"Descent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... we want liberty.") Guitars played, and some danced. When the bombs began to come, one of the Trasteverini, those noble images of the old Roman race, redeemed her claim to that descent by seizing a bomb and extinguishing the match. She received a medal and a reward in money. A soldier did the same thing at Palazza Spada, where is the statue of Pompey, at whose base great Caesar fell. He ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... made crazy. Sus-pense', doubt, uncertainty. 3. Trav'ersed, passed over and examined. 5. As-cer-tained', made certain. 6. Sym'pa-thized, felt for. De-cliv'i-ty, descent of land. 7. Con-sul-ta'tion, a meeting of persons to advise together. 8. Land'scape, a portion of territory which the eye can see in a single view. 10. Pro-claimed', made known publicly. 11. Pro-ces'sion, a train of persons walking or riding. l3. Rep-re-sen-ta'tion, ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... created a little buzz of interest. The woman who formed the central figure of the little group had for two years known no rival either at Court or in Society. She was the most beautiful woman in England, beautiful too with all the subtle grace of her royal descent. There were women upon the stage whose faces might have borne comparison with hers, but there was not one who in a room would not have sunk into insignificance by her side. Her movements, her carriage were incomparable—the inherited ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... exquisite fern-like forms produced by the crystallization of a film of water on a cold window-pane.[15] You have also probably noticed the beautiful rosettes tied together by the crystallizing force during the descent of a snow-shower on a very calm day. The slopes and summits of the Alps are loaded in winter with these blossoms of the frost. They vary infinitely in detail of beauty, but the same angular magnitude is preserved throughout: an inflexible power binding spears and ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... expeditions was an attack on that power; and the attack proved singularly unsuccessful. Though Blake sailed to the Spanish coast, he failed to intercept the treasure fleet from America; and the second expedition, which made its way to the West Indies, was foiled in a descent on St. Domingo. It conquered Jamaica in May; but the conquest of this lesser island, important as it really was in breaking through the monopoly of the New World in the South which Spain had till now enjoyed, seemed ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... being sworn, deposed: He was a native of France, of Flemish descent, as could be seen from his name; he had known Braulard intimately; he also knew Prevol; he had been eighteen months in Australia, and for some time had been clerk to Mrs Villiers at Ballarat; he was fond of chemistry—yes; and had made several experiments ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... station, after my descent, I met a young man of the neighborhood. "Do you know why they call that Turkey Hill?" said I. "No, sir, I don't," he answered. I suggested that probably somebody had killed a wild turkey up there at some ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... upon either side were much debated. Mr. Weir must have supposed his bride to be somehow suitable; perhaps he belonged to that class of men who think a weak head the ornament of women - an opinion invariably punished in this life. Her descent and her estate were beyond question. Her wayfaring ancestors and her litigious father had done well by Jean. There was ready money and there were broad acres, ready to fall wholly to the husband, to lend dignity ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... more gradual and less precipitous descent, he fixes his eye on some distant point in the earth beneath him, and thither bends his course. He is still almost meteoric in his speed and boldness. You see his path down the heavens, straight as a line; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... childlike pleasure transfigured Uncle Israel's wizened old face. Trembling, he slipped down from the chair, falling over the bath cabinet in his descent, and tried the key in the lock. It fitted, and the ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... they found themselves in face of the problem of life and death; it is to the literature of the Assyrians. Among those tablets of terra-cotta from the library of Assurbanipal that are now preserved in the British Museum, George Smith discovered, in 1873, a mythological document in which the descent of Istar to the infernal regions in search of her lover Tammouz is recounted. Of this he gives a first translation, which is already out of date. Since his discovery was announced, the most learned Assyriologists have made a study of the document, and now even those among ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... he related that, after five years from the time of Captain Cook's departure (counting 63 moons) the people of the Island Eimeo joined with those of Attahooroo, a district of Otaheite, and made a descent on Oparre: that after some resistance by which many men were killed Tinah and his people fled to the mountains, leaving all their property to the mercy of the victorious party who destroyed almost everything which they found not convenient to take away with them. Some of the cattle were killed ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... Daniel Nikolas Chodowiecki, painter and engraver, of Polish descent, was born at Dantzic in 1726. For some years he was so popular an artist that few books were published in Prussia without plates or vignettes by him. The catalogue of his works is said to ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... of music, either vocal or instrumental, in the Scriptures, is made in Gen. iv. 21: "Jubal was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ." Jubal was only seventh in descent from Adam; and from this passage it is thought by some that he was the inventor of instrumental music. In the year B.C. 1739, in Gen. xxxi. 27, Laban says to Jacob, "Wherefore didst thou flee away from me, and didst not tell me, that I might have sent thee ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... this quaint mode of bilking a ghost, explains the special attachment of the grandfather to his grandchild by the rule of female descent which survives in Vanua-levu; and it is true that where exogamy prevails along with female descent, a child regularly belongs to the exogamous class of its grandfather and not of its father and hence may be regarded as more closely akin to the ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... then. I have some property there, and it lately came to my ears that this assembly of curs they call the Convention had determined to make an end of me. But before they could carry out their design, those sons of dogs, my tenants, incited by the choice examples set them by other tenantry, made a descent on my Chateau one night, and did themselves the pleasure of burning it to the ground. By a miracle I escaped with my life and lay hidden for three weeks in the house of an old peasant who had remained faithful. In that time I let my beard grow, ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... thought. Though the ordinary Spaniard of to-day speaks a Romance dialect, he is mainly of Celto-Iberian blood; and though most Mexicans and Peruvians speak Spanish, yet the great majority of them trace their descent back to the subjects of Montezuma and the Incas. Moreover, exactly as in Europe little ethnic islands of Breton and Basque stock have remained unaffected by the Romance flood, so in America there are large communities where the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... and rapid evaporation, which was taking place before the waters reached the bottom. Dense clouds of vapour rose for a considerable height, mingling with the atmosphere, and presenting in their descent the most brilliant rainbows. From the rocky sides of the immense basin hung shrubs and bushes, while numerous springs and tributary streams added their mite to the grand effect. The water at the bottom then rushed impetuously along a stony bed, over which hung various trees, ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... the front hinged back. There was a portrait within of a man, strikingly handsome and intelligent, but bearing unmistakable signs upon his features of his African descent. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... was not a roulette table in the Casino, but there was one conveniently adjacent thereto, managed by a clique of New York gamblers, which had both a single "and a double O," and, as appeared when the municipality made a descent upon the place, was ingeniously wired to throw the ball wherever the presiding coupier wanted it ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... in those little words, life and death. They are far higher, and far deeper, than ever thought or fancy of man has reached to. But, even on the first edge of either, at the visible beginnings of that infinite ascent or descent, there is surely something which may give us a foretaste of what is beyond. Even to us in this moral state, even to you advanced but so short a way on your very earthly journey, life and death have a meaning: ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... a rapidly increasing commercial value, shown by 1. Its demand for our goods. 2. The value of its agricultural products. 3. The value of the products of its fisheries. III. There is in the people a "fierce spirit of liberty." This is the result of 1. Their descent from Englishmen. 2. Their popular form of government. 3. Religion in the North. 4. The haughty spirit of the South. 5. Their education. 6. Their remoteness from the governing body. B. "You have before you the object." "What ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... forest wilds, and give To Sita robes and gems of price As for the time may well suffice." Quick to the treasure-room he went, Charged by that king most excellent, Brought the rich stores, and gave them all To Sita in the monarch's hall. The Maithil dame of high descent Received each robe and ornament, And tricked those limbs, whose lines foretold High destiny, with gems and gold. So well adorned, so fair to view, A glory through the hall she threw: So, when the Lord of Light upsprings, His radiance ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... desires! Let them set up a thing called society and worship it; let them lose themselves in the contemplation of objects whose beauty they can never appreciate save by counting the cost; let them disgrace the names their honest fathers bore, by striving to establish their descent from houses stained with crime and denied with blood; let them disown their fathers and spit in their mothers' faces,—but let them not call themselves free, nor give themselves the airs of men. They toss their foolish heads in scorn of all that a man holds truest and best. We can ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... the girl was taken on February 1, in what a company! The coach, or cab, was crammed full, some friends walked, several curious citizens rode, and, when Elizabeth arrived at the house, Nash, the butler, and other busybodies had made a descent on it. The officer with the warrant was already there. Lyon, Aldridge, and Hague were with Nash in a cab, and were met by others 'riding hard,' who had seized the people found at Mrs. Wells's. There was a rabble of persons on foot and on horse ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... first thing on entering all good Catholics enter, kneel and make their devotions, seeking the protection of the patron saint of the city. The head alcalder of the city was a Castilian Spaniard, a venerable-looking gentleman, white as any Northern man, evidently of Scandinavian descent, who ages back conquered Spain and divided the land up among themselves and became its nobility, from whom the present rulers of Spain are descendants. It is said that when conquered, the original inhabitants of Spain, to a great extent, fled to their vessels, put to sea, and found the island ...
— The Adventures of a Forty-niner • Daniel Knower
... stars have us to bed; Night draws the curtain, which the sun withdraws; Music and light attend our head; All things unto our flesh are kind In their descent and being; to our mind, ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... road—it was straight and level for another four hundred yards, then it disappeared, and he remembered it pitched sharply forward in a rough and twisting descent. Whatever he did must be done quickly—no horse ever foaled could carry its rider down that ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... swarming is begun. Count the leaders, every one Perfect as a perfect star Till the slow descent is done. Look beyond them, see how far Down the vistas dim and grey, Multitudes are on the way. Now a sudden brightness Dawns within the sombre day, Over fields of whiteness; And the sky is swiftly alive ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... hope of meeting Father O'Flynn. We miss our careless, genial, ragged, southern Paddy just a bit; for he was a picturesque, likable figure, on the whole, and easier to know than this Ulster Irishman, the product of a mixed descent. ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... had not allowed for the steep descent. One bullet stung the major in the thigh, the other so cruelly lacerated the horse of the gendarme on his right that it screamed, reared and fell sidewise with a crash into the brook. The man, although encumbered by his heavy boots, contrived to disengage himself ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... face to face—the self-made man and the girl who could trace her descent from a Norman baron. He was broad-built, grim, determined. She was ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... have thought either that Marbodius, or even Virgil, could have known the Etruscan tombs of Chiusi and Corneto, where, in fact, there are horrible and burlesque devils closely resembling those of Orcagna. Nevertheless, the authenticity of the "Descent of Marbodius into Hell" is indisputable. M. du Clos des Lunes has firmly established it. To doubt it would be to ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... of examining the servants' staircase again, he let himself out with a pass-key and began the descent. But so absorbed was he in his thoughts that unconsciously he went down one flight too many and found himself in the cellar of the building. Juve, following his custom of never neglecting to search even the most unsuspicious places, lit ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... back, to see why "Life and Habit" so missed its mark. Charles Darwin's presentation of the evolution theory had, for the first time, rendered it possible for a "sound naturalist" to accept the doctrine of common descent with divergence; and so given a real meaning to the term "natural relationship," which had forced itself upon the older naturalists, despite their belief in special and independent creations. The immediate ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... and talk about their recent career in South America. It seemed to them as though their romantic life in the woods, their encounters with wild beasts, their adventures and misadventures in Ecuador, their dangers and difficulties in crossing the Andes, and their tranquil descent of the Orinoco, were a confused yet vivid vision; and often, while pacing the deck together, or sitting on the bulwarks of the ship in the dreamy idleness of passenger-life at sea, did they comment upon the difficulty they ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... when they behold any attempt to manage a horse of any kind by means of the whip. It is the Arabian which, imported through Spain, or direct to England, has produced so much improvement in the European stock. An Arab mare of pure descent, had, by means of the Moors, found her way to the north western coast of Africa, where she was purchased by an English officer. At first I was a little disappointed in her appearance, for she was thin; but as her foal became independent of her, and learned to eat, she ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... reptiles are so generalised in character and so primitive in structure that they point back unmistakably to an Amphibian ancestry. The actual line of descent is obscure. When the reptiles first appear in the rocks, they are already divided into widely different groups, and must have been evolved some time before. Probably they started from some group or groups ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... paths of vice. In purchasing their papers at the newspaper offices, generally in cellars, they are subjected to many indignities and familiarities, which, at first resented, are gradually accepted as a matter of course. Once the descent is begun, the journey is completed by outsiders, until the girls become corrupt and unscrupulous, with a knowledge of the ways of the world that would ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... at seven P. M., on the nineteenth, and after a forced march during the night made a descent at daylight in the morning upon the Virginia Central Railroad at Beaver Dam Creek, twenty-five miles north of Hanover Junction and thirty-five miles from Richmond. They destroyed the railroad and telegraph line for several miles, burned the depot, ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... objection. One of the great and leading objections in my mind to this measure is, that it is one which goes to destroy that most invaluable principle of our existing constitution, the principle of prescription, which sanctions the descent and secures the possession of all kinds of ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... Notwithstanding his profound faith in the capabilities of the Charitable Chums, and his settled conviction that their immense body must embrace the elements of stability, his whole course is but one rapid descent down to the verge, and headlong over the precipice, of bankruptcy. The dismal announcement of 'no effects,' first breathed in dolorous confidence at the bedsides of the sick, soon takes wind. All the C.C.s in London are aghast and indignant at the news; and the 'Mother ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... an hour in this way, the whole party made a precipitate and tumultuous descent into a barn-yard belonging to a large farming establishment. Not a soul was in sight, all the hands being employed in the fields; but, as the barn stood conspicuously and plainly square across the road, it was evident that their journey in that direction had ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the creation, by the confusion, of fictive issues, hopeful of escaping somebody else's notice. It had reached the point, in truth, that the collective bosom might have been taken to heave with the knowledge of the descent upon adjacent shores, for a short period, of Mrs. Rance and the Lutches, still united, and still so divided, for conquest: the sense of the party showed at least, oddly enough, as favourable to the fancy of the quaint turn that some near "week-end" might derive from their reappearance. ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... disrupted. Three great bulbs were now drifting. The wind was carrying them out toward the bay. They were coming down in a long, smooth descent. The plane shot like a winged rocket at the fourth great, shining ball. To the watcher, aghast with sudden hope, it ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... travelled backwards against the machinery of Time that cheats the majority so easily with its convention of moving hands and ticking voice and bullying, staring visage. He slid swiftly down the long banister-descent of years and reached in a flash that old sombre Yorkshire kitchen, and stood, four-foot nothing, face smudged and fingers sticky, beside the big deal table with the dying embers in the grate upon his right. His ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... position; its easy communication with London, nay with the sea, by means of the Thames; while the London fortifications hindered pirates from ascending the stream, which all the time was so ready and convenient for a descent. ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... a mob approaching along the Rue St.-Honore quickly decided me on the course to pursue; I clambered up as best I could, not without considerable risk; nor was the danger and difficulty of the descent on the other side of this rude pyramid less imminent. The evening was more sultry than I ever experienced an evening to be, even in Italy; the houses were all closed, the streets deserted, except when a few occasional ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... parts of my person. Considering how short the step is from the sublime to the ridiculous, the length, or rather height, of that step from the car to the platform was out of all proportion; I looked upon it as an invention of the enemy, and stood hopelessly considering the impossibility of a descent without the aid of a pair ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... a few stags of the old descent left; and burrow-ducks and partridges love to live there, and it offers a resting place, in the spring and late summer, for thousands of migratory birds. Above all, it is the swampy eastern shore below the sheep meadow, where the migratory birds ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... irritably, and slid from the wall to the ground regardless of the rough loose stones she scattered in her descent. "Ye'll foind me ready to pay when ye send in yer bill, Pat," she called out as she ran down ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... and thus we find a simple village on the edge of the heather, with picturesque stone cottages and pretty gardens, free from companionship with the painfully ugly modern stone house, with its thin slate roof. The big house of the village stands on the very edge of the descent, surrounded by high trees ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... were no houses there; only a few rabbits tamely playing in the outskirts of the coverts. A jay screamed in the clump of trees at the hill-top; it seemed the proper kind of voice for a waste like that. Still further on, I sat down to rest at the brink of the great descent, which led, as I guessed, as I could almost see, to the plain where Taunton lay, waiting for the Duke's army to garrison her. There were thick woods to my right at this point, making cover so dense that no hounds would have tried to break through it, no matter how strong a scent ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... but I will not omit to hazard an idea for the consideration of GLYWYSYDD. Marlborough has changed its armorial bearings several times; but the present coat, containing a white bull, was granted by Harvey, Clarenceux in A.D. 1565. Cromwell was attached to Cowbridge and its cow by family {307} descent; so he was to Marlborough by congeniality of sentiment with the burghers. Query, Whether, in affection to the latter, he granted to the town a new coat, some such as the following: Gules, a bull passant argent, armed ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854 • Various
... [1] The descent and the attack of the eagle symbolize the rejection of Christianity and the persecution of the ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri
... from which we have quoted points out the relevancy, to the question at issue, of the principle of degeneration and gradual decay in historical organisms or institutions. "Our scientists who bother themselves and others about the descent of man have favored with a keen interest the Bushmen of Australia and other types of savage humanity, with receding skulls, flat noses, thin legs, little or no clothing, and not much of morals or religion. ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... and respectfully inquired the wishes of his passengers. Would they remain here, if there were rooms to be had, and take a boat in the morning to make the famous descent of the Tarn, while the car went on to meet them at Le Rosier, at the end of the Gorge? Or would they, in spite of the ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... conception of an English party. Not a single Prime Minister has claimed the confidence of the country on the ground that his colleagues were, or were not, English, Scottish, or Irish. That a Premier should glory in his pure Scottish descent is an innovation; it is an innovation ominous of revolution; it betrays a spirit of disintegration. If at the moment it flatters Scottish pride, Scotchmen and Irishmen would do well to recollect that it is a certain presage of a time when some Englishman will rise to power and obtain popular ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... heap of wedged blocks of blind granite. But just beyond the damp shadow of it, the new Embankment is reached by a flight of stairs, which are, in point of fact, the principal approach to it, a-foot, from central London; the descent from the very midst of the metropolis of England to the banks of the chief river of England; and for this approach, living designers ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... Hierapolis-Kastabala (Budrum); and on the coast were Soli-Pompeiopolis, Mallus (Kara-tash), Aegae (Ayash), Issus, Baiae (Piyas) and Alexandria ad Issum (Alexandretta). The great highway from the west, on its long rough descent from the Anatolian plateau to Tarsus, ran through a narrow pass between walls of rock called the Cilician Gate, Ghulek Boghaz. After crossing the low hills east of the Pyramus it passed through a masonry (Cilician) gate, Demir Kapu, and entered the plain ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... the ease with which the other made the descent. "It would be wiser to leave the cellar by the window," ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... then bade me go cut an armful of the tallest of the reeds that grew there near the shore, whilst he pulled up another where he then was, and bring them to him. The side of the river sloped for a good way with an easy descent, so that it was very shallow where the reeds grew, and they stood very close together upon a large compass of ground. I had no sooner entered the reeds a few yards, to cut some of the longest, but (being about knee-deep in the water and mud, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... a fortnight of his death, various accounts were given as to his birth, parentage, and early history. The general opinion seemed to be that his father had been a noted coiner in New York,—an Irishman of the name of Melmody,— and, in one memoir, the probability of the descent was argued from Melmotte's skill in forgery. But Marie, though she was thus isolated, and now altogether separated from the lords and duchesses who a few weeks since had been interested in her career, was the undoubted owner of the money,—a fact ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... is, the full and immediate possession by the survivor, if either of the sons died without issue. It was a favorite idea, almost a sacred principle, in those days, to have lands go in the natural descent. The sentiment is quite apparent in the tenor of the Governor's will. When he deprived, by his deed to John in 1662, Zerubabel's family of the right to the final possession of the Bishop farm, it can hardly ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... way of avoiding cake and embarrassing crumbs. Mrs. Bannister addressed him as Herbert, and I knew at once that he was Edward Herbert Talcott, whose name I had often seen in my paper-reading task. His claim to distinction was descent from the man whose name he bore, a member of the cabinet of one of our early presidents. A dead statesman in a family is always a valuable asset, and the longer dead the better. Statesmen, like wines, must be hidden away in vaults long years to be properly ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... was to be a still deeper descent. After the publication of "Camilla" Madame D'Arblay resided ten years at Paris. During these years there was scarcely any intercourse between France and England. It was with difficulty that a short letter could occasionally be transmitted. All Madame D'Arblay's companions ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... man. "I will shoot one for you," said the young man. He strung his bow, placed an arrow on the string, simply seemed to raise the arrow in the direction of the chicken (taking no aim). Twang went out the bow, zip went the arrow and a chicken fell off the limb, only to get caught on another in its descent. "There is your chicken, grandfather." "Oh, my grandson, I am too weak to climb up and get it. Can't you climb up and get it for me?" The young man, pitying the old fellow, proceeded to climb the tree, when the old man stopped him, saying: "Grandson, you have on such fine clothes, ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... bitterness and disgust. They went on again, and well down the springlike coils of the descent of Martigny they came upon the body of a man—one of those wandering vendors of pocket-knives and key-rings, scissors and cheap watches. He lay on his back on a low bank by the roadside. His hat had rolled ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... passed, the fields, hitherto flat, declined in a rapid descent. Evidently a vale lay below, through which you could hear the water run. One light glimmered in the depth. For ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... have been physically and morally ruined as he was. Once yielding a little to immoral influence gives the first impetus to a downward tendency. Continue to repeat it, and the inertia becomes stronger, and the descent more easy. ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... perhaps thousands of suggestions, made in the notes (in a proper spirit, I hope,) I should be greatly surprised to find that I had miscarried in none. For your correspondent's information, I beg to state, that I am not an Irishman either by birth or descent; and that I have never had the good fortune to pay a visit to that country. Were I inclined to follow his example in making remarks upon the "ominousness" of names, I might perhaps retaliate ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various
... The pioneer stage-coach was sweeping down the long descent to the pastoral valley of Gilead, and I was looking towards the village with some pardonable interest and anxiety. For I carried in my pocket my letters of promotion from the box seat of the coach—where I had performed the functions of treasure messenger ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... while the furious de Toledo waited, with eleven warships, in the Straits of Magellan. Why, indeed, should not the Germans imitate, in the twentieth century, the deeds of Drake in the sixteenth? If they preyed ruthlessly upon English merchantmen, laden with the wealth of the West, if they made a descent upon the Falkland Islands, if then they were to disappear into the wide Pacific, a career of splendid adventure and of unbounded usefulness would earn for them both the respect and the plaudits of the world. Australian ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... my sleeve between his teeth, began to pull back, strongly. It was very evident that he did not want me to go. Yet, having made up my mind, I had no intention of giving up the attempt; and, with a sharp word to Pepper, to release me, I continued my descent, leaving the poor old fellow at the top, barking and ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... was a great shout from those who had landed from the canoes in time to witness this brave act. The shout was caught up by the others, who, when they saw Sam's unceremonious descent from the tree, began to descend more slowly, and were in good time to see ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... on land or water. I looked out of my lofty parlor window far up Fifth Avenue's long vista of mansions and palaces to where the sunlight glittered on the tender verdancy of Central Park. A trickle of cabs and carriages headed southward already had begun the descent to Wall Street. Almost the first call over the telephone came from Mr. Rogers, asking for the morning's news. I told him there was not a cloud on our sky, not a single breeze but blew from the right quarter to fill our sails. "And what were my movements?" To stick ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... amiable, but weak-minded wife, I had kept up an intimacy that in time ripened into genuine friendship. On every Sunday night, and sometimes oftener, I took supper with them, and discussed with Mrs. Strong the important questions of our descent from the lost Tribes and whether or no the lupus from which she suffered was the result ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... fortitude if not absolute cheerfulness, and our hope is that though the position here may not seem a very glorious one, it will be recognised henceforth as an example of the way in which British soldiers and colonists of British descent can bear themselves in circumstances that try the best qualities of men ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... I want to—wow!" he finished, and lost no time in his descent, which was meteoric. "That feller'll kill somebody if he ain't careful!" he complained as Pete tied his hands behind ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... ease, idleness, extravagance, self-indulgence, pomp, pride, arrogance, in short the whole enumeration, the moral sine qua non, as some people considered it, of the wealthy slaveholder of aristocratic descent and tastes. ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... to Clarisse Mergy, showing her the Masher's letter. "That name, Sebastiani, at once reminded me that d'Albufex is of Corsican descent. There was ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... there is no difficulty about the massing. The difficulty lies in the reason. Three thousand square miles or so of mountain cannot be so dangerous. One would think that the whole Afghan nation was meditating a descent on the Amu Daria." He glanced up at his companion, and the two men saw the same anxiety ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... and bad—even to Catharine Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus, of romantic memory. In the high clear air above, it chills one to think of the death silence down there in the crypt; but when you enter the church again after the long descent, and feel once more the quick change of atmosphere by which a blind man could tell that he was in Saint Peter's, you feel also the spell of the place and its ancient enchantment; you do not regret the high view you left above, and the dead under ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... to anguished heart and maddened brain Are long decades of woe and pain. Over, again, on the wings of thought, Treading the path which her ruin wrought; Over again each step she went, From the sunny home to the swift descent, Where sin lies hidden 'neath a gilded pile, Down to the haunts of the low and vile. One more step and it all is done. Only a shriek the midnight breaks— Only a splash in the waves below, A wider ripple the water ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... and yet, if we like to look sympathetically, they live before us. Now, this good woman, about whom we never hear again, and for whom these few words are all her epitaph—was apparently, judging by her name, of Persian descent, and possibly had been brought to Rome as a slave. At all events, finding herself there, she had somehow or other become connected with the Church in that city, and had there distinguished herself by continuous and faithful Christian toil which had won ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... capable of making such a sacrifice, Don Pedro?' said I. 'I am, Father Anselmo,' replied he: 'I will always act as a man of honour and of family, although I cannot prove my descent.' ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... untempered by envy. If he had only been a dog! The dog passed in the man's arms, and, with a whine of ecstasy, insisted upon licking his ear. They went on their way, the dog wondering between licks what sort of table the man kept, and the man speculating idly as to a descent which appeared to have included, among other ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... youthful appearance for a man of his age, went with a fine stalwart physique and a general bodily conformation apparently in keeping with the ideas of early rising, cold ablutions and breakfasts of oatmeal porridge that the ingenuous mind is apt to associate with Scotch descent and bringing-up. His daughter was a very beautiful girl. Born in the shadow of the pines, she had been educated successively in Edinburgh, Brussels and Munich, had been presented at Court, been through two London seasons, spent half of one winter in South America, ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... the right to vote, and since our opponents desire the right of suffrage mainly for the purpose of saddling the yoke of prohibition on our necks, we should oppose it with all our might.... We most earnestly urge our friends of German speech and German descent not to permit business or other considerations to prevent them from going to the polls and casting their ballots ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... condition of individual freedom and development—viz. the highest possible standard of living. But this absurdity becomes really critical and dangerous, in view of the fact that the American people, particularly those of alien birth and descent, have been explicitly promised economic freedom and prosperity. The promise was made on the strength of what was believed to be an inexhaustible store of natural opportunities; and it will have to be kept even when those natural resources are no longer to be had for the asking. It is entirely ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... the dead bodies that lay on the wreck; but I adhered to my purpose. The lighter was moved about twenty feet eastward, and the bell was again swung round to be let down, it being resolved that I should accompany the divers in their next descent. I watched the operations with an interest derived from my expected position in the same circumstances with these fearless men. The huge mass hung in the air, dangling over the smooth surface of the sea; and the signal being given, was plunged down. In a moment it had disappeared, and ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... course of writing I became more and more convinced that no progress could be made towards a sounder view of the theory of descent until people came to understand what the late Mr. Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection amounted to, and how it was that it ever came to be propounded. Until the mindless theory of Charles Darwinian natural selection was finally discredited, and a mindful ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... essays the features of Hazlitt's personality may be plainly recognized, and these reveal a triple ancestry. He claims descent from Montaigne by virtue of his original observation of humanity with its entire accumulation of custom and prejudice; he is akin to Rousseau in a high-strung susceptibility to emotions, sentiments, and ideas; and he is tinged with a cynicism to which there is no ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... The descent of the human race from a tree—however whimsical such a notion may seem—was a belief once received as sober fact, and even now-a-days can be traced amongst the traditions of many races.[1] This primitive idea of man's creation probably originated in the ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... of 2100 feet on a well-devised series of zigzags, eight of which in one place could be seen one below another. The forest there is not so dense as usual, and the lower mountain slopes are sprinkled with noble Spanish chestnuts. The descent was steep and slippery, the horse had tender feet, and, after stumbling badly, eventually came down, and I went over his head, to the great distress of the kindly female mago. The straw shoes tied with wisps round the pasterns are a great nuisance. The "shoe strings" ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... the Redeemer's Headship in its legitimate application, and is the source of many of the evils that in our day corrupt and degrade the Church of England, and that prevent the developement and prevalence of genuine Protestantism throughout the nation. The Presbyterian Churches that claim descent from the covenanting reformers and martyrs, should seriously consider whether they do not compromise a faithful testimony, and encourage national apostacy, by incorporating with a civil system that refuses homage to the reigning ...
— The Life of James Renwick • Thomas Houston
... distance, I saw “puss” gradually approaching me. In a hilly country like the Downs, a hare, from the great length and propelling power of her hind legs, gains considerably upon the pack in running up hill, and loses ground in a descent. The hare in question had just descended a steep Down side, the hounds gaining rapidly upon her. It was what may be termed “a squeak” for her life, when, in the “dean” below, {67} she reached, just in time, ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... external position of the male sexual glands in certain mammals? The utility of the modification, when accomplished, is problematical enough, and no less so the incipient stages of the descent. ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... them. To one in doubt about the matter it will be helpful, I think, to compare this story with the best of those for which one or other of the apocryphal gospels is our only authority—say the grand account of the Descent into Hell in ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... whale, being the first, was seen near the ships. It is usual for these animals to descend head foremost, displaying the broad fork of their enormous tail above the surface of the water; but, on this occasion, the ice was so close as not to admit of this mode of descent, and the fish went down tail foremost, to the great amusement of our ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... front, and the wheels, the heifer and the boy, went very hastily to the foot of the hill. Part of the time the wheels were off the ground, some of the time it was the heifer, but it seemed to me it was the boy who filled air space the greater portion of the period consumed in the descent. This mishap created great consternation not only among the representatives of Uncle Sam, but among the people who had just left the boat. It was my first encounter with the United States Army and I ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... Nontland, and it was bounded on the north by the Celestial Mountains; on the south by the red brick wall, where the big pears grew; on the west by the Rose of Sharon tree; and on the east by the pig-sty. That last sounds something of a descent, but it wasn't really a pig-sty, and I can't think why it was called so, for, to my knowledge, it had never harboured anything but two innocent white Russian rabbits with pink eyes. It was situated at the foot of the kitchen-garden, next ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... government. In creating this imaginary city, let us give it about eight thousand inhabitants, and suppose that it is of small area, and that the inhabitants are chiefly operatives in a number of large shoe factories, of American descent, though foreign-born citizens and their offspring are beginning to gain on the others. And further, let us suppose that this imaginary city of Wytown now has a city government with a mayor of limited powers, a small board of aldermen, and a larger city council. The other necessary facts will appear ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... Vere de Vere, From yon blue heavens above us bent, The gardener Adam and his wife Smile at the claims of long descent. Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 'Tis only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... she is of French descent; and she speaks the language like a native born Francaise; however, her mother was purely American, and her father never spoke a word of French in all his life. She has acquired it by mingling, no doubt, ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... not by any means all kings, as you might think from their name; yet among them were many chiefs of royal descent. These, although they had neither subjects nor kingdoms over which to rule, no sooner stepped on board a viking's boat to take command of the crew, than they were ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... Still 'Therese' contains many passages of charming melody and grace, though it will certainly not rank among the composer's masterpieces, Massenet is one of the most interesting of modern French musicians. On the one hand, he traces his musical descent from Gounod, whose sensuous charm he has inherited to the full; on the other he has proved himself more susceptible to the influence of Wagner than any other French composer of his generation. The combination is extremely piquant, and it says much for Massenet's ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... done, for the skripter commands it, and our frail nature demands wat cant be got without it. We don't like to do it, but shel skripter be violated? Not at all. The nigger must do it hisself, not ez a slave, for slavery is abolished, but ez a free man. Ethiopean citizens uv Amerikin descent (wich is mulatters), and full-blooded blacks, and all hevin in the veins a taint uv Afrikin blood, must be restrained gently, and for their own good, I suggest laws ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... in her affections with Krishna, Rukmini, an imperious woman, and tells by what artifices she has conquered the weak husband. Then follows a spirited dialogue between the two women. The rival boasts of her descent from Vishnu, and of her beauty and animation, and reproaches Krishna with his unworthy love. Sir Modava wrote this down in his memorandum book, and handed it to ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... vastly. The gale, which was tumbling the clouds down the arch of the sky and toward the east, was more mighty than ever, but he put his head down to it confidently and began the descent. ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... to be handed down from father to son. The creditors rather favored this state of things, as the debt drew interest. As long as there were plenty of slaves, their ultimate payment was secure whenever they chose to press for it. If the money was not then forthcoming, their redress was certain—a descent followed of that brutal intermediary, "the nigger dealer," loathed and dreaded alike by master and servant. A sufficient amount of the human property was speedily secured and driven off for sale to satisfy the creditor. To the slave, torn from ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... him Caius Volusenus with a ship of war, to acquire a knowledge of these particulars before he in person should make a descent into the island, as he was convinced that this was a judicious measure. He commissioned him to thoroughly examine into all matters, and then return to him as soon as possible. He himself proceeds to the Morini with all his forces. He orders ships from all parts of the neighbouring countries, and ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... husband's. She was the daughter of a small tradesman, and had begun life as a lady's-maid: her husband was nothing but a labourer; his people had been labourers for generations, consequently her marriage to him had involved a considerable descent in the social scale. Hearing this, it was hard to repress ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... I'm Simon Pure Middle West! And I glory in it! I'd hate to be of New England descent—you have to live up to traditions and things! I'm a law unto myself, when it comes to life ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... trace their descent to the early immigration that founded the colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay. Some were connected with the Cavalier and Church families of Virginia. Others were of the blood of persecuted Huguenots ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... about as many more in breadth, covered perpetually with very deep snow, and in the midst of that a great lake of unfathomable depth, from whence a river takes its rise, and tumbles over monstrous rocks quite down the other side of the mountain. The descent is six miles more, but infinitely more steep than the going up; and here the men perfectly fly down with you, stepping from stone to stone with incredible swiftness, in places where none but they could ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... of the 27th we visited the hot springs of La Trinchera, three leagues from Valencia. The ravine is very large, and the descent almost continual from the banks of the lake to the sea-coast. La Trinchera takes its name from some fortifications of earth, thrown up in 1677 by the French buccaneers, who sacked the town of Valencia. The hot springs (and this is a remarkable geological fact,) do not issue ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... was celebrated by the games of the circus; but, early on the morning of the third day, Julian marched to occupy the narrow pass of Succi, in the defiles of Mount Haemus; which, almost in the midway between Sirmium and Constantinople, separates the provinces of Thrace and Dacia, by an abrupt descent towards the former, and a gentle declivity on the side of the latter. The defence of this important post was intrusted to the brave Nevitta; who, as well as the generals of the Italian division, successfully executed the plan of the march and junction which ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Satan, in the guise of the serpent, approached her, and the fruit of their union was Cain, the ancestor of all the impious generations that were rebellious toward God, and rose up against Him. Cain's descent from Satan, who is the angel Samael, was revealed in his seraphic appearance. At his birth, the exclamation was wrung from Eve, "I have gotten a man through an ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... sill had evidently been disturbed, seeming to make good the Englishman's story, but, from the window, was a clear drop of four hundred feet of naked rock, without even a crack to afford a finger-hold, while the precipitous descent fell another fifteen hundred feet. To climb ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... Orgagna, whose compositions are so full of energetic life and human passion, to these careful, gentle miniatures upon an expanded scale. The Fra was a miniatore, after all,—a manuscript illuminator of the first class. His effort to represent a descent from the cross in a large and dramatic manner is feeble and flat. This flight seems beyond his strength; and his waxy little wings, which sustained him so well within his own sphere, melted at once ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... of these dialogues, in which genius made gallant bursts into the air, and strong, hard sense caught him on his descent, and dabbed glue on ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... Mr. Darwin's DESCENT OF MAN has been in print five or six years, and the storm of indignation raised by it was still raging in pulpits and periodicals. In tracing the genesis of the human race back to its sources, Mr. Darwin had left Adam out altogether. We had monkeys, and "missing links," and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... is native depravity, is inborn corruption. This we know both from Revelation, and observation. But we also know, from the same infallible Revelation, that though man is born a sinner from the sinful Adam, he was created a saint in the holy Adam. By origin he is holy, and by descent he is sinful; because there has intervened, between his creation and his birth, that "offence of one man whereby all men were made sinners" (Rom. v. 18, 19). Though we cannot unravel the whole mystery of this subject, yet if we accept the revealed fact, and concede that God did originally ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... mainsail. Then I took hold of Bowditch's Navigator, which I had always with me. I had been through the greater part of it, and now went carefully through it, from beginning to end working out most of the examples. That done, and there being no signs of the Pilgrim, I made a descent upon old Schmidt, and borrowed and read all the books there were upon the beach. Such a dearth was there of these latter articles, that anything, even a little child's story-book, or the half of a shipping calendar, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... immediately to where the emperor is accustomed to take his place and seated himself on the royal throne from which the emperor was always accustomed to view the equestrian and athletic contests. And from the palace Mundus went out through the gate which, from the circling descent, has been given the name of the Snail. Belisarius meanwhile began at first to go straight up toward Hypatius himself and the royal throne, and when he came to the adjoining structure where there has been a guard of soldiers from of old, he cried out ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... most affable—Van Tassel Cuyp with the automatic nervous snicker that deepened the furrows from nostril to mouth, a tall stoop-shouldered man of scant forty with the high colour, long, nervous nose, and dull eye of Dutch descent; and Colonel Augustus Magnelius Pietrus Vetchen, scion of an illustrious line whose ancestors had been colonial governors and judges before the British flag floated from the New Amsterdam fort. His daughter was the celebrated ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... Menyn, and taking the other himself; he then unlocked a massive door. A flight of steps leading apparently to a cellar were visible. He led the way down, the two men following, and the boys bringing up the rear. The descent was far deeper than they had expected, and when they reached the bottom they found themselves in a vast arched cellar filled with barrels. From this they proceeded into another, and ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... interspersed with lawns; and streams, diverted from the river Isar, traverse the grounds swiftly in various directions, the water of which, stained with the clay of the soil it has corroded in its descent from the upper country, is frequently of ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... lad flung the jacket as far as he could and watched its descent with interest. The others were not long in ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... has got a cigar, "tooling" up and down the streets, turning in at a cafe, or buying a peach, and doing "schneeze" with the "Flams." He does a little French now and then with people in the streets. I got into the Cathedral just in time to see the glorious Descent from the Cross, and (which I admire less) the Elevation ditto by Rubens. I must tell you this morning I went to high mass in the Cathedral. In fact I heard two masses and a sermon in Flemish. It was wonderful. A very intelligent-looking old priest in surplice ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden |
