeping, the household images which he had rescued from the flames of Troy. As he looked upon these divinities in the still and solemn ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... sir: and nah, or gnah, knowledge, because the Scythians united the essentials of nobility and learning together: dna signifies heaven, or belonging to the moon, from duna, who was anciently worshipped as goddess of that luminary. And skooh-top signifies the origin or beginning of anything, from skoo, the name used in the moon for a point in geometry, and top or htop, vegetation. These words are inscribed at this day upon a pyramid ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe

... secular history, and all the sciences. The Lord gave me a marvellous memory. Sometimes, if I read a thing once or twice, I knew it by heart. My preceptors and patrons were amazed, and so they expected I should make a learned man, a luminary of the Church. I did think of going to Kiev to continue my studies, but my parents did not approve. 'You'll be studying all your life,' said my father; 'when shall we see you finished?' Hearing such words, I gave up study and took a post. ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... The arts and inventions were communicated to the natives, and the blessings of civilization in process of time inspired the inhabitants with admiration. They, therefore, relinquished worshipping the luminary and heavenly bodies, and transferred their devotion to their benefactors. Then into existence sprang the most inconsistent and irreconcilable fictions. The deified mortals, with their foibles and frailities, were transmitted to posterity in the most glorious manner possible, and hence accordingly, ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent

... which St. Michael's Mount is now densely involved, has continued, from a period of remote antiquity, to float around its summit. Tradition delights in relating how, in times prior to the Christian aera, it was devoted to the worship of the great luminary of heaven, under his Gallic name of Belenus,[213] a title probably derived from the Hebrew Baal, and the Assyrian Belus. The same tradition recounts how, at a more recent epoch, it reared its majestic head, embosomed in a spacious tract of woods and thickets, while the hermits who had fixed themselves ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman

... turf, in a hollow of the slope, surrounded by beech-trees, except on one side, where a marsh descends to a small tarn. Over the latter is rising the harvest moon. PHOEBUS APOLLO alone; he watches the luminary for a long time ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse

... hither; I will show thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb. (10)And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, (11)having the glory of God; her luminary like to a most precious stone, as it were to a jasper stone, clear as crystal; (12)having a wall great and high; having twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel; (13)on the east three gates, and on the ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various

... in this world! What is thy grace doing now? Art thou, perchance, mindful of thy enslaved knight who of his own free will hath exposed himself to so great perils, and all to serve thee? Give me tidings of her, oh luminary of the three faces! Perhaps at this moment, envious of hers, thou art regarding her, either as she paces to and fro some gallery of her sumptuous palaces, or leans over some balcony, meditating how, whilst preserving her purity and greatness, she may mitigate the tortures this wretched heart of ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... companion, I am the blossom of the city and the luminary of the people; my presence gives life to the plains, and my harmony cultivates the desert. If, when in vulgar prose I express the unpremeditated idea, every ear is filled with delight, and the fleeting soul, through ecstacy, flutters on the trembling ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... spread along the horizon; the pall of murky vapour broke up into detached masses; small but gradually widening patches of blue sky appeared here and here; and finally we got a momentary glimpse of the sun through a break in the clouds, just as the great luminary was on the point of sinking below the western horizon. We greeted the blessed sight with a cheer of reviving hope, for we knew that the gale was breaking, and that with the moderating of the wind and sea we should once again be able ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood

... Astronomy began to exist. The changes of the seasons and the recurrence of seed-time and harvest must, from the earliest times, have been associated with certain changes in the position of the sun. In the summer at mid-day the sun rises high in the heavens, in the winter it is always low. Our luminary, therefore, performs an annual movement up and down in the heavens, as well as a diurnal movement of rising and setting. But there is a third species of change in the sun's position, which is not ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball

... endeavoured to free Religion and History from the darkness of a disputed and uncertain chronology; from difficulties which have hitherto appeared insuperable, and darkness which no luminary of learning has hitherto been able to dissipate. I have established the truth of the Mosaical account, by evidence which no transcription can corrupt, no negligence can lose, and no interest can pervert. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... problem was to light them. How to conduct individual citizens about the burgess-warren, when once heaven had withdrawn its leading luminary? or—since we live in a scientific age—when once our spinning planet has turned its back upon the sun? The moon, from time to time, was doubtless very helpful; the stars had a cheery look among the chimney-pots; and a cresset here and there, on church or citadel, produced a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... previously been extinguished. Poor countries and districts, where the arts were in a backward condition, instead of having temples like the Peruvians, dedicated mountains and stone circles to the great luminary. It is the all but universal opinion that in this country, centuries before the Christian era, the religion of the people was Druidism; but this is merely the name of a system, and is equivalent to our saying that the present religion of our country is Presbyterianism, a statement ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier

... minute acquaintance with the ecclesiastical history of the third century might convince them that they have no reason to complain of their present privileges. The amount of material light which surrounds us does not depend on our proximity to the sun. When our planet is most remote from its great luminary, we may bask in the splendour of his effulgence; and, when it approaches nearer, we may be involved in thick darkness. So it is with the Church. The amount of our religious knowledge does not depend on our proximity to ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... future of the Anglican Church, which was to be a new birth of the Ancient Religion. And I did not venture to pronounce upon it. "About the future, we have no prospect before our minds whatever, good or bad. Ever since that great luminary, Augustine, proved to be the last bishop of Hippo, Christians have had a lesson against attempting to foretell, how Providence will prosper and" [or?] "bring to an end, what it begins." Perhaps the lately-revived principles would prevail in the Anglican ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... favors (or fevers) were welcome. A youth who had freely partaken of the cup which cheers and likewise inebriates, following a moth-like impulse very natural under the circumstances, dashed his fist at the light and quenched the meek luminary,—breaking through the plate-glass, of course, to reach it. Now I don't want to go into minutiae at table, you know, but a naked hand can no more go through a pane of thick glass without leaving some of its ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... whole, William Law's mysticism had a most elevating effect on his theology, and has done much toward raising him to the very foremost rank of eighteenth-century divines. It broadened and deepened his views, so that from being only a luminary of the estimable but somewhat narrow section of the Nonjurors, he became a writer to whom some of the most distinguished leaders of modern religious thought have thankfully acknowledged their obligations. He learnt to combine with earnest piety ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... the Jersey hills, said, "My son, it was a curious thought of a well-known French writer, Figuer, who lost his son, who was very dear to him, that his soul with armies and hosts of other souls, had departed to the sun and that they made the light and heat of this great luminary, and this wise man felt some comfort in the thought that the heat and light of the sun as he felt himself bathed in radiance and warmth were emanations from his boy, and his eyes and body seemed then in a figurative, and ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap

... write, he would have been obliged to lessen his output; so he used a shorthand system of his own, peculiar enough to be remarkable even though abbreviations were the rule in that day. Even the dignity of Kings he sacrificed to speed, and we find "His Majesty" abbreviated to "H M'y"; yet a smaller luminary known as "His Honor" fares better, losing only the last letter—"His Hono." "Ho." stands for "house" and "yt" for "that," "what," "it," and "anything else," as convenient. Many of his letters wind up with "I am ve'y much fatig'd." We know ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... remain till the last. This is the more troublesome, as in winter, with my worn-out eyes, I cannot write so well by candle-light. Naboclish! when I am quite blind, good-night to you, as the one-eyed fellow said when a tennis ball knocked out his remaining luminary. My short residue of time before dinner was much cut up by calls—all old friends, too, and men whom I love; but this makes the loss of time more galling, that one cannot and dare not growl at those ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... how Copernicus placed the earth in its true position in the solar system, making it merely one of a number of other worlds revolving about a central luminary. And observe that there are two phenomena to be thus accounted for and explained: first, the diurnal revolution of the heavens; second, the annual motion of the sun among ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... allowed himself to be gently drawn beyond the hearing of Mr. Pickwick; and after a short conversation conducted in whispers, walked softly down a little dark passage, and disappeared into the legal luminary's sanctum, whence he shortly returned on tiptoe, and informed Mr. Perker and Mr. Pickwick that the Serjeant had been prevailed upon, in violation of all established rules and customs, to ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... translucent, luminous, illuminate, luminary, luster, illustrate, illustrious; (2) lucent, Lucifer, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... crossed the Longe, and, as the day was cloudy, our guides wandered in a forest away to the west till we came to the River Chihombo, flowing to the E.N.E. My men depended so much on the sun for guidance that, having seen nothing of the luminary all day, they thought we had wandered back to the Chiboque, and, as often happens when bewildered, they disputed as to the point where the sun should rise next morning. As soon as the rains would allow next day, we went off to the N.E. It would have been better to have traveled by compass alone, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... moon bore to that of the sun in former times, with the proportion between them at present, that the moon is found to be somewhat accelerated in respect to the sun. Pemberton's View of Sir Isaac Newton, p. 247. And so large is the body of this mighty luminary, that all the planets thus thrown out of it would make scarcely any perceptible diminution of it, as mentioned above. The cavity mentioned above, as measured by Dr. Wilson of 4000 miles in depth, not penetrating ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... spite of the satisfaction this decision had given him, he continued to observe the disappearance of the moonlight from the veranda of the manor with far more attention than he bestowed upon the gradual darkening of the heavenly luminary itself. Then there happened to the baroness's companions what had happened to Marie: the women began to nod, whereupon the baroness sent them to bed. There remained now only the count and his fair neighbor to continue the astronomical ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai

... commoved by the speech of this rudesby, than the bright and serene moon is perturbed by the baying of the cottage-cur, proud of the height of his own dunghill, which, in his conceit, lifteth him nearer unto the majestic luminary." ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... almost without taking breath, and with the same set of combatants in hand, pulverized, one after the other, the five armies of the emperor of Germany, upsetting Beaulieu on Alvinzi, Wurmser on Beaulieu, Melas on Wurmser, Mack on Melas? Who was this novice in war with the effrontery of a luminary? The academical military school excommunicated him, and as it lost its footing; hence, the implacable rancor of the old Caesarism against the new; of the regular sword against the flaming sword; and of the exchequer against genius. On the 18th of June, 1815, that rancor had the last word. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... verse about the "shade of melancholy boughs," "the creeping hours of time," and "blushing, hides his sword!" In my neighbourhood happened to be one of the greatest advocates of our generation, and I heard this legal luminary whisper, "while that fellow is talking, the old servant will die of starvation," and the legal luminary was entirely and absolutely right. Adam would have died of starvation while his garrulous master was posturing. A country wench called ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various

... in consequence of the axis of the earth not being perpendicular to the plane of its orbit round the sun, the poles are alternately directed more or less towards that great luminary during one part of the year, and away from it during another part. So that far north the days during the one season grow longer and longer until at last there is one long day of many weeks' duration, in which the sun does not set at all; and during the other season there is one ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... One of the young men bears an artificial star, which is fixed to a pole, and elevated above the heads of the people; it is very large, and is rendered beautifully transparent when a light is placed in the inside. This artificial luminary is intended to represent the star of the east, which directed the wise men to Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ. At a little distance, the appearance is exceedingly brilliant, for there is no other light among the populace to diminish its ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XII, No. 347, Saturday, December 20, 1828. • Various

... and locked every door before he crossed the driveway between barn and house and entered the kitchen, where Susanna was toasting bread for supper. As he blew out the candle in the lantern and deposited that ancient luminary on the lean-to shelf, he rubbed his hands complacently, ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond

... white woollen garment worn by the votaress of Saint Bride, than the visage of the nun, seamed with many a ghastly scar, and the light of one of her eyes extinguished for ever, causing it to roll a sightless luminary in her head, was to the beautiful countenance of Augustine, now bent with a confidential, and even affectionate look, upon the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... when they must cross the saddle-shaped summit of the pass. Then, the moon being low down in the sky, directly in front of their faces, while the camp, still lower, was right behind their backs, it was not difficult to tell that their bodies would be exactly aligned between the luminary of night and the sparkling eyes of the Arabs, and that their figures would be exhibited in ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid

... they shall tend flocks, eat and drink, and do those very things which they do in this life. At new moon, or when the moon is full, they begin any new enterprise; they call the moon the great emperor, and they worship that luminary on their knees. All who dwell in their houses must undergo purification by fire, which is performed in this manner. Having kindled two fires at a convenient distance, they fix two spears in the earth, one near each fire, stretching a cord between the tops of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... from reproach. The vapors which gather round the rising sun, and follow him in his course, seldom fail at the close of it to form a magnificent theatre for his reception, and to invest with variegated tints and with a softened effulgence the luminary which they cannot ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various

... generously giving up your whole heart to the custody of some shallow, light-minded, self—! . . . We will not deal in epithets. If I were to find as many bad names for the serpent as there are spots on his body, it would be serpent still, neither better nor worse. The loneliness! And the darkness! Our luminary is extinguished. Self-respect refuses to continue worshipping, but the affection will not be turned aside. We are literally in the dust, we grovel, we would fling away self-respect if we could; we would adopt for a model the creature preferred to us; we would humiliate, degrade ourselves; ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... consider two sorts of shadows: those cast by a luminary a long way off, such as the sun; and those cast by artificial light, such as a lamp or candle, which is more or less close to the object. In the first case there is no perceptible divergence of rays, and the outlines of the sides of the shadows of regular objects, as cubes, posts, &c., ...
— The Theory and Practice of Perspective • George Adolphus Storey

... measure the extent of that influence; when we essay to express the degree of aberration (to use the language of the astronomer) produced in the orbit of the great poetic planet of the North by the approach in the literary hemisphere of the yet greater luminary of England—we give the strongest possible denial to a fallacious opinion, useless to the glory of one great man and injurious to the just fame of the other, viz. that Pushkin can be called in any sense ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... to that, if your wife—your wife that you love as your own soul—if you had lived in Palestine, and your wife had said to you, "Let us worship a sun whose golden beams clothe the world in glory; let us worship the sun, let us bow to that great luminary; I love the sun because it gave me your face; because it gave me the features of my babe; let us worship the sun," it was then your duty to lay your hands upon her, your eye must not pity her, but it was your duty to cast the first stone against that tender and loving breast! I hate such ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll

... moon's a-hangin' fur rain," said the mountaineer, commenting upon the aspect of the luminary, which he, too, had noticed as they passed. "I ain't s'prised none ef we hev fallin' weather agin 'fore day, an' the man—by name Morgan Holden—that hev charge o' the hotel property can't git back ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... form a just idea of the pride and ignorance of these people. They not only imagine that they are the first people in the world, but they have the presumption to believe that the sun rises only for them. Several of them have repeatedly said to me, "Behold that luminary! which is unknown in thy country. During the night thou art not enlightened, as we are, by that heavenly body, which regulates our days and our fasts. His children[38] point out to us the hours of prayer. You have neither trees nor camels, sheep, goats, nor dogs. Are your women made like ours?"—"How ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard

... that the firm in question had begun publishing a paper in opposition to the Sun, and that it was to be, if possible, a madder print than that luminary, for the purpose of cutting it out. Further reflection convinced us, however, that the "print" in question was connected with the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 25, September 17, 1870 • Various

... World"—that there is a great gulf between the powers it indicates, and the task of leading the age—and that, on the whole, it is rather a prodigious comet in the poetical heavens, than either a still, calm luminary, or even the curdling of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... conclusions is even more marked than would appear from this statement. The period of the sun's heat set by the astronomical physicist is that during which our luminary could possibly have existed in its present form. The period set by the geologist is not merely that of the sun's existence, but that during which the causes effecting geological changes have not undergone ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb

... Serjeant! come, that's too absurd.' Notwithstanding the absurdity of the proposal, however, the clerk allowed himself to be gently drawn beyond the hearing of Mr. Pickwick; and after a short conversation conducted in whispers, walked softly down a little dark passage and disappeared into the legal luminary's sanctum, from whence he shortly returned on tiptoe, and informed Mr. Perker and Mr. Pickwick that the Serjeant had been prevailed upon, in violation of all his established rules and customs, to admit ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald

... connection with the Sun of the present day over which Mr. DANA presides, although his fondness for a good lyre has led many to suppose that he was the patron of the classic journalists. The Sun which was in APOLLO'S charge was the same respectable luminary which has been seen at London no less than three different times during the present century, and which daily shines upon this free and happy republic. What APOLLO'S duties as keeper of the Sun were, is not precisely ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 13, June 25, 1870 • Various

... 2: The addition of light to light can be understood through the light being intensified in the air on account of there being several luminaries giving light: but this distinction does not apply to the case in point, since there is but one luminary shedding forth ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... enthusiasm, and as what you so warmly recommend is generally able and well qualified, I begin to be interested in this Herr Moritz. When I return to Berlin—and Heaven grant that it may be soon!—I will at once empower you to present this luminary. Are you satisfied?" ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... his literary efforts are likely to secure him a fraction of the notoriety which the Tientsin Massacre has conferred upon his son. He never saw the moon shining upon the water, but away he went and wrote an ode to the celestial luminary, always introducing a few pathetic lines on the hardships of travel and the miseries of exile. One chapter is devoted to the description of a curious rock called the Loom Rock. It is situated in the Luhsi district of the Chang-chou prefecture in Hunan, and is perfectly inaccessible to ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles

... but I cannot see the minute finger move. It is of no consequence: time will soon be over! Keep it, my dear Elizabeth, and when you look upon it, remember we are to meet again!—Ah! thou bright luminary!" she exclaimed, with fervency, "I hail thee, this, my last morning upon earth, as the evidence of that Being, who will lead me through the valley of the shadow of death, to never-ending glory! What is this life, my dearest Elizabeth, when we come to die? But where ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown

... Darius at Alexander's Feet, so charmed the king that he appointed Lebrun first royal painter, and granted him a patent of nobility. For thirty years the royal favourite was sole arbiter of taste and ruled supreme over the arts, until his star paled before the rising luminary, his rival Mignard. Lebrun's best work is to be seen at Versailles, but 510, R. wall, The Battle of Arbela, is an excellent example of his facile and adroit style. In 1686 the old favourite was commanded by Louis to paint a rival picture to Mignard's, ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... It is in condescension to Greek notions that Berosus inverts the true Chaldaean order, and places the sun before the moon in his enumeration of the heavenly bodies. Chaldaean mythology gives a very decided preference to the lesser luminary, perhaps because the nights are more pleasant than the days in hot countries. With respect to the names of the god, we may observe that Sin, the Assyrian or Semitic term, is a word of quite uncertain etymology, which, however, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson

... mountainous waves. Often would he traverse the deck amid the still hours of midnight, when the moon silvered over the liquid surface: "Bright luminary of the lonely hour, he would say, that now sheddest thy mild and placid ray on the woe-worn head of fortune's fugitive, dost thou not also pensively shine on the sacred and silent grave of ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.

... you, fair Cruelty! Would a man wish to put out the sun because it scorches him sometimes?" cried Lyle, lifted to the seventh heaven of poetic fervour by the influence of a balmy night and a glorious harvest moon. Which said luminary, shining on Christal's face, saw there,—she only, pale Lady Moon,—an expression fine and rare; quivering lips, eyes not merely bright, but flaming, as such dark ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... corrosion. To the Oriental fancy it typified the genial light of day. To the fire-worshipper it was a fit emblem of his faith. Fire was originally sacred, perhaps, only as the representative of the sun; and this luminary was later spiritualized in the idea of Apollo. Gold was sacred as far as this worship was spread, from India to the North of Europe, and the great demand for it for sacred uses gave the metal much of its preciousness in the markets of ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various

... follows a very curious result. The ray of light by which we see the sun can obviously report to us only the state of affairs which existed in that luminary when it started on its journey, and would not be in the least affected by anything that happened there after it left; so that we really see the sun not as he is, but as he was eight minutes ago. That is to say that if ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater

... then, is no great luminary; indeed, when we accompany him to his house, as we must, in order to set our scene properly, we find that it is quite a suburban affair, only one servant kept, and her niece engaged twice a week to crawl about the floors. There is no fire in the drawing-room, ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie

... art,—Plato, Shakespeare, Newton, and a Da Vinci—are potential in the fires of the sun." But, to be consistent in their inductions, they should proclaim themselves sun-worshippers at once, and ascribe to that transcendent luminary all the ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright

... scraped, they bowed their backs, and wrought with fury and inspiration unparalleled; and when the sun began to decline behind the hills these four human mutes felt injured. They lifted their eyes a moment from the ground, and cast a fretful look at the great, tranquil luminary. ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... well as all the Viennese musicians, were bound together by a common tie, very well expressed in the saying of Moscheles: "We musicians, whatever we be, are mere satellites of the great Beethoven, the dazzling luminary." ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris

... wishing to know the cause, began at length to perceive that the distance or proximity of the sun occasioned the various operations of nature; but it was long before the space of time, wherein that luminary performs his course through the zodiac, and returns to the point from which he set out, was called a year. The great year (annus magnus), or the PLATONIC YEAR, is the space of time, wherein the seven planets complete their revolutions, and ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus

... matter on which we dwell and have our being, it is itself but a mote, as it were, in the beam of the Universe. Formerly this sun was thought to be fixed and immovable, but the progress of science demonstrated that while the earth moves around this luminary, the latter is moving with mighty velocity in an orbit of its own. Tis the same with all the other bodies which we erroneously call "fixed stars." These stars are the suns of other systems of worlds, countless systems, all rushing through the immensity of space, for there ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing

... by comparison with these fixt stars that we can measure the light of any new luminary which aspires to their lofty elevation. It is only by keeping our gaze full upon them that we may hope to come to an understanding of their immeasurable preeminence. Taine has told us that "there are ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews

... afternoon of one of the last days of July. The sun has nearly finished his daily course, and is declining rapidly toward the horizon; still, his rays, though less ardent than at noontide, are hot enough to make the air close and stifling. At Grinselhof the last beams of the setting luminary play gayly over the foliage, gilding the tree-tops with sparkling light, while, on the eastern side of the dense foliage, the long, broad shadows begin to fall athwart the sward, and prepare the groves for the gentle and refreshing breeze ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience

... pale pastries, ham sandwiches and packets of cigarettes. The upper panels of one of its sides unfold to form a bar below and a penthouse roof above, the latter being generally extended into an awning. The awning is a protection for the customer not against the sun—a luminary from whose assaults the London coffee-stalls have little to fear—but against the rain. Thanks to these awnings, and the chattiness of the fat, jolly man, and the warmth exhaled by the urns, and the circumstance that the public houses are shut, our coffee-stalls ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir

... in the battle, but when the division of the spoil came, she was forgotten. And in the present instance insult had been added to injury. The Scotch bill had been brought forward by a Scotch legal luminary. Was there no Irish gentleman to whom ministers could entrust the Irish reform bill? Ministers wished to put an end to agitation in Ireland. But how did they set about it? By perpetrating an act of injustice, which would perpetuate agitation. The amendment was supported by Mr. Shiel, who contended ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... the great luminary was furious, and fell so hotly upon him that in a few minutes there was nothing ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... be unworthy of regard. If it be true that there are thousands of comets, all of which make periodical visits to the near neighbourhood of the sun, it must be evident that the earth, being itself not far, comparatively speaking, from that luminary, must be rather liable as otherwise to a brush from one of these wanderers; and, indeed, the wonder is, that several thousand years should have passed without, so far as we know, any one such collision ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various

... already black, we would begin to sally from our respective villas, each equipped with a tin bull's-eye lantern. The thing was so well known that it had worn a rut in the commerce of Great Britain; and the grocers, about the due time, began to garnish their windows with our particular brand of luminary. We wore them buckled to the waist upon a cricket belt, and over them, such was the rigor of the game, a buttoned top-coat. They smelled noisomely of blistered tin; they never burned aright, though they would always burn our fingers; their use was naught; the pleasure ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... there should be molecules in the zones diffused by the atmosphere of the Sun of too volatile a nature either to combine with one another or with the planets, we must suppose that they would, in circling round that luminary, present all the appearances of zodiacal light, without opposing any appreciable resistance to the different bodies composing the planetary system, either owing to their extreme rarity, or to the similarity existing between ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... the Parliamentary leaders in England spoke of the work with contempt. Lord Mansfield, the great English legal luminary, who had carefully read it, rebuked them for ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath

... spiders occasionally betray the magnetic observer into very odd behavior At times he may be seen bowing in the sunshine, like a Persian fire-worshiper; now stooping in this direction, now dodging in that, but always gazing through the sun's rays up toward that luminary. He seems demented, staring at nothing. At last he lifts his hand; he snatches apparently at vacancy to pull nothing down In truth his eye had at last caught the gleam of light reflected from an almost invisible spider line running from the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... drum. The temperament of his brother Philip, the duke of Anjou, was very different: he was remarkably gentle, quiet, and affectionate. Gradually the baby-court of the dauphin was increased by the addition of other lads. The young king was the central luminary around whom they all revolved. By them all the dauphin was regarded with a certain kind of awe, as if he were a being of a superior, almost of a celestial race. These lads were termed "children of honor." They always addressed the king, ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... fork of thorns.] By Cain and the thorns, or what is still vulgarly called the Man in the Moon, the Poet denotes that luminary. The same superstition is alluded to in the Paradise, Canto II. 52. The curious reader may consult Brand on Popular Antiquities, 4to. 1813. vol. ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... steamer to cross the river, and from the steamer we had a grand view of the citadel and town of Quebec, the tin spires shining jointly with the moon and the comet; for we beg to say we do not require telescopes of high power, as we see by the papers you do in England, to detect the latter luminary, which really does look here almost as if it added to the light of the night. Papa and I differ greatly as to the length of its tail. I say it looks two yards long, but papa says it is difficult ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter

... comprised Sir Felix O'Grady, an Irish baronet just imported from the province of Munster; the honorable Frederick Fitzroy, a luminary in the constellation of Fashion; Colonel Mc. Can, a distinguished Scotch Officer; an amateur Poet; a member of the Corps Dramatique; and our old friends Sparkle and Mortimer, with the augmentation of Dashall and ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... disk in his most powerful telescope—he turned on his powerful visiray beam without enthusiasm, swung it upon that very commonplace sun, and shrieked aloud in exultation. Not only one planet had that yellowish luminary—it had six, seven, eight; yes, possibly nine or ten; and several of those planets were themselves apparently centers of attraction around which were circling other tiny worlds! Nerado thrilled with joy as he applied a full ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith

... consequence hampered our onward journey except the breaking down of three wheels and the excessive heat of the sun, which great luminary seemed not more ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various

... off three out of the four lights, and smiled mischievously at her friend. Then she extinguished the fourth, so that the only luminary left in the room was the lamp. ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond

... more enlarged view of the more distant stars than he could now possess in a few minutes of time; and that it would require an ultra-railroad speed of fifty miles an hour for nearly the livelong year, to secure him a more favourable inspection of the gentle luminary of the night;' but 'the exciting question whether this "observed" of all the sons of men, from the days of Eden to those of Edinburgh, be inhabited by beings, like ourselves, of consciousness and curiosity, was left to the benevolent index ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... toasted the potent luminary in hot coffee; for Phoebe's wagon had a stove and chimney; and then they yoked their miscellaneous cattle again, and breasted the hill. With many a jump, and bump, and jolt, and scream from inside, they reached the summit, ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... Lowliness humileco. Loyal fidela. Loyalty fideleco. Lozenge (geom.) lozangxo. Lozenge pastelo. Lucid klara. Luck sxanco, bonsxanco. Lucky sxanca, bonsxanca. Lucrative profita. Ludicrous ridinda. Luggage pakajxo. Lukewarm varmeta. Lull kvietigi. Lullaby lulkanto. Luminary lumigilo. Luminous lumiga. Lump bulo. Lunacy lunatikeco. Lunar luna. Lunatic lunatikulo. Lunch tagmezomangxo. Lung pulmo. Lurch sxanceligxi. Lure trompi, logi. Lurid malhela. Lurk sin kasxi (insideme). ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... sorrows, triumphed in them. They reviled him with bitter expressions, with words even more bitter than the gall and vinegar which they gave him to drink. Not one of them all that witnessed his pains, turned the head aside even in the last pang. Yes, there was one; that glorious luminary, (pointing to the sun,) veiled his bright face and sailed on in tenfold night!' This is eloquence! Would that we could have seen the beaming features, the 'melting eye, turned toward heaven,' which indelibly impressed these words upon ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... arrangement of its particles, and, above all, on the clearness of the sky, that is, on the transparency of the atmosphere and the absence of clouds. When the declination of the sun varies very little, this luminary adds daily nearly the same quantities of heat, and the rocks are not hotter at the end than in the middle of summer. There is a certain maximum which they cannot pass, because they do not change the state of their surface, their density, or their capacity for caloric. On the shores of ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... he gave, but it was fancied by some that his wig was the great moving cause. Sir Alured and Mr. Wharton were second cousins, and close friends. Sir Alured trusted his cousin altogether in all things, believing him to be the great legal luminary of Great Britain, and Mr. Wharton returned his cousin's affection, entertaining something akin to reverence for the man who was the head of his family. He dearly loved Sir Alured,—and loved Sir Alured's wife ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... moment. I shall therefore make no apology for offering to my readers an account of an interview which the young and gifted novelist was kind enough to give to me the other evening. Mr. Knight is a legal luminary well known in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the right-hand man of Sir George Powell, the celebrated lawyer. I found him in his formidable room seated ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... to the changes of this luminary in its monthly course; and it is thought very unlucky to begin a journey, or any other work of consequence, in the last quarter. An eclipse, whether of the sun or moon, is supposed to be effected by witchcraft. The stars are very little regarded; ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... elements; and bear a manifest relation to the religion in use among the Amonians, and to the Deity which they adored. This deity was the Sun: and most of the antient names will be found to be an assemblage of titles, bestowed upon that luminary. Hence there will appear a manifest correspondence between them, which circumstance is quite foreign to the system of Bochart. His etymologies are destitute of this collateral evidence; and have not the least analogy to ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant

... out, the process is exactly the same. "The religion of the sun," as it has been boldly said by the author of the "Spanish Conquest in America," "was inevitable." It was like a deep furrow which that heavenly luminary drew, in its silent procession from east to west, over the virgin mind of the gazing multitude; and in the impression left there by the first rising and setting of the sun, there lay the dark seed of a faith in a more than ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller

... What can there be to make us shudder in a fixed star? Well, one day—one night, rather—it moves. We perceive a trembling gleam around it. The star which we imagined to be immovable is in motion. It is no longer a star, but a comet—the incendiary giant of the skies. The luminary moves on, grows bigger, shakes off a shower of sparks and fire, and becomes enormous. It advances towards us. Oh, horror, it is coming our way! The comet recognizes us, marks us for its own, and will not be turned aside. Irresistible ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... is seen to fall on Florence, kneeling at the altar with her timid head bowed down. The morning luminary is built out, and don't shine there. There is a meagre tree outside, where the sparrows are chirping a little; and there is a blackbird in an eyelet-hole of sun in a dyer's garret, over against the window, who whistles loudly whilst the service is performing; and there is the man with ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... sun became shorn of his rays, although there was no perceptible diminution of heat, until at length when the great luminary was upon the point of sinking below the horizon, he had changed into the semblance of a huge, shapeless mass of molten copper hanging suspended in the midst of an almost equally shapeless conglomeration of flame and smoke. Then he slowly vanished from view; the flaming, ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood

... city, while looking thitherward to see the triumphant pilgrim pass within its gates,—now, in short, good Father Wilson was moving homeward, aiding his footsteps with a lighted lantern! The glimmer of this luminary suggested the above conceits to Mr. Dimmesdale, who smiled,—nay, almost laughed at them,—and then wondered if he were ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... his way forward, taking care not to make too much disturbance in the bushes. He had been on hunting trips, and knew the value of silence in the woods. He had no paths to follow, but he had noted the position of the sun, and though that luminary was now sinking lower and lower in the west, he could see the gleam of it through the trees, and knew in which direction from ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton

... young people and the cottages formed considerable resources. Yesterday they left us, deeply impressed with the conviction, which I can hardly blame, that the sun never shone in Scotland,—which that noble luminary seems disposed to confirm, by making this the first fair day we have seen this month—so that his beams will greet them at Longtown, as if he were determined to put Scotland to ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... to empty their own glass; I—who the throng affect not, nor their state— Steal to thy grave undress'd, to meditate On our sad loss, accompanied by none, An obscure mourner that would weep alone. So, when the world's great luminary sets, Some scarce known star into the zenith gets, Twinkles and curls, a weak but willing spark, As glow-worms here do glitter in the dark. Yet, since the dimmest flame that kindles there An humble ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... that Irish druidical rites manifested themselves principally in Sun-worship. The name of Bel, still retained in the Celtic Beltinne, indicates its Phoenician origin; Baal being the name under which they adored that luminary. It is also remarkable that Grian, which signifies the sun in Irish, resembles an epithet of Apollo given by Virgil,[145] who sometimes styles him Grynaeus. St. Patrick also confirms this conjecture, by condemning Sun-worship in his Confession, when he says: "All those who adore it shall descend ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... poem, but having discovered that Byron was at work on the same theme, he resolved to restrict himself to the production of an "episode," to "give himself the chance of ... an heliacal rising," before he was outshone by the advent of a greater luminary. Thanks to Murray's scruples, and the "translation" of MSS. to Hunt, the "episode" took the lead of the "Mystery" by eight days. The Loves of the Angels (see Memoirs, etc., 1853, iv. 28) was published ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... there related. The principal object of their publication is not so much to expose tine atrocities of Gallic ruffians, as to awaken the sympathies and call forth the humanity of the British nation. Like that glorious luminary, whose genial rays vivify and invigorate all nature, Britain is looked up to by the whole civilized world for support against injustice, and for solace in distress. To her liberality the really unfortunate have never yet appealed in vain; and, with this experience before ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)

... the artist who may shine a luminary of learning and of genius, in his works, is found, not rarely, to lie obscured beneath a heavy ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... dead world edged ever nearer the cooling sun whose dull, red ball covered a large expanse of the sky. Surrounding the flaming sphere, many of the stars could be perceived through the earth's thin, rarefied atmosphere. As the earth cut in slowly and gradually toward the solar luminary, so was the moon revolving ever nearer the earth, appearing like a great gem glowing ...
— The Jameson Satellite • Neil Ronald Jones

... represented the noise of hail and rain. The moon was formed by a circular aperture cut in a tin box containing a powerful Argand lamp, which was placed at the back of the scene, and brought near or carried far from the canvas as the luminary was supposed to be shining brightly or to be veiled by clouds. These contrivances, from a modern point of view, may strike the reader as constituting quite the A B C of theatrical illusion. But then it ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" first appeared few were in the secret of its authorship and everybody asked: "Who is this new luminary?" It was exactly what the more intelligent public wanted, and Holmes jumped at once into the position in literature which he has held ever since. Readers were delighted with his wit, surprised at his originality and impressed by his proverbial wisdom. It was the advent ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns

... the dun was flooded with light, silvery and golden, a light which came not from the sun nor from the moon; a light not born from any parent luminary, and which knew nothing opaque. More free than the birds of the air were the shadowy forms of the two daughters of Aed Abrait, as they gazed out from that rock-built dun upon a place their mortal feet had never trod. ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... by it, which proves that the people grow degenerate and foreshadows that one of these nights some fool with a spyglass will break into Mars and let loose the myriads of warlike gyascutes who inhabit that freak luminary, thence to slide down the willing moonbeam and swallow ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... The usual time of sitting at table, a walk, and tea bring me within the dawn of candlelight; previous to which, if not prevented by company, I resolve that, as soon as the glimmering taper supplies the place of the great luminary, I will retire to my writing table and acknowledge the letters I have received, but when the lights are brought I feel tired and disinclined to engage in this work, conceiving that the next night will do as ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth

... taper, candle, lantern, head-light, cresset; publicity, public notice; phosphorescence, luminescence; aureole, halo, nimbus, aureola, glory. Associated Words: photology, photologist, photophobia, catoptrics, dioptrics, photics, Ormuzd, luminary. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... began to steal over his troubled brain he would spring from his bed and grasp his weapons of war. The night gradually wore away, and the great luminary of the world began to light up the East. Esock Mayall and the Indian chief rose from their restless beds and finished dressing their bears, and got the wagon and goods, with his father, mother and the three children that wore on the opposite side of the creek, over to the cottage, whilst the young ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes

... surprised if he knew how much he imitates Kemble. Though seemingly a paradox, we firmly rely upon it—Mr. Cooper may be aiming at Cooke, when he is by old habitual taint really hitting Kemble.[1] On this subject of imitation much is to be said. Kemble rose when every bright luminary of the stage had set. Being the best of his day, in the metropolis, he has become the standard of acting to the young and inexperienced; more from pride than want of judgment he goes wrong; his system of acting is radically ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold

... or to sink to the profoundest Tartarus. That power, Susan, thinks proper to claim your unworthy and enamored swain as one of the brightest Colossuses of her future glory. The Irish hierarchy is plased to look upon me as a luminary of almost superhuman brilliancy and coruscation: my talents she pronounces to be of the first magnitude; my eloquence classical and overwhelming, and my learning only adorned by that poor insignificant ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... take the country long to realize that in that young man, who was Wendell Phillips, a new oratorical luminary had arisen. He took up the work of lecturing as a profession, treating on other subjects as well as slavery; but when slavery was the subject no charge was made for his services. Said Frederic Hudson, the noted ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume

... their power was dreaded. The Chaldean felt them everywhere about him, and could not move without incurring the danger of coming into contact with them. He did not fear them so much during the day, as the presence of the luminary deities in the heavens reassured him; but the night belonged to them, and he was open to their attacks. If he lingered in the country at dusk, they were there, under the hedges, behind walls and trunks of trees, ready to rush out upon him at every turn. If he ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... description of the two rivals, as yet unintroduced, who on that occasion sunned themselves in the eyes of Emily Owen, though at such different distances from the luminary. ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... or accidental quarrel produced unusual violence. Lawless acts became frequent and passed unpunished. This unhappy condition of the public mind was further increased by acts of violence in western Missouri, where, in April, a newspaper, called the "Parkville Luminary," was destroyed by a mob, and numerous acts of violence and homicides committed. Some innocent persons were unlawfully arrested and others ordered to leave the territory. The first one notified to leave was William Phillips, a lawyer of Leavenworth, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... disappointment that I had not criticised Judge Grier's course in the first number of the Visiter, but this was part of my plan. In the second number I stated that there had been for a long time a great legal luminary visible in the Pennsylvania heavens, which had suddenly disappeared. I had been searching for him for several weeks with the best telescopes in the city, and had about given him up as a lost star, when I bethought me of Paddy, who had heated ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... whose indulgence listened then to my voice. Marshall, Cushing, Chase, Washington, Johnson, Livingston, Todd,—where are they? Where is that eloquent statesman and learned lawyer who was my associate counsel in the management of that cause, Robert Goodloe Harper? Where is that brilliant luminary, so long the pride of Maryland and of the American bar, then my opposing counsel, Luther Martin? Where is the excellent clerk of that day, whose name has been inscribed on the shores of Africa as a monument ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... a half of daylight. On the 20th of December I required a candle to write at the window at ten in the morning. On the 29th, the sun, after ten days' absence, rose at the fishery, where the horizon was open; and on the 8th of January, both limbs of that luminary were seen from a gentle eminence behind the fort, rising above the centre of Fishery Island. For several days previously, however, its place in the heavens at noon had been denoted by rays of light shooting into ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... indispensable, and for some time Ratty was obliged to stand on a chair and cover his grandmamma's eye with his hand while she took aim; this was found inconvenient, however, and the old lady substituted a black silk shade to obfuscate her sinister luminary in her exercises, which now advanced to snapping the lock, and knocking sparks from the flint, which made the old lady wink with her right eye. When this second habit was overcome, the "dry" practice, that is, without powder, was given up; and a ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover



Words linked to "Luminary" :   famous person, celebrity



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