"Ken" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... while the laws were become of so little validity, and while the court was so deeply engaged in opposite interests. In order to encourage them in this resolution, six prelates, namely, Lloyde bishop of St. Asaph, Ken of Bath and Wells, Turner of Ely, Lake of Chichester, White of Peterborough, and Trelawney of Bristol, met privately with the primate, and concerted the form of a petition to the king. They there represent, in few words, that, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... marriage was at the best only a plausible hypothesis; and I hardly dared to hug myself with the hope that it might turn up trumps. My idea was based upon two or three facts, namely, the character of the young man, his long residence in London away from the ken of respectable relatives and friends, and the extraordinary state of the marriage laws at the period ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... case is [diverging] from that of Ken's. To say nothing of the last miserable century, which has given us to start from a much lower level and with much less to spare than a Churchman in the 17th century, questions of doctrine are now coming in; with him, it was a ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... wight to our town en', An' the fient a body did him ken; He twirled na' lang, but he glided ben, ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... ken what course to steer, I'm sae to dool an' daftness driven, For are so lovely, sweet, and dear, Sure never breath'd the breeze o' heaven; O there's a soul beams in her ee, Ae blink o't maks are's spirit gladder, And ay the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 379, Saturday, July 4, 1829. • Various
... to Kitty's mind. She started up, pressing her hands to her brow and pushing back the disordered hair. Then she addressed the girl with eager, persuasive words. But the kitchen-maid only shook her head. "Dinna ye ken that I'm stane-deef?" she said, pointing to her ears with a grin. For a moment Kitty in despair desisted from her efforts. Then she thought of another argument. She produced her purse, and showed the girl ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... was the occasion on which my brother discovered a good many things in connection with the fair sex which had hitherto been beyond his ken; more especially that the mass of petticoats and clothes which envelop the female form were not, as he expressed it to me, "all solid woman," but that women were not in reality more substantially built than men, and had legs as much as he had—a fact which he had never yet realised. On this he ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... ye ken. For enstance, there's some queer caves alang the cost—twa or three o' them afore ye come to the Scaurnose. They say the water bude till ha' howkit them ance upon a time, an' they maun hae been fu' o' partans, an' lobsters, ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... thing to see, but he said quietly enough, 'Yes, Allie, my woman, tell him where your brother is,—if ye ken, and where he is like to be soon if he gets his deserts. Speak, lassie. Tell the minister if you are going to draw ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... indispensable to her progress. She takes in at one view the indefinitely great and the indefinitely little. The mutual revolutions of the stellar multitude during tracts of time which seem to lengthen out to eternity as the mind attempts to traverse them, she does not admit to be beyond her ken; nor is she indifferent to the constitution of the minutest atom of matter that thrills the ether into light. How she entered upon this vastly expanded inheritance, and how, so far, she has dealt with it, is attempted to be set ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... had consulted it as to the former appearance of the deceased, and had then built it up in exact accordance with the original. In such cases the spirit face may show as a flat surface instead of a contour. Rigid examination has shown that the existing model was usually outside the ken of the photographer. ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... if she did not really know Heath very well. A great many things about him she knew. But how much of him was beyond her ken. She was not even sure how he regarded Charmian. Now she wished very much to be more ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... pushed the skiff back towards the place where he had embarked. As he came near, Quentin discerned that this person was the Bohemian, who, avoiding him, as was not difficult, held a different path towards Liege, and was presently out of his ken. ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... pocket-money he would have taken a carriage for a long drive in the country, along by the farm-ditches shaded by beech and elm trees; but he had to think twice of the cost of a glass of beer or a postage-stamp, and such an indulgence was out of his ken. It suddenly struck him how hard it was for a man of past thirty to be reduced to ask his mother, with a blush, for a twenty-franc piece every now and then; and he muttered, as he scored the gravel with the ferrule ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... occupied—that dismal thing!— The path that he was following. Before he'd time to stop and fly, An earthquake trifled with the eye That saw a ghost. He fell as fall the early good; Unmoved that awful vision stood. The stars that danced before his ken He wildly brushed away, and then He saw ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... Trevarthen—received back into favour, and in some danger of being petted by Mrs. Purchase, who had never been known to pet a seaman—were shipmates now on board the Virtuous Lady, and had passed for many weeks now beyond ken of the little port. A new schoolmistress reigned in Hester's stead, since Hester, with the New Year, had taken over the care of the Widows' Houses. In his counting-house at Hall Samuel Rosewarne sat day after ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... sort of official appearance on his return to England after a long period of foreign service; and Dad was taking advantage of the opportunity to show me a few of the sights of London that came within our ken, everything being strange to me, for I had never set foot in the metropolis before the previous evening, when mother and I had come up by a late train from the little Hampshire village where we lived, to meet father on his arrival ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Masters" (in the progress of which the unexpected never happens), as well as by similar collections of the same kind. And the special connexion of this device with a company of pilgrims might, as has been well remarked, have been suggested to Chaucer by an English book certainly within his ken, the "Vision concerning Piers Plowman," where in the "fair field full of folk" are assembled among others "pilgrims and palmers who went forth on their way" to St. James of Compostella and to saints at Rome "with many wise tales"—("and had leave to lie all their life after"). But even ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... you ken Peter, the taxman an' writer? Ye're well aff wha ken naething 'bout him ava; They ca' him Inspector, or Poor's Rate Collector— My faith! he's weel kent in Leith, Peter M'Craw! He ca's and he comes again—haws, ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... ye homes of living men! I have no relish for your pleasures— In the human face I nothing ken That with my spirit's yearning measures. I long for onward bliss to be, A day of joy, a brighter morrow; And from this bondage to be free, Farewell thou world of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 389, September 12, 1829 • Various
... may have little hope of immortality unless he is broad-minded enough to take a cultivated interest in many matters outside the ken of his own particular sphere. The best-equipped person living could not produce a new "Dictionary of Architecture," and expect it to fill any niche that may be waiting for such a work, unless he brought to bear, in addition to his own special ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... to hae me." Six miles from home he saw a mud house on the top of a hill, and ascended genially. He found at their porridge a very old lady with a nut-cracker face, and a small boy. We shall see them again. "Auld wifie," said Corp, "I dinna ken you, but I've just stepped up to tell you that Gavinia ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... the sleepless ken Of roseate Sphinx, and god of marble green, Which stood as guardians o'er the sacred ground. For a great port steered vessels huge and fleet, A giant city bathed her marble feet In the ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... the King said, "Do thou take my sword Who have done this deed of fire, For this is the manner of Christian men, Whether of steel or priestly pen, That they cast their hearts out of their ken ...
— The Ballad of the White Horse • G.K. Chesterton
... have you seen my bonny lad, And ken ye if he's weel, O! It's owre the land and owre the sea He's gyen to moor ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... coloring of sorrow had been traced by a hand too delicate to leave the lines visible to every vulgar eye. Like the master-touches of art, her grief, as it was beyond the sympathies, so it lay beyond the ken of those whom excellence may fail to excite, or in whom absence can deaden affections. Still her feelings were true to all who had any claims on her love. The predominance of wasting grief over the more genial springs of her enjoyments, only went to prove ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... me as a child, when the first island "swam into my ken." It was a great discovery—a revelation. Of it were born all the islands that have been so much to me in later life. And even then I seemed to comprehend the singular life that all islanders are forced to live: the ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... long-drawn "Maggie" with three cheerful words, "I'm coming, Davie." Very soon Davie loomed through the fog, and throwing a plaid about her, said, "What for did you go near the boat, Maggie? When you ken where ill luck is, you ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... enough to the door. Then the old man summoned his remaining strength, and having knotted the rope round his waist, threw himself on the ground again, and emerged with his precious charge into the roaring hurricane. Across the barren mountain slope, far above the ken of any fellow-being, in the teeth of death, the old man crept with the sleeping babe. Another threatening of the deluge of rain, which would surely accompany the tornado, added to the misery of the painful journey; the sudden downpour of heavy drops drenched the grandfather ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... that I know of. But I scarcely know more than you," I replied—and told him all that had taken place within my ken. ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... and Will Tamson was walkin' along the Strand when Will he says to me, says he: 'Cud we no pay a veesit to Dave Broonlee?' Then I minded that Dave's father had said something aboot payin' him a call, but I didna ken his address. All I kent was that he was in a big shop in ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... gentlemen are laughing because a poor man such as me thinks my life, or the life of six of my degree, is worth that of Vich Ian Vohr, it's like enough they may be very right; but if they laugh because they think I would not keep my word and come back to redeem him, I can tell them they ken neither the heart of a Hielandman nor the honour of a gentleman." That is sublime. And, again, when Balfour of Burley slaughters Bothwell, the death scene is sublime. "Die, bloodthirsty dog!" said Burley. "Die as thou hast lived! Die like the beasts that perish—hoping nothing, ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... Melanthius, shalt thou watch all night, lying in a soft bed as beseems thee, nor shall the early-born Dawn escape thy ken, when she comes forth from the streams of Oceanus, on her golden throne, in the hour when thou art wont to drive the goats to make a meal for the wooers in ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... dwelling in peace, beholdest the strife, and workest thy will thereby, what that good and perfect will of thine is I know not clearly, but thou hast sent us to be doing, and thou hatest cowardice. Thou knowest I have sought to choose the best, so far as goeth my poor ken, and to this battle I am pledged. Give me grace to fight like a soldier of thine, without wrath and without fear. Give me to do my duty, but give the victory where thou pleasest. Let me live if so thou wilt; ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... large green volume ("British Poets of the Nineteenth Century," edited by Professor Curtis Hidden Page) which was the textbook of that sophomore course. He was reading Keats. And his eyes were those of one who has seen a new planet swim into his ken. I don't know how many evenings we spent there together. Probably only a few. I don't recall just how we communed, or imparted to one another our juvenile speculations. But I plainly remember how he would sit beside his desk-lamp and chuckle over the Ode to a Nightingale. He was ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... was nervous. He was alternately wringing his hands and rumpling his hair. Beside him was a middle-sized, middle-aged lady in a most amazing state of preservation, who evidently presided over the cosmetic mysteries beyond the male ken. She was so perfectly groomed that she looked as though her clothes were a mould into which she had literally ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... the case ended there. As in so many instances, he knew solely the point of tragedy: the before and the after went on outside the hospital walls, beyond his ken. While he was busy in getting away from the hospital, in packing up the few things left in his room, he thought no more about Preston's case or any case. But the last thing he did before leaving St. Isidore's was to visit ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... say that, Cecil, when ye look at your aunt; she's no invalid, but she gi'es up her life for the sak' o' others. Did ye ken that these verra rooms are the anes she likes most, the anes she lived in till we came, and she gave them up that ye might enjoy the best ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... one hand we have ability to protect ourselves; on the other, a victory that is complete. 8. To see victory only when it is within the ken of the common herd is not the ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... industrial oppression, must go. Not only German militarism, and Russian autocracy, and Turkish cruelty must be done away; but American materialism must be purged in the fiery furnace of this war. Its purposes will reach far beyond our ken, and though man's sin alone has caused the war, its issues are in the hands of God. The whole war has been a demonstration of the result of leaving God out of His world. The world with God left out leaves war; and life with God left ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... genealogical chart of the family, the pedigree of which he carried back rather farther than the greatest strength of credulity would allow. "I gude faith, man," says the king, "it may be they are very true, but I did na ken before ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... novel enterprise, too, though they scarcely knew the nature of it or how much was at stake. That a human mind was tottering to its fall, and that Mistress Mary was engaged in preventing it, was beyond their ken. They could see certain details, however, for they were all one great family of little people, and it was no unaccustomed thing for them to watch a moral conquest, though they had no conception of ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... some of them only a part at a time, and every now and then, as the company wandered on, he would be startled by some extraordinary limb or feature, undreamed of by him before, thrusting itself out of the darkness into the range of his ken. Probably there were some of his old acquaintances among them, although such had been the conditions of semi-darkness, in which alone he had ever seen any of them, that it was not like he would be able to identify ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... "I ken him weel," said our student, nodding after him. "He's a lawyer in Edinburgh, and a braw hand at the stringin' of verses. Wattie Scott is ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... stages of his initiation, Joel was often discouraged, whereupon West was wont to repeat the famous reply of the old St. Andrews player to the college professor, who did not understand why, when he could teach Latin and Greek, he failed so dismally at golf. "Ay, I ken well ye can teach the Latin and Greek," said the veteran, "but it takes brains, mon, to play the gowf!" And Joel more than half agreed ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... short. The column rested. "Mon Dieu!" said even the Orleans Guards, "quel chaleur! Is it not a terrib', thad sun!" Hundreds of their blue kepis, hundreds of gray shakos in the Confederate Guards, were lifted to wipe streaming necks and throats, while away down beyond our ladies' ken all the drummers of the double escort, forty by count, silently came back and moved in between the battery and its band to make the last music the very bravest. Was that Kincaid, the crowd asked, one of another; he of the ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... mortal ken, Assisted by all the arts of men, A moment's time and the space is passed, And heaven's best gifts at our ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... servant meeting his master unexpectedly in Australia after many years' absence: "I was quite dung down donnerit when I saw the laird, I canna' conceit what dooned me—I was raal glad to see him, but I dinna ken hoo I couldna' ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... 'Ye ken,' he said, pausing temporarily and looking at Selwyn, 'yon should be rendered wi' proper deegnity.' With which explanatory comment he finished the last six notes, and solemnly replaced the chart on the ledge behind him, as if it were a copy ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... be full devout in preiers, and have not his wit occupied about worldli things that the Holy Spyrit author of all wisdom and cunnynge and truthe dresse him for his work and suffer him not to err." And he concludes with the prayer, "God grant to us all grace to ken well and to kepe well Holie Writ, and to suffer joiefulli some paine for it at ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... yes. Peter told us all aboot it whan he was here, an' he bade us not to lat ye ken a word aboot it, but to keep from ye all knowledge of it. Noo it's come to ye by way of this letter fra yer frien', an' I'm thinkin' it's the best way; for noo, at last ye ha'e it in ye're power to go an' maybe save an innocent man, for it's no like a son of our Katherine ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... notice everything, as Ken Blaisdell said just now," laughed Percival. "Does anything escape ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh
... presence of one particular man out of the many. The one particular man was walking slowly up and down on the roadside opposite to the hotel by the Park railings. That he was walking up and down Dolores became conscious of through the fact that, having half unconsciously seen him once float into her ken, she noted him again, with some slight surprise, and was aware of him yet a third time with still greater surprise. The man paced slowly up and down on what appeared to be a lengthy beat, for Dolores mentally calculated that something like a ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... the hot stream beside which you found me, a certain woman, by no means so powerful as myself, not being immortal, had cast what you call a spell—which is merely the setting in motion of a force as natural as any other, but operating primarily in a region beyond the ken of the mortal who makes use of ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... a star quenched on high, For ages would its light, Still travelling downward from the sky, Shine on our mortal sight. So when a great man dies, For years beyond our ken, The light he leaves behind him lies Upon ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... regions, which constitutes the chief charm of one of the most charming of his prose works. But how soon he had any definite object before him in his researches seems very doubtful. "He was makin' himsel' a' the time," said Mr. Shortreed; "but he didna ken maybe what he was about till years had passed: at first he thought o' little, I dare say, but the queerness ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... evening beside her. Now his manner, for all its courtesy, seemed to tell her that those times were done; that she was four years older; that she had lost the first brilliance of her looks; and that he himself had grown out of her ken. Helena's young unfriendly eyes had read her rightly. She did wish fervently to recapture Philip Buntingford; and saw no means of doing so. Meanwhile Sir Richard, now demobilized, had come back from the war bringing great glory with him, as one of the business men whom the Army had ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... mystery that has no solution: we came out of the burning nebulae just as our horse and dog, but why we are men and they are still horse and dog we owe to some Power, or, shall I say, to the chance working of a multitude of powers, that are beyond our ken. That some Being willed it, designed it, no; yet it was in some way provided for in the ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... with the fury the attempted surprise must have occasioned. Perhaps something of the stunned astonishment of his Oxford Street experiences may have returned to him, for he had evidently counted on Kemp's co-operation in his brutal dream of a terrorised world. At any rate he vanished from human ken about midday, and no living witness can tell what he did until about half-past two. It was a fortunate thing, perhaps, for humanity, but for him it was ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... sair, sae far as I see—an' wha sud ken better? She's had a bien doon sittin' (sheltered quarters), and sud hae had as lang's I was to the fore. Na, na; it was nowther sae young ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... aneugh to do if I am to stand up for a' my friends' wives," said the old gentleman. "But, however, Archie, you are to blame: Leddy Maclaughlan is a very decent woman—at least, as far as I ken—though she is a little free in the gab; and out of respect to my auld friend Sir Sampson, it is my desire that you should remain here to receive him, and that you trait baith him ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... to save the instructor. If he had foreseen all the consequences of taking all the blame for an occurrence promptly distorted in report into the aspect of a riotous carousal, perhaps Mr. Carrington would not have sacrificed himself for a neutral personality which had so recently swum into his ken. One consequence was a letter from Mr. Draper Curtis, of New York, commanding Mr. Carrington to cease correspondence with Miss Caroline Curtis; and a note from Caroline, in which a calmer man than a distracted lover would have seen ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... this Indian, if I have not been particular in his description hitherto, it is because I know not how to do so, seeing he was (to my mind) rather as one of another world, a sombre figure proud and solitary and mostly beyond my ken, though I came to know him something better towards the end and but for him should have perished miserably. Thus then, I will try to show him to you in as few ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... Poetry cannot make these sayings any truer than they are, but it can illuminate for us the depths of their truth, and so (be it humbly said) can help their acceptance by man. If they come down from heaven, derived from arguments too high for his ken, poetry confirms them by arguments taken from his own earth, instructing him the while ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the aggregate, they amount to more than a most fragmentary resolution of the difficulty presented by the reality of evil—indeed, we have already expressed our belief that a full solution must in the nature of things lie beyond our ken. But if it should appear from the foregoing considerations that some aspects of our problem—such as the existence of sin and of pain—are not as irreconcilable with the goodness of God as may have seemed to be the case, reflection should lead us to the reasonable hope that if we understood ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... from the world had cut off a great man, Who in his time had made heroic bustle. Who in a row like Tom could lead the van, Booze in the ken, or at the spellken hustle? Who queer a flat?[570] Who (spite of Bow-street's ban) On the high toby-spice so flash the muzzle? Who on a lark with black-eyed Sal (his blowing), So prime—so ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... we entered counsel about our abode and plantation, which was concluded to be in the west part of Elizabeth's island. The north-east thereof running from out our ken. The south and north standeth ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... conclusions, the frequency of the exceptional, should present no difficulty to a student of many grammars; but there must be something else in the way, some special human trait—one of those subtle differences that are beyond the ken of mere professors. What must remain striking to a teacher of languages is the Russians' extraordinary love of words. They gather them up; they cherish them, but they don't hoard them in their breasts; on the contrary, they ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... still preserved, and affixed a copy to the gates of Charlecote. The response was a persecution that made Stratford too hot to hold a greater man than all the big sportsmen from Nimrod's day to ours, and William Shakespeare left wife and children and vanished from the old town's ken. Some think he lived in neighbouring towns or villages awhile, and found work as a schoolmaster. There was an idea that he went for a time as a soldier to the Low Countries under the Earl of Leicester, whose splendid pageants in honour of a visit ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... I had no mind of you. Bide still, Miss Graeme. You munna go there," for Graeme with her little sister in her arms was hastening away. "Your mamma's no waur than she's been afore. It's only me that doesna ken about the like o' you. The minister keeps up a gude heart. Gude ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... direct working of natural law. It may be said, perhaps, that, obviously, the good man does not always reap his reward of good results, nor does the wicked man always suffer. Not always immediately; not always within our ken; but assuredly, eventually and inexorably." The writer then goes on to define his conception of Good and Evil. He says: "We shall see more clearly that this must be so if we define exactly what we mean by good and evil. Our religious brothers would tell ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... He knew what worlds went round the sun, larger or lesser, and seeing this I began to question him, for I was uneasy in my innermost mind and, you will remember, so far had no certain knowledge of where I was, only a dim, restless suspicion that I had come beyond the ken ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... and being, and particular knowledge to particular truth and being.' Clearly.' 'And there is a subjective knowledge which is of subjective truth, having many kinds, general and particular. But the ideas themselves are not subjective, and therefore are not within our ken.' 'They are not.' 'Then the beautiful and the good in their own nature are unknown to us?' 'It would seem so.' 'There is a worse consequence yet.' 'What is that?' 'I think we must admit that absolute knowledge is the most exact ...
— Parmenides • Plato
... of the best and drank freely and wore rich clothes and lived lavishly, companioning and consorting with youths of my own age, and considering that this course of life would continue for ever and ken no change. Thus did I for a long time, but at last I awoke from my heedlessness and, returning to my senses, I found my wealth had become unwealth and my condition ill-conditioned and all I once hent had left my hand. And recovering my reason I was stricken with dismay and confusion and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... the withering of his crops before their time, by reason of the rarity of rain and the sore sorrow that is fallen on this city." Quoth the other, "Wottest thou not the cause of this affliction?"; and quoth the first, "No! and, if thou ken it pray tell it me." Rejoined the other, "Yes, I wot it and will tell it thee. Know that I have heard from one of my father's friends that our King slew his Wazirs and Grandees, not for aught of offence done of them, but only by reason of his love for women and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... beyond belief, Suddenly, from that world beyond its ken, Dashing great billows o'er its rosy bars, Shivering its dreams into a thousand stars, Flooding each sun-dried reef With waves of colour, (as once, for mortal men Bethesda's angel) with blue eyes, wide and wild, Naked into the pool ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... how to commence telling it. You know, sir, this is where you writing folk have at disadvantage the chaps who only live their stories—you see the yarn from the beginning to the end, we see but those chapters in which Fate makes us characters. The beginning, the end, the plot—all are beyond our ken. If indeed there is a beginning, or end, or plot to ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... meets with in that eternal land astonishes it because, unfettered by the dense conviction of our waking mind, that nought outside the ken of our own vision can in this universe be, all things to it are possible and even probable. In dreams, we fly and wonder not—except that we never flew before. We go naked, yet are not ashamed, though we mildly wonder ...
— Dreams - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... some with specs, and some wi' quizzing-glasses, and faces without ae grain o' meaning in them o' ony kind whatsomever, a' glowering, perhaps, at a picture o' ane o' Nature's maist fearfu' or magnificent warks! What, I ask, could a Prince's-Street maister or missy ken o' sic a wark mair than a red deer wad ken o' the inside o' ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... who frequented these meetings. This was in 1656, and in 1658 Wood gives the names of over sixteen other persons, with whom he used to play and sing, all of whom were Fellows of Colleges, Masters of Arts, or at least members of the University. Amongst them was "Thom. Ken of New Coll., a Junior" (afterwards Bishop Ken, one of the seven bishops who were deprived at the Revolution), who could "sing his part." All the rest played either viol, violin, organ, virginals, or ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... "Fine do I ken Rob McDonald, an' a guid mon he is. Hoo was it that ye couldna slaughter stacks o' moose wi' him to help ye? Did ye see nane ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... mind can scarcely realize it as a thing in actual existence:—so strange, so wonderful does it appear to me. In this, as in most other matters, we are too slow. When this spirit first dawned, it might probably have been easily checked; but it is scarcely within the reach of human ken, at this moment, to say when, where, or how it will terminate. There are combustibles in every state, to which a ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... wound to fret, And smile to think of an ancient feud, Which the God of nations turned to good; Then John and Jonathan will be, Abiding friends, o'er land and sea; In their one great purpose, the world will ken, Peace on earth, goodwill ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... have no knowledge of the Infinite, the Absolute. Schiller, not satisfied with the mere fact, in this poem expresses the conviction that there must be an ethical reason for this necessity, a reason that is beyond our ken. Compare also the beautiful words of Lessing: "Nicht die Wahrheit, in deren Besitz irgend ein Mensch ist, oder zu sein vermeinet, sondern die aufrichtige Muehe, die er angewandt hat, hinter die Wahrheit zu kommen, macht den Wert des Menschen. Denn nicht durch den Besitz, sondern durch ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... a louder blast Blew, as the Southern World's great victor passed. Lautaro turned, scarce heeding, from the view, And from the noise of trumps and drums withdrew; 160 And now, while troubled thoughts his bosom swell, Seeks the gray Missionary's humble cell. Fronting the ocean, but beyond the ken Of public view, and sounds of murmuring men, Of unhewn roots composed, and gnarled wood, A small and rustic oratory stood; Upon its roof of reeds appeared a cross, The porch within was lined with mantling moss; ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... that when the Great White Silence, as they call the long winter up here, is broken by the thunder of the ice rushing down to the sea, you, like the rest, will exchange the snow-fields for the gold-fields, and pass out of our ken. Now, I'm not usually prone to try my hand at prophecy; but I am tempted to say, even on our short acquaintance, that I am tolerably sure that, while we shall be willing enough to spare most of the new-comers to the Klondyke, ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... hardly in a body's power, To keep at times frae being sour, To see how things are shared; How best o' chiels are whiles in want, While coofs on countless thousands rant, And ken na ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... charmed me by the mere amenity of his detachment which, in this case, I cannot help thinking he had carried to excess. He went away from his rooms without leaving a trace. I wondered where he had gone to—but now I know. He vanished from my ken only to drift into this adventure that, unavoidable, waited for him in a world which he persisted in looking upon as a malevolent shadow spinning in the sunlight. Often in the course of years an expressed sentiment, the particular ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... schoolmaster suffers from this less than most professional men; but, even so, it is melancholy to reflect how the boys one has cared for, and tried to help, drift out of one's sight and ken. I have no touch of the feeling which they say was characteristic of Jowett—and indeed is amply evidenced by his correspondence—that once a man's tutor he was always his tutor, even though his pupil ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... eloquent was the debate, Beside the council fire of those red men! With language burning as his sense of hate; With gesture just, with eye of keenest ken; With illustration simple, but profound, Drawn from the sky above him, or the ground Beneath his feet; and with unfalt'ring zeal, He spoke from a warm heart and made ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas
... applicable to his master. Even if he had ever troubled his mind by plunging so far into the depths of speculation, as to consider, that in truth the various matters forbidden in the commandments were in the sight of God, or, what was more within his ken, in the sight of the Church, equally forbidden to all men, still it would have been clear to him that there was no reason why such great people as the Marchese di Castelmare, with Cardinals for his friends, and wealth enough to pay for any quantity of indulgences and masses he might require, ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... shalt value duly, In everything act simply, truly,— Virtue and godliness proclaim, And call all evil by its name, Nought soften down, attempt no quibble, Nought polish up, nought vainly scribble. The world shall stand before thee, then, As seen by Albert Durer's ken, In manliness and changeless life, In inward strength, with firmness rife. Fair Nature's Genius by the hand Shall lead thee on through every land, Teach thee each different life to scan, Show thee the wondrous ways of man, His shifts, confusions, thrustings, and drubbings, Pushings, tearings, pressings, ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... active people like the English, amid habitual acquiescence, are every now and then interfering, and almost always in the wrong place. The real causes which determine the prosperity or wretchedness, the improvement or deterioration of the Hindoos, are too far off to be within their ken. They have not the knowledge necessary for suspecting the existence of those causes, much less for judging of their operation. The most essential interests of the country may be well administered ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... quite as catching as the mumps), Gill upon the risks of the piscatorial art, or Savage upon an original Polynesian theme, "Zulu Lulu," was to feel like Keats's watcher of the skies, "when a new planet swims into his ken." For the admirer of Spanish customs there was A. E. J. Inglis (O.A.) to sing, as only he can, the Toreador's song; while for the Cockney there was Killick to give, in his own inimitable fashion, that really touching little ballad ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... tried him for it, and found him guilty; but when they asked him what he had to say in his defence, he merely replied, 'When the carl sneered about Scotland, I did na suspect that he did na ken how to swim;' and so the end of it was, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... the assembly, there could be assuredly no fear that she would be missed. Mr. Granger shook hands with her for the first time in his life as he wished her good-night, and then stood in the doorway watching her receding figure till it was beyond his ken. ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... is round, or oval, or elongated, sometimes pear-shaped, and with flattened sides, due to mutual lateral pressure. As many as 250 individual fruits have been counted on a single tree at one and the same time. The heaviest fruit within the ken of the writer weighed 8 lb. 11 oz. They hug the stem closely in compact single rows in progressive stages, the lower tier ripe, the next uppermost nearly so, the development decreasing consistently ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... sat up and blinked his eyes. The old eyes were brighter, the grizzled face redder than was natural, but such matters were quite outside of the little dog's ken. It was a dazed moment before the man remembered that Bobby should not be there. He frowned down at the excited little creature, who was wagging satisfaction from his nose-tip to the end of his crested tail, in a puzzled ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... to the great congregation in St. Mary's. And such was the zeal which he brought to bear on the studies and the secular interests of the place, that the deserted courts were once more populous with ardent and accomplished students, and in alumni like Sprat, and South, and Ken, and Richard Cumberland, the Church of England received from Owen's Oxford some of its most distinguished ornaments; whilst men like Philip Henry and Joseph Alleine, went forth to perpetuate Owen's principles; ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... give ye half I get.' This last solicitation had the desired effect. The Duke went and lent a helping hand. 'And now,' said the Duke, as they trudged along, 'how much do you think you will get for this job?' 'Oh, dinna ken,' said the boy, 'but I am sure o' something, for the folk up at the house are good to a' bodies.' As they approached the house, the Duke darted from the boy, and entered by a different way. He called a servant, and put a sovereign into ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... once, true, as if he'd forgotten something, but the sword ran into him—I happened thoughtlessly to be carrying it—only a quarter of an inch or so—and he changed his mind, and by the time I got my head through the scuttle he was gone—vanished utterly from human ken!" ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... hark, of visage dark, Esteem them not so little; I’d have thee ken that Olger’s men Are knights of ...
— King Diderik - and the fight between the Lion and Dragon and other ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... Swankie, with an air of indifference, as he put the gold into his pocket. "I think I've seed it mysel'. It looks like auld Jamie Brand, but I didna ken him weel." ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... Lammas. So Jim's away To wed, is he, the limb? I thought he'd gone For swedes; though now, I mind some babblement About a wedding: but, nowadays, words tumble Through my old head like turnips through a slicer; And naught I ken who the bowdykite's to wed— Some bletherskite he's picked up in a ditch, Some fond fligary flirtigig, clarty-fine, Who'll turn a slattern-shrew and a cap-river Within a week, if I ken aught of Jim. Unless ... ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... way. She, on her part, was quite unconscious of his attention, and in this was less fortunate than those young women whose very plumes, like those of Juno's bird, are set with Argus eyes whenever possible admirers are within ken. ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... back bearing that 'glass of port wine and spices' but for which he might, so he thought, actually have died. Was this the very doorstep that the old De Quincey used to revisit in homage? I pondered Ann's fate, the cause of her sudden vanishing from the ken of her boy-friend; and presently I blamed myself for letting the past over-ride the ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... scholar in the free schoole at Guldeford he and several of his fellowes did runne and plaie there at crickett and other plaies." The author of Echoes from Old Cricket Fields cites the biography of Bishop Ken to show that he played cricket at Winchester College in 1650, one of his scores, cut on the chapel-cloister wall, being still extant; and the same writer reproduces as a frontispiece to his "opusculum" an old engraving bearing date 1743, in which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... orbs themselves be hurried? It may be that we are able to trace the history of the solar system for some thousand million years or so; but for how much longer time must it not have a history—a history, and also a future—entirely beyond our ken? ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... in early," Mrs. McAdam went on; "pickerel come; whitefish go. Beasts and fish and birds ken ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... capping the old fellow's proverbs with another. "Don't see why I shouldn't make money as well's other fellers. It's a free country, an' if a feller wants to try suthin' else 'sides fishin' uv it, what d'yer all want to be down on him fur? I don't want to slave all my days, when other folks ken live in big houses an' ride in 'kerriges, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... we have come by divers ways To keep this merry tryst, But few of us have kept within The Narrow Way, I wist; For we are those whose ampler wits And hearts have proved our curse— Foredoomed to ken the better things And aye to ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... the glistening brooks, And with the low dark groves—a land of Love; Where Love was worshipp'd upon every height, Where Love was worshipp'd under every tree— A land of promise, flowing with the milk And honey of delicious memories Down to the sea, as far as eye could ken, From verge to verge it was a holy land, Still growing holier as you near'd the bay, For where the temple stood. When we had reach'd The grassy platform on some hill, I stoop'd, I gather'd the wild herbs, and for her brows ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... the island of Skye, the landlord was asked, 'Did he know who had been staying in his house? It was the poet Tennyson.' He replied, 'Lor', to think o' that! and sure I thoucht he was a shentleman!' Near Stirling the same remark was made to the keeper of the hotel where he had stayed. 'Do you ken who you had wi' you t' other night?' 'Naa, but he was a pleesant shentleman.' 'It was Tennyson, the poet.' 'An' what may he be?' 'Oh, he is the writer o' verses such as you see i' the papers.' 'Noo, ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... see the haven near at hand To which I mean my wearie course to bend; Vere the main sheet and bear up to the land To which afore is fairly to be ken'd. ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... with heart-griping anguish; such was I, Haunted by that fell beast, never at peace, Who coming o'er against me, by degrees Impell'd me where the sun in silence rests. While to the lower space with backward step I fell, my ken discern'd the form one of one, Whose voice seem'd faint through long disuse of speech. When him in that great desert I espied, "Have mercy on me!" cried I out aloud, "Spirit! or living man! what e'er thou be!" He answer'd: "Now not man, man once I was, And born of Lombard ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... does a beast of burden drop in the deserts exhausted on the sands, than vultures begin to make their way towards the carcase. Whence they come none can tell, and the only probable suggestion is that they hover at a height beyond the ken of human eye over a passing caravan, for they are first noticed as specks in the air above, moving slowly round in circles as they ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... I ken fine he's an auld man, John, and ye're a young yin, an' Alexander's gaein' to be anither, an' I'm a lone wumman among the lot o' ye, but I'm no' gaein' to gie ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... us alone Was laughing Eros born, Nor shines alone for us the moon, Nor burns the ruddy morn; Alas! to-morrow lies not in the ken Of us who are, O Nicias, ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... gat some sleep; an' ane nicht I saw in a dream a woman a' in white, an' she laid her cool, moist han' on my hot forehead, an' tauld me she would save me yet. 'It was th' auld enemy that ye forgathered wi' on th' ice, an' ye are his until ye can kill th' king o' th' geese; an' then ye ken whaever carries his croun o' black an' white feathers can unnerstand th' language o' all fowl, an', wha' is more, call them to himsel', sae that he canna' fail to hae his wull o' them. Then, laddie, ye wull hae earned yoursel' th' penny-fee ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... d'ye tell me that any mon said sic a fuleish speech? Mon, its borne in on me that we'll tak a dooms lot of managin'. These chaps dinna ken ower weel what they're talkin' aboot. An' they maun say somethin' to please the fellows that keep them in siller. These things hae gane on in Scarva sin' auld lang syne, an' nothin' e'er stappit them. They went on when the Party Processions Act was law, an' tho' the sojers ance cam frae Dublin ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... sell myself," replied the landlady, "I have had my reward"—the colour faded from her cheek as she spoke—"as all will have who go the same gait. But ye ken, Bobby, it was not for my ain sake, but that my poor mother might have a home in her auld age—and so she had, and sure that ought to make me content." The tears gathered in her eyes, and the Ranger loudly reproached himself for unkindness, and assured ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... of a defined system of drainage, the crests of snow-topped mountain ranges in the distance were proof of whence these rivers sprang. The native tribes were of higher intelligence, had a partial knowledge of what lay beyond their immediate ken, and could show articles of barter and commerce that they had obtained from ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... "I dinna ken," repeated he, as gruffly as before; while he added, in a louder key, "Stand bock, I tell ye, man! Dinna ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... found in his palace, so he said in his surprise, "By Allah, the works of this youth be wondrous and had the joiners and carpenters loitered over three years upon this work they never would have fulfilled such task: moreover we ken not by what manner of means this young man hath been able to accomplish the labour." Thereupon he sent for the Prince to the presence and robed him with a sumptuous robe of honour and assigned to him a mighty matter of money, saying, "Verily thou deservest, O youth, and thou art the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... fists: this slim man embodied the very spirit of the outre. The fantastic surroundings melted from the ken of Soames, and he seemed to stand in a shadow-world, ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... reticence of which enhances their significance, did Collingwood sum up the greatness and the weakness of Nelson. Gifted, brilliant, faulty by reason of his emotional temperament, strong by reason of his enthusiasm—his all-enthralling sense of duty, Nelson flashed like a meteor across the ken of his generation to vanish in a haze of glory. He died at the psychological moment—his life, according to this account, the sacrifice to a dazzling folly. And the man whom he loved—the man whose sterling worth is swamped by Nelson's more ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... distraught, Backward again and eastward. To all time, Be well assured, that inlet of the sea All mortal men shall call Ionian, In memory that Io fared thereby. Take this for proof and witness that my mind Hath more in ken than ever sense hath shown. (To the CHORUS) That which remains, to you and her alike I will relate, and, to my former words Reverting, add this final prophecy. (To Io) There lieth, at the verge of land and sea, Where Nilus issues thro' the silted sand, A town, Canopus called: and ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... his forefathers won with the sweat of their brows; light come, light go; he cares not a farthing. But why should I stand surety for his contracts? The little I have is free, and I can call it my own—hame's hame, let it be never so hamely. I ken well enough, he could never abide me, and when he has his ends he'll e'en use me as he did before. I'm sure I shall be treated like a poor drudge—I shall be set to tend the bairns, darn the hose, and mend the linen. Then there's no living ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... and the other boat had also passed from their ken, swallowed up in the little wavelets that covered the surface of the rapidly growing river; for they were now approaching the spot where the mighty flood of the Missouri joined forces with the swollen current of the Mississippi, ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... Bishop Ken, however, goes too far. Undesirable, of course, death must always be to those who are fairly well off, but it is undesirable that any living being should live in habitual indifference to death. The indifference should be kept for worthy occasions, and even then, though death ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... home, sir. My grandpapa used to love it very much. His wife's father was a great friend of good Bishop Ken, who wrote it; and—and my dear brother used to love it too;" said the boy, his ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Mowbray, you ouer-weene to take it so: This Offer comes from Mercy, not from Feare. For loe, within a Ken our Army lyes, Vpon mine Honor, all too confident To giue admittance to a thought of feare. Our Battaile is more full of Names then yours, Our Men more perfect in the vse of Armes, Our Armor all as strong, our Cause the best; Then Reason will, our hearts should be as good. ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... said Jamie, for the Netheraird man let it out; 'yon wes a sermon for young fouk, juist milk, ye ken, tae the ordinar' discoorses. Surely,' as if the thought had just struck him, 'ye werena thinkin' o' callin' Maister ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... unascertained factors we shall expect a more fundamental displacement of earlier and more speculative hypotheses than in studies where we know, or think we know, that most of the phenomena with which we are concerned are equally within our ken: but the earlier scientific treatment, so far as it goes, is equally ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... bore not any resemblance to that of Telemachus into Hell. A brilliant light irradiated their passage, and the grim shadows of the infernal abode were, if present, without the ken of ocular observation. In place of the palace of Pandemonium, our triumvirate beheld the temple of Bacchus, where were assembled a number of Votaries, sacrificing to the jolly Deity of the Ancients, in ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... I may say more impious, than for man, with a ken surrounded by the dense mists of sense, to reason respecting the decrees of eternal justice. You adopt here the same limited view that you embraced in reasoning against the indestructibility of the sentient principle in man from the apparent ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... to those wood-dwellers: 'Ye are like to men, And I learn a lesson from ye With my spirit's ken. Like to us in low beginning, Children of the patient earth; Born, like us, to rise on high, Ever nearer to the sky, And, like us, by slow advances from the minute of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... their praise or blame; There was no fear, there was no shame, For one upon whose dazzled eyes The whole world poured its vast surprise. The open heaven was far too near, His first day's light too sweet and clear, To let him waste his new-gained ken On the hate-clouded ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... the story of the life of Alexander Gordon, of Earlstoun in Galloway. Earlstoun is a bonny place, sitting above the waterside of the Ken in the fair strath of the Glenkens, in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. The grey tower stands ruinous and empty to-day, but once it was a pleasant dwelling, and dear to the hearts of those that had dwelt ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... with Harris. Nearly two hundred hours (as we had calculated it) had we walked the ship's deck together, at anchor watch, when all hands were below, and talked over and over every subject which came within the ken of either of us. He gave me a strong gripe with his hand; and I told him, if he came to Boston again, not to fail to find me out, and let me see an old watchmate. The same boat brought on board S——, my friend, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... you sure you understand? You tell me you are Lord of Stair, and I've no doubt of it, for truth shines from your eyes; but what do you ken of me? I who have no name, who was left by some gipsy folk at the inn door, and whose breeding—what I've of it—came from a Jacobite priest who teaches by the ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... did not think it strange that the wife of a rich notary should wish to inspect a volume costing fifteen francs before deciding on the purchase. Your clever man never condescends to study the middle-class, who escape his ken by this want of attention; and while he is making game of them, they are at leisure ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... Edmond,—Andre's feu Monsieur le Comte. Edmond rarely lived there, and never asked his sister or her boy there; whence, twenty years ago, at the respective ages of thirteen and eleven, Paul and Helene had vanished from each other's ken. But Edmond never married, either; and when, last winter, he died, he left a will making Paul his heir. Of Helene's later history Paul knew as much as all the world knows, and no more—so much, that is, as one could gather from newspapers and public rumour. ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... the book remains a nearly flawless gem of romance and of humor. The world appreciates it, no doubt, but "cultured critics" are probably unaware of its singular value. The great American novel has escaped the eyes of those who watch to see this new planet swim into their ken. And will Mark Twain never write such another? One is enough for him to live by, and for our gratitude, but not enough for ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Mortimers, even when the contract was matter of policy. Would I have taken my sweet Isabel to abide her royal scorn, it might be incredulity of our marriage? Though for that matter it is more unimpeachable than her own! Nay, nay, out of ken and out of reach was our only security from our kin on either side, unless we desired that my head should follow my hand as a dainty dish ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Burro Ken Ward in the Jungle The Young Pitcher The Young Lion Hunter Roping Lions in the Grand Canyon The Last of the Plainsmen The Shortstop The ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... a dimber mort as you are; trim a ken for the gentry cove; he is no lanspresado, or I ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... up, and his boots appeared above the counter. Japp had invited him to his bedroom, and the game was now to be played beyond my ken. This was more than I could stand, so I stole out at the back door and took to the thickest bush on the hillside. My notion was to cross the road half a mile down, when it had dropped into the defile of the stream, and then to come swiftly up the edge of the water so as to effect a back entrance ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... Mildred, with prophetic ken, Saw in the long and rainy day The dreaded host of friendly men And friendly women, kept away, And time for love, and ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland |
