Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Luminary   Listen
noun
Luminary  n.  (pl. luminaries)  
1.
Any body that gives light, especially one of the heavenly bodies. " Radiant luminary." "Where the great luminary... Dispenses light from far."
2.
One who illustrates any subject, or enlightens mankind; as, Newton was a distinguished luminary.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Luminary" Quotes from Famous Books



... meant the regulation of the tides. And, perhaps, when his attention was not occupied by more than the latter, he should be able to introduce a little more regularity into the phenomena. (Here the honourable luminary gave a sort of modest libration, which convulsed the meeting with laughter.) They might laugh at his natural infirmity if they pleased, but he could assure them it arose only from the necessity he was under, when young, of watching the motions of his ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... literary world through which Mr. Harrison moved in a widely cometary fashion, circling now round one luminary and now submitting to the attraction of another, not without a serenely erubescent luster of his own, differed toto coelo from the celestial state of authorship by whose courses we have now the felicity of being dazzled and directed. Then, the ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... from the Sun, and glance on our way at the worlds involved in the Solar System. Let us first understand what are the dimensions of our central Luminary. The distance of the Moon from the Earth is 240,000 miles, but the dimensions of the Sun are so great that, were the centre of the Sun placed where the centre of the Earth is, the surface of the Sun would not only extend as ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein

... learned philosophers of our race, who lived and flourished long before my time, that this vast world, the Moulin Joly, could not itself subsist more than eighteen hours; and I think there was some foundation for that opinion, since, by the apparent motion of the great luminary that gives life to all nature, and which in my time has evidently declined considerably towards the ocean at the end of our earth, it must then finish its course, be extinguished in the waters that surround us, and leave the world in ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... passers-by that at all hours of the night the slightest 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... sepulchral chamber. During the daytime, the pure Soul was in no serious danger; but in the evening, when the eternal waters which flow along the vaulted heavens fall in vast cascades adown the west and are engulfed in the bowels of the earth, the Soul follows the bark of the Sun and its escort of luminary gods into a lower world bristling with ambuscades and perils. For twelve hours, the divine squadron defiles through long and gloomy corridors, where numerous genii, some hostile, some friendly, now struggle to bar the way, and now aid it in surmounting the difficulties of the journey. Great doors, ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero

... That legal luminary craned his head forward as far as it would go without necessitating any additional movement of his body, caught Yancey's eye as he leaned out of the window, and held up ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith

... and that this was but the 'beginning of sorrows.' We learnt from them that the Mahomedan priests residing in the city, having personified the sun and moon, had told the king and the people that the eclipse was occasioned through the obstinacy and disobedience of the latter luminary. They said that for a long time previously the moon had been displeased with the path she had been compelled to take through the heavens, because it was filled with thorns and briers, and obstructed with a thousand other difficulties; and therefore that, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various

... soon as he knew this, desirous of benefiting the monarch who was ever observant of vows, addressed him and gave him every assurance. The illustrious Rishi, in the very sight of that monarch, ascended upward to interview Surya, himself possessed of the splendour of that luminary. The Brahmana then approached with joined hands the god of a thousand rays and introduced himself cheerfully unto him, saying, 'I am Vasishtha.' Then Vivaswat of great energy said unto that best of Rishis, 'Welcome art thou, O great Rishi! Tell me what is in thy mind. O ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... Greek, and French; I knew philosophy, mathematics, 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. . . . Of ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... operatic luminary, who had sat in rather an abstracted and nerveless attitude till the cousin made his declaration, fired up and cried: 'I declare before Heaven that till this moment I never knew she was a wife! I found her in her father's house an unhappy girl—unhappy, as I believe, ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy

... of the palisades, the captain and his companions proceeded at once towards the body. It was now sunrise, and a rich light was illuminating the hill-tops, though the direct rays of the luminary had not yet descended to the valley. There lay the Indian, precisely as he had fallen, no warrior having interposed to save him from the scalping- knife. His head had reached the earth first, and the legs and body were tumbled on it, in a manner to render the form a confused pile of legs ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... left eye, which Ratty declared to be 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, ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... went with breathless speed, soon losing sight of Jacob and his luminary. 'You better reef down, Mr. Smooth. Should anything give way, and you tumble out and break your neck, the democracy would go into mourning,' said Littlejohn, who had kept very quiet up to ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... the play might possibly detract from Miss Adams's prestige, so he immediately began to adapt several important scenes which might have been dominated by Gavin Dishart, the little minister, into strong scenes for his new luminary. These changes were made, of course, with Barrie's consent, and added much to the strength of the role ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... should present such remarkable variations, is a circumstance which adds an additional interest to the results which have rewarded the spectrum-analysis of this star by Mr. Huggins and Professor Miller. It appears that there is decisive evidence of the presence in this luminary of many elements known to exist in our own sun; amongst others are found sodium, magnesium, calcium, iron, and bismuth. Hydrogen appears to be absent, or, more correctly, there are no lines in the star's spectrum corresponding to those of hydrogen in the solar spectrum. Secchi considers that there ...
— Half-hours with the Telescope - Being a Popular Guide to the Use of the Telescope as a - Means of Amusement and Instruction. • Richard A. Proctor

... upon as a dream when one awaketh;—all this while there was subsisting, present with them, unapprehended except in faint and delusive glimpses, another order of things involving their greatest interest, with no luminary to make that apparent to them, after the race had willingly forgotten the original instructions ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... semi-globe representing the earth, round which was a smaller ball, the moon, painted half gold and half black, which revolved during each month, and in turning upon its axis showed the various phases of the luminary that it represented. Between the two circles was a third ball representing the sun, with a fleur-de-lys which pointed to the hours as the sun, according to the ancient theory, daily revolved round the earth; underneath was an inscription relating to ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... Aquinas; by Malachy of Ireland, a Franciscan, Chaplain to King Edward II. of England, and Professor at Oxford; by the Danish Dominican, Gotofrid of Waterford; and above all, by John Scotus of Down, the subtle doctor, the luminary of the Franciscan schools, of Paris and Cologne. The native schools of Ireland had lost their early ascendancy, and are no longer traceable in our annals; but Irish scholarship, when arrested in its full development at home, transferred its ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... 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 ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... I must be excused for the ideal extravagance of "clothing" this nocturnal luminary in "SACKCLOTH," on adverting to that unlimited flight of poetic imagination, which speaks of "Heaven peeping through the blanket of the deep." Vide ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to India; of a Shipwreck on board the Lady Castlereagh; and a Description of New South Wales • W. B. Cramp

... that the comet is made partly of solid substance, and partly of an investment of thin, elastic vapors. If this is the case, it is manifest that the central nodule of dense substance should be capable of intercepting light when it passes in front of a more distant luminary, such as a fixed star. Comets, on this account, have been watched very narrowly whenever they have been making such a passage. On August 18, 1774, the astronomer Messier believed that he saw a second bright star burst into sight from behind the nucleus ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... 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 of God, and then let my body, which ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... perfections of God with the free-agency of man. He struggles to break loose from this dark mystery; but, like the charmed bird, he struggles and flutters in vain, and finally yields to its magical influence. In his solution, this great luminary of science, like others before him, seems to suffer a sad eclipse. "Before God sent us into the world," says he, "he knew exactly what all the inclinations of our wills would be; it is he that has implanted them in us; it is he also that has disposed all things, so ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe

... 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 their motion and ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... Old Testament." He had designed a long 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 December 23, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... invoking Ilithyia,[30] who presides over the trembling parturient women; her whom the influence of Juno rendered inexorable to myself. For, when now the natal hour of Hercules, destined for so many toils, was at hand, and the tenth sign {of the Zodiac} was laden with the {great} luminary, the heavy weight was extending my womb; and that which I bore was so great, that you might {easily} pronounce Jupiter to be the father of the concealed burden. And now I was no longer able to endure my labours: ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... The oncoming luminary was a singular-looking woman who may have been considerably less so in the privacy of her dressing-room; she had evidently expended much thought upon supplementing the niggardliness of Nature. Her ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... 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 days of primitive ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... will draw lustre 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

... disappearing behind 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 yet to him, very real way, communicating with his boy. You smile. I ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap

... soonest pass beyond the range of the terrestrial attraction. But, in order that the moon should reach the zenith of a given place, it is necessary that the place should not exceed in latitude the declination of the luminary; in other words, it must be comprised within the degrees 0@ and 28@ of lat. N. or S. In every other spot the fire must necessarily be oblique, which would seriously militate against the success ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne

... Washington cannot suffer by a comparison with those of other countries who have been most celebrated and exalted by fame. The attributes and decorations of royalty could have only served to eclipse the majesty of those virtues which made him, from being a modest citizen, a more resplendent luminary. ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various

... best subjects for partial naming. That gorgeous sunset is famous; I think it must have been the identical one we saw on Salisbury Plain five years ago, that drew Phillips from the card-table, where he had sat from rise of that luminary to its unequalled setting. But neither he nor I had gifted eyes to see those symbols of common things glorified, such as the prophets saw them in that sunset,—the wheel, the potter's clay, the washpot, the ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... corrupt men, organized into parties—which so often lose sight of the interests of their country, in promoting party ends, or from inflamed passions—is the great man. He whose pedestal is virtue, and whose action is honest, secures the respect of his own age, and becomes the luminary of succeeding ages. Stern honesty often imposes unpleasant duties—strict obedience to its behests, not unfrequently involves apparent inconsistencies of conduct; but the conscientious man will disregard ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... first time appeared to my eyes on the 6th of April, 1327, in the church of St. Clara, at the first hour of the day. I was then in my youth. In the same city, and at the same hour, in the year 1348, this luminary disappeared from our world. I was then at Verona, ignorant of my wretched situation. Her chaste and beautiful body was buried the same day, after vespers, in the church of the Cordeliers. Her soul returned to its native mansion in heaven. I have written this with a pleasure mixed with bitterness, ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... been known to take the shine out of old Sol himself; though from his partiality to us it always makes him look black in the face when we, Alexander-like, stand between him and that luminary. We, too, are the only people by whom he ever allows himself to be eclipsed. Illustrious man in the moon I he has lifted our thoughts from earth to heaven, and we are reluctant to leave him. But the best of friends must part; especially as other ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... melancholy chill of the late dusk that Mrs. Bundy, arriving at last with his lamp, found him extended moodily upon his sofa. She had been informed that he wished to speak to her, and as she placed on the malodorous luminary an oily shade of green pasteboard she expressed the friendly hope that there was nothing ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James

... an attack he felt unable to fathom. His intellect was still affected by bodily weakness, and he inclined at first to think he had been mistaken for somebody else. The real truth only dawned on him by degrees. Its first ray originated with no less brilliant a luminary than old Bargrave. ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... conceptions of the mind, that come forth like the coruscations of lightning. If you could fix that flash, it would seem as if it would give new brightness to the sons of men, and almost extinguish the luminary of day. But, ere you can say it is here, it is gone. It appears to reveal to us the secrets of the world unknown; but the clouds congregate again, and shut in upon us, before we had time to apprehend its full radiance ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... fresh facts would go to the orrery to learn them. He would, for instance, turn his spectroscope on the sun, and not on the great ball which represents it in the mechanism, if he wanted to determine the constituents of that great luminary. And let us remember that we shall never get at any fresh religious truth by means of ritual; the proper destination of all orreries, religious or otherwise, is the museum. But meanwhile the heavens still go ...
— Memoranda Sacra • J. Rendel Harris

... participle for an active verb used in a neuter signification: for instance, "The house is being built," instead of, "The house is building."' Such is the assertion and such is the opinion of some anonymous luminary,[8] who, for his liberality in welcoming a supposed Americanism, is somewhat in advance of the herd of his countrymen. Almost any popular expression which is considered as a novelty, a Briton is pretty certain to assume, off-hand, to ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... Ireland was concerned; her aid was invoked 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, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... 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 ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid

... 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 are sunny and its summers cool, and life passes there without sorrow, since hostile ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... for he slept hard. The sun stood close to the zenith, and still he dozed. The luminary of day did not only illuminate, but its heat was scorching; the shadows under cover of which Cayamo had retreated were moving gradually, and the unkempt head of the hero became exposed to the most direct rays. The heat began to disturb him; he groaned, ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... Rellihan at the door of the hall. As a satellite, Rellihan was constant in his attendance on his controlling luminary in public places, even though the luminary issued no special orders to that effect; Morrison's intended visit to the hall had ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... popular sentiment. It claims to be in advance of it. It is to Christians and not to the world that the promise is given, "Ye shall know the truth;" and Christian thought, so far from waiting for the movement of these ever shifting popular tides, is the luminary which God has set high in the darkness of this world's sin to draw the tides in his appointed channels. The practical value of truth like that of money, consists in its circulation. It is worth nothing ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.

... had something to do with the circumstances which led Charley Vanderhuyn to use that ambiguous interjection about "the Dickens!" Perdue, as I said, dropped away from the Hasheesh Club, lost his employment as literary editor of the Luminary, fell out of good society, and at last earned barely enough to keep him and his wife and his child in bread, and to supply himself with whisky, by writing sensation stories for the "penny dreadfuls." We all ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston

... Languedoc and among the mountains of Alsace, that two cavaliers might have been perceived by the naked eye threading one of the rocky and romantic gorges that skirt the mountain-land between the Marne and the Garonne. The rosy tints of the declining luminary were gilding the peaks and crags which lined the path, through which the horsemen wound slowly; and as these eternal battlements with which Nature had hemmed in the ravine which our travellers trod, ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... outline of heathy mountains which surrounded this desolate spot. The Dwarf sate watching the clouds as they lowered above each other in masses of conglomerated vapours, and, as a strong lurid beam of the sinking luminary darted full on his solitary and uncouth figure, he might well have seemed the demon of the storm which was gathering, or some gnome summoned forth from the recesses of the earth by the subterranean signals of its approach. As he sate thus, with his ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott

... a cold look, sir, but it does give out some heat," said Stephen, as he faced the luminary, in one of his turns. "I can feel a little warmth from it just now, sheltered us we are here under the cliffs, and with a back-ground of naked rock to throw back what reaches us. To me, all these changes in the movements of the sun seem very strange, Captain Gar'ner; ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... indeed he imagines that his native prairie stretches away to the end of the world. He will gaze with wonder on your watch, for his only mode of ascertaining the time is by the shadow the sun casts. As that luminary rises and sets, so he sleeps and wakes. His only bed is the sheepskin, which when riding he fastens over his saddle, and the latter article forms his pillow. His coverlet is the firmament of heaven, the Southern ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray

... 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, and upon his ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... young fellows to hold doors open, you know—not old reprobates like you," he added in an undertone, making a grimace for my especial benefit at the retreating figure of the aforesaid irreverently apostrophised legal luminary. ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... lord," said Norton; "perhaps he wishes you to make a third luminary. Go and help ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... can have a third nomination for the presidency if he wants it, and nobody seems shocked 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 ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... it. It is so far off. 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 attack of the heavens! What is it which is bearing down ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... 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 New York editor, in 1860: "It is probable that there is not another ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume

... skill, poured forth of his benevolence! On his demesne, so green with young leaves, so gay with spring flowers! Kind Mr. Coppinger to have created them in such profusion! And what warmth was there in the Coppinger's Court sun! The second rate luminary dedicated to Cluhir was no more than a candle to it! Mr. Coppinger's Ant was enquired for (this, it should, perhaps, be explained, referred to Frederica, and had no entomological application) suitable regrets at her absence from home ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... family possessed, and conveyed with it from place to place with every change of habitation. The Sun was saluted at his rising, was worshipped in temples, under the name of Mithra, with sacrifices and offerings; had statues erected in his honor, and was usually associated with the lesser luminary. The deities of the royal house were probably either genii, ministers of Ormazd, to whom was committed the special protection of the monarchs and their families, like the bagaha vithiya of the Persians, or else the ancestors of the reigning ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson

... only looked immensely bored: these absurd men! they never can take an interest in but one woman at a time." Lady Florence's quick color came naturally enough. "Now, my child, guess the name of the new luminary." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... previously, was heavy with black clouds that were banking up and threatening to obscure the sun ere it set. Overhead, too, deep violet clouds made their appearance, tinged here and there to lurid red and orange by the rays of the fast-disappearing luminary. The air, moreover, felt dull and heavy, and carried a peculiar odour not unlike brimstone. This singular condition of the atmosphere was not without its effect on the men, who felt listless and disinclined to work. A sense of impending peril ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... Clothes-Volume itself was too like a Chaos, we have now instead of the solar Luminary that should still it, the airy Limbo which by intermixture will farther volatilize and discompose it! As we shall perhaps see it our duty ultimately to deposit these Six Paper-Bags in the British Museum, farther description, and all vituperation of them, ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... if welcoming him from his noisome depths. An instant later, with throbbing pulses and flushed cheeks, Roy stood out in the open. Above him light clouds raced across the moon, alternately obscuring and revealing the luminary of the night. ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham

... distance viewed, a cheering star Conducts me through the swelling tide; A brighter luminary, ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... 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

... midshipman of the watch, who came to tell him that a suspicious sail was seen to the eastward. He immediately came on deck; and just in the centre of the red glow on the sky, which precedes the rising of the bright luminary of day, there appeared the tapering sails of a lateen-rigged craft, looking like the dark fin of a huge shark, just floating on ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... 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 ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright

... morning had ceased, the sky was covered more closely than ever with dense leaden clouds. How beautiful was the sunset when they rounded the North Foreland the previous evening! now it was impossible to tell within half an hour the time of the luminary's going down. Knight led her about, and being by this time accustomed to her sudden changes of mood, overlooked the necessity of a cause in regarding the conditions—impressionableness ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... 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 ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... dear fellow; and I don't know any other hands in which I could better place my case. I should have to pay a monstrous sum to some great legal luminary, and he wouldn't defend me ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... Sunset is famous, I think it must have been the identical one we saw on Salisbury plain five years ago, that drew Phillips from the card table where he had sat from rise of that luminary to its unequall'd set, but neither he nor I had gifted eyes to see those symbols of common things glorified such as the prophets saw them, in that sunset—the wheel—the potter's clay—the wash pot—the wine press—the almond tree rod—the baskets of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... him a better impression of our estimate of his character than the truth will warrant, is, although very common, a plain violation of the laws of God. Adhere to the truth, and you will always exhibit charity in your discourse. This central luminary will shine on your words with a noon-tide brightness. It will dispel the mists of scandal, and beautify, and write the law of kindness on, ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... not regain his consciousness until the rays of the rising sun fell upon his eye-lids, and the genial warmth of the great luminary shed its benign influence over his frame. At first his mind was confused, and it required a few seconds to bring a perfect recollection of the past, and a true understanding of his real situation. They came, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... he reported cheerfully. "Nasty wind springing up," he added happily. "Blowing straight for the other buildings, too!" He put a little whistle to his lips and its squeaky notes brought two satellites of the main luminary. "Hustle out those chemicals and get 'em to work on the blaze. Rout out all the buckets you can find, and send for more. Call on that crowd out there for volunteers and get a chain started from the ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... worshipped by Pagans in our own and other lands! Nature-worship was the foundation of all polytheistic religions; and that the principal heathen deities were originally personifications of the great luminary that gives light and heat to the earth, or of certain influences thereof, admits of little doubt. The solar character of numerous deities is clearly discernible. Jupiter had power over the phenomena of the skies. The future was known to him; the destinies of human beings were in his ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... long trumpet. But suppose a tube let down from the moon, with yourself at one end, and the man at the other; it would be some balk to the spirit of conversation, if you knew that the dialogue exchanged with that interesting theosophist would take two or three revolutions of a higher luminary in its passage. Yet for aught I know, you may be some parasangs nigher that primitive idea—Plato's man—than we in England here have the honour ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... of the Descubrimiento de las Islas de Salomon says, p. 41: "On the 17th October there was a total eclipse of the moon: this luminary, on rising above the horizon, was already totally eclipsed. Mendana, by his will, which he signed with difficulty, named as lady governor of the fleet his wife Dona Isabella de Barreto." And in a note, he [i.e., Pingre] says that he ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga

... 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 and two daughters. Nevertheless, the second week at ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... into 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 ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.

... wait the hour when the moon should summon and lighten him to the loop-hole in the other of his hated obstructions, the walls of Berwick—where that evening he expected to meet his beloved Isabella, and commune with her in the eloquent language of their mutual passion. The bright luminary burst in the midst of his reveries from behind an autumn cloud, and flashed a long silver beam upon the rolling waters. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton

... I 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. I have shewn ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... pictures which need a microscope to be fully appreciated. His countenance might be said to be sunken out of sight beneath those innumerable wrinkles, produced by a life in the open air and by the habit of watching his country in the full light of the sun from the rising of that luminary to the sinking of it. Nevertheless, to an observer enough remained of the imperishable forms of the human face which appealed to the soul, even though the eye could see no more than a lifeless head. The firm outline ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... the already world-famous Satin Library, is the most-talked-of writer in London at the present 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 ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... and died to save us; but, at his death, his greatness was proclaimed by the quick and the dead. There was sorrow, and there was wonder, and there was rage, and there was remorse; but there was no shame there- -none blushed on that day at that sight but yon glorious luminary." The congregation rose, and looked round, as the sun that I pointed at shone in at the window. I was disconcerted by their movement, and my spirit was spent, so that I could ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt

... continent were all plunged in deplorable barbarism; when they worshipped nearly every object in nature indiscriminately; made war their pastime, and feasted on the flesh of their slaughtered captives. The Sun, the great luminary and parent of mankind, taking compassion on their degraded condition, sent two of his children, Manco Capac and Mama Oello Huaco, to gather the natives into communities, and teach them the arts of civilized life. The celestial pair, brother and sister, husband ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... only for the 'sensation' of gaming. Menage tells us of a gamester who declared that he had never seen any luminary above the horizon but the moon. Saint Evremond, writing to the Count de Grammont, says—'You play from morning to night, or rather from night to morning. All the rays of the gamester's existence terminate in play; it is ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... the rank but luxuriant vegetation that clothed the land to the water's edge, waved majestically under the gentle breeze that blew from the sea. The Jackal River unfolded its silvery band through the roses, bamboos, and cactii that lined its banks. The sun—for that luminary plays an important part in all Nature's festivals—darted its rays on the soil still charged with vapor. Diamond drops sparkled in the cups of the flowers and on the points of the leaves. In the distance, pines, cedars, and richly-laden cocoa-nut trees filled up the background ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

... honourable, and delectable 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 ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... than a Dance of Will-o'-wisps to us. A Book tawdry, incoherent, indistinct, at once flashy and opaque, full of idle excrescences and exuberances;—as is the poor man himself. He was "Chaplain to the Earl of Bristol, Bishop of Derry;" gyrating about as ecclesiastical Moon to that famed Solar Luminary, what could you expect! [Title of his Book is, Letters from an English Traveller; translated from the French Original (London, 1780). Ditto, Letters from an English Trader; written originally in French; by the Rev. Martin Sherlock, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... else but a Light; a pure unsullied Light all round, without either spot, or speck of any kind, or any varying shade of brilliancy in any part.' He added, 'To say the contrary, is to do the Sun injustice, to dishonor its All-glorious Author, to alienate the minds of men from the Heavenly Luminary, to destroy their faith in his Light and warmth, to plunge the world into darkness, and reduce it to a state of utter desolation. If the Sun is not all light, he is no Light at all. If there be dark spots on one part of his face, there may ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... chief luminary in the sphere of pure philosophy in France in the first half of the nineteenth century, drew his inspiration from Germany. He was professedly an eclectic, but in the main his philosophy was Hegelian. He might endow God with consciousness ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury

... shadows of the trees were getting the grotesque and exaggerated forms which precede the last rays of the luminary, and while the people were still listening to their pastor, a solitary individual was placed on a giddy eyrie, whence he might note the movements of those who dwelt in the hamlet, without being the subject of observation ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... Napoleon had no time to spend in parleying. He immediately sent them both back into the Luxembourg, separated them and placed them under arrest. Fouche, * occupying the important post of Minister of Police, though not in Napoleon's confidence, yet anxious to display his homage to the rising luminary, called upon Napoleon and informed him that he had closed the barriers, and had thus prevented all ingress or egress. "What means this folly?" said Napoleon. "Let those orders be instantly countermanded. Do we not march with the opinion ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott

... of Fielding's genius, and after the advent of a new luminary in Smollett, Richardson once more presented to the public an elaborate and ceremonious novel of extreme prolixity. The History of Sir Charles Grandison, in seven (and six) volumes, appeared in the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... slowly made its way up her bare arms, which were now almost transparent, so wasted had they become through illness; whilst her glorious fair hair, which had fallen over her shoulders, seemed like the very effulgence of the great luminary enveloping her. The trill of a bird came in from the courtyard, and quite enlivened the tremulous silence of the ward. Some child who could not be seen must also have been playing close by, for now and again a soft laugh could ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... 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 ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman

... untie, to forgive and to punish, to raise to the highest heaven, 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 attribute denominated ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... at something or other, small or great. Talboys was a first-rate freezer. He was one of those men who cannot shine, but can eclipse. They darken all but a vain man by casting a dark shadow of trite sentences on each luminary. The vain man insults them directly, and so ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... her, and the vision of the critical world faded to a blank. Whatever she was, he was her prime luminary, so he determined to think that he cast light upon a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Erskine, no ceremony I beseech you! Give me your hand. How is my honest Captain Andrew? How goes it with the elegant Lady A——? the lovely, sighing Lady J——? and how, oh how, does that glorious luminary Lady B—— do? you see I retain my usual volatility. The Boswells, you know, came over from Normandy with William the Conqueror; and some of us possess the spirit of our ancestors, the French. I do, for one. A pleasant spirit it is. Vive la bagatelle is the maxim. A light heart ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask

... there is usually a lady or gentleman who is more or less of a upas tree; the lover has a manly breast; minds are redolent of various things; hearts are hollow; events are utilized; friends are consigned to the tomb; infancy is an engaging period; the sun is a luminary that goes to his western couch, or gathers the rain-drops into his refulgent bosom; life is a melancholy boon; Albion and Scotia are conversational epithets. There is a striking resemblance, too, in the character ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... train marched westward; for there, where the earthly remains of man also found rest, the millions of suns had disappeared, each of which was succeeded daily by a new one, born of the night. The young luminary, the priests said, did not forget those that had been extinguished, and from whom he was descended; and Anion paid them this mark of respect to warn the devout not to forget those who were passed away, and to whom they owed ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... peculiar fault of old age, but belongs in common to bad health. How feeble was the son of Publius Africanus, he who adopted you. What feeble health, or rather no health at all, had he! and had that not been so, he would have been the second luminary of the state; for to his paternal greatness of soul a richer store of learning had been added. What wonder, therefore, in old men if they are sometimes weak when even young men can not ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various

... with the spiritual symbolism of Christianity set up in their place. And thus the obelisk, the oldest of all religious symbols, which was constructed at the very dawn of human existence, to mark the worship of the material luminary, fell into disuse and oblivion, when "the Sun of Righteousness" rose above the horizon of the world, with healing in His wings, dispelling all the mists and delusions of error. The art of constructing obelisks followed the usual stages in the history of all human art. ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... "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. ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... become its most distinct luminary. His art has surpassed in renown the medieval sword and crown. His pen is a constant self-advertiser while those emblems of state fall to the ground. Though every spot associated with the lives of Caesar, of Vergil, of Dante, is sought ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry

... for a fortnight, shone out on the muddy streets. In a moment, as with the promptness of a military drill, scores of people rushed out of their houses and with faces westward, kneeling, squatting, began prayer and worship before the great luminary. Besides all the gods, supreme, subordinate and local, there is in nearly every house the Kami-dana or god-shelf. This is usually over the door inside. It contains images with little paper-covered wooden tablets having the god's name on them. Offerings ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... vigour of all his intellectual faculties and moral sensibility, with a high character, fortune, and professional honours, all obtained by his own merit and exertions, with the prospect of health and length of days to enjoy and communicate happiness. Exulting in the sight of this resplendent luminary, and conscious that it will guide and cheer me forwards, I ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... discussions as to the rights of the States, and the powers of the federal government,—such discussion as is commemorated in this historical picture [pointing to the painting.] There your own great Statesman, Webster, addresses his argument to our brightest luminary, the incorruptible Calhoun, who leans over to catch the accents of eloquence that fall ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis

... Rummschuettel justified his reputation; he is a fine, amiable old man, as I believe I wrote you. He is said not to be a particularly brilliant scholar, but mama says that is an advantage. And she is doubtless right, as usual. Our good Dr. Hannemann was no luminary either, and yet he was always successful. Now tell me, how are Gieshuebler ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... 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 love unto the light doth bear, And true devotion from an hermit's cell ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... the vast eternities beckoning from the infinite spaces. I called the attention of one of my neighbors to it, but "Bones" was irresistibly droll, and Arcturus, or Aldebaran, or whatever the blazing luminary may have been, with all his revolving worlds, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... that the war-like planet, with its sinister aspect, was just at this time to be seen hanging in the west, a fiery red; and the easily aroused public mind was being stirred to its shallow depth by reflections and speculations regarding the famous canals of the luminary. The mere thought of the possibility of a larger telescope than any now in existence, which might throw additional light on this evasive mystery, was exciting not only Chicago, but the whole world. Late one afternoon Cowperwood, looking over some ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... force of the moon is most strongly felt by those parts of the ocean over which she is vertical, and they are, consequently, drawn toward her. In the same manner, the influence of the luminary being less powerfully exerted on the waters furthest from her than on the earth itself, they must remain behind. By these means, at the two opposite sides of the earth, in the direction of the straight line between the centers of the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various

... 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 ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard

... Leonardo da Vinci. Michael Angelo, the other great luminary of art, was twenty-two years younger, but the more severe and reflective cast of his mind rendered their difference of age far less in effect than in reality. It is usual to compare Michael Angelo with Raphael, but he is more aptly compared ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... news 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 they heard cannon in the ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... was cut short by a beneficent luminary. The sun rose with a magnificent bound—it was his way in that latitude—and everything unpleasant winced that moment; the fog shivered in its turn, and appeared to open in furrows as great javelins of golden light shot through it ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... if the moon, at certain periods, shed a baneful influence on the human intellect, that the intermediate periods would be exempt from its contamination; or, speaking more technically, at certain phases of that luminary, a person would be visited by an insane paroxysm, and at others, experience a lucid interval. The belief in these alternations of insanity and reason, is perspicuously stated in your Lordship's judgment of ...
— A Letter to the Right Honorable the Lord Chancellor, on the Nature and Interpretation of Unsoundness of Mind, and Imbecility of Intellect • John Haslam

... yourself pawing around among the personalities helplessly. For the three of them are what is known in newspaper parlance as national figures. One n.f. is enough for any short story. Three would swamp a book. It's like one of those plays advertised as having an all-star cast. By the time each luminary has come on, and been greeted, and done his twinkling the play has faded into the background. You can't see the heavens for ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... with gold, some with purple, some with a hue of deep and dark red. The distant sea, stretched beneath this varied and gorgeous canopy, lay almost portentously still, reflecting back the dazzling and level beams of the descending luminary, and the splendid colouring of the clouds amidst which he was setting. Nearer to the beach the tide rippled onward in waves of sparkling silver, that imperceptibly, yet rapidly, gained upon ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... garden are the Rising and the Setting Sun, by Adolph A. Weinmann. (p. 69.) In the east the Sun, in the strength of morning, the masculine spirit of "going forth," has spread his wings for flight; in the west, the luminary, now essentially feminine, as the brooding spirit of evening, is just alighting. The sculptural adornment of the shafts is detailed ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... future. Like the mariner, whom the ocean and the winds carry along, till he sees the stars which have directed his course and lighted his pathless way descent, one by one, beneath the rising horizon, we should have felt that the stream of time had borne us onward till another luminary, whose light had cheered us and whose guidance we had followed, had sunk ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.

... pointed out and dwelt upon by Dr. Vincent. According to him, Ptolemy, in his description of India, serves as the point of connection between the Macedonian orthography and the Sanscrit, dispersing light on both sides, and showing himself like a luminary in the centre. He seems indeed to have obtained the native appellations of the places in India, in a wonderful manner; and thus, by recording names which cannot be mistaken, he affords the means of ascertaining the country, even though he gives no particulars regarding it. We have ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... 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 ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... began disputing for the possession of the world. They disputed,—the bad gods wanting to be at the head of the government of this world, and the good gods likewise wanting to be at the head. So the following arrangement was agreed to: Whoever, at the time of sunrise, should be the first to see the luminary, should rule the world. If the bad gods should be the first to see it rise, then they should rule; and if the good gods should be the first, then they should rule. Thereupon both the bad Gods and the brilliant gods looked towards the place where the luminary was to rise. But the ...
— Aino Folk-Tales • Basil Hall Chamberlain

... 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)

... has a valid reason for existence. Nevertheless, an animal endowed with sound instincts, may be deceived by these instincts when it leaves its primitive environment. We see an example of this in the moth which burns itself in the flame. The instinct was sound in the days when the sun was the only luminary, but no evolution has taken place to adapt this instinct to the existence of lamps. We may admit that every instinct had its use at the time when it first came into existence. This may be true of the fighting instinct, ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland

... 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

... other refuge. Now I have been down below through the region whose grief is without end; and I have scaled the mountain from the top of which I was lifted by my lady's eyes; and I have come thus far through heaven, from luminary to luminary; and in the course of this my pilgrimage I have heard things which, if I tell again, may bitterly disrelish with many. Yet, on the other hand, if I prove but a timid friend to truth, I fear I shall not survive with the generations by whom the present times ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... great luminary was furious, and fell so hotly upon him that in a few minutes there ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... his abdication, a comet appeared, to warn him to the fulfilment of his purpose. From first to last, comets and other heavenly bodies were much connected with his evolutions and arrangements. There was no mistaking the motives with which this luminary had presented itself. The Emperor knew very well, says a contemporary German chronicler, that it portended pestilence and war, together with the approaching death of mighty princes. "My fates call out," he cried, and forthwith applied himself to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... The luminary, before whose splendour the night takes wing, had already changed the eighth heaven(1) from azure to the lighter blue,(2) and in the meads the flowerets were beginning to lift their heads, when Emilia, ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... 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 lips—what ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... Charles, with Lord and Lady Francis Conyngham and Butt, and 'in their sitting-room, full of perennial clouds of smoke,' where a captive nightingale sang ('thinking the gas the moon unless he took Butt's face for that luminary of the heavens'), settled with the Irish leader that in following years they should amend Mr. Trevelyan's franchise resolution by moving for the extension of the franchise in counties throughout the United Kingdom; not even Radicals ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... my heart," said Hilda, addressing Edith, while she still gazed on the western luminary, "see, the sun goes down to the far deeps, where Rana and Aegir [136] watch over the worlds of the sea; but with morning he comes from the halls of the Asas—the golden gates of the East—and joy comes in his train. And yet then thinkest, sad child, whose years have scarce passed into ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... of Godwin 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 to ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... writers of The Sun, some of whom seceded, and brought out The True Sun, in opposition to that eccentric planet which always rises in the evening despite the general conviction of mankind that the sun is the luminary of the day. Douglas Jerrold, Laman Blanchard, and, greatest of all, Charles Dickens, commenced their apprenticeship to literature in this journal, which enjoyed, however, but a fleeting existence. Jerrold afterward started a paper ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... much for any sight to detairmine, at this distance, and that before the sun is risen; but, by having a glass ready, we shall soon know. Five minutes will bring us the Great Luminary, as our minister used to ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... knows that, 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 World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... 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 four men in the world of art ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews

... Seasons. Its information varies on the roll of Time, and much of it passes away as a Winter, giving many a bitter pang of the death of a relative or hopeful lover; it is as a Spring, for, in the time of war and civil commotion, its luminary, the editor, like the morning sun, leads Hope forward to milder days and happier prospects—the smiles of peace; it is the heart's Summer calendar, giving news of marriages and births for heirs and patrons; it is the Autumn of ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... from this announcement, and quite forgot his business engagement in his mortification and ill temper. He dropped in during the day to see Mr Pottinger, to discuss his grievance with that legal luminary. But Mr Pottinger, as the reader is aware, had complications of another kind to disclose. He astonished his visitor with an account of the surprise visit of Mr Ratman a few days previously, and of that gentleman's astounding claims ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed

... or 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

... 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 the heart ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... eagerly looked out. A little on the starboard-bow, the rays of the bright luminary fell upon the white canvas of a tall ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston

... 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 ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond

... countrymen, is not to be wondered at; but many of the new comers might escape disease by common prudence. Confident in their strength of constitution, and wearied with a long confinement on ship-board, they sally forth, day by day, to take a walk, just as they would in England, heedless of the fierce luminary that is pouring his rays on their exposed heads, and bent only on amusement or variety. A week of such folly (to call it by no stronger name) has sufficed to bring many a ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson

... made coffee, pulverizing the berries in a wooden bowl with a musket-butt, throwing the powder into boiling water, and settling it with a drop of cold water. The luminary rose that morning in a bank of purple and gold, affording a spectacle of royal magnificence, but Maurice had no eye for such displays, and Jean, with the weather-wisdom of a peasant, cast an anxious glance ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... real source of their overpowering effect upon the eye, an effect so reasonably made the subject of perpetual animadversion, as if the sun which they represent were quite a quiet, and subdued, and gentle, and manageable luminary, and never dazzled anybody, under any circumstances whatsoever. I am fond of standing by a bright Turner in the Academy, to listen to the unintentional compliments of the crowd—"What a glaring thing!" "I declare I can't look at it!" "Don't it hurt ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... moment, I wonder how my two friends fought it out so patiently as they did. But the 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

... 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 sky above the woods. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... region, and the coteries of amateur astronomers at these centres were added to daily. Some remembered a comet or two in past times, and if the deponent were advanced in years his hearers were given to understand that the present luminary couldn't hold a tallow dip to the incandescent terrors he recollected. There were utilitarian souls who were disquieted about the crops, and anxiously examined growing ears of corn, expecting to find the comet's influence tucked away in the husks. Some looked ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... numerous inhabitants of the waters come forth from their oozy beds and play and flounce in the beams of the moon. Round the luminary of the night the stars lead up the mystic dance, and compose the music of the spheres. The deities of the woods and the deities of the rivers come out from their secret haunts, and keep their pastimes unapprehensive of human intrusion. The elves and the fairies repair to ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... west by the way of the south, saying, at the same time, "I follow the course of the sun," which he thus explains: "As the sun in his course moves round the world by the way of the south, so do I follow that luminary, to obtain the benefit arising from a journey round the earth by the way of ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... pattering stream, 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 must be remembered that they were, ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... all of you are to be pitied, my friend, if you hope in me!" sighed John. "What am I, then? A poor atom which is allowed to move in the glare of the imperial sun, but which would be annihilated so soon as it should presume to be an independent luminary. Pray, Nugent, do not speak of such hopes; for, if the emperor should hear of it, not only would my liberty be endangered, but also yours and that of all who are of your opinion. The emperor does not like to ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... have their pupils adapted to dilate and diminish of their own accord in proportion to the greater or less light of the sun or other luminary. But in birds the variation is much greater; and particularly in nocturnal birds, such as horned owls, and in the eyes of one species of owl; in these the pupil dilates in such away as to occupy nearly the whole eye, or diminishes to the size of a grain ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... may quote:—"Before this splendid orb (Lord Chatham) 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 of the ascendant. Townshend was the delight and ornament of this House, and the charm of every private society which he honoured with his presence. Perhaps there never arose in this country, nor in any country, a man of ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... being brilliantly reflected in the softly rippling, slowly moving undulations that came creeping up after us, heaving us gently up on their ample breasts and then sweeping on ahead of us straight toward the sinking luminary. The wind had just strength enough in it to keep the sheet of our single lug from sagging into the water, and the gig was sliding smoothly along, with the small sound of lapping, gurgling water under her, at the rate of about three knots in the hour, leaving behind her a thin, swirling wake of small ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... blank 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 Audrey was admirably impersonated ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various



Words linked to "Luminary" :   famous person, notable, leading light



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com