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Constellation   Listen
noun
Constellation  n.  
1.
A cluster or group of fixed stars, or division of the heavens, designated in most cases by the name of some animal, or of some mythologial personage, within whose imaginary outline, as traced upon the heavens, the group is included. "The constellations seem to have been almost purposely named and delineated to cause as much confusion and inconvenience as possible." Note: In each of the constellations now recognized by astronomers (about 90 in number) the brightest stars, both named and unnamed, are designated nearly in the order of brilliancy by the letters of the Greek alphabet; as, alpha Tauri (Aldebaran) is the first star of Taurus, gamma Orionis (Bellatrix) is the third star of Orion.
2.
An assemblage of splendors or excellences. "The constellations of genius had already begun to show itself... which was to shed a glory over the meridian and close of Philip's reign."
3.
Fortune; fate; destiny. (Obs.) "It is constellation, which causeth all that a man doeth."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Constellation" Quotes from Famous Books



... then completely pervaded their entire line. This was most evident, because, in whatever direction he was carried with his horse, there they became panic-stricken, as if struck by some pestilential constellation; but when he fell overwhelmed with darts, instantly the cohorts of the Latins, thrown into manifest consternation, took to flight, leaving a void to a considerable extent. At the same time also the Romans, their minds being freed from religious dread, exerting themselves as if the signal was then ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... with him, however, they have all about them something of Goliath's disadvantageous bulk. Shelley alone retains a boyish grace like David's, and does not seem to groan under the burden of his task. He does not round his shoulders in gloom in the presence of Heaven and Hell. His cosmos is a constellation. His thousand dawns are shaken out over the earth with a promise that turns even the long agony of Prometheus into joy. There is no other joy in literature like Shelley's. It is the joy not of one who is blind or untroubled, but of one who, in a midnight ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... spin, and no spider ever spun so fine a thread as she on her spinning wheel. She worked so faithfully that Woden changed the wheel into shining stars, and when you look up at Orion again remember that the Norse people called that constellation Frigga's distaff. ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd

... lie composed of infinite contrarieties, of innumerable particular lies, for every step, every word, and action, is in its own nature contrary to that holy profession, but all combined together, makes up a black constellation of lies—one powerful lie against the truth. And, besides, it is not against a particular truth, but against the whole complex of Christianity. And error is a lie against such a particular truth as it opposeth, but the tract and course of an ignorant ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... tattered heart, That sat it down to rest, Nor noticed that the ebbing day Flowed silver to the west, Nor noticed night did soft descend Nor constellation burn, Intent upon the vision Of ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson

... Sev'n times the tired sun.] "The sun shall not enter into the constellation of Aries seven times more, before thou shalt have still better cause for the good opinion thou expresses" of Valdimagra, in the kind reception thou shalt there meet with." Dante was hospitably received by the ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... grows dizzy as it attempts to conceive of constellation beyond constellation, on and on, ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... sufficiently reminded of us throughout this month by the newspapers. It was worth much to be present in person at these events. I also came in for a share of the favorable influence of such an unusual constellation. The Emperor of France was very gracious to me. Both Emperors decorated me with stars and ribbons, which we desire in all modesty thankfully to acknowledge. Forgive me for not writing you more about ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... we all sat in admiration and peering with some awe at the narrow belt of sky, narrower than we had before seen it, the stars slowly came out, and presently on the exact edge of the magnificent precipice, set there like a diadem, appeared the Constellation of the Harp. It was an impressive sight, and immediately the name was bestowed ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... easy—a matter of natural selection. If it could be played vampishly from the ground up, and it usually could—trust Mr. Connors for that—it went without question to Vida Monte, greatest of all the luminaries in the Lobel constellation and by universal acknowledgment the best vampire in the business. In vampiring Vida Monte it was who led; others imitatively followed. Compared with her these envying lady copy cats were as pale paprikas are to the real tabasco. Five pictures she had done for Lobel Masterfilms since placing ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... and then Virginia would suppress her complaints when she found that Paul was unhappy. When I came hither, I usually found them quite naked, which is the custom of this country, tottering in their walk, and holding each other by the hands and under the arms, as we represent the constellation of the Twins. At night these infants often refused to be separated, and were found lying in the same cradle, their cheeks, their bosoms pressed close together, their hands thrown round each other's neck, and sleeping, ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... great abolitionist who represents himself in his speeches as baptizing his dogs, in just ridicule of the baptism of chattel slaves, is worthy, with his dogs, of a place in the heavens among the constellations; and that anti-slavery astronomers be requested to make a Southern constellation for them somewhere near the head of The Serpent, as rivals to "Canes Venatici," which pro-slavery astronomers no doubt designed, in blasphemous profanation of the heavens, to represent their bloodhounds hunting fugitive slaves, placing ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams

... gives us no rest until, without us or within us, in one or the other way, we have finally given it representation." The future, with all its possibilities, is still a future infinitely far away, however well it may be to fix our eyes on the constellation towards which our solar system may seem to be moving ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis

... preoccupation with the solemnity of the hour and the stupendous accompaniment of it that prevented our seeing at first a strange and disquieting signal. My friend suddenly grasped my arm and pointed to a black bank of cloud over Newark, where there shone a tiny constellation of three green lights. And the sound of New York's jubilation was forgotten. With murmured exclamations we stood with our faces raised towards this new yet familiar portent. And as we gazed the green rays were borne beyond the cloud bank and were seen ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... capital, and covenanting for half profits on results. They reached the mouth of the Gambia, but found the natives hostile. Here for the first time European navigators lost sight of the pole-star and saw the brilliant constellation of the Southern Cross. The last discovery made during Prince Henry's life was that of the Cape Verde Islands, by one of his captains, Diogo Gomez, in 1460—the very year of his death. As the successive discoveries were made, they ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs

... also other clusters of stars, some of which are exquisitely beautiful telescopic spectacles. I may mention a celebrated pair of these objects which lies in the constellation of Perseus. The sight of them in a great telescope is so imposing that no one who is fit to look through a telescope could resist a shout of wonder and admiration when first they burst on his view. But there are other clusters. Here is a picture ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various

... 1901, a new star appeared in the constellation Perseus. Knowing what a star is, the reader will have some dim conception of the portentous blaze that lit up that remote region of space (at least 600 billion miles away) when he learns that the light of this star increased 4000-fold ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe

... star lay near enough to the pole[17] to serve as a pole-star, and to indicate by its circling motion the position of the actual pole of the heavens. This was at that time, and for many subsequent centuries, the leading star of the great constellation called ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... of much the size of the Great Bear. I have never since felt myself paid so lavishly for any literary work, though I have had more for a single piece than the twenty-five dollars that dazzled me in this constellation. The publisher seemed aware of the poetic character of the transaction; he let the pieces lie a moment, before he gathered them up and put them into my hand, and said, "I always think it is pleasant to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... a time when every religious conception was closely veiled beneath a mixture of astrology and mythology. After the planets came to be regarded as active agencies in reproduction, and powerful in directing all mundane affairs, the Virgin of the Sphere while she represented Nature was also the constellation which appeared above the horizon at the winter solstice, or at the time when the sun had reached its lowest point and had begun to return. At this time, the 25th of December, and just as the days began to lengthen, ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble

... take over while he examined the charts once more. They showed the constellation which lay directly ahead, the one after that, and then nothing for hundreds of millions of miles. Those first two reflected a tiny amount of light from Ventura B and were visible through telescopes, therefore it would have created suspicion to falsify their position. Past them, however, ...
— Daughters of Doom • Herbert B. Livingston

... what she was at twenty-five. The Duchess pays high for the drugs of which this elixir is compounded; and sometimes they are bad: sometimes, the sun, to which they were exposed, was not powerful enough; sometimes, the influence of a certain constellation was wanting. Sometimes, she has the courage to assure the Duchess that she really is grown handsomer, and actually succeeds in making her believe it." But the history of this woman's daughter is still more curious. She was exquisitely beautiful, and the Duchess brought her up in her ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 2 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... sea, and the sea says something to him. Another man looks at the same sea, and the sea tells another story to him. The sea cannot tell the same story to any two human beings. There is not a thing in nature, from a pebble to a constellation, that tells the same story to any two human beings. It depends upon the man's experience, his intellectual development, and what chord of memory it touches. One looks upon the sea and is filled with grief; another looks upon it ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll

... its handmaid; the diffusion of information, and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and freedom of person, under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation, which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages, and blood of our heroes, have been devoted to their attainment; they should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... examined it closely, then as gently as possible unfastened the coat and slipped it down from the shoulder.... What was this? The heavy crepe-de-Chine blouse underneath, in the spot that corresponded, was punctured with tiny, round holes, a little constellation, thickly grouped. What did it mean? He laid his finger on the spot, but at the touch she recoiled from him with a shudder that shook ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... the constellation testudo, or the lyre, which was at first a tortoise, on account of its slow motion round the Pole; then a lyre, because it is the shell of this reptile on which the strings of the lyre are mounted. See an excellent memoir of M. Dupuis sur l'Origine ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney

... complexes which act as a whole; complexes which pertain to the same interests tend to bind themselves into larger systems or constellations, forming moods, or sides to one's character. It is not highly important to differentiate in every case a sentiment from a complex, or a complex from a constellation, especially as many writers use "complex" as the generic term for all sorts of groups; but a general understanding of the much-used word "complex" is necessary for a comprehension of modern literature on psychology, psychotherapy or ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury

... called the Wain, which, wheeling round, Looks ever toward Orion, and alone Dips not into the waters of the deep. For so Calypso, glorious goddess, bade That, on his ocean journey, he should keep That constellation ever on his left. Now seventeen days were in the voyage past, And on the eighteenth shadowy heights appeared, The nearest point of the Pheacian land, Lying on the dark ocean like a shield. But mighty Neptune, coming from among The Ethiopians, saw him. Far ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... and the other Court Newsmen of the time. He will see the Versailles Galaxy all scattered asunder, grouped into new ever-shifting Constellations. There are nods and sagacious glances; go-betweens, silk dowagers mysteriously gliding, with smiles for this constellation, sighs for that: there is tremor, of hope or desperation, in several hearts. There is the pale grinning Shadow of Death, ceremoniously ushered along by another grinning Shadow, of Etiquette: at intervals the growl ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... calls her "Negemet-il-Souper" Najmat al-Sabah Constellation of Morn. In the Cotheal MS. she uses very harsh language to the stranger, "O Bull (i.e. O stupid), this be not thy house nor yet the house of thy sire," etc.; "go forth to the curse of God and get thee to ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... life away. The dancing stars, sprung from the chaos of his being, shine with an ever-increasing refulgence from the high-arched dome of dramatic literature, but he no longer adds to their number. The constellation of the Lion of ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg

... degree, and others about the fifteenth degree thereof. This variety of opinions proceeded from the precession of the Equinox, then not known to the Greeks. When the Sphere was first formed, the Solstice was in the fifteenth degree or middle of the Constellation of Cancer: then it came into the twelfth, eighth, fourth, and first degree successively. Eudoxus, who flourished about sixty years after Meton, and an hundred years before Aratus, in describing the Sphere of the Ancients, placed the Solstices and Equinoxes in the middles of ...
— The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended • Isaac Newton

... baby waked from a nap of four hours and a half, she called for the first time, "Mamma!" I ran up, and she was smiling like a constellation of stars. She mourned after papa a great deal, and sometimes would hold a long discourse about him, pointing all the while at the portrait. One day a neighbor sent me, to cheer my loneliness, the most superb bouquet of rare ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... a flag. They were in Philadelphia at the time, and it was in the house of Betsy Ross (which still stands) that the first American flag was made, consisting of thirteen red and white stripes, with a circle of thirteen white stars on a blue field, "representing a new constellation." (A group of fixed stars.) This flag was accepted by Congress on June 14, the day that is now celebrated in the United States ...
— George Washington • Calista McCabe Courtenay

... "Good Night." Alone remained the drowsy Squire To rake the embers of the fire, And quench the waning parlor light. While from the windows, here and there, The scattered lamps a moment gleamed, And the illumined hostel seemed The constellation of the Bear, Downward, athwart the misty air, Sinking and setting toward the sun, Far off the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... exaggerated super-Sterne of Tristram Shandy, with eighteenth-century-futurist blanks and marbled pages, but the fluent, casual, follow-your-fancy Sterne of the Sentimental Journey. Yet the vagabond himself is unobtrusive, ready to step back and be a chronicler the moment other figures enter into constellation. He moves among youth, himself no longer young, and among gentlefolk, as one making no ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun

... abruptly: "There is no immortality but fame. In history, the star of my existence will never set—but shine brilliantly and forever in the midst of its most glorious constellation!" ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child

... disreputable alliances with its neighbors. The whole thing was clean as a row of pewter mugs. The influence of indignation upon the voice caused me to reflect that we might devise a mechanical means of inflaming some in that constellation of mummers which is the ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... of the sand car. He wasted no time looking for it. By carefully watching the glistening stars rise and set he had made a good estimate of the geographic north. Dis didn't seem to have a pole star; however, a boxlike constellation turned slowly around the invisible point of the pole. Keeping this positioned in line with his right shoulder guided him on the westerly ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison

... diminution of lustre, involving in one or two cases a complete extinction and revival. These are called periodic stars. The longest known, and one of the most remarkable, is the star Omicron in the constellation Cetus (sometimes called Mira Ceti), which was first noticed as variable by Fabricius in 1596. It appears about twelve times in eleven years, remains at its greatest brightness about a fortnight, being then ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... which could constitute His essence would have to differ entirely from our intellect and will, and could resemble ours in nothing except in name. There could be no further likeness than that between the celestial constellation of the Dog and the animal which barks. This I will demonstrate as follows: If intellect pertains to the divine nature, it cannot, like our intellect, follow the things which are its object (as many suppose), nor can it be simultaneous ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza

... bag, staring at the sky. It bothered him a lot. There was not one familiar constellation, not one star that he could name with any certainty. This juggling of the stars, he thought, emphasized more than anything else in this ancient land the vast gulf of years which lay between him and the Earth where ...
— Project Mastodon • Clifford Donald Simak

... ferro from the very edge of the steel itself, the holm-oak ( the Roman stock) draws fresh power and spirit. 61-62. Cf. the saying of Pyrrhus, recorded by Floras i. 18, 'Isee that I was born under the constellation of Hercules, since so many heads of enemies, that were cut off, arise upon me afresh out of their own blood, as if from the Lernaean serpent.' 63-64. i.e. of the armed warriors which sprang from the dragon's teeth sown by Jason ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce

... to infer that whatever remarkable appearance they saw in the sky, they would endeavor to explain it by their astrological laws. On the 29th of May, 7 B.C., a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn occurred, in the 20th degree of the constellation Pisces, close to the first point of Aries; on the 29th of September of the same year, another conjunction of these planets took place, in the 16th degree of Pisces; and on the 5th of December, a third, in the 15th degree of the same sign. (These are not conjectures or ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... course of the debate, the probability of a definitive failure of the Austro-Polish solution in connection with the Ukrainian peace was discussed, and the question was raised as to what new constellation would arise out of such failure. Sektionschef Dr. Gratz then took up this question. Dr. Gratz pointed out that the Austro-Polish solution must fail even without acceptance of the Ukrainian demands, since the ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... orb of day, Apollo[obs3], Phoebus; photosphere, chromosphere; solar system; planet, planetoid; comet; satellite, moon, orb of night, Diana, silver-footed queen; aerolite[obs3], meteor; planetary ring; falling star, shooting star; meteorite, uranolite[obs3]. constellation, zodiac, signs of the zodiac, Charles's wain, Big Dipper, Little Dipper, Great Bear, Southern Cross, Orion's belt, Cassiopea's chair, Pleiades. colures[obs3], equator, ecliptic, orbit. [Science of heavenly bodies] astronomy; uranography, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... her with impatience, and felicitate themselves upon her arrival: Fontenelle has not failed to celebrate her praises; and to chide the sun for hiding from his view the worlds, which he imagines to appear in every constellation. Nor have the poets been always deficient in her praises: Milton has observed of the night, that it is "the pleasant ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... winter nights she would leave the straw-stuffed sack that had been her bed ever since the orange-box had been broken up, and climb the stone-heaps, and look over the lonely veld, and stare up at the great glowing constellation of the Southern Cross. In spring, when pools and river-beds were full of foaming beer-coloured water, and every kloof and donga was brimmed with flowers and ferns, she would be drawn away by these, would return, trailing after her armfuls of rare blooms, and thenceforward, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... Dear lad, believe it; For they shall yet belie thy happy years, That say thou art a man: Diana's lip Is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe Is as the maiden's organ, shrill and sound; And all is semblative a woman's part. I know thy constellation is right apt For this affair. Some four or five attend him; All if you will; for I myself am ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... themselves,' and I sometimes wish I had been born a Fejee belle, who lived, was tastefully tattooed, and died without having even dreamed of missionaries,—those officious martyrs who hope to wear a whole constellation on their foreheads as a reward for having been eaten by cannibals, to whom they expounded the unpalatable doctrine that, 'this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light.' ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... a very different acquaintance of the world, keeps all his pulses going true and fast, and gathers impetus as he runs, until, if he be running towards anything better than wildfire, he may shoot up and become a constellation in the end. Lord look after his health, Lord have a care of his soul, says he; and he has at the key of the position, and swashes through incongruity and peril towards his aim. Death is on all sides of him with pointed batteries, as he is on all sides of all of us; unfortunate ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of Auon! what a sight it were To see thee in our waters yet appeare, And make those flights vpon the bankes of Thames, That so did take Eliza, and our Iames! But stay, I see thee in the Hemisphere Aduanc'd, and made a Constellation there! Shine forth, thou Starre of Poets, and with rage, Or influence, chide, or cheere the drooping Stage; Which, since thy flight fro hence, hath mourn'd like night, And despaires day, but ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson

... know me, my son?" he heard again ... "for I am your father, Pendragon. But my home is yonder, and that is why I have come to you as a vision in a dream ..." and, as he spoke, he pointed to the constellation of the Arth, or Bear, which nightly prowls through the vast abysses of ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin

... Bear," said Trench, suddenly. "It is late." The tail of the constellation was dipping behind the thorn hedge of the zareeba. They turned over ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason

... Tradition connects this site with the Fire-ceremony of November, in British times, once prevalent in Asia, as well as Europe, and even in America. The beginning of the year was then fixed by the culminating of the constellation Pleiades, in November. On the first of the month bonfires were lighted, as they have been by the Welsh in quite recent times, and, along with the fire, the emblem of purity, offerings were made on behalf of the dead, the sacrifices of animals being so numerous on this and other days, that the ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... out from the cab window across the river to where, towering above the Embankment, that place of a thousand tragedies, the light of some of London's greatest caravanserais formed a sort of minor constellation. From the subdued blaze that showed the public supper-rooms I looked up to the hundreds of starry points marking the private apartments ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... years past;—especially since the late Kaiser died, and his Pragmatic Sanction was superadded to the other troubles afoot. But ever since that Image of JENKINS'S EAR had at last blazed up in the slow English brain, like a fiery constellation or Sign in the Heavens, symbolic of such injustices and unendurabilities, and had lighted the Spanish-English War, Europe was slowly but pretty surely taking fire. France "could not see Spain humbled," she said: ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... the name given to the two brightest stars in the constellation of the Little Bear. The literal translation is: "the Guards, when night comes on, are near the arm on the side to the west, and when dawn breaks they are on the line under the arm to the northeast," etc. What Columbus meant I cannot explain. Neither Navarrete nor the French translators offer ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various

... the other, as with a widespread starry canopy, and light were undiminished in its passage through space, the sun would be distinguished only by its spots, the moon would appear as a dark disc, and amid the general blaze not a constellation would be visible."[186] It would appear also to follow, as a necessary consequence, that such an infinite multitude of blazing suns must generate a heat compared with which the general conflagration ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... nothing else. One forgets the whole world and all the worlds, and sticks to one such saint, because he is a very precious diamond. One such soul, you know, is sometimes worth a whole constellation. We have our system of reckoning, you know. The conquest is priceless! And some of them, on my word, are not inferior to you in culture, though you won't believe it. They can contemplate such depths of belief and disbelief at the same moment that sometimes it really seems that they are within a ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... into his pocket. Supposing, then, that No. 5 were surmounted, and that, supernaturally, you knew the value to a hair's breadth, of every separate word (or, perhaps, composite phrase made up from a constellation of words)—ah, poor traveller in trackless forests, still you are lost again—for, oftentimes, and especially in St. Paul, the words may be known, their sense may be known, but their logical relation is still doubtful. The word X and the word Y are separately clear; ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey

... painted windows, some of which are reckoned the most beautiful that the whole world has to show. The hues are far more brilliant than those of any painted glass I saw in England, and a great wheel window looks like a constellation of many-colored gems. The old English glass gets so smoky and dull with dust, that its pristine beauty cannot any longer be even imagined; nor did I imagine it till I saw these Italian windows. We saw nothing of my wife and Miss ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... been capital for an observatory; but the torches which danced up and down through the old and very dingy casements of the mansion, were a matter of much more curious remark to me than if I had discovered a new constellation. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... the small keyboard in her desk, and lo the heavy double curtains swiftly and silently unrolled and covered the windows. At the same moment, the beautifully ornamented, dome shaped center of the lofty ceiling began to glow with a constellation of soft, phosphorescent lights, filling the room with a radiance as mild and silvery as moonlight, and yet even more soothing to the nerves. Presently the air was vibrant with the low, sweet strains of distant music, soft and slow and ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... admiration for Napoleon's ability, to run counter to the latter's intentions. The consequences of Napoleon's defeat have shown themselves sufficiently clearly during the past hundred years in the enormous growth of the English power. The present political constellation, which in many respects is very similar to that of the year 1804, should be utilised to revive Napoleon's plan once more. Russia has, of course, the first and most vital interest in the downfall of England, for, so long as Great Britain controls ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... seven miles to Chilford without twenty words passing between them; and when there, she sat in the road, and watched one constellation after another fill up its complement of stars as well as the moon permitted, wondering whether Tom's near-sighted driving would be safe in the dark; but her heart was so light, so glad, that she could not be afraid, she did not care how long she waited, it was only sitting still to recollect that ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... curious that the Lamb should have such a special effect upon the heavens and the weather. It is the same in Plato (Polit. 268 ff.), and more definitely so in the treatise De Astrologia, attributed to Lucian, which says that the Golden Lamb is the constellation Aries, "The Ram." Hugo Winckler (Weltanschauung des alten Orients, pp. 30, 31) suggests that the story is a piece of Babylonian astronomy misunderstood. It seems that the vernal equinox, which is now moving from the Ram into the Fish, was in the ninth and eighth centuries B.C. moving from the Bull ...
— The Electra of Euripides • Euripides

... a higher order than any hitherto produced in Germany was being turned out. We know the names of four or five of those who served as apprentices under Duerer at this time and they are stars of lesser magnitude in the constellation of German art. But Duerer was not contented simply to employ his talents in the production of painted altar-pieces, and we find him turning out a number of engravings, the most noticeable among ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... Christmas night, and designate the rough cradle of our Lord? Did not the stars in their courses fight against Sisera? Was it merely coincidental that before the destruction of Jerusalem the moon was eclipsed for twelve consecutive nights? Did it merely happen so that a new star appeared in constellation Cassiopeia, and then disappeared just before King Charles IX. of France, who was responsible for St. Bartholomew massacre, died? Was it without significance that in the days of the Roman Emperor Justinian war and famine were preceded by the dimness of the sun, which for nearly a year gave no ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage

... the first half of this month, my dears, the star called Mira, in the constellation Cygnus (or "The Swan"), can be seen in full luster. This is what the owl tells me; and he adds that it is one of those strange stars which vary in brightness. It shines for about a fortnight very brightly ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... Or Tyrian Cynosure; here put by synecdoche for 'lode-star.' More particularly, the star of Arcady signifies any of the stars in the constellation of the Great Bear, by which Greek sailors steered; and 'Tyrian Cynosure' signifies the stars comprising that part of the constellation of the Lesser Bear which, from its shape, was called Cynosura, the dog's tail ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton

... a part of a causerie in The Star, the other contributors to which—men whose names are household words in contemporary literature—wrote under the pen names of "Aldebaran," "Arcturus" and "Sirius." But the constellation, formed in the early days of the war, did not long survive the agitations of that event, and when "Arcturus" left for the battlefield it was finally dissolved and "Alpha of the Plough" alone remained to continue the causerie. This selection from his papers is a sort ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)

... sixth year they are taught natural science, and then the mechanical sciences. The men who are weak in intellect are sent to farms, and when they have become more proficient some of them are received into the state. And those of the same age and born under the same constellation are especially like one another in strength and in appearance, and hence arises much lasting concord in the state, these men honouring one another with mutual love and help. Names are given to them by Metaphysicus, ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... life, as a witness in a Court of Justice, being called to give evidence to the character of Mr. Baretti, who having stabbed a man in the street, was arraigned at the Old Bailey for murder[294]. Never did such a constellation of genius enlighten the aweful Sessions-House, emphatically called JUSTICE HALL; Mr. Burke, Mr. Garrick, Mr. Beauclerk, and Dr. Johnson; and undoubtedly their favourable testimony had due weight with the Court and Jury. Johnson ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... Oh, Maria! Constellation! Inspiration! Elevation! Rule and Law and Ordination Of the angels' host! Highest height of God's Creation, Pray your Son's commiseration, Lest, by fear or fraud, salvation For our souls ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... with almanacks Engrav'd upon't, and other knacks; My moon-dial, with Napier's bones And several constellation stones. ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang

... headed "Suspiria de Profundis." I had the satisfaction, not easily attainable now, of seeing him for some hours, and in the mood of conversation. As one belonging to the Wordsworth, and Coleridge constellation, (he too is now seventy-six years of age,) the thoughts and knowledge of Mr. De Quincey lie in the past; and oftentimes he spoke of matters now become trite to one of a later culture. But to all that fell from his lips, his eloquence, subtile and forcible as the wind, full ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... face to the sea, the boys looked off in that direction, and they were quick enough to see a rocket exploding in the air, scattering down a shower of tinted stars. This bright constellation faded away into the night, when suddenly up, up into the darkness, shot two vivid lines of fire, parting as they swept higher and higher, exploding in stars till the whole seemed like immense forks of gold with spreading, ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand

... of Jupiter and Calisto. One day his mother, in the semblance of a bear, met him, and Arcas was on the point of killing it, when Jupiter, to prevent the murder, converted him into a constellation, either Booetes or Ursa Major.—Pausanias, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... white, with a union of thirteen white stars in a field of blue. This act read as follows: "Resolved, That the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white: that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation." ...
— Our Holidays - Their Meaning and Spirit; retold from St. Nicholas • Various

... same moment Camille Desmoulins was thus satirically apostrophising La Fayette, the first idol of the Revolution:—"Liberator of two worlds, flower of Janissaries, phoenix of Alguazils-major, Don Quixotte of Capet and the two chambers, constellation of the white horse[2], my voice is too weak to raise itself above the clamour of your thirty thousand spies, and as many more your satellites, above the noise of your four hundred drums, and your cannons loaded ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... month, or hour of the night, you will always see, high up in the firmament, seven magnificent stars, arranged in a quadrilateral, followed by a tail, or handle, of three stars. This magnificent constellation never sinks below our horizon. Night and day it watches above us, turning in twenty-four hours round a very famous star that we shall shortly become acquainted with. In the figure of the Great Bear, the four stars of the quadrilateral are found ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion

... Never would an ordinary observer connect those virtues with aught of heroism or greatness, but to me they are as bright rays as ever emanated from the lives of the great ones of earth, which are portrayed on historic pages—to me, the qualities of her true, steadfast heart and noble soul become "a constellation, and is tracked ...
— From the Darkness Cometh the Light, or Struggles for Freedom • Lucy A. Delaney

... believed the latter constellation to be the more aggressive of the two, and formally reported these convictions to the Belgian Government. If read as a modern edition of "Pepys' Diary" they form entertaining literature, but by no stretch of the imagination could they be classed as historical sources. ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith

... the conditions under which he would have had to govern Spain. I said: "We should have been much more justified in dreading a close understanding between the Spanish and French crowns than in hoping for the restoration of a Spanish-German anti-French constellation after the analogy of Charles V.; a king of Spain can only carry out Spanish policy, and the Prince by assuming the crown of the country would become a Spaniard." To my surprise there came from the darkness behind me a vigorous ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... of the courtyard full of couples bobbing up and down in a jota. In the doorway stood two guitar players and beside them a table with pitchers and glasses and a glint of spilt wine. Feeble light came from an occasional little constellation of olive-oil lamps. When the two of them pitched down stairs together and shot out reeling among the dancers everybody cried out: "Hola," and shouted that the foreigners ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos

... speech, some tone of voice, some distinctive way of putting a thing, some mysterious, but unmistakable, difference of flavour they have managed to preserve, and how grateful we are when we hear or see or taste or feel it. It is like the discovery of a new flower in the woodland, of a new star in the constellation! "It's no a'thegither what he says; it's the way on't," said the old Scots woman in eulogy of her minister. We could mention little traits, which, small as they are, have been on the human side the success of ministries familiar ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson

... together, and move like a travelling town over the sea. As likely as not they will have to come back out of the storm into the shelter of the bay, and they will ride there till nightfall, when every boat becomes a lamp and every sail a shadow. In the darkness they hang like a constellation on the oily water. They become a company of dancing stars. Every now and then a boat moves off on a quest of its own. It is as though the firmament were shaken. One hears the kick-kick-kick of the motor, and a star has become a will-o'-the-wisp. These lights can no ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd

... to have the stars divided up in this way. When I asked you to find the red star last winter, it would have been a great help to you if I had told you what constellation it was in; but you might not have known what ...
— The Nursery, July 1877, XXII. No. 1 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various

... Coleridge, "at momently intervals coursed by the side of the vessel with a roar, and little stars of flame danced and sparkled and went out in it; and every now and then light detachments of this white cloud-like foam darted off from the vessel's side, each with its own small constellation, over the sea, and scoured out of sight like a Tartar troop ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock

... understand, and continued talking in a friendly way. But she noticed a solemn looking man, wearing a perfect constellation of crosses and orders, standing near her, and she ran ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant

... The constellation of the Great Bear is explained in one story, the origin of Venus in another. The spirits of the departed are "stellified" as seen in "The Coming of Men." There seems to be a considerable intermingling of Christian culture ...
— Eskimo Folktales • Unknown

... a dozen or so of young men like himself, wealthy, idle and reckless with youth, and, headed by him, they had made the exploitation of the young star an occupation. The newspapers referred to the star and her constellation as Beverly Carlysle and her Broadway Beauties. It had been unvicious, young, and highly entertaining, and it had cost Judson Clark his membership in his father's ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... clear and close that night, as if one might almost pick off by hand the familiar stars of the traveler's constellation. Overhead countless brilliant points of lesser light enameled the night mantle, matching the many camp fires of the great gathering. The wind blew soft and low. Night on the prairie is always solemn, and to-night the tense anxiety, the strained anticipation of more than ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough

... constellation Serpentarius. Ophiuchus is a man who holds a serpent (Greek Ophis) in his hands. The constellation is situated to the south of Hercul[^e]s; and the principal star, called "Ras Alhague," is in the man's head. (Ras Alhague)[TN-48] ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... Star, representing the federation of the colonies of Australia in 1901; the star depicts one point for each of the six original states and one representing all of Australia's internal and external territories; on the fly half is a representation of the Southern Cross constellation in white with one small five-pointed star and four larger, ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... (which on a clear night never exceed 1,000,) do not form the 80,000 part of those which may be descried by the help of a telescope, through which they appear prodigiously increased in number; seventy stars have been counted in the constellation of the pleiades, and no fewer than 2,000 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various

... the band, "we were waiting thus in expectation of the one whom you describe. The incredible leper who rules our goings has, even at this hour and notwithstanding that now is the appointed day and time for the gathering together of the Harmonious Constellation of Paste Appliers and Long Brush Wielders, thrust within our ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah

... entreat you: wait! See," he added, pointing to the constellation of Ursa Minor, "beyond those visible stars a future lies before us; I will place you there. As for Pere Anselme, I cannot admit what has been said, for it is not true. It is an invented tale. But be patient with me; ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... generally said to be twenty-three and a half degrees from the equator, which is near enough for ordinary purposes, but it is not quite accurate. When the sun is at the summer solstice, June 21, it is overhead on this tropic, and enters the constellation of Cancer, after which it is named. Nicer calculations than I can follow show that the sun is not precisely overhead at this place every year. In January of this year the tropics were in latitude 23 deg. 27' 11.84'', ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic

... you what it is, gents both. There is at this present moment in this very place, a perfect constellation of talent and genius, who is involved, through what I cannot but designate as the culpable negligence of my friend Pecksniff, in a situation as tremendous, perhaps, as the social intercourse of the nineteenth century ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... concrete foundation to red-tiled roof, ablaze with many lights. Situated upon the very topmost of the socially graded levels of Fairlands, it outshone them all; and, quite likely, the glittering display was mistaken by many dwellers in the valley below for a new constellation of the heavenly bodies. Quite likely, too, some lonely dweller, high up among the distant mountain peaks, looked down upon the sparkling bauble that lay for the moment, as it were, on the wide lap of the night, and smiled in quiet amusement ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright

... the sacrifice of a slave. Dissentions[sic], disasters, and death will be sure to visit the people should they fail to make the offering. Each year in the month of December the people are reminded of their obligation by the appearance in the sky of a constellation known as Balatik,[9] and soon thereafter a human sacrifice doubtless takes place in some one or more of ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole

... great oration on Toussaint L'Ouverture, the Black of St. Domingo; statesman, warrior and LIBEEATOR,—delivered in New York City, March 11, 1863, said among other things, a constellation of linguistic brilliants not surpassed since the impassioned appeals of Cicero swept the Roman Senate to its feet, or Demosthenes fired his listeners with the flame of ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney

... of the easiest to locate in the entire heavens. The constellation known as the Great Dipper is near by, and the two stars that mark the corners of the dipper on the extremity farthest from the handle lie in a line that passes across the North star. These two stars in the Great Dipper are called the pointers. The North ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... enjoy ample prominence among quilt names. Beginning with the "Rising Sun," of which there are several different designs, there follow "Sunshine" and "Sunburst," then "Rainbow," and finally a whole constellation of "Stars": ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster

... revenue, and superintendant of stamps. It remains to amalgamate the comptroller and auditor into one, and reduce the register to a clerk of accounts; and then the organization will consist, as it should at first, of a keeper of money, a keeper of accounts, and the head of the department. This constellation of great men in the treasury department was of a piece with the rest of Hamilton's plans. He took his own stand as a Lieutenant General, surrounded by his Major Generals, and stationing his Brigadiers and Colonels under the name ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... his Course by the Stars that shone over his Head. The Constellation of Orion, and the radiant Dog-star directed him towards the Pole of Canope. He reflected with Admiration on those immense Globes of Light, which appear'd to the naked Eye no more than little twinkling Lights; whereas the Earth he was then traversing, ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire

... My sisters were adorned with silks and satins, and looked unusually handsome; but my mother, as became her position, was attired in a costume of silver satin, so that when she put it on the evening before, the light of the lamps made her resemble a moving constellation. My brother, as became his military character, was habited in a scarlet uniform, to which the tailor had added a sufficient amount of gold lace to adorn the coats of half a dozen field-marshals, white satin breeches, silk stockings, and diamond buckles in his shoes, setting him off to great ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... is what we ask ourselves in childhood when we write the name that we are told is ours. A star, a daystar, a firedrake, rose at his birth. It shone by day in the heavens alone, brighter than Venus in the night, and by night it shone over delta in Cassiopeia, the recumbent constellation which is the signature of his initial among the stars. His eyes watched it, lowlying on the horizon, eastward of the bear, as he walked by the slumberous summer fields at midnight returning from Shottery ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... Mars was missing! When I had first awakened, and stepped out of the grove, I had only a dim remembrance in my mind of having rambled in the fields and fallen asleep on the grass; but this planet missing in the constellation Sagittarius recalled to me at once my miraculous position on the planet Mars. Here was a confirmation unexpected and irrefragable of the truth of what Copernicus had written by my hand. The excited whirl of thoughts and emotions thus revived banished sleep, and I walked ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... an unnaturally reckless mood. In two weeks he won three hundred dollars, half of it from Pierson. He went to Chicago and in three nights' play increased this to twenty-nine hundred. The noise of the unprecedented achievement echoed through the college. In its constellation of bad examples a new star had blazed out, a star ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... seaman aboard of the U.S.S. "Constellation," who fell through a hatchway from the masthead, landing on the vertex of the head. There was copious bleeding from the ears, 50 to 60 fluid-ounces of blood oozing in a few hours, mingled with small fragments of brain-tissue. The next day the discharge ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... take umbrellas. They met with a heavy shower, and Wu-ma asked him, saying, 'There were no clouds in the morning; but after the sun had risen, you told us to take umbrellas. How did you know that it would rain?' Confucius said, 'The moon last evening was in the constellation Pi, and is it not said in the Shih-ching, "When the moon is in Pi, there will be heavy rain?" It was thus I knew it.' 30. Liang Chan [al. Li], styled Shu-yu (梁鱣 [al. 鯉] 字叔魚), occupies the eighth place, west, among the tablets of the ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge

... little praam takes the ground in the bay a few yards from the beach, and in the midst of a constellation of "jelly-fishes" spherical in form and varying in size. The larger are so many pale blue orbs floating lazily in a luminous mist, the only visible manifestation of life being a delicate but rhythmical deepening of the central hue. The wash of my wading seems not ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... interest. If this were necessarily so, it might be better for the writer once more to leave this part of the chapter (since at least the heading of it could not possibly be omitted in the history) a blank or a constellation of asterisks in Sternian fashion. For it has fallen to his lot to translate one whole novel of Balzac's,[148] to edit a translation of the entire Comedie,[149] superintending some of the volumes in narrow detail, and studying ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... is it to wait, in our own peculiar lots, for that perfection of enjoyment we can all see wanting in the lot of others! My expectations for my son had "outstepped the modesty of" probability. I looked for rank and high birth, with the fortune of Cecilia, and Cecilia's rare character. Alas! a new constellation in the heavens might as rationally have ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... Australian cherry is no more a cherry than an acorn; that the Australian dog (though "the only true wild dog in the world") is deemed to be a comparatively recent introduction—a new chum of Asiatic origin who entered the glorious constellation of the State something before the era of exclusive legislation—so naturally he does not bark, for barking is an evidence of civilisation; but he soon learns the universal language of ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... in length; another copious spring rises up in the sea near its mouth. But can this be the river whose virtues are extolled by: Virgil, Horace, Martial, Statius, Propertius, Strabo, Pliny, Varro and Coramella? What a constellation of names around these short-lived waters! Truly, minuit praesentia famam, as Boccaccio says of the ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... picture of the man as he made his progresses from town to town in his search for treasures of art. "As soon as it was spring—and he knew that it was spring not from the rising of any constellation or the blowing of any wind, but simply because he saw the roses—then indeed he bestirred himself. So enduring, so untiring was he that no one ever saw him upon horseback. No—he was carried in a litter with eight bearers. ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church

... Muses of this latter Age, then that which is owing to your Familie; whose Coronet shines bright with the native luster of its owne Jewels, which with the accesse of some Beames of Sydney, twisted with their Flame presents a Constellation, from whose Influence all good may be still expected ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher

... behind them. She gave an exclamation of delighted surprise when she saw me, and then stood gazing with shining eyes at the children, especially at Biddy, who stood dazzled by the glory of the constellation confronting her.... Matthew, too, wished to prolong the moment of mystery. It was the practical Moreton who cried:—"Let's see what ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... successor, and a son who must be subject to her and to her husband when she marries. Further, it is my will and pleasure that, beginning from her seventh year, you shall make, every month when the moon is in the constellation Krittika (or the Pleiades), a great festival, to be called the Festival of the Ball Dance, at which she shall publicly exhibit her skill before the people. I also will, that in reference to a husband, she shall have free choice without ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob

... Shakespeare's brow would wear its greenest hue. Shakespeare's critical friend, Ben Jonson, was but one of a numerous band who imagined the "sweet swan of Avon," "the star of poets," shining for ever as a constellation in the firmament. Such was the invariable temper in which literary men gave vent to their grief on learning the death of the "beloved author," "the famous scenicke poet," "the admirable dramaticke poet," "that famous writer and ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee

... that I have no more? I don't know — I think of your dear circle at home — and though I cannot wish the heaven over your heads to be a whit less bright, I cannot help wishing that you may miss one constellation. You can't have any more than that from poor human nature — selfish in the midst of its best generosity. And yet, mother and Winifred, your faces rise up to shame me; and I must correct my speech and say man's nature; I do believe ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner

... a law of the universe that all vast bodies must be divided and subdivided into smaller ones. Every system is a constellation and every constellation is ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn

... have been no lack of romantic love in days when a used-up man of the world, like Antony, could desire in his will that wherever he died his body might be laid by the side of his beloved Cleopatra: nor of the chivalry of love when Berenice's beautiful hair was placed as a constellation in the heavens. Neither can we believe that devotion in the cause of love could be wanting when a whole nation was ready to wage a fierce and obstinate war for the sake of one beautiful woman. The Greeks had an insult ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... century the Duchy, then Kingdom, of Croatia was governed by native princes, upon whose extinction it was conquered by Hungary. For eight centuries Croatia has enjoyed an autonomous position under the Holy Crown of St. Stephen; its scope has varied according to the political constellation, but till 1912 its constant tradition had remained unbroken. Meanwhile the Dalmatian coast towns remained a bone of contention between Venice and Hungary; but the marble Lions on their battered walls are still the best proof of the triumph of Italian culture within them. Ragusa alone resisted both ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,

... an eagle (especially black) and P. N. of constellation but in Pop. usage a vulture. In Egypt it is the Neophron Percnopterus (Jerdon) or N. Gingianus (Latham), the Dijajat Far'aun or Pharaoh's hen. This bird has been known to kill the Bashah sparrow-hawk (Jerdon i. 60); yet, curious to say, the reviewers of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... provided for his bride of a few months-she was 'Flips' Montague, one recalls, daughter of a long line of theatrical folk dating back to days of the merely spoken drama-he proved to be finely unspoiled and surprisingly unlike the killingly droll mime of the Buckeye constellation. Indeed one cannot but be struck at once by the deep vein of seriousness underlying the comedian's surface drollery. His sense of humour must be tremendous; and yet only in the briefest flashes of his whimsical manner ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson

... further, for Lawrence gave a full, free, shout of joy, such as he had not vented since he was a schoolboy, raised himself to his full height, and threw up his arms, clearing off a very constellation of crystal gimcracks from a chandelier in the mighty ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne

... magicians, exorcists, and interpreters of signs. They were not men of scientific research, seeking truth; it was power they sought, by perverting the intellect of the people. The astrology of the East was founded on the principle that a star or constellation presided over the birth of an individual, and that it either portended his fate, or shed a good or bad influence upon his future life. The star which looked upon a child at the hour of his birth was called the "horoscopus," and the peculiar influence of each planet was determined by the astrologers. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord

... Blennerhassett, describes for us as "strutting about the streets under a tremendous hat, with a Turkish sash over colored clothes," and offering up, with his frequent libations in the taverns, "the copious effusions of his sorrows"; Commodore Truxton, the gallant commander of the Constellation; General Andrew Jackson, future President of the United States, but now a vehement declaimer of Burr's innocence—out of abundant caution for his own reputation, it may be surmised; Erick Bollmann, once a participant in the effort to release Lafayette from Olmutz ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... medical problems that came to the Lancet in the first few weeks were largely routine. The ship stopped at the specified contact points—some far out near the rim of the galactic constellation, others in closer to the densely star-populated center. At each outpost clinic the Lancet was welcomed with open arms. The outpost men were hungry for news from home, and happy to see fresh supplies; but ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse

... meet. The underside of the mantel-shelf was flushed with the high-coloured light, and the legs of the table nearest the fire. Tess's face and neck reflected the same warmth, which each gem turned into an Aldebaran or a Sirius—a constellation of white, red, and green flashes, that interchanged their hues ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... voices are heard and the queen appears with her retinue. She had already sent a message to the king to inform him that she was no longer angry and had made a vow to fast and wear no finery until the moon had entered the constellation of Rohini, in order to express her penitence and conciliate her husband. The king, greeting her, expresses sorrow that she should weaken her body, delicate as lotos root, by thus fasting. "What?" he adds, "you yourself conciliate the slave who ardently ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... of the Milky Way Has not thy story's purity; it is A constellation of a sweeter ray, And sacred nature triumphs more in this Reverse of her decree, than in the abyss Where sparkle distant worlds. Oh! holiest nurse! No drop of that clear spring its way shall miss To thy sire's heart, replenishing its source With life, ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas

... (and doubtless full of Hoch beer or strong drink), found out some thirty years ago that there were only three men of genius in the records of our planet. And who were they? (1) Homer; (2) Shakespeare; (3) Goethe. So that absolutely Milton was shut out from the constellation. Even he wanted a ticket, though Master Sorrows-of-Werther had one. The porter, it seems, fancied he had no marriage garment, a mistake which a mob might correct, saying, 'No marriage garment! then, damme, he shall ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... her chatter, interested in everything she said, questioning her with sympathy and discretion. She asked him a good deal about himself, and about his beautiful sister Marguerite, who, of course, had been the most brilliant star in that most brilliant constellation, the Comedie Francaise. She had never seen Marguerite St. Just act, but, of course, Paris still rang with her praises, and all art-lovers regretted that she should have married and left them ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... motors. There were still a few straggling reddish vapors over the luminous landscape, and the stars seemed dim. But other stars took their place, those of the French Voisins returning from some bombing expedition, their lights dotting the sky like a moving constellation, while at intervals a rocket shot from one or the other who was anxious not to miss the landing-ground. Over Dunkirk, eight or ten searchlights stretched out their long white arms, thrusting and raking to and fro after the enemy machines. Suddenly ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux

... usefully and honorably employed in the protection of our commerce and citizens in the Mediterranean, the Pacific, on the coast of Brazil, and in the Gulf of Mexico. A small squadron, consisting of the frigate Constellation and the sloop of war Boston, under Commodore Kearney, is now on its way to the China and Indian seas for the purpose of attending to our interests in that quarter, and Commander Aulick, in the sloop of war Yorktown, has been instructed to visit ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... beside, to the curly-haired boy, who romped and rejoiced in the appellation of "baby," given five years before—still an observing eye would soon have singled out sister Ellen as the sunbeam of our heaven, the "morning star" of our constellation. She was the second in age, but the first in the inheritance of that load of responsibility, which in such a household falls naturally upon the eldest daughter. Eliza, as I have said, was ill from early girlhood; and Ellen had shouldered all her burden of care and kindness, ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur

... flippant "twinkle" to them may not be driven melancholy-mad by their reproachful eyes. I noticed again the mystic charm of space that imparts a sense of individual solitude to each integer of the densest constellation, involving the smallest star with immeasurable loneliness. Something of this calm and solitude crept over me, and I dozed in my gloomy cavern. When I awoke the full moon was rising. Seen from my window, it had an indescribably unreal and theatrical ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... finds its account in them. They pass from mouth to mouth like salutations; and even the minds which lose their words are under their influence, as one can recall the starry heavens who cannot revive the form of a single constellation. ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... said Nello, "go with Messer Domenico, you cannot go in better company; he was born under the constellation that gives a man skill, riches, and integrity, whatever that constellation may be, which is of the less consequence because babies can't choose their own horoscopes, and, indeed, if they could, there might be an inconvenient rush of babies ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... constellation of poets RONSARD was the bright particular star. The others hailed him as master, and he enjoyed for the time an almost unexampled fame. To him were addressed the well known lines ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield

... him in the direction of the Great Bear, showed him the polar star; then Cassiopeia, whose constellation forms a Y; Vega, of the Lyra constellation—all scintillating; and at the lower part of the ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... the approaching publication of Mr. Ruskin's new work. If the Seven Lamps of Architecture resemble their predecessor, Modern Painters, they will be no lamps at all, but a new constellation—seven bright stars, for whose rising the reading world ought ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... thick branch that lay on the ground, and dealt the savage a whack on the bridge of his nose, that changed it almost immediately from a snub into a superb Roman! For this he received a buffet on the ear that raised a brilliant constellation in his brain, and laid ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne

... of the window and saw the glittering electric lights slide slowly behind, then, more quickly, the red, green, and white lights of the signal lamps, and finally there flickered swiftly past the brilliant constellation of city windows, showing that the town had not yet gone to bed. At last the flying train plunged into the country, and Saggart pressed his face against the cold glass of the window, unable to shake off ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr

... the monster, escapes from the labyrinth, which Daedalus made, and carries Ariadne to the island of Naxos, where he abandons her. Bacchus wooes her, and, to immortalize her name, he transforms the crown which he has given her into a Constellation. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... conflict. He impressed him with the danger of delay to the Republic and with the discredit which would attach to himself if he should leave to another President the grateful task of reconciliation. He pictured to him the National Constellation no longer obscured but with every star in its orbit, all revolving in harmony, and once more shining with a brilliancy undimmed by the smallest cloud in ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... of refinement and civility. Eclipsed for a while by the mighty luminaries which, during the life of Louis XIII., and the early part of Louis XIV.th's reign, were lords of the ascendant when they had sunk beneath the horizon, their constellation again blazed forth with greater force and more disastrous splendour. Hence the Dragonnades, the destruction of Port-Royal, the persecution of the Jansenists, the death of Racine, the disgrace of Fenelon. Hence, in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... apparent annual motion, of the sun among the stars, is less obvious, but it may be followed easily enough by observing the stars visible at any given time of evening at different seasons of the year. At midnight, for instance, the position of the sun is definite, viz. due north always, but the constellation which at that time is due south or is rising or setting varies with the time of year; an interval of one month producing just the same effect on the appearance of the constellations as an interval of two hours does (because the day contains twice as many hours as the year contains months), ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... that, however, the sky cleared a little, and Bill got sight of part of the constellation of the Great Bear. Although the pole-star was not visible, he guessed pretty nearly its position, and thus ascertained that the breeze came from the south-west. Trimming the lug-sail accordingly, the tars turned the prow of the little craft to the ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne



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