"Descending" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of importance. Most of the officers are unmarried, and live a very quiet, and secluded, but not unpleasant life. I stayed there two days, much pleased with the society and the kindness shown to me; but an opportunity of descending the Wisconsin to Prairie du Chien, in a keel-boat, having presented itself, I availed myself of an invitation to join the party, instead of proceeding by land to Galena, as had been ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... swelling with vulgar pompousness, "to see that you recognize the rights of property and the claims of vested interests. And we trust," he added, "that Labour has learned a lesson it will not soon forget." Then he sat down with the majesty of a balloon descending. ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... Burgomaster Meyer," in the Grand Ducal Castle, Darmstadt. It is true that the same pyramid is given by the head of the Madonna against the shell-like background, and her spreading cloak which envelops the kneeling donors. But still more salient is the diamond form given by the descending rows of these worshiping figures, especially against the dark background of the Madonna's dress. A second example, without the pyramid backing, is found in Rubens's "Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus," in the Alte Pinakothek at Munich. Here the diamond shape formed by the horses and ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... matter of observation that when the operations of the different kinds of vital air—such as pra/n/a the ascending vital air, apana the descending vital air, &c.—are suspended, in consequence of the breath being held so that they exist in their causes merely, the only effect which continues to be accomplished is life, while all other effects, such as the bending and stretching of the limbs and so on, are stopped. When, thereupon, the vital ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... close about him. For the Count and Countess of Croisac, who adore his memory, hastened to give him in death what he most had desired in the last of his life. And with them all things are well, for a man, too, may be born again, and without descending into ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... of trees placed under them to serve as rollers, they are drawn as far as the place where the river again becomes navigable. This operation is seldom necessary when the water is high. We cannot speak of the cataracts of the Orinoco without recalling to mind the manner heretofore employed for descending the cataracts of the Nile, of which Seneca has left us a description probably more poetical than accurate. I shall cite the passage, which traces with fidelity what may be seen every day at Atures, Maypures, and in some pongos of the Amazon. "Two men embark ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... no reply, and the pair had enough to do afterwards in descending the well-wooded, almost perpendicular bank to where the little river ran bubbling and ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... establishment; but when I asked him the name of the hill with the singular peak, on the other side of the valley, he shook his head and said he did not know. Near the top of the hill I came to a village consisting of a few cottages and a shabby-looking church. A rivulet descending from some crags to the east crosses the road, which leads through the place, and tumbling down the valley, joins the Ystwyth at the bottom. Seeing a woman standing at the door, I inquired the name ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... difficulty in finding a purchaser, a speculator who drove a hard bargain, but paid cash down for the Fair Maid, with a view to a profitable resale. Thus it came about that Captain Whalley found himself on a certain afternoon descending the steps of one of the most important post-offices of the East with a slip of bluish paper in his hand. This was the receipt of a registered letter enclosing a draft for two hundred pounds, and addressed to Melbourne. Captain Whalley pushed the paper into his waistcoat-pocket, took ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... Descending the cone Benita went to find her father, to whom as yet she had said nothing of her plans. The opportunity was good, for she knew that he would be alone. As it chanced, on that afternoon Meyer had gone down the hill ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... thickly covered with trees of all sorts and vines. This plain produces sesame plentifully, as also panic and millet and barley and wheat; and it is shut in on all sides by a steep and lofty wall of mountains from sea to sea. Descending through this plain country, he advanced four stages—twenty-five parasangs—to Tarsus, a large and prosperous city of Cilicia. Here stood the palace of Syennesis, the king of the country; and through the middle of the city flows a river called the Cydnus, two hundred feet broad. They ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... present encampment. Akaitcho accompanied them, but previous to setting off he renewed his charge that we should be on our guard against the bears, which was occasioned by the hunters having fired at one this morning as they were descending a rapid in their canoe. As their small canoes would only carry five persons, two of the hunters had to walk in turns ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... the iron gates and started toward the train slowing to a stop, and the Harvester pushed. As they came down the platform they passed the dining and sleeping cars of the long train and were several times delayed by descending passengers. Just opposite the day coach the expressman narrowly missed running into several women leading small children and stopped abruptly. A toppling box threatened the head of the Harvester. He peered around the truck and saw they must wait a few seconds. He put ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... prey— the fingers of the other she inserted into the jagged and gaping wound on his head, and forced the flesh still more asunder, exerting all her strength to force him on his back; but the bayonet was still in her throat, and with the point descending towards the body, and Smallbones forced and forced it down, till it was buried to the hilt. In a few seconds the old hag loosed her hold, quivered, and fell back dead; and the lad was so exhausted with the struggle, and his ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... want a shilling tomorrow, who will give it us? Will OUR butchers give us mutton-chops? will OUR laundresses clothe us in clean linen?—not a bone or a rag. Standing as we do (may it be ever so) somewhat removed from want,[*] is there one of us who does not shudder at the thought of descending into the lists to combat with it, and expect anything but to be utterly crushed ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of flow may be distinguished. The UPPER ZONE OF FLOW extends from the ground-water surface downward through the waste mantle and any permeable rocks on which the mantle rests, as far as the first impermeable layer, where the descending movement of the water is stopped. The DEEP ZONES OF FLOW occupy any pervious rocks which may be found below the impervious layer which lies nearest to the surface. The upper zone is a vast sheet of water saturating the soil and rocks ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... the staircase, it was built outside, against one of the sides of the house, and the footsteps of his servants in ascending or descending thus reached Des Esseintes ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... hath put on his jacket, and around His burning bosom buttoned it with stars. Here will I lay me on the velvet grass, That is like padding to earth's meager ribs, And hold communion with the things about me. Ah me! how lovely is the golden braid That binds the skirt of night's descending robe! The thin leaves, quivering on their silken threads, Do make a music like to rustling satin, As the light breezes smooth ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... his, held it a little longer than was necessary for an ordinary farewell, then raised it to his lips and kissed it. She did not at once release him. "Good-bye," she said. He had moved a little farther from her, and was descending the step, but the hands still held. One more "good-bye," and they slowly parted their grasp, as things part under a strain which are not in simple contact, ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... Lord Rayleigh took the matter up, not feeling satisfied with these explanations, and repeated the experiment very carefully. He noted several new points, and hit on the capital idea of seeing what a cold body did. From the cold body the descending current was just as dark and dust-free as from a warm body. Combustion and evaporation explanations suffered their death-blow. But he was unable to suggest any other explanation in their room, and so the phenomenon remained curious ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various
... and saw two girls apparently in their "upper teens," dressed more suitably for an afternoon tea than a rustic outing. The latter were descending the wooded hill-shore, and had just emerged from a thick arboreal growth into a comparatively clear area a ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... for a bath, a shave, and a fair complement of clothes. He longed also to go up the hatchway for a breath of air, and was considering the possibility of doing this later, with a blanket and darkness for a shield, when he became conscious of a pair of neatly trousered legs descending the ladder. It was quite a different performance from the catlike climbing up and ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... transpires the rest of the liquid at the summity and tops of the branches into the atmosphere, and leaving some of the less refined matter in a viscid hony-dew, or other exsudations, (often perceived on the leaves and blossoms,) anon descending and joining again with what they meet, repeat this course in perpetual circulation: Add to this, that from hence those regions and places crowded with numerous and thick standing forest-trees and woods, (which hinder the necessary evolition of this superfluous moisture, ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... of the King coming after many days of travel to Sidono perceived the garden valley. By the lake they saw the poppy garden gleaming round and small like a sunrise over water on a misty morning seen by some shepherd from the hills. And descending the bare mountain for three days they came to the gaunt pines, and ever between the tall trunks came the glare of the poppies that shone from the garden valley. For a whole day they travelled through the pines. That night a cold wind came up the garden valley crying ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... of flame quivered all around them, just as this black figure was descending into the gig; and then the fierce hell of sounds broke loose once more. Sea and sky together seemed to shudder at the wild uproar, and far away the sounds went thundering through the hollow night. How could one hear if there was any sobbing in that departing boat, or any last cry of farewell? It ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... little bridge Descending at a small hotel; Princess Volupine arrived, They were together, and ...
— Poems • T. S. [Thomas Stearns] Eliot
... in the midst of the excitement, descending upon them in a hurricane of frost. His rimed brows turned to cataracts as he whirled about; his mustache, still frozen, seemed gemmed with diamonds and turned the light in varicolored rays; while ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... and Cancuc, telling us that such attacks might be expected at any time, but particularly in the early morning and in the dusk of evening. What indians we met were most gentle, and answered our salutations with apparent kindness. After a long journey on the high, smooth road, we finally began descending into a pretty valley, and soon saw the great town of Tenejapa, below us, on a space almost as level as a floor, neatly laid out, and still decked with the arches erected for a recent fiesta. The agente of the town had been warned of our coming, by telephone from the jefatura, and received ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... little loss on our side, the enemy firing too high. What annoyed the soldiers more than anything else was the continual dropping of shells in our works or behind them. We could hear the report of the mortars, and by watching overhead we could see the shell descending, and no one could tell exactly where it was going to strike and no chance for dodging. As every old soldier knows, card playing was the national vice, if vice it could be called, and almost all participated in it, but ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... dipping toward the Carnadine Hills they returned over a trail which came into the main Quaretaro road at a point where the northern highway begins its descent to the lower mesa level. Half-way down the descending gulch they came to the mouth of a small lateral canyon breaking into the larger gorge from the eastward; a canyon dry for the greater part of the year, but in the rainy season affording an outlet for the flood-waters of ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... noon of the day following the decree of the regent, which fixed the value of actions upon a descending scale, the news, after a fashion of its own, spread rapidly abroad, and all too swiftly the truth was generally known. The story started in a rumor that shares had been offered and declined at a price which had been current but ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... named? In search of what strange land, From what huge height descending? Can such force Of water issue from a ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Bernardo that the royal pair Would straightway visit him, and celebrate Their gladness at his daughter's happier state, Which they were fain to see. Soon came the king On horseback, with his barons, heralding The advent of the queen in courtly state; And all, descending at the garden gate, Streamed with their feathers, velvet, and brocade, Through the pleached alleys, till they, pausing, made A lake of splendor 'mid the aloes gray; When, meekly facing all their proud array, The white-robed Lisa with her parents stood, As some white ...
— How Lisa Loved the King • George Eliot
... such talk succeeded silence still more sweet,—the silence of the hushed and overflowing heart. The last voices of the birds, the sun slowly sinking in the west, the fragrance of descending dews, filled them with that deep and mysterious sympathy which exists between ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ask where he might find a bowl of water to relieve himself of some of the stains of travel. Before he had finished the sentence, however, his attention was arrested by the sound of a distant footstep. He listened; it came nearer, and in a minute was descending the black staircase in the corner. Paul watched, and saw the figure of an old man as it turned an angle in the stairs. Then it stopped, and coughed lightly as if to announce ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... ten of your best men and have them report at the forward exit. Await me, with the men, at that place. I shall be with you as soon as I turn the command over to Mr. Barry. We are descending immediately." ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... rage the hostile powers restrain, All but the ruthless monarch of the main. But now the god, remote, a heavenly guest, In AEthiopia graced the genial feast (A race divided, whom with sloping rays The rising and descending sun surveys); There on the world's extremest verge revered With hecatombs and prayer in pomp preferr'd, Distant he lay: while in the bright abodes Of high Olympus, Jove convened the gods: The assembly thus the sire supreme address'd, AEgysthus' fate revolving in his breast, Whom young Orestes ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... a famous rate, but its song consists almost entirely of its note zeet, zeet, which it hashes up in all sorts of ways, lengthening and shortening—now a crotchet, then a semiquaver, rising an octave or so, and then descending again. It makes as much of it as can be made, but with all its efforts its song is a very so-so affair, all its syllables beginning with z, and almost ending with it too. Yet, although it is not much of a songster, it is almost ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... east to the sea. Observe how widely it spreads itself out, and then see how well it is watered. One great river flows through it in its whole extent, and this is fed by streams almost unnumbered, descending towards it on either side, from the Alps on the one side, and from the Apennines on the other. Who can wonder that this large and rich and well-watered plain should be filled with flourishing cities, or that it should have been contended for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... said to have risen to the occasion. "Hullo, Dick!" he said, descending the ladder and ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... but, before he could fire, by a dexterous movement of my cane, I struck it from his hand. Drawing instantly a large knife, he rushed on me. The knife was descending—in another instant I should have 'tasted Southern steel,' had not Frank caught his arm, wrenched the weapon from his grasp, and with the fury of an aroused tiger, sprung on him and borne him to the ground. Planting his knee firmly ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... a minute proceed to their fledgelings. Should a blackbird come at full speed across the meadow and stay on a hedge-top, and then go down into the mound, it is certain that his nest is there. If a thrush frequents a tree, flying up into the branches for a minute and then descending into the underwood, most likely ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... authority that is to be exerted. It shall be exerted as mildly as you permit. It shall be exerted as inexorably as the necessities of the case demand I have told you already many times into what a pitfall you were descending, but until last night I never dared to warn your husband. He knows the truth now, knows it all, and he leaves you in my hands. You have not heeded advice or beseeching, and—I say it, believe me, with deep reluctance—we ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... enjoy felicity in heaven for the period measured by the sum of their virtuous actions, and when this has expired have to descend again to earth to suffer the agonies of human life. When a shooting star is seen they think it is the soul of one of these descending to be born again on earth. They both burn and bury their dead according to their means. After a body is buried they make a fire over the grave and place an empty pot on it. Mourning is observed for twelve days in the case of a married and for seven in the case of an unmarried ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... glass from the window of Mr. Lincoln's private office. Entering the public room of the hotel, he inquired of a man there whether he was the proprietor, and being answered in the negative, he took one private with him, and ran up-stairs. Going out on the roof, Ellsworth secured the flag, and as he was descending, James William Jackson, the proprietor of the hotel, came from his room, armed with a double-barreled shot-gun. "I have the first prize," said Ellsworth, to which Jackson responded, "And I the second," at the same ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... as moral perfection. Yes! Be sure that beauty is a legitimate means of grace; and I will venture to suggest that you who have it should use it as such." Here he was interrupted by applause. "True beauty, I mean, of course," he added, descending from the rostrum, as it were, and speaking colloquially—"not the fashionable travesty ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Susan, descending the stairs to the library to get a book, heard Ruth say into the telephone in her sweetest voice, "Yes—tomorrow evening, Arthur. Some others are coming—the Wrights. You'd have to talk to Lottie . . . I don't blame you. . ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... the glass he saw his wife descending the broad stairs. She was small and fragile. In her youth she had had a delicate pink and gold beauty. The years had worn away the pink and the gold but had left a spirituality that seemed ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... little in the gully down which he and his snow had come. Over against him another wall of rock reared itself against the sky. The gorge between these precipices ran east and west and was full of the morning sunlight, which lit to the westward the mass of fallen mountain that closed the descending gorge. Below him it seemed there was a precipice equally steep, but behind the snow in the gully he found a sort of chimney-cleft dripping with snow-water, down which a desperate man might venture. He found it easier than ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... do you mean?" asked the lady descending a step or two, a vision of marcelled white hair, violet and lace negligee, and well preserved features, "You've got them there? ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... was descending the hilly road behind Poussette's at four o'clock in the afternoon, when he discerned a new arrival at the wharf, and as the tourist season was over, the boat only making a few occasional trips, he was curious concerning the lady who, showily if neither ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... finished their sightseeing, and prepared to descend. Herbert's companion waited till the sound of their descending steps died away, and then, turning to Herbert, said in a quick, stern tone: "Now give me the money ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... mill, but that could never have been done in time, and the dear dog was on the point of being sucked in by the ruthless stream, moaning and looking appealingly to us for help, when, behold! that superb figure, like some divinity descending, was with us, and with one brief inquiry he was in the water. We called out to him that the current was frightfully strong—we knew a man's life ought not to be perilled; but he just smiled, took up the great pole that lay near, and waded in. I cannot describe ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the "sail-broad vans" with which Satan laboured, through the surging abyss of chaos could suffice to lift those Titanic forms from earth, and sustain them in mid-air. The group of angels over the "Last Judgment," flinging their mighty limbs about, and those that surround the descending figure of Christ in the "Conversion of St. Paul," may be referred to here as characteristic examples. The angels, blowing their trumpets, puff and strain like so many troopers. Surely this is not angelic: there may be power— great, imaginative, and artistic power—exhibited ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... the same loud voice, he unhesitatingly stepped from behind his concealment and began walking toward the one that had used him as a target. Ned accepted this proceeding as a proffer of good will, and although he was not quite satisfied, yet he began descending the tree, so as to be on the ground to meet him. He had barely time to acquaint Jo and Rosa Minturn with what had occurred, when the stranger appeared at the base of the tree and seemed not a little surprised to meet another young man ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... archduke; and if the archduke came to the throne of Austria, then to the Duke of Savoy. There also the union of the crowns was provided against. The policy of all this was obvious. The artifice consisted in the omission of the House of Orleans. For the Duke of Orleans, descending from Anne of Austria, was nearer than the archduke Charles. At the same time he was farther removed from the throne of France than the Duke of Anjou, less likely, therefore, to alarm the Powers. It might be hoped that he would be near enough to Lewis to secure the preservation of the ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... repeated from post to post, and occasionally the notes of a trumpet, mingling with the strains of the orchestra, penetrated into their midst. Still farther down, in front of the facade, dark masses obscured the rays of light which proceeded from the windows of the New Palace. These were boats descending the course of a river, whose waters, faintly illumined by a few lamps, washed the lower portion of ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... and sometimes dragging about mere useless and befouled odds and ends, like the torn shreds which lie among the decaying kitchen refuse, the broken tiles and plaster, the nameless filth and ooze which attracts the flies under every black archway, in every steep bricked lane descending precipitously between the high old houses. Old palaces, almost strongholds, and which are still inhabited by those too poor to pull them down and build some plastered bandbox instead; poems and prose tales written or told five hundred years ago, edited and re-edited ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... The rain was descending in torrents, but she passed swiftly out into its deluge walking as rapidly as she could. She thought she cared nothing about the rain, but it dashed in her face and eyes, taking her breath away, and she had need of breath when ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... lately have I seen e'en here, The winter in a lovely dress appear; Ere yet the clouds let fall the treasured snow, Or winds begun through hazy skies to blow. At evening a keen eastern breeze arose; And the descending rain unsullied froze. Soon as the silent shades of night withdrew, The ruddy morn disclosed at once to view The face of nature in a rich disguise, And brightened every object to my eyes. For every shrub, and every blade of grass, And every pointed thorn, seemed ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... platform lamp. He read the report of the meeting in which he was interested: a Frenchman had made a new record in altitude; an Englishman had won a fine race, coming in first of ten competitors; a terrible accident had befallen a well-known airman at the moment of descending. The most interesting piece of news was that a Frenchman had maintained for three hours an average speed of a ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... the armed forces. It is vitalized and personified in the commander, the human directing head, both of the whole and of organized groupings in descending scale of importance. Its responsibility, during peace, is the perfection of the armed forces to the point of readiness for war and, during the conflict, their ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College
... under Temple Bar his eye caught a portly gentleman stepping out of a public cab with a bundle of papers in his hand, and immediately disappearing through that well-known archway which Morley was on the point of reaching. The gentleman indeed was still in sight, descending the way, when Morley entered, who observed him drop a letter. Morley hailed him, but in vain; and fearing the stranger might disappear in one of the many inextricable courts, and so lose his letter, he ran forward, picked ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... few days after the great snow, as Miss Abigail was dusting the chronometer in the ball, she beheld Captain Nutter slowly descending the staircase, with a long clay pipe in his mouth. Miss Abigail could hardly credit her ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... above the stone-walled house that he escaped from the jabber of the crowd and the jeers of the younger members of this savage tribe, who, noting something abnormal in the fashion of the stranger's clothes, followed him a space. On descending the farther slope, however, he found himself alone in the silence of the waste. Choosing without hesitation one of two tracks, ill-trodden, but such as in that district and at that period passed for roads, he took his way along ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... mind which the American public cannot regard as topics for laughter. With these few exceptions nothing is too high or too low for it. The paragraphers joke about the wheel-barrow, the hen, the mule, the mother-in-law, the President of the United States. There is no ascending or descending scale of importance. Any of the topics can raise a laugh. If one examines a collection of American parodies, one will find that the happy national talent for fun-making finds full scope in the parody and burlesque ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... to the banisters and listened to the patter of her little feet descending the stairs to the street. Then he went back into the studio and drew the curtains. Thank God, her heart ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... afterwards;" for at that moment the thread again became tight, and Eric, refreshed with his rest, and hearty for his journey, stepped out bravely. He saw, at some distance, and beyond an open glade in the forest, a rapid river towards which he was descending. When near the river, he perceived something struggling in the water, and then heard a loud cry or scream for help, as if from one drowning. He was almost tempted to run off to his assistance without his thread, but he felt thankful that the ...
— The Gold Thread - A Story for the Young • Norman MacLeod
... is over Balmoral, and they seem to be descending and doing manoeuvres over the house. I suppose they are going to look at it closer; but they won't be allowed in to-day, for Sykes is suspicious of a bird even. We really might be in Russia, to judge by the state of siege we ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... 2-4, before us the description of a sublime theophany, not for a partial judgment upon Judah, but for a judgment upon the whole world, the people of which are called upon to gather around their judge—whom the prophet beholds as already approaching, descending from His glorious habitation in heaven, accompanied by the insignia of His power, the precursors of the judgment—and silently to wait for ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... my own country, fresh and variegated; the high peaks beyond were grey from distance, and the sides of the nearer mountains were marked with many a winding track, down one of which a shepherd and his sheep were descending, looking like a moving pathway. No noise disturbed the silence but the distant barking of the shepherd's dog (as he, like a busy marshal, kept the order of his procession unbroken) mixing with the faint murmuring ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... sleeping, I mounted on deck at about 5 A.M.... I wish I could send you a sketch of that gloomy hill at the foot of which Victoria lies, as it loomed sullenly in the dusky morning, its crest wreathed with clouds, and its cheeks wrinkled by white lines that marked the track of the descending torrents. It was still blowing and raining as hard as ever, but I took my two hours' exercise notwithstanding, clad in Mackintosh. Frederick and Oliphant, who went on shore the day before yesterday to dine with Sir J. ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... his son descending the steps of the house where he boarded. Bonbright could not have evaded his father if he would. He stopped and waited for ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... unbroken. This can only be accomplished by accurate surveys, and by a great mutiplication of the points of meteorological registry, [Footnote: The general law of tempeture is that it decreases as we ascend. But in hilly areas the law is reversed in cold, still weather, the cold air descending, by reason of its greater gravity, into the valleys. If there be wind enough however, to produce a disturbance and intermixture of higher and lower atmospheric strata, this exception to the general law does not take place. These facts have long been familiar to the common people ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... ascended in a railroad something like our Tamalpais cars to the peak. To reach the very top, cozy wicker chairs, mounted on bamboo poles, carried by two coolies, are necessary. The movement of the chair while descending reminds one of a ride on a ...
— The Log of the Empire State • Geneve L.A. Shaffer
... bestowed, eminent barristers not only led their circuits in stuff; but, after holding office as legal advisers to the crown and wearing silk gowns whilst they so acted with their political friends, they sometimes resumed their stuff gowns and places 'outside the bar,' on descending from official eminence. When Charles York in 1763 resigned the post of Attorney General, he returned to his old place in court without the bar, clad in the black bombazine of an ordinary barrister, whereas ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... eleven o'clock, we saw a great number of people descending the hill, which is over the beach, in a kind of procession, each man carrying a sugar-cane or two on his shoulders, and bread-fruit, taro, and plantains in his hand. They were preceded by two drummers; who, when they came to the water-side, sat down by a white flag, and began to beat ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... Beneath the pulpit on ordinary occasions stood the Communion-table; but on evenings when the rite of baptism was prepared, this table, and a boarding on which it stood, were removed, revealing a tiled baptistry,—that is, a tiled tank, about eight feet long, and six wide, with steps on each side descending into ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... the front room. Here the blood spot stood out dark and forbidding in the light of the afternoon sun. Beyond the fact that the shot had taken effect, it told nothing. Morgan stood in thought with his eyes resting upon the brick fireplace. Suddenly the descending sun threw its rays farther into the room and rested on a bright spot at the side of the fireplace. It looked odd to Morgan and he approached it. What he found was a flattened bullet, which had been held in place by slightly embedding itself in the rough surface of the brick. As evidence ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... old-fashioned build, standing at bow and stern so high out of the water, that unless they happened to be lying side by side so that I could pass from one to another amidships—which was the case but seldom—I had almost as much climbing up and down among them as though I had been a monkey mounting and descending a ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... said, "if you are in want, I will lend, nay, give you five dollars, out of a spirit of humanity; but I trust you will not jeopardize your liberty by descending to robbery." ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger
... and early morning are fine dispellers of care; and once on the uplands we trotted gaily forward, now passing through wide glades in the sparse oak forest, where the trees all leaned one way, now over bare, wind-swept downs; or once and again descending into a chalky bottom, where the stream bubbled through deep beds of fern, and a ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... here split, one branch descending the hill, while the main thread wound on past the front of the main building. Ruth and Helen scrambled ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson
... which in the morning was male, to represent the essentially masculine spirit, the upwardness and onwardness of opening day, has now become female in its quality of brooding evening. In fact, this same figure, which the sculptor shows in the Palace of Fine Arts, is there called by him "Descending Night." ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... cylinder a piston, pointed with ivory or lignum vitae wood, works up and down from a spring worked by a lever. Round the upper edge of the cylinder is fastened a canvas bag, into which the powdery dynamite is placed by means of a wooden scoop, and the descending piston forces the dynamite down the cylinder and out of the open end, where the compressed dynamite can be broken off at convenient lengths. The whole machine should be made of gun-metal, and should be upright against ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... was leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on the narrow pavement below. It was quite spotless in its cleanliness. The old-fashioned brass knocker on the low-arched door, ornamented with carved garlands of fruits and flowers, twinkled like a star; the two stone steps descending to the door were as white as if they had been covered with fair linen; and all the angles and corners, and carvings and mouldings, and quaint little panes of glass, and quainter little windows, though ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... been removed; but there were still some thirty feet of the facing on the lower terrace partly in position. But all showed the ravages of time and earthquakes, and were covered with accumulated soil, grass, and shrubbery. Conway and myself, in descending the hill, had our attention attracted by a direct line of shrubbery running from the summit to the base of the hill, on the western side, to the cocoanut grove below. Upon examination, we found it to be the remains of a stairway, evidently of hewn stone, that had led from the foot of ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... minute, and left me still descending, six inches at a time, and looking neither above nor below, but always at the grey wall that seem'd sliding up in front of me. The first dizziness was over, but a horrible aching of the arms had taken the place of it. 'Twas growing intolerable, when ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... descending behind the groves when Evelyn stirred, and began to speak. I arose to my feet; she still lay with one side of her face upon the nurse's bosom—that side, when she stirred her head a little, was warm and flushed; the other cheek ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... stronger position. Nothing daunted, our men brought up their guns and prepared to repeat their success. The Boers resisted fiercely, but were eventually driven back to a third line of defence. Night was rapidly descending, but this notwithstanding, the Light Horse were ordered to complete their victory. It was in this last rush that their daring leader was struck down. The third position was actually taken; but the disappearance of the light rather handicapped the gunners. The enemy was re-inforced, ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... painting, opposite my bed. Suddenly a dazzling flash seemed to penetrate the darkness surrounding me, and through the silence of the room there resounded a voice that I had never heard before—the voice of my child. And at the sound of that voice I saw the angels descending from the painting and approaching my bedside in order to kiss me, and the Mother of God bent over me with a heavenly smile, exclaiming: 'Blessed is the wife who is a mother!' My consciousness left me—I believe my ineffable happiness made ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... scant hour the clumsy boat, rolling and bumping against the side of the brig, was laden with bales of clothing, tubs whose hoops John Alden, a cooper by trade, was hurriedly overlooking, and sundry great brass and copper kettles, household necessities of that epoch, and descending as relics to us who look upon them with respectful wonder as memorial brasses of the "giants ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... One hears the Vesubie roaring far below, but the river is invisible—it is dark even at midday. The great cliffs are unbroken by a tree or a pathway. This is the Col du Dragon, a great height. In descending one passes through a long tunnel cut in the rock, and that is half-way. At St. Jean de la Riviere you will find yourselves in the valley of the Vesubie. Here, again, one mounts continually by the side of the river. The road is a dangerous one, for there are ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... more, but there was just then a laugh and a patter of feet on the path above, and, looking up, he saw two of Mrs. Acton's guests descending the bluff. ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... the trembling earth. Anon, the heavens were rent with lightning, which nothing could have quenched but the descending deluge. Cataracts poured down from the lowering firmament. For an instant, the horses dashed madly forward; beast and rider blinded and stifled by the gushing rain, and gasping for breath. Shelter was nowhere. ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... could be heard descending the stairs. A hand moved the knob, and both men watched the brass handle turn. Then the door opened wide, and Madame Bondel stopped and looked to see who was there before she entered. She looked, blushed, trembled, retreated a step, then stood motionless, her cheeks ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... room shut him from sight and sound, except the faint rumor of his descending feet upon ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... she was left to her own musings. She could hardly realize the change in her circumstances. The carriage rolling fast and smoothly on the two gentlemen opposite to her, one her father! the strange, varied, beautiful scenes they were flitting by the long shadows made by the descending sun the cool evening air Ellen, leaning back in the wide easy seat, felt as if she were in a dream. It was singularly pleasant; she could not help but enjoy it all very much; and yet it seemed to her as if she were caught in a net from which she ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... it here, would be uselessly to encumber the work. Of the quality of this production it would be difficult for criticism to speak candidly, without adverting to the present miserable state of dramatic poetry in England, which from the days of Sam Foote has been gradually descending to its present deplorable condition. The body of dramatic writers of the last thirty years first corrupted the public taste, and now thrive by that corruption. By hasty sketches, not of Nature as she appears in all times and places, but of particular ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... well go a little higher, he mounted the spiral instead of descending, the dry elm twigs brought in by the jackdaws which made the untenanted corners their home crackling ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... crown'd Truth to dwell in: I will believe thee, And make my senses credit thy relation To points that seem impossible; for thou look'st Like one I loved indeed. What were thy friends? Didst thou not say, when I did push thee back — Which was when I perceived thee — that thou earnest From good descending? ...
— Pericles Prince of Tyre • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... her avarice, and her envious soul; He left Minerva's land, and up the sky On wafting pinions mounted. There his sire, Him from th' assembly drew; nor yet disclos'd, The object of his love:—"Son, quickly haste,— "Thou faithful messenger of my commands, "Urge rapid thy descending flight, and seek "The realm whose northern bounds thy mother star "O'erlooks,—the land by natives Sidon call'd. "There wilt thou pasturing find the royal herd, "'Neath hills not distant from the sea: turn down ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... conditions and circumstances of our life at Borth, we have somewhat anticipated the narrative of events. But it was a plan agreeable to the facts of the case, that narrative should pass into description at the point where the stream of our little history, after descending the rapid of alarms and difficulties, abrupt resolves and swift action, fell quietly again into the smooth channel of a new routine. Not that the story of the succeeding months was really uneventful. If our readers suppose that from this point onward ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... their minds to be poisoned, by offering them the draught, and then punish them by law for taking it. Does not the wide world afford a variety of materials sufficient for virtuous imitation, without descending to that which is vicious? It is much easier to make a pail of pure water foul, than it is to make a pail of foul water pure. It must not be supposed that I wish to sweep off every kind of amusement from the juvenile part of society, ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... tavern, standing out with its comfortable, cream-colored face broadside to the street. It is represented in the old engraving with a coach-and-four drawn up before the door, surrounded by a crowd of spectators and passengers, some descending and ascending on ladders over the forward wheels; some looking with admiration at the scarlet coats of the pursy and consequential driver and guard; some exchanging greetings, others farewell salutations; ostlers in long waistcoats, plush or fustian shorts, and yellow leggings, standing bareheaded ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... heard, as we turned to go, a pattering footfall on the floor—just before us. We went through the other attics (in all, four), the footfall still preceding us. Nothing to be seen—nothing but the footfall heard. I had the letters in my hand; just as I was descending the stairs I distinctly felt my wrist seized, and a faint, soft effort made to draw the letters from my clasp. I only held them the more tightly, and ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... that there is precious little of "der stille" to be found either in ordinary domestic life, or that refuge of the desperate, a garret in Bloomsbury. Picture to yourself Orpheus executing frenzied violin obbligati to the family baby (teething)—or Apollo hastily descending the slopes of Olympus to argue with a tax collector, or irate landlady! Alas! few survive this sort of thing. What I would propose is a Grand National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Genius—including a National Asylum for its reception ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... thought that robs death of its sting and makes the separation of friends endurable. If your departed friend needs not your prayers, they are not lost, but, like the rain absorbed by the sun, and descending again in fruitful showers on our fields, they will be gathered by the Sun of justice, and will fall in refreshing showers of grace upon your head: "Cast thy bread upon the running waters; for, after a long time, thou shalt find ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... animals know well enough," he added, "when and where to guard themselves: they need no master to tell them that. [10] I myself, when I was a little lad, I knew by instinct how to shield myself from the blow I saw descending: if I had nothing else, I had my two fists, and used them with all my force against my foe: no one taught me how to do it, on the contrary they beat me if they saw me clench my fists. And a knife, I remember, I never could resist: I clutched the thing whenever I caught sight of it: not a soul ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... principal thing to be seen in all Majorca. Their descriptions of the place, however, did not inspire me with any very lively desire to undertake a two days' journey for the purpose of crawling on my belly through a long hole, and then descending a shaky rope-ladder for a hundred feet or more. When one has performed these feats, they said, he finds himself in an immense hall, supported by stalactitic pillars, the marvels of which cannot be described. Had the scenery of the eastern ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... was effected. We are told of the strong east wind and the wall of waters. At the point near Suez a shoal extends quite across the sea. For several days this wind had borne back the shallow waters, descending as it did from the rugged mountain-slopes, and opening or sweeping back the deep as it were. Then the tide came, thrust forward in accumulated volume, until it made a real wall of waters that stood up in a huge crested, angry foam. It ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... they were clambering were so uneven that sometimes the young girl was mounting one at the same moment that Reddy was descending from another. Her reply, half muffled in her shawl, was delivered over his head. "Oh, because pa says most of the men here don't give their real names—they don't care to be known afterward. Ashamed ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... of, i. 690; desertion of, by Colonel Enos, with his whole division—unparalleled hardships endured by the troops of, i. 692; encampment of, on the eastern shore of Lake Megantic, i. 693; destruction of vessels of, while descending the Chaudiere—message of, to Montgomery, carried by young Aaron Burr, i. 694; joined at Sertignan by Norridgewock Indians, i. 695; friendly reception of, by the habitans of the valley of the Chaudiere—approach of, known in Quebec through Indian treachery—fears excited ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... silent, and they walked on, descending from the cliffs and following a path across the wide lawn-like fields, darkened by enormous heaps of ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... while we wait and long for home, it shall be ours to raise Our songs and chants and vows and prayers in that dear country's praise; And from these Babylonian streams to lift our weary eyes, And view the city that we love descending from the skies. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Grant received a pair of large roan horses from his farm in Missouri. He invited me to take one of the horses and join him in a ride on the saddle. I declined the invitation. I was then invited to take a seat with him in an open wagon. When we were descending a slight declivity one of the horses laid his weight on the pole and broke it, although the parts did not separate. General Grant placed his foot upon the wheel, thus making a brake and saving us from a disaster. General Grant's faculties ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... occasion, they stumbled and fell very often; the ice being so hard that the sharp-headed nails in their shoes could not penetrate. Having reached the top of this mountain, from whence there is no prospect but of other rocks and mountains, we prepared for descending on the other side by the Leze, which is an occasional sledge made of two pieces of wood, carried up by the Coulants for this purpose. I did not much relish this kind of carriage, especially as the mountain was very steep, and covered with such a thick fog ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... of the blind is quick," he replied; "and as I sat waiting in the stage this morning I heard myself denounced as a 'blind old Hunks,' a selfish dog, who had won the handsomest girl in the country. Then, as we were descending to this ravine you remember we stopped at the foot of some stairs while you removed a brier from your dress, and from a group near by I heard the whispered words, 'There they come—the old blind man, who bought his ward with money and gratitude. 'Twas a horrid sacrifice! ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... a trap fashioned somewhat on the order of the turkey cage mentioned by Toby. It was built of stout canes, carried all the way from the pond, and with the corner joints spliced with cord. Then a descending roadway was carefully dug out, and brought up inside the cage. A trigger was arranged, to be sprung should the monkey, in following the roadway, enter the cage, and which would release a little door that, falling into place, would shut the opening, and at the same time ring ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... abroad took place. The Fezandie young men were as much abroad as might be, and yet figured to me—largely by the upsetting force of that confidence, all but physically exercised—as the finest, handsomest, knowingest creatures; so that when I met them of an afternoon descending the Champs-Elysees with fine long strides and in the costume of the period, for which we can always refer to contemporary numbers of "Punch," the fact that I was for the most part walking sedately either with my ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... the edge of the big level after a time, and filed through a narrow pass that led upward to a table-land. Again, after a time, they took a descending trail, which brought them down upon a big plain of grassland that extended many miles in all directions. Fringing the plain on the north was a range of hills that swept back to the mountains that guarded the neck of ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... participating in this more of her father than of her mother, who was of an inferior alloy, plausible, or, as the French hath it, more DEBONAIRE and affable: virtues which might well suit with majesty, and which, descending as hereditary to the daughter, did render her of a sweeter temper, and endeared her more to the love and liking of the people, who gave her the name and fame of a most ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... prepared to sustain his own weight. This done, the bee- hunter dropped on the ground, crawling away out of the light; though the brow of the hill almost immediately formed a screen to conceal his person from all near the hut. In another instant he had regained his rifle, and was descending swiftly toward the ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... strolling together in one of the flowery lanes up the hillside, between ranks of the omnipresent poplar, and rose-bush hedges, or crumbling pink-stuccoed walls that dripped with cyclamen and snapdragon, met old Marietta descending, with a basket ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... been thankful for even a more unpromising house of entertainment than this one. It was all shut up for the night, with not a sign of life to be seen, so the tyrant applied himself diligently to pounding on the door with his big fists, until the sound of footsteps within, descending the stairs, showed that he had succeeded in rousing somebody. A ray of light shone through the cracks in the rickety old door, then it was cautiously opened just a little, and an aged, withered crone, striving to protect the flame of her flaring candle ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... 1755. W. Murray.' In one of the Parl. Debates of 1742 Johnson makes Pitt say that 'it is probable that we shall detect bribery descending through a long subordination of wretches combined against the public happiness, from the prime minister surrounded by peers and officers of state to the exciseman dictating politics amidst a company of mechanics ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... not bring herself to do so. Standing so high in his esteem as she did, and conscious that he was thoroughly happy in his appreciation of her feminine merit, she could not make him miserable by descending from her pedestal to the telling of a story, which was disgraceful in that it had ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... nature is "buxom, blithe and debonair," qualities which affect the physique and result in heartiness of aspect and a comely plumpness. An arch damsel is etymologically akin to an archbishop, both descending from the Greek prefix {archi}, from {arche}, a beginning, first cause. Shakespeare uses ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... desk. Mr. Alleyne began a tirade of abuse, saying that two letters were missing. The man answered that he knew nothing about them, that he had made a faithful copy. The tirade continued: it was so bitter and violent that the man could hardly restrain his fist from descending upon the head ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... of itself, would have given him immortality as one of the great artists of the world. He lived to see the utter wreck of Roman liberties, and was ultimately executed by order of Antonius, in revenge for those bitter philippics which the orator had launched against him before the descending sun of his political glory had finally disappeared in the gloom ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... the first of April, and Julius Barrett, aged fourteen, perched on his father's gatepost, watched ruefully the low descending sun, and counted that day lost. He had not succeeded in "fooling" a single person, although he had tried repeatedly. One and all, old and young, of his intended victims had been too wary for Julius. Hence, Julius was disgusted and ready for anything in the ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery |
