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Ebb   Listen
noun
Ebb  n.  
1.
The reflux or flowing back of the tide; the return of the tidal wave toward the sea; opposed to flood; as, the boats will go out on the ebb. "Thou shoreless flood which in thy ebb and flow Claspest the limits of morality!"
2.
The state or time of passing away; a falling from a better to a worse state; low state or condition; decline; decay. "Our ebb of life." "Painting was then at its lowest ebb."
Ebb and flow, the alternate ebb and flood of the tide; often used figuratively. "This alternation between unhealthy activity and depression, this ebb and flow of the industrial."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ebb" Quotes from Famous Books



... the deepest to humanity are not its fierce fleshly passions, its feverish ambitions, its proud reasonings, its tumultuous hopes. They are the things that belong to the hours when these obsessing forces fade and ebb and sink away. They are the things that rise up out of the twilight-margins of sleep and death; the things that come to us on softly stepping feet, like child-mothers with their first-born in their arms; ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... two parties, and keeping within the deepest patches of shadow, bore down upon the nearest pickets with a fierce, soundless rush,—the most disconcerting form of attack to sleepy sentries in the small hours, when life and courage are at their lowest ebb. But the picket sentries happened to be Sikhs; and they are ill men to tackle at close quarters or ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... time his health was very bad—and it must be borne in mind that, throughout all this experience, his physical condition was one of ebb—and he was in considerable distress by reason of the negligence, the positive ill-treatment even, he received from his wife and step-children. His wife was vain, extravagant, unfeeling, and had a growing taste for private drinking; his step-daughter was mean and over-reaching; and his step-son ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells

... roots exposed in midair." High-tide or low- tide, there is little difference in the water; the river, be it broad or narrow, deep or shallow, looks like a pathway of polished metal; for it is as heavy weighted with stinking mud as water e'er can be, ebb or flow, year out and year in. But the difference in the banks, though an unending alternation between two appearances, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... ranged in a melancholy line, the wretched horses dozing as they stood, the drivers huddled into their fur capes and numbed by the clinging cold. Everywhere was darkness and chill and the listless misery of a winter dawn, when vitality is at its lowest ebb and the passions of man are ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... and Euripides uttered their comments on the action of the play with such a prolongation and variety of pitch in the rhythmic intervals as to constitute a sustained and melodic recitative. Music at this time was an essential part of the drama. When the creative genius of Greece had set toward its ebb, they were divorced, and music was only set to lyric forms. Such remained the status of the art till, in the Italian Renaissance, modern opera was born in the reunion of music and the drama. Like the other arts, it assumed at the outset to be a mere revival ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris

... all other free competition, as a rule, it inures enormously to the benefit of the body-whole. Exceptionally, however, it fails to do so, and behold disease. This struggle and turmoil is not only necessary to life—it is life. Out of the varying chances of its warfare is born that incessant ebb and flow of chemical change, that inability to reach an equilibrium, which we term "vitality." The course of life, like that of a flying express train, is not a perfectly straight line, but an oscillating series of concentric curves. Without these oscillations movement could not be. Exaggerate one ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... those who established the government of the good old days, I do not profess to know. However that may be, the country before 645 A.D. was given over to feudalism and internal strife, while the power of the Mikado had sunk to a very low ebb. The Mikado had had the civil power, but had allowed great feudatories to acquire military control, so that the civil government fell into contempt. Contact with the superior civilization of China made intelligent people think that the Chinese constitution deserved ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell

... left him in that moment when Valerie had cried out. He cast discretion to the winds; reason went out of him, and only blind anger remained to drive him into immediate action. And as suddenly as that flood of rage had leaped, as suddenly did it ebb now that he found himself face to face with the outraged Condillac and began to understand the magnitude of the ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini

... is a very amusing one; for the quay is narrow, and there are vessels just on its level, so close that even children walk into them all day long. When the sea is up, the scene is gay, busy, and interesting; but on its ebb the sands ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... a city company; but had dined as a man who knew little of the dinner or of those who ate it. Ten days ago his energy, his buoyant spirits, and his amazing vitality had astonished even his best friends. To-night these qualities were at their lowest ebb—and he had been so silent, so self-concentrated, so obviously distressed, that even a casual acquaintance had remarked the change. To say that a just Nemesis had overtaken him would be less than the truth. He knew that he stood accused, not by a man, but by a nation. ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton

... across the Hindur. This fight, although unimportant in itself, is memorable as being the first occasion upon which the mutineers and the British troops met. Hitherto the Sepoys had had it entirely their own way. Mutiny, havoc, murder, had gone on unchecked; but now the tide was to turn, never to ebb again until the Sepoy mutiny was drowned in a sea of blood. Upon this, their first meeting with the white troops, the Sepoys were confident of success. They were greatly superior in force; they had been carefully drilled in the English ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty

... prolific, valley deeps, Where the muse of silence sleeps; Frowning cliff, and beetling rock, Shivered by the deluge shock, When the world was drowned—and now Tottering before Ruin's plough. Forests green, and rivers wide— Every flow and ebb of tide. Rivulets, whose crystal veins Ripple along flowery plains, Leaping torrents rushing hoarse, Mimicking the ocean's force, Leafage in its summer pride— Flowers to Paradise allied. Fruit inviting, luscious, such As seems to paralyze the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 551, June 9, 1832 • Various

... the Northern Lights in the crystal nights came forth with a mystic gleam. They danced and they danced the devil-dance over the naked snow; And soft they rolled like a tide upshoaled with a ceaseless ebb and flow. They rippled green with a wondrous sheen, they fluttered out like a fan; They spread with a blaze of rose-pink rays never yet seen of man. They writhed like a brood of angry snakes, hissing and sulphur pale; Then swift they changed to a dragon vast, lashing ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service

... the gaming room that we must go to behold the progress of the terrible drama—the ebb and flow of opposite movements—the shocks of alternate hope and fear, infinitely varied in the countenance, not only of the actors, but also of the spectators. What is visible, however, is nothing in ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... wife and children with some approach to comfort, and as the years passed and reputation grew he found himself able to revisit his birthplace in security, and to take definite steps to re-establish the family fortunes, then at so low an ebb. ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan

... were at a very low ebb. She was still touring the provinces, and heartily sick of all the discomfort involved. Dingy lodgings, hurried train journeys, much bickering and jealousy in the company with which she was acting, and a great deal of domestic worry over that handsome, ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... all strangers, sit down to dinner together, conversation, even if they happen to have a mutual passion for baseball, is apt to be for a while a little difficult. The first fine frenzy in which Mr Birdsey had issued his invitations had begun to ebb by the time the soup was served, and he was conscious of a feeling ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... blinked through the foliage. The footfalls of late homecomers were heard a long way off; the voices of singers—a serenading party out baying at the night—was heard as the breeze carried the music upon its sluggish ebb and flow. To avoid belated homecomers, Judge Van Dorn crossed the street; the clanging electric car did not find him with its search-light, though he felt shielded by its roar as he stepped over the ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... go with me, newly-married bride, And gaze upon a merrier multitude: White-armed Nuala and Ardroe the Wise, Feacra of the hurtling foam, and him Who is the ruler of the western host, Finvarra, and their Land of Heart's Desire, Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood, But joy is wisdom, Time an endless song. I kiss you and the world begins ...
— The Land Of Heart's Desire (Little Blue Book#335) • W.B. Yeats

... awaiting them, with two men in her. Hamish was very careful of Miss White's dress as she got into the stern of the boat; then he and Colin Laing got into the bow; and the men half paddled and half floated her along to the Umpire—the tide having begun to ebb. ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... matter if in calm or strife, There ebb or flow for me the future's tide. I had but one great longing in my life, ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... love and live, To take what fate or the gods may give, To ask no question, to make no prayer, To kiss the lips and caress the hair, Speed passion's ebb as we greet its flow, To have and to ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... the children took scarlet fever at school. They had the disease lightly, but what anxiety the mother endured! Thank God, they got through it safely; but there was the doctor's bill to be settled, and funds were at a low ebb once more. To cap the climax, when the house had been thoroughly fumigated by the board of health, and Mrs. Farrell was prepared to take up her occupation again, an attack of rheumatism crippled her fingers and rendered them almost powerless. Then it was that, worn out ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley

... herons flew high or curved widely past Gadabout—long necks stretched straight before, long legs stretched straight behind. But the Tragedian (he was the longest and the lankest) minded us not at all. At the last of the ebb, a snag over near the shore would suddenly add on another angle and jab down in the water, coming up again with a shiver and a fish. Then, it would approach the houseboat and stalk the waters beside our windows. The stage stride of the creature won ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins

... blazing sun, produces towards nightfall a thick white mist, pregnant with miasma and the dreaded Shiraz fever which has proved fatal to so many Europeans, to say nothing of natives. Medical science is at a very low ebb in Persia; purging and bleeding are the two remedies most resorted to by the native hakim. If these fail, a dervish is called in, and writes out charms, or forms of prayer, on bits of paper, which are rolled up and swallowed ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt

... better, gone; so must thy Graue Giue way to what's seene now. Sir, you your selfe Haue said, and writ so; but your writing now Is colder then that Theame: she had not beene, Nor was not to be equall'd, thus your Verse Flow'd with her Beautie once; 'tis shrewdly ebb'd, To say you haue seene ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... said to have a kind of ebb and flow, sometimes discharging its current like the Fountain of Vaucluse, at others retaining and scarcely suffering it to run at all. The Levites, we are likewise told, used to sprinkle the water of Siloam on the altar at the Feast of Tabernacles, saying, ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... the eye of an aged archbishop.[288] The representation of Alesius is only the more credible because it is the more restrained, and the one representation corroborates the other, and proves to what a low ebb morality had sunk among the ministers of the old church in Scotland before it was swept away. Not only did this bold bad man set at nought the laws of God and the canons of his church, and make a boast of doing so among his boon ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell

... must greatly disturb the money-market, affect many speculative adventures and operations when at the very moment credit may be most needed. It is absolutely necessary that I should be daily at my post on the Bourse, and hourly watch the ebb and flow of events. Under these circumstances I had counted, permit me to count still, on your presence in Bretagne. We have already begun negotiations on a somewhat extensive scale, whether as regards the improvement of forests and orchards, or the plans for building allotments, ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... close of this campaign, were at their lowest ebb. The loss of de Quincy and the defeat of Thurles had sorely shaken his military reputation. His jealousy of that powerful family connexion, the Geraldines, had driven Maurice Fitzgerald and Raymond the Fat to retire ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... whose skirmishers suddenly opened fire on us. Of course, we could not tell whether or not this was the forerunner of a heavy attack, for our Cossack posts were responding briskly. It was about three o'clock in the morning, at which time men's courage is said to be at the lowest ebb; but the cavalry division was certainly free from any weakness in that direction. At the alarm everybody jumped to his feet and the stiff, shivering, haggard men, their eyes only half-opened, all clutched their rifles and ran forward to the trench on the crest ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt

... all prepared—and from the rock, A goat, the patriarch of the flock, 180 Before the kindling pile was laid, And pierced by Roderick's ready blade. Patient the sickening victim eyed The life-blood ebb in crimson tide, Down his clogged beard and shaggy limb, 185 Till darkness glazed his eyeballs dim. The grisly priest, with murmuring prayer, A slender crosslet formed with care, A cubit's length in measure due; The shaft and ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... sleep, appetite, and flesh," proceeded Moore, "but your spirits are always at ebb. Besides, there is a nervous alarm in your eye, a nervous disquiet in your manner. These peculiarities were ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... change. Already a slight modification is at work. The next decade will see a big change coming over the style of English tennis. The wonderful sporting abilities of the Englishman, his ability to produce his best when seemingly down and out mean that, no matter how low the ebb to which tennis might fall, the inherent abilities of the English athlete would always bring it up. I sound pessimistic about the immediate future. I am not, provided English boyhood is interested in ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D

... fire had broken the crust of the globe, heaved up the masses of earth, and made fissures. It is, as it were, an interior sea, which has its flow and ebb, its tempests; a thin film separates us from it. We could not sleep if we thought of all that is under our heels. However, the central fire diminishes, and the sun grows more feeble, so much so that one day the earth will ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... Boisseleau remarked the ebb and flow of courage among the Irish. I have quoted one of his letters to his wife. It is but just to quote another. "Nos Irlandois n'avoient jamais vu le feu; et cela les a surpris. Presentement, ils sont si faches de n'avoir pas fait leur devoir ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... without removing the pipe from his mouth, pointed to the bubbles on the water which were already floating outward, a certain evidence that the tide was on the ebb. ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... rusted slowly in the slow monotony of his days. He had come to accept the rhythmical ebb and flow of life's river as all-sufficient for content. Breakfast and dinner were the chief events of his life—if it was well with these it was ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... ebbing of my poor life. At last the nether rim of that round, fiery orb was on the point of touching the line of distant hills, and it was casting a crimson glow along the white, snow-sheeted landscape that was singularly suggestive of a tide of blood—a very fitting tide to flow and ebb about the walls of the Castle ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... would be difficult to find a station more dangerous for shipping; for not only do the winds come down with great violence from the high mountains on each side, but the strait itself of the Euripus does not ebb and flow seven times a day at stated times, as is reported, but the current changing irregularly, like the wind, now this way now that, is hurried along like a torrent rolling headlong down a steep mountain, so that no quiet is given to vessels there day or night. But not only did ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... Macalister saw that his last slender hope was gone. He could only pray that for the moment no attack was to be launched; but then, just when it seemed that the tide of hope was at its lowest ebb, the fates flung him another chance—a chance that for the moment looked like no chance; looked, indeed, like a certainty of sudden death. A soft, whistling hiss sounded in the air above them, a note ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)

... we sit by the River of Time And gaze at the waves below, But its brink is covered by frost and rime, And we hear on the wind a muffled chime Proclaiming the end of a brief sojourn: Yet the floods of life still whirl and churn As the currents ebb and flow:— By the rolling wheel we wait our turn Calm, but ready to go! The hopper is drained, but unmoved still, The Miller who grinds in Time's ...
— The Loom of Life • Cotton Noe

... and storm grow too ferocious for it. But his wiser spirit would not let him delude himself. Had he had a full stomach, and food in his pockets, he might, perhaps, safely have emulated this cunning trick of the partridge. But now, starving, weary, his vitality at the last ebb, he knew that if he should yield to the lure of the snow, he would be seen no more till the spring sun should reveal him, a thing of horror to the returning vireos and blackbirds, on the open, greening ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... thought so too; for he said to Mr Farmer, very coldly, "I think you should have ascertained the quality of the sand before you sent for it; and I don't think that you should have sent for it at all towards nightfall, and at the beginning of ebb tide. Youngster, you shall dine with me to-day, and give me ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... Alleghany Mountains in a fierce snow-storm, and early the next morning my troops led the way in the continuing storm over the summit. Shortly after the head of the column commenced the eastern descent, and when the chilling winter blasts had caused the lowest ebb of human enthusiasm to be reached, shouts were heard by me, at first indistinctly, then nearer and louder. This was so unusual and unexpected under the depressing circumstances that I ordered the column to halt until I could ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... no fear now," he had said to the nurse. "It is now only a question of getting back the physical strength, which has certainly fallen to a very low ebb. Perfect repose and an entire freedom from care are what we have ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... Eastern Passage, in a sudden fog and through the pilot's folly. We had struck upon a mud-bank, and driven into a perfect little pond, surrounded by banks and rocks and shoals of all kinds: the only safe speck in the place. Eased by this report, and the assurance that the tide was past the ebb, we turned in at three o'clock in the morning, to lie ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... no farther. Still, you have a horrible thought which you bury in the depths of your heart and conscience: Caroline has not come up to your expectations. Caroline has imperfections, which, during the high tides of the honey-moon, were concealed under the water, but which the ebb of the gall-moon has laid bare. You have several times run against these breakers, your hopes have been often shipwrecked upon them, more than once your desires—those of a young marrying man—(where, alas, is that time!) have seen their richly laden ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... wild clutch, grabbed hold of the cage before it sank, and dragged it and the screaming bird out of danger. The gridiron and skewers went down at once—luckily in four feet of water, whence they could be recovered at low-ebb. The cullender sank slowly and with dignity. The cat headed straight for shore, and, defying all attempts of Mr. Toy and Aunt Butson to head him off, slipped between them and dashed up the hill on a bee-line for home. Master Calvin, seated astride the low wall above ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... of violating treaties so lately and so solemnly concluded, was a very bold one to be made to people, whatever their inclinations might be, whom the war had reduced to the lowest ebb of riches and power. They would not hear of a direct and open engagement, such as the sending a body of troops would have been; neither would they grant the whole of what was asked in the second plan. But it was impossible for them, or any one else, to foresee how far those ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke

... chimes: the clockworks strain: The turning lenses flash and pass, Frame turning within glittering frame With frosty gleam of moving glass: Unseen by me, each dusky hour The sea-waves welter up the tower Or in the ebb subside again; And ever and anon all night, Drawn from afar by charm of light, A sea-bird ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... chance of a lifetime to obtain Home Rule, "will be given a free hand, without a word said to embarrass him." Sinn Fein took no part in the elections of 1910. "This," says Mr Henry, "was not purely an act of self-sacrifice. In fact, Sinn Fein was never at so low an ebb." Its attitude towards the Home Rule, which now seemed inevitable, was stated as follows:—"No scheme which the English Parliament may pass in the near future will satisfy Sinn Fein—no legislature created in Ireland which is not supreme and absolute will offer a basis for concluding ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan

... roof of the forest, you see a myriad transparent creatures coming and going in the shaft of light; and even between-whiles, even where there is no incursion of sun-rays into the dark arcade of the wood, you are conscious of a continual drift of insects, an ebb and flow of infinitesimal living things between the trees. Nor are insects the only evil creatures that haunt the forest. For you may plump into a cave among the rocks, and find yourself face to face with a wild boar, or see a crooked viper ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... jumped and fell, the shavings rustled strangely in the fireplace, the "Transfiguration" swung a little on its cord, the colour still lingering at its heart as the rest of the room moved restlessly under the ebb and flow of black shadows. Then ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... the land loses in one place, it gains in another, by the quantity of sand and mud cast up by the waves. Many changes are caused by the restless sea, but yet, even in its wildest moods, it owns the curbing hand of its Maker; it may ebb and flow, but still keeps in ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham

... No ebb! no flow! No sound! no stir in the wide, wondrous calm; In the sunset's glow The shore shelved low And snow-white, from far ridges screened with shade ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)

... For Gatty lived in a dreary time, when religion was at one of its lowest ebb-tides, and had sunk almost to the level of heathen morality. If Gatty had been required to give definitions of the greatest words in the language, and had really done it from the bottom of her heart, according to her own ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt

... How, foul and pestilent discovery, Didst thou find place within the human heart? Through thee is martial glory lost, through thee The trade of arms became a worthless art: And at such ebb are worth and chivalry, That the base often plays the better part. Through thee no more shall gallantry, no more Shall valour prove their ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... Colin Beverly break in on us just at the time when my fortunes had reached their lowest ebb," Jack kept saying ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach

... four years, who elect new legislators every two years, and renew the provincial officers every twelvemonth; if the Americans, who have abandoned the political world to the attempts of innovators, had not placed religion beyond their reach, where could it abide in the ebb and flow of human opinions? where would that respect which belongs to it be paid, amid the struggles of faction? and what would become of its immortality in the midst of perpetual decay? The American clergy were the first to perceive ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... peril was a man of ability and energy, Leo III; but the empire had sunk so low as a result of the misrule of his predecessors that his authority scarcely extended beyond the shores of the Sea of Marmora, and his resources were at a low ebb. The navy on which so much depended was brought to a high point of efficiency, but it was so inferior in numbers to the Saracen armada that he dared not attempt even a ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... past I have observed that the tide rises and falls twice every twenty-four hours, and that the ebb and flow produce a rather swift current through the submarine tunnel. It is pretty certain therefore that a floating object thrown into the lagoon when the top of the orifice is uncovered would be ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne

... both exceedingly dangerous on account of their being studded with numerous coral "mushrooms"—i.e., enormous boulders of coral rock, which, resembling a mushroom in shape, come to within a few feet of the surface of the water. Through these passages, the tide, especially the ebb, rushes with great velocity—six or seven knots at least—and vessels when leaving the lagoon, generally waited till slack water, or the first of the flood, when with the usual strong south-east trades, they could stem the current and avoid the dangerous "mushrooms." ...
— "Pig-Headed" Sailor Men - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke

... "moments" for which she had come to Europe when she stood for the first time on the balcony overhanging the Corso, which Mrs. Ashe had hired in company with some acquaintances made at the hotel, and looked down at the ebb and surge of the just-begun Carnival. The narrow street seemed humming with people of all sorts and conditions. Some were masked; some were not. There were ladies and gentlemen in fashionable clothes, peasants in the gayest costumes, surprised-looking tourists in tall hats ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge

... the mouth of a river not right great; so they put out their boats and towed the ship up into the said river, and when they had gone up it for a mile or thereabouts they found the sea water failed, for little was the ebb and flow of the tide on that coast. Then was the river deep and clear, running between smooth grassy land like to meadows. Also on their left board they saw presently three head of neat cattle going, as if in a meadow of a homestead in their own land, and a few sheep; and ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris

... It is not born of the bible. The idea of immortality, like the great sea, has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, beating with its countless waves against the rocks and sands of fate and time. It was not born of the bible. It was born of the human heart, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. We do not know. We do not prophesy a life of pain. We leave the dead with nature, the mother of us all, under a seven-hued bow of hope. ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll

... exchanged confidences more and more; and in the end the old lady began to speak without reserve about her past. It came about thus. After Christmas, Dave being culture-bound, and work of a profitable nature for the moment at a low ebb, Aunt M'riar had fallen back on some arrears of stocking-darning. Dolly was engaged on the object to which she gave lifelong attention, that of keeping her doll asleep. I do not fancy that Dolly was very inventive; but then, you may be, at three-and-a-half, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... the coves indent the shore and fall And fill with ebb and flowing of the tides; Whereon some barge rocks or some dory rides, By which old orchards bloom, or, from the wall, Pelt every lane with fruit; where gardens, tall With roses, riot; swift my gladness glides To that old pasture where the mushroom hides, The chicory blooms and Peace ...
— An Ode • Madison J. Cawein

... fours like a beetle, waving its limbs like feelers. Before I could throw open the window again it darted into the surf, and, when I leaned out into the chilling drizzle, I saw nothing save the flat ebb crawling on the coast—I heard nothing save the purring of bubbles on ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers

... must go!" said Netty. And yet she would have been sorry if he had gone. The worst of reaching the high-water mark is that the ebb must necessarily be dreary. In a flash of thought she recollected Joseph Mangles' story. This was the sequel. Strange if he had heard his own story through the door of communication between Mangles' bedroom and the dining-room. For the other ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... We found her there at ebb of tide, with no sign of turmoil or trouble about her, except the grip that never could be loosened with which she held Micky's one letter fast in ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... he went on, "pins his faith and zeal to standards which to-day rise and to-morrow fall. Unfortunately, he takes it at flood tide, which immediately begins to ebb." ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... an old man of the world,—as the cynical phrase goes,—and of what a world?—an old Italian Marchese of the beginning of the nineteenth century,—a period when, if crime was less rife than in former and stronger ages, morality was never at a lower ebb. He was a man whose musical tastes had made him conversant with the Divas of the stage, and familiar with the interior aspects of Italian theatrical life;—one, too, whom circumstances had caused to become specially well ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... changing tide, So human feelings ebb and flow; And who would in a breast confide ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... men to march on till they all stood on the bank of the river. The flood flowed in after the ebb, and the hostile armies could not reach each other, and it seemed too long to wait for the water to let them meet. Wulfstan, by race a warrior bold, held the bridge for his chief, and AElfhere and Maccus with him, the undaunted mighty twain. The Danes begged to be allowed to overpass the ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey

... white gate, respected (as a white gate always is) from its strong declaration of purpose. Outside of it, things may belong to the Crown, the Admiralty, Manor, or Trinity Brethren, or perhaps the sea itself—according to the latest ebb or flow of the fickle tide of Law Courts—but inside that gate everything belongs to the fine old ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... his realization that Augustin Daly's greatest work and achievements were behind him. The famous old manager was undergoing that cycle of experience which comes to all of his kind when the flood-tide of their success begins to ebb. ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... who have given up themselves to fanciful credulity would confine their conceits in their own minds, they might regulate their lives by the barometer, with inconvenience only to themselves; but to fill the world with accounts of intellects subject to ebb and flow, of one genius that awakened in the spring, and another that ripened in the autumn, of one mind expanded in the summer, and of another concentrated in the winter, is no less dangerous than to tell children of bugbears and goblins. Fear ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... but must be attributed to the social system to which they belong. The English world is pleased to say that an unmarried lady past forty has missed her hit in life—has omitted to take her tide at the ebb; and what can unmarried ladies do but yield to the world's dictum? That the English world may become better informed, and learn as speedily as may be to speak with more sense on the subject, let ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... below. If the wind is fair you won't have much of our company, because we shall hold on till we moor alongside the wharves of London; but if it's foul, or there is not enough of it to take us against tide, we have to anchor on the ebb, and then of ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty

... and swing low "— The sea singeth so, And it waileth anon in its ebb and its flow; And a sleeper sleeps on to that song of the sea Nor recketh he ever of mine or of me! "Swing high and swing low While the breezes they blow— 'T was off for a ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field

... is speaking of the English Subsidy in 1758], how useful will it prove in a Country bred everywhere to Spartan thrift, accustomed to regard waste as sin, and which will lay out no penny except to purpose! I guess the Prussian Exchequer is, by this time, much on the ebb; idle precious metals tending everywhere towards the melting-pot. At what precise date the Friedrich-Wilhelm balustrades, and enormous silver furnitures, were first gone into, Dryasdust has not informed me: but we know they all went; as they well might. To me ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... likely. We'd have found his body. Way the tides were that day, there was no ebb tide strong enough to carry a body out into deep water. The creek was ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin

... de Warrens, who was at Chambery, with money to defray the expenses of my journey to her, which I performed with rapture. Since then my finances have frequently been very low, but never at such an ebb as to reduce me to fasting, and I mark this period with a heart fully alive to the bounty of Providence, as the last of my life in which I sustained ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... told how unsafe was the transit of heavy goods by barge from one side of the river to another. He had had a cargo of marine stores which would go to sea before their time. The strong ebb of the tide, joined to the river current, had positively carried the barge away, and its course had not been stopped till it had drifted on shore at Purfleet. He acknowledged that something had transpired of the bargemen being drunk, but he had no knowledge himself that such had been the case. ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... came in a shaft from the bow of Paris. By a poisoned arrow driven at venture and at dark midnight from the bow of an outcast leper was fair Paris slain. While winter snow lay white on Ida, in Helen's arms did his life ebb away. ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... rising to such seats of fortune and dignity, as would best suit with their mounting and aspiring hopes, may imagine that this new fund, in the sister nation, may prove a rival to theirs; and, by drawing off a multitude of subscribers, will, if it makes a flood in Ireland, cause an ebb in England. But it may be answered, that, though our author avers, that this fund will vie with the South-Sea, yet it will not clash with it. On the contrary, the subscribers to this must wish the increase of the South-Sea, (so far from being its rival); ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... nation. The succession of several weak kings had brought affairs into this state, when Philippe the Sixth of Valois crowned the misfortunes of the country by entering into a war with England, at a time when the funds of his kingdom were at the lowest ebb; constantly engaged in hostilities, he had not leisure or the means of attending to the welfare of the Parisians, and the disasters he encountered caused his reign to be remembered as a series of misfortunes. Several colleges, however, were founded in his reign; amongst others, that of the College ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... to hear you admit as much as that. How strangely the currents of the mind ebb and flow, Mannering. Here are you with your scepticism apparently weakening, while I feel thankfully assured, at any rate for the moment, that only a material reason accounts ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts

... thou fill'st in Eros name to-night, O Hero, shall the Sestian augurs take To-morrow, and for drowned Leander's sake To Anteros its fireless lip shall plight. Aye, waft the unspoken vow: yet dawn's first light On ebbing storm and life twice ebb'd must break; While 'neath no sunrise, by the Avernian Lake, Lo where ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti

... out, and had, perhaps, two hours to ebb. The boys hugged the channel bank on the right, passed under the bridge unnoticed, and kept on their silent and anxious way, mile after mile. Finally, Sandy steered into a creek and glided softly against the ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa

... blessed than to lie in the lap of Earth, the mother of all things beautiful, the nurse of all things good? I have been a lover of men all my life, and methinks I would fain become a part of that which does good to man. [26] And now," he added, "now it seems to me that my life begins to ebb; I feel my spirit slipping away from those parts she leaves the first. If you would take my hand once more, or look into my eyes while life is there, draw near me now; but when I have covered my face, let no man look on me ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... appears in another part of this chapter. In San Francisco Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper gave generously of her valuable time and powerful influence. Mrs. Mary Wood Swift and Mrs. Mary S. Sperry responded many times when the finances were at the lowest ebb. It would be impossible to name even a small fraction of those who freely and continuously ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... the most of prosperity while it is here. We should enjoy it to the fullest, but we should remember that for every high tide there is a low ebb. ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter

... made little change in the exterior of our block. It was situated at a point in the city from which the ebb tide of Fashion was slowly receding, and which the flood tide of Trade had not yet touched. There was not a new house on the block, or an old one materially altered. A little paint, and a diligent application of broom and Croton water, had kept ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... streets are irregular, narrow and unpaved. The greater part of the area of the town is occupied by gardens and plantations of palm-trees, intersected by a number of little canals, cleansed twice daily with the ebb and flow of the tide, which rises here about 9 ft. These canals are navigated by small boats, called bellem (plur. ablam), resembling dug-outs in form, but light and graceful. At high-tide, accordingly, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... force which moves a clock's hands is derived from the arm which winds up the clock, so surely is all terrestrial power drawn from the sun. Leaving out of account the eruptions of volcanoes, and the ebb and flow of the tides, every mechanical action on the earth's surface, every manifestation of power, organic and inorganic, vital and physical, is produced by the sun. His warmth keeps the sea liquid, and the atmosphere a gas, and all the storms which ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... however bound up with the mightiest interests of mankind, necessarily hasten to their consummation. The web of fate is unravelled—the tide of battle flows in its irrevocable course, and having stranded the hopes of the defeated power, there is no ebb, no reflux, by which the disaster may be undone, and the ruined cause restored again to prosperity ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... passage scarr'd and scored, Shall the Formidable here with her twelve and eighty guns Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way, Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons, And with flow at full beside? Now, 'tis slackest ebb of tide. Reach the mooring? Rather say, While rock stands or water runs, Not a ship will ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... even elegance, that contrasted both the wretched squalor of the abode Gabriel had just left and the meanness of Dalibard's former quarters in London, The change seemed to imply that the Provencal had already made some way in the world. And, truth to say, at all times, even in the lowest ebb of his fortunes, there was that indescribable neatness and formality of precision about all the exterior seemings of the ci-devant friend of the prim Robespierre which belong to those in whom order and method are strongly developed,—qualities which give even ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... his glance Look'd up, appealing to the blue expanse, Where, in their calm, immortal beauty, shone Heaven's cloudless orbs. With faint and fainter moan, Bound on the shrine of sacrifice he lay, Till, drop by drop, life's current ebb'd away; Till rock and turf grew deeply, darkly red, And the pale moon gleam'd paler on ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head

... says Lady Rylton pettishly. "I can't afford to think about it. I tell you he must marry her. It has come to the very last ebb with us now, and unless Maurice consents ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford

... whistle alone. It was using up his steam faster than he could manufacture it. Thereafter, Scraggs had used a patent foghorn, and when the honest McGuffey had once more succeeded in conserving sufficient steam to crawl up river, the tide had turned and the Maggie could not buck the ebb. McGuffey declared a few new tubes in the boiler would do the trick, but on the other hand, Mr. Gibney pointed out that the old craft was practically punk aft and a stiff tow would jerk the tail off the old ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... assembled to see the "Fair Trader" leave her moorings. I went with my people as far as Lewes, and on account of weather had much ado to get ashore. The voyage down the Delaware was slow, for from want of proper lights we must needs lay by at night, and if winds were contrary were forced to wait for the ebb. ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... to Henry VIII. for the negotiation of loans with the merchants of Antwerp, and in 1552 he himself was nominated to act in a similar capacity to Edward VI., when he was eminently serviceable in redeeming the credit of the king, sunk to the lowest ebb by the mismanagement of his father's immediate successor in the agency. Under Elizabeth he enjoyed the same appointment, to which was added that of queen's merchant; and it appears by the official letters ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... their several positions, anchoring so as to command the forts and support those attacking the booms; and at two p.m., when the ebb began to flow and there was no danger of the stream carrying the vessels too close in, the Opossum was ordered by signal to pull up the first pile, which she did by the aid ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson

... and for that very reason, Marian, I speak openly and plainly as I have spoken now. In my heart and my conscience I can say it, Laura's hopes for the future are at their lowest ebb. I know that her fortune is gone—I know that the last chance of restoring her to her place in the world lies at the mercy of her worst enemy, of a man who is now absolutely unassailable, and who may remain unassailable to the ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... addition to the number of our crew. It was about an hour after midnight, when the man who had the watch on deck was comfortably seated on a coil of rope beneath the main deck awning, and probably dozing, while sheltered from a heavy and protracted shower of rain. The night was dark and gloomy; the ebb tide made a moaning, monotonous noise under the bows, and rushed swiftly by the sides of the vessel, leaving a broad wake astern. The sailor was roused from his comfortable position by a sound resembling the cry of a person ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... countryman's journey, who comes up to the term, and with his hobnail shoes grinds the faces of the poor stones, and so returns again. It is the soul of the year, and makes it quick, which before was dead. Innkeepers gape for it as earnestly as shell-fish do for salt water after a low ebb. It sends forth new books into the world, and replenishes Paul's Walk with fresh company, where Quid novi? is their first salutation, and the weekly news their chief discourse. The taverns are painted against the term, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... back with an eye of disgust. But they were the natural results of an age when religion was at the lowest ebb in Europe; when our travelled gentry only brought back with them that disregard of Christianity which they had learned in Paris and Rome, and when Voltaire's works were found on the toilet of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... the Red-Sea,(418) has made one remark very worthy our observation; a tradition (says that historian) has been transmitted through the whole nation, from father to son, for many ages, that once an extraordinary ebb dried up the sea, so that its bottom was seen; and that a violent flow immediately after brought back the waters to their former channel. It is evident, that the miraculous passage of Moses over the Red-Sea is here hinted at; and I make this remark, purposely to admonish young students, not to ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... alliances, embassies, exchanges of visits, and other international intercourse which the prosecution of the Hundred Years' War involved brought England into a closer participation in the general life of Europe than ever before, and caused the ebb and flow of a tide of influences between England and the Continent which deeply affected economic, political, and religious life on ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney

... his hand across his forehead; he was so tired. He pushed the manuscript and letters into a drawer of the desk, and turning the key upon them, opened the window and stepped out into the air. His vitality was at as low an ebb as if from physical overwork and fasting. He made no attempt to think, or to comment on the events just past. For the moment they lost their interest, and he strolled aimlessly about the park, his exhausted forces slowly recuperating. ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... five red toes As red and dirty, bare Young birds forsaken and left in a nest of mud— Newspaper sheets enclose Some limbs like parcels, and tear When the sleeper stirs or turns on the ebb ...
— New Poems • D. H. Lawrence

... commercial and material interests seemed wholly in the ascendant, and the anti-slavery cause was at a low ebb. But many things had happened in two decades, below the surface current of public events, and, just on the threshold of a new era, we may glance back over these twenty years. All the European world had been full of movement. France ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam

... his broad shoulder to the stout oak door, he forced it back. The wind moaned and hissed through the closing aperture. It was like the ebb of a broken wave to those who had heard the sea. Turning about, as the candles on the table blinked, the young man lazily dashed the rain and sleet from his beard and breast, and lay down again on the settle, with something between ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... continued, "there is, I suppose, no department of affairs which one is more inclined to criticise than this. And yet the more one investigates the more one discovers, even here, the harmony and necessity that pervade the whole universe. The ebb and flow of business from this trade or country to that, the rise and fall of wages, or of the rate of interest, the pouring of capital into or out of one industry or another, the varying relations of imports ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson

... but an epoch in the history of the tribe occupying it—a period during which there was constant, incessant change, new bands or minor divisions of the tribe appearing on the scene, other divisions leaving the parent village for other sites, and the ebb and flow continuing until at some period in its history the population of a village sometimes became so reduced that the remainder, as a matter of precaution, or for some trifling reason, abandoned it en ...
— Casa Grande Ruin • Cosmos Mindeleff

... the waning light of the afternoon varied its intensity upon her skin. Why, her very hair partook of this magical quality and altered its tint, its degree of vitality even, in harmony with the other changes. . . . What was the explanation? By means of what rare mechanism did her nerve force ebb and flow from moment to moment, bringing about these fascinating surface changes in her body? Could anything, even any skin, be better made than that superb skin of hers—that master work of delicacy and strength, of smoothness ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... present orbit of Neptune, and then rush inwards to the centre, only to be driven outwards again. Surging out and in, the fluid mass would expand and contract alternately, until in course of ages the fiery tides would cease to ebb and flow. If the impact had been somewhat indirect it would rotate slowly on its axis, and under the influence of gravity and centrifugal force acquire a globular shape which would gradually flatten to a lenticular disc. As it cooled and shrank in volume it would whirl the faster round ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro

... that moment was greater fur than all the agonies which Hilda had ever known. Her heart stopped beating; all life seemed to ebb away from the terror of that presence. Wildly there arose a thought of flight; but she was spellbound, her limbs were paralyzed, and the dark, luminous eyes of the horror enchained her own gaze. Suddenly she made a convulsive effort, mechanically, and sprung to her feet, her hands clutching one ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... Poole Harbour are salt as the sea outside though fed by the rivers Frome and Puddle, and so of course its best aspect is when the tide is full. The erratic ebb and flow is more pronounced here than at Southampton and there are longer periods of high than low water. Brownsea Island, that occupies the centre of this inland sea, with its wooded banks of dark greenery makes an effective foil to the sparkling ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes

... were speaking o' her grave? Lord help us, it's no an ordinar grave that will haud her in, if a's true that folk said of Alice in her auld days; and if I gae to six feet deep—and a warlock's grave shouldna be an inch mair ebb, or her ain witch cummers would soon whirl her out of her shroud for a' their auld acquaintance—and be't six feet, or be't three, wha's to pay the making o't, I ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... Roko (the xcvth of Montesinos and the xcist of Garcilazo) became Ynca, he found morals at the lowest ebb. "Ni la prudence de l'Inca, ni les lois severes qu'il avait promulguees n'avaient pu extirper entierement le peche contre nature. I1 reprit avec une nouvelle violence, et les femmes en furent si jalouses qu'un ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... positive. In the first stage history shows that man explained the origin of everything by explicit reference to wills like his own, though, of course, invisible; and ultimately, by an appeal to one supreme Will. Thus, a thunderstorm, the rise and setting of the sun, the ebb and flow of tides, the succession of seasons and crops are all explained by the agency of unseen wills, powers, or divinities. As time advances, progress is so far made that all minor deities are merged in the belief in one supreme Being who created the universe and is ever responsible for ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan

... who was cautious as Reserve and Pride could make him, and full slow In judging men—when once his judgment was Determined, right or wrong, on friend or foe, Had all the pertinacity Pride has, Which knows no ebb to its imperious flow, And loves or hates, disdaining to be guided, Because its own good ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... down his antagonist's guard, leaped, and gave a deep wound. Alexander's sword fell from his hand. He staggered and vision darkened. He came to his knees, then sank upon the ground. Ian bent over him. He felt his anger ebb. A kind of compunction seized him. He thought, "Are you so badly hurt, ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... were now at their lowest ebb. Burdened with a wife and child, he had found it necessary to return, after a second futile attempt to gain a living by his calling in a country town, to Milan, his "stony-hearted step-mother." If he had reckoned on his mother's bounty he was doomed to disappointment, for Chiara ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... Gravesend, and a strong tide of flood, which we found held us about sixty miles; the channel deep, nor did we find any want of water for a great way. In short, we went merrily up the river with the flood and the wind blowing still fresh at E. and E.N.E. We stemmed the ebb easily also, especially while the river continued broad and deep; but when we came past the swelling of the tide, and had the natural current of the river to go against, we found it too strong for us, and began to think of quitting our bark; but the prince would by no means ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... only pretended to drink. He knew that the tide would soon be going out, so he just put his bill in the water, and waited until the tide did begin to ebb. The water of the river began to fall also. The carabao noticed the change, but he could not comprehend it. He was surprised, and agreed that he had been beaten. Little Hum flew away, leaving poor old Carabao stupefied and hardly able ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... wait for the boy. The latter was true to his word, and his slight figure soon appeared rounding the corner. Without losing a moment we all three entered the subterranean passage, but the tide was still high, and we had to wait for the ebb. This came at length, and, clambering over the rocks, we entered the surf and waded as before. After an hour's toil we reached Punta Hornos, and a little beyond this point I was enabled to hail one of our own pickets, and to pass the lines ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid

... in a never-ending stream, into the brimming waters of the river at its foot, for deposit at the poor-houses, insane asylums, States' prisons, and suicides' graves, washed daily by that grim flood's ebb and flow—the every-day people, I am sure, will not take in the blackness of this transaction at this stage of my story, but before it is ended I will lay this and many more of an equally hellish nature before them in such A B C simplicity that all can read the portent as clearly as ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... kicking, bludgeoning, stamping the life out. He would do it, by Heaven, he would do it! The memory of what had happened came fierily back, and made the pressing darkness burn. His wrath was brimming on the edge, ready to burst, and he felt proudly that it would no longer ebb in fear. Whisky had killed fear, and left a hysterical madman, all the more dangerous because he was so weak. Let his father try it on now; he ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... the question of occupation. Occupation is for men a definite and isolated part of life, a thing important and absorbing in itself, quite apart from any motives or reasons. To do something, to make something, to produce something—that desire is always there, whatever ebb and flow of emotions there may be; it is an end in itself with men, and with many women it is not so; for women mostly regard work as a necessity, but not an interesting necessity. In a woman's occupation, there is ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson

... failed in its intended effect. It produced a lasting irritation in the mind of the Sultan, and a haughty arrogance on the part of Rama Raya, who conceived that the fortunes of his hereditary enemy must be at a very low ebb when he could condescend so far ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... told you the story of my whole life, which holds many other interesting details: but for that there would be needed time, courage and paper. There is plenty of paper, indeed, but my courage is at low ebb, and as to the time that is yet left me, it may be compared to the life of a candle-flame. Soon tomorrow's sun will rise—a demon sun as impenetrable as life itself. So goodbye, my dear sir; read this and bear me no ill will; pardon me those things that ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

... moon, which o'er the western line Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended, With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed To mingle. Now upon the jagged hills It rests; and still as the divided frame 650 Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet's blood, That ever beat in mystic sympathy With nature's ebb and flow, grew feebler still: And when two lessening points of light alone Gleamed through the darkness, the alternate gasp 655 Of his faint respiration scarce did stir The stagnate night:—till the minutest ray Was quenched, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... Rabbits themselves were the extreme case, millions in 1904, none at all in 1907. The present, then, was a year of low ebb. The first task was to determine whether this related to all mammalian life. Apparently not, because Deermice, Lynxes, Beaver, and Caribou were abundant. Yet these are not their maximum years; the accounts show them to have been so much ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton

... inmost memory's dwelling Where the light of life abides, Where the past finds tongue, foretelling Time that comes and grace that guides, Power that saves and sways, compelling Souls that ebb and flow like tides, Shone or seemed to shine and swim Through the cloud-surf great and grim, Thought's live surge, the soul of him By whose light ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... possible end. It is only in story-books writ for sentimental maids that the good who are weak defeat the wicked who are strong. We shattered many an assailant before the last stake was dared, but in the end they shattered my sword-arm, which left me helpless as a hull at ebb-tide. Then Godefroy, the craven rascal, must throw up his arms for surrender, which gave Le Borgne opening to bring down the butt of his ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... to be as senseless to the high principles on which America sprang, a nation, into life, as any Orson in her legislative halls. Who are no more capable of feeling, or of caring if they did feel, that by reducing their own country to the ebb of honest men's contempt, they put in hazard the rights of nations yet unborn, and very progress of the human race, than are the swine who wallow in their streets. Who think that crying out to other nations, old in their iniquity, 'We are no worse than you!' (No worse!) ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... to bankruptcy as the proportion of unemployed men in their ranks becomes greater, they are being petted and made much of by our class; an infallible sign that they are making no further progress in their duty of destroying us. The small capitalists are left stranded by the ebb; the big ones will follow the tide across the water, and rebuild their factories where steam power, water power, labor power, and transport are now cheaper than in England, where they used to be cheapest. The workers will ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... his circumstances as easy, with a moderate degree of business for his standing, and "the friendship of more than one person of consideration, efficiently disposed to aid his views in life." In short, he describes himself as "beyond all apprehension of want." He then notices the low ebb of poetry in Britain for the previous ten years; the fashionable but slender poetical reputation of Hayley, then in the wane; "the Bard of Memory slumbered on his laurels, and he of Hope had scarce begun to attract his share of public attention;" Cowper was dead, and had not left ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 571 - Volume 20, No. 571—Supplementary Number • Various

... the evening an abundant supply of pine-nuts, which we traded from them. When roasted, their pleasant flavor made them an agreeable addition to our now scanty store of provisions, which were reduced to a very low ebb. Our principal stock was in peas, which it is not necessary to say contain scarcely any nutriment. We had still a little flour left, some coffee, and a quantity of sugar, which I reserved as a defence ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... after eleven, to be exact; the month April; the day sunny, with a humming northerly wind; the tide drawing far out towards low-ebb, and the air so clear that the small figure standing on the edge of the ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... the Congregational Church at Abbeville. It was then at a very low ebb. He was also made Principal of the public school of the city. He has labored untiringly and with rare devotion and his success ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 54, No. 4, October, 1900 • Various

... herself, and was ready to think herself above this earth while she was in it: And what, inferred she to Mrs. Lovick, must be the state itself, the very aspirations after which have often cast a beamy light through the thickest darkness, and, when I have been at the lowest ebb, have dispelled the black clouds of despondency?—As I hope they soon will this ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson

... time. On the other hand, Pelvetia canaliculata, which marks the upper belt, is exposed for longer periods, and during neap tides may not be reached by the water for many days. Algae of more delicate texture than either Fucaceae or Laminariaceae also occur in the region exposed by the ebb of the tide, but these secure their exemption from desiccation either by retaining water in their meshes by capillary attraction, as in the case of Pilayella, or by growing among the tangles of the larger Fucaceae, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... {123e} That is, the ebb and influx of the tide represented the contrary aspects of his character, the mild and the impetuous, which are respectively described in the ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin

... gentles, will you never wait your turn?" he rumbled in a deep angry voice. "Can you not see that we are warping the Rose of Guienne into midstream for the ebb-tide? Is this a time to break in upon us? Your goods will go aboard in due season, I promise you; so ride back into the town and find such pleasure as you may, while I and my mates do our work without ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... drew the shawl closer. Her heart was as heavy as her head, her mind busy with retrospect and forecast, neither enlivening. The courage which had sustained her through almost four years of endeavour was at a singularly low ebb to-night. It had ebbed low at other times, but usually she had been able to summon it again by a mere act of the will, by a determination to be resolute, not to be downcast, never to allow herself so much as to imagine ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond



Words linked to "Ebb" :   ebb away, tide, flow, surround, wane, flowing, ebb out, beleaguer, recede, ebb off, diminution, ebb down, ebbtide



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