"Sinking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... before continuing. Again the rotary movement with various dips of the edge of the big pan to let the waste material pass away. Small pebbles showed themselves and had to be picked out, the heavier material sinking in the natural order of things, to ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... ground-swell that was rolling in to the land of course greatly retarded the rowers. Every moment the launch plunged almost bows under into the hollow of the sea, then rising again suddenly as the waves passed under her keel, her stern sinking down level with the surface at the same time and her prow being high in the air. I thought it somewhat dangerous at first, but dad and the other men took it so coolly that I was soon reassured ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the fourth century! He who sat in Caesar's palace looked out upon a dying empire. The old race was worn out with war and wine and wealth and luxury. Civilization seemed about to perish, and society was fast sinking back into barbarism. To the north of the Alps were the forest children, ruddy and robust, with their glorious youth full upon them. These young giants needed the dying language and literature and religion, and these great institutions needed their young, fresh blood. But between lay the granite ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... thoughtful night. The night in silence under many a star, The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know, And the soul turning to thee, O vast and well-veil'd Death, And the body gratefully nestling close to thee. Over the tree-tops I float thee a song, Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies wide, Over the dense-packed cities all, and the teeming wharves, and ways, I float this carol with joy, with ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... the soft turf I sat silently thinking, Of days when dear brother was by; While slowly and surely the bright sun was sinking, Far down in the ...
— Our Gift • Teachers of the School Street Universalist Sunday School, Boston
... time now they could hear the hoofs of the two teams sinking into and pulling out of mud. It grew deeper as they descended the long grade toward the bridge and clouds obscured ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... and then Mr. Cockerel, who, to do him justice, is perfectly good-natured, remarks that she had better wait till she has been ashore and seen the improvements. Mamma rejoins that she sees them from here, the improvements, and that they give her a sinking of the heart. (This little exchange of ideas is carried on through me; they have never spoken to each other.) Mr. Cockerel, as I say, is extremely good-natured, and he carries out what I have heard said about the men in America being very considerate of the women. They evidently listen to ...
— The Point of View • Henry James
... cruising vessel, which was lost in the Atlantic two years afterwards. The widow was left in affluence, but reverses of various kinds had befallen her: a bank broke; an investment failed; she went into a small business and became insolvent; then she entered into service, sinking lower and lower, from housekeeper down to maid-of-all-work,—never long retaining a place, though nothing decided against her character was ever alleged. She was considered sober, honest, and peculiarly quiet in her ways; still nothing prospered with ...
— Haunted and the Haunters • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... little room without more words, his firm, even tread sounding down the uncarpeted stairs until the door of his own studio was heard to close after him. Mrs. Greyson stood before her clay wondering, and then, sinking into a chair, sat so long absorbed in thought that the short daylight faded about her and she was forced to give up further work that day. Replacing the wet cloth with which her bas-relief had been covered, she prepared to return home. As she ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... "I can only say," she observed, sinking into a chair and picking up her book, "that such goings on were never heard ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... serial, "The Eagle's Eye," written and produced with the intention of exposing the plots formed in the United States by agents of the Imperial German Government, the first episode was called "The Hidden Death," and showed on the screen exactly how, in all probability, the sinking of the Lusitania was brought about by Count von Bernstorff and his various agents. The actual advertisement placed in New York City newspapers by the German Embassy at Washington, warning all travelers that they sailed on steamers belonging ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... particularly considered by him. Though, as I have said, he was fully convinced of the folly of those notions which he had formerly entertained, yet he did not, as most of those braves do, go from one degree of extravagance to the other, that is, from daring everything to sinking into the meanest cowardice, for Hawes went to his death very composedly, as he had received the Sacrament the day before, with all the outward marks of devotion. He suffered on the 22nd day of September, 1721, at which time he was scarce twenty ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... (to which he owed his sudden chance of engagement)—dynamite in cases and blasting powder in barrels—taken on board, main hatch battened for sea, cook restored to his functions in the galley, anchor fished and the tug ahead, rounding the South Foreland, and with the sun sinking clear and red down the purple vista of the channel, he went on the poop, on duty, it is true, but with time to take the first freer breath in the busy day of departure. The pilot was still on board, who gave him first a silent glance, and then passed an insignificant ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... boat!" said Wilson, his voice sinking into an inarticulate whisper. "And me with mail, and passengers, and freight to leave from Plaquemine to St. Louis! Have my ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... Beneath the rushing trade-wind? Or to him, Who by some noisome harbour of the East, Watches swart arms roll down the precious bales, Spoils of the tropic forests; year by year Amid the din of heathen voices, groaning Himself half heathen? How to those—brave hearts! Who toil with laden loins and sinking stride Beside the bitter wells of treeless sands Toward the peaks which flood the ancient Nile, To free a tyrant's captives? How to those— New patriarchs of the new-found underworld— Who stand, like Jacob, on the virgin lawns, And count their flocks' increase? To them ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... of the Navy at the Port of Philadelphia, had charge of the "row gallies, batteries" and other vessels protecting and maintaining the chevaux de frize off Billingsport by sinking obstructions to prevent the passage to the city of any British vessels and thus effectually ...
— The Story of Commodore John Barry • Martin Griffin
... were fixed parallel to the car. The machine began to glide downwards on them, gathering momentum from the weight of the car, at a quickly increasing speed, until she was tearing through the air at the rate of forty miles an hour, and sinking a hundred feet in the mile. The financier sat hunched up, gasping and shivering as the air whizzed past his ears and shrilled among the ropes. Tinker, with an air of cheerful excitement, kept the machine on her course, and watched ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... was very warm, unaccountably warm. He walked in up to his middle, and tied his iron hoop to his belt, so as to prevent it sinking too deep. This done, he waited motionless, and seemed a little bed of rushes. The sun rose, and the steam gradually cleared away, and Hazel, peering through a hole or two he had made expressly in his bed of rushes, saw several ducks floating about, and one in particular, all purple, ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... come to light; and he was assured that such a company of drunkards as their crew was composed of could keep no secret. I told him that I had heard at Coiloan (Quilon) that they had not acted prudently nor honestly in relation to some Moors' ships they had visited and plundered and in sinking a sloop with ten or twelve Europeans in her off Coiloan. Next day I went ashore and met Captain Green and his supercargo Mr. Callant, who had sailed a voyage from Surat to Sienly with me. Before dinner-time they were both drunk, and Callant told me that he did not doubt of making the greatest ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... the pillows of her bed that night, she looked over the evening papers, read with a swift heart-sinking that the Roaring Lake fire was assuming terrific proportions, that nothing but a deluge of rain would stay it now. And more significantly, except for a minor blaze or two, the fire raged almost wholly upon and around the Fyfe block of limits. She laid aside ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... would not have it understood that I rail at, or deride, or impeach the honesty of the men who tried to help "Dodd" out of the sad condition into which he had fallen. Neither would I underrate the value of religion, in such experiences, nor impugn its power to save sinking souls from death. But I cannot help reiterating the fact that multitudes of young men have drifted on to the rocks of infidelity as "Dodd" did, because they have been promised too much by ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... with a feeling of pain even now, the horrible sinking sensation he had experienced last week when for punishment he had been sent to bed without his tea. And Judy had forgone three meals! He shut his lips tightly, and a light of almost heroic resolve came into his eyes. Round at the side of the house was the window ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... walk on foot in that deep and drifted snow without sinking over his head under ordinary conditions, but his troop had done a great deal of winter work, and strapped alongside of his big, telescope grip were a pair of snow-shoes which he himself had made, and with the use of which he was ...
— A Little Book for Christmas • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... the hill with the golden light of the evening. He had thought then that nothing could prevent him from enjoying the happiness which that afternoon seemed to have promised. He had watched the sun sinking behind the mountains, secure in the thought that the morrow would bring him added happiness. But now there could ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... great sinking of the heart, it came to her that she knew why. What was it she had heard one day? Oh, yes, it was at Mrs. Stanton's tea, that afternoon when the ladies of the "Missionary Crowd" had entertained the ladies of the Senatorial party. It was Mrs. Hodgkins, the tall ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... studies; till their mental powers were exhausted: till morning's light brought no freshness or health to them; and they sank beneath the unnatural devotion of their youthful energies to their dry old books? Coming down to a later time, and a very different day, what do you know of the gradual sinking beneath consumption, or the quick wasting of fever—the grand results of 'life' and dissipation—which men have undergone in these same rooms? How many vain pleaders for mercy, do you think, have turned away heart- sick from the lawyer's office, to find a resting-place in the Thames, ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... mind,—while we enlarge prisons in which to punish the violators of the law,—we should remember that some endeavors should be made to prevent others from requiring the same charities, and incurring the same penalties. Instead of standing merely by the fatal shoal to rescue the sinking crew, we should raise a warning signal to avert ...
— Reflections on the Operation of the Present System of Education, 1853 • Christopher C. Andrews
... politically ambitious, and was in a fair way to grow old as one of the obscure millionaires of New York City when death reached a sable hand and smote him full in the front of his pride and assurance—his wife and daughters were lost in the sinking of a boat off the ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... we can do nothing in this heat. The poor fellows can do very little good themselves; I am only letting them pull because it keeps them from sinking into a state of despair. They can leave off when they like, ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... Mull of Galoway, the day following, Paul found himself so nigh a large barley-freighted Scotch coaster, that, to prevent her carrying tidings of him to land, he dispatched her with the news, stern foremost, to Hades; sinking her, and sowing her barley in the sea broadcast by a broadside. From her crew he learned that there was a fleet of twenty or thirty sail at anchor in Lochryan, with an armed brigantine. He pointed his prow thither; but at the mouth of the lock, the wind turned ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... was sinking slowly to the pavement, in a state of acute reflection. So long as the ruffians were with me, I dared not quit the role of drunkard. For if I had begun to talk reasonably and explain the real case, the officer would merely have thought that I was ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... up a kind of fort, which they had looked upon as almost impregnable, and had used as a place of refuge for their squaws and children. Nothing remained of the old Indian fort but a few embankments, gradually sinking to the level of the surrounding earth, and already overgrown in part by oaks and other forest trees, the foliage of which formed a contrast to the dark pines and ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... doggie—do give it up and come home; DON'T break our hearts!" and all this terrifies me the more, and makes me sure something has happened. And I am so weak; since yesterday I cannot stand on my feet anymore. And within this hour the servants, looking toward the sun where it was sinking out of sight and the night chill coming on, said things I could not understand, but they carried ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... every department of state, and in every branch of administration, from the highest to the lowest. It is only the institutions of Christianity, and the vicinity of better-regulated states, which prevent kingdoms, under such circumstances of misrule, from sinking into a barbarism like that of Turkey. A sense of better things was kept alive in some of the Neapolitans by literature, and by their intercourse with happier countries. These persons naturally looked ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... her as if she were sinking into endless depths. The clock struck three. She listened to the vibrations of the sounds as they died away. And she remained on the edge of the armchair, with her eyeballs fixed and an unchanging smile on ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... courteously but most firmly urged by the First Consul to renounce both for himself and for the other members of his House all claims to the throne of France, in return for which he would receive a pension of two million francs a year. The notion of sinking to the level of a pensionary of the French Republic touched Bourbon pride to the quick and provoked this ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... long hour she stood at the end of the porch, looking across at Providence Nob, behind whose benevolent head the storm clouds of the day were at last sinking, lit by the glow of the fast-setting sun. The wind had died down and a deep peace was settling over the Valley, like a benediction from the coming night. Just for strength to go on, Rose Mary prayed out to the dim, blue old ridge and then turned to her ministrations ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... voyage is eventful beyond comprehension, and at the same time full of uncertainty, and replete with danger. Every adventurer needs to be well prepared for whatever may befall him, and well secured against the manifold hazards of losing his course, sinking in the abyss, or of being ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... see—eighty-four—ninety—ninety six hours of incessant watching, riding and walking, I was set on guard to keep the morning watch between four o'clock and eight, 'my whole head was sick and my whole heart faint'; my frame was sinking; my soul could scarcely hold my body upright. In addition to this physical suffering was the mental anguish of feeling that these men had resolved upon my death, and thinking of my dear mother and Clara, whose hearts would be broken by my ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... with the object of his choice; some he is less conscious of; some he overlooks altogether. It does not seem unwarranted to maintain that the first of the three classes of things, at least, may be said to be intended. When Dr. Katzenberger, in his desire to get across the road without sinking in the mire, used as a stepping-stone his old servant Flex, who had fallen down, his complete intention was not simply to cross the road unmuddied. It was to cross the road unmuddied by ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... known to stay out so late; and—and the tide is coming in," cried Violet, sinking pale and trembling into a chair. "Oh, mamma, if she is drowned, how shall I answer to my husband for taking so little care ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... is saved at the last moment, when, strength and spirits being alike exhausted, he feels himself sinking into the abyss, cannot, upon feeling once more firm ground under his feet, experience a sense of greater happiness than Henrietta did that night. For the delicious sensation had become deeper and intenser by the evening spent in company with Papa ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... the same year Admiral Dupont, an able seaman with massive whiskers, decided to run the fortifications at Charleston with iron-clads, but the Charleston people thought they could run them themselves. So they drove him back after the sinking of the Kennebec and the serious injury ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... themselves how, and when, and for how long King should draw sword against King, and People rise up against People. Why not? There can be no war without gold, and we Jews know how the earth's gold moves with the seasons, and the crops, and the winds; circling and looping and rising and sinking away like a river—a wonderful underground river. How should the foolish Kings know that while they ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... is also American. He owns mines and prairies, and he emigrates semi-annually. They all do now. You know rats leave a sinking ship, and they are going to ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... along the quays quivered in the water, the rolling of omnibuses in the distance gradually ceased. He recalled happy days spent in this great city, supper-parties at restaurants, evenings at the theatre, gossips with his portress, all his habitual associations; and he experienced a sinking of the heart, a sadness which he dared not ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... him under the light that came from above and examined the wrapper with sinking hearts. What Bart had said was true. Not a ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... the floor before the fire, awed and attentive. They seldom spoke, and when they did, their voices were low. They knew that the white man was sinking rapidly, and that the end was not ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... white vapors among mild white hairs, not among torn iron-grey locks like mine. I'll smoke no more— He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea. The fire hissed in the waves; the same instant the ship shot by the bubble the sinking pipe made. With slouched hat, Ahab lurchingly ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... hitherto accustomed. Hence politics were admitted into his paper. But it remained for the chaster genius of Addison to banish this painful topic from his elegant pages. The writer in polite letters felt himself degraded by sinking into the diurnal narrator of political events, which so frequently originate in rumours and party fictions. From this time, newspapers and periodical literature became distinct works—at present, there seems to be an attempt to revive this union; it ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... more formidable by a heavy iron beak, for the purpose of running down and sinking the enemy's vessels; a kind of hanging stage was also placed on the prow of the ship, which could be lowered in front or on either side. It was furnished on both sides with parapets, and had space for two men in front. On coming to close quarters with ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... and again, that there are two persons in me. One recoils from Sandip in his terrible aspect of Chaos—the other feels that very vision to be sweetly alluring. The sinking ship drags down all who are swimming round it. Sandip is just such a force of destruction. His immense attraction gets hold of one before fear can come to the rescue, and then, in the twinkling of an eye, one is drawn away, irresistibly, ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... from the sinking sun was gone. Waring's hands came away from the opened shirt shudderingly. He wiped his hands on the sand, and, rising, ran back to Dex. He returned with a whiskey flask. Pat was of tough fiber and tremendous vitality. If the ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... that what had been worst of all to her was the heart sinking, at finding herself able to choose her occupations, with no one to accommodate them to. But she would not give way—she set up more work for herself at the school, and has been talking of giving singing lessons at Cocksmoor; and she forced herself to read, though ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... himself sinking, but with a supreme effort not to betray his weakness to this wicked woman, he ran to his room where he fell in a swoon ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... for a moment in front of the portrait—Olivia's face, with that strange, wan expression which the fading light always brought to view, seemed to stand out from the frame as if in appeal, a discovery that brought a further sinking of the heart ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... suggested a thought that had often been in his mind. He could not but shudder in himself, when he thought of that bright little brother of his being initiated in the mysteries of evil which he himself had learnt, and sinking like himself into slow degeneracy of heart and life. It puzzled and perplexed him, and at last he determined to open his heart, partially at least, in a letter to Mr. Rose. The master fully understood his doubts, and wrote him the ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... by the end of the great heavily-hung bed, in the midst of which lay Prince Zastrow, seemingly sinking into the slumber of death. Von Kessner leaned over and raised an eyelid, and said to the Princess, who was standing on the other side, the single word: "Unconscious." She bent forward for a moment as though she were bidding a silent farewell ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... sinking in a comatose state; she doesn't suffer, which is a great blessing toward the last. As for ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... hook and left Mr. Crow to sit by Mr. 'Possum until he came back. He could follow Mr. 'Possum's track to the place, and in a little while he had the fine, fat chicken, and came home with it and showed it to the patient, who had a sinking spell when he looked at it, and turned his face to the wall and said he seemed to have lived ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... on the island, he noted evidences that it was of volcanic origin, and his heart misgave him, for he knew that such islands, created suddenly by a submarine upheaval, might just as suddenly be destroyed by an earthquake, or by sinking into the ocean. It was not a pleasant thought—it was like living over a mine, that might explode at any moment. But there was ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... the aspen grove on the hill. There was sunlight and shade under the trees, a rosy gold on the sage slopes, a purple-and-violet veil between the black ranges and the sinking sun. ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... cool equality toward Farquhar and the captain, ignored Verinder, and smiled genially at India. For Moya his look had a special meaning. It charged her with the duty of faith in him. Somehow too it poured courage into her sinking heart. ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... stand there and listen to the telltale sounds with sinking hearts. Perk in particular seemed to be dreadfully put out by this fresh upset and was grinding his strong teeth as though desirous of letting out an explosive but restrained by the fact of Jack being so ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... suit, and Klipmann, the black bullock, headed on into the stream. The shadowy-looking team could be dimly seen to straighten out; there was a heavy pull at the waggon, and another, and another, before its fore wheels were extricated from the sand in which they were sinking fast, showing the wisdom of at once proceeding; and then, plash! plash! and with the water rushing against them, ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... English of them in the gilt-edged Prayer-Book that marked rising wealth. Surely there had been some monstrous mistake in conceiving the two creeds as at daggers drawn, and though she only pretended to kneel with the others, she felt her knees sinking in surrender to ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... the flag of the UK in the upper hoist-side quadrant and the Bermudian coat of arms (white and green shield with a red lion holding a scrolled shield showing the sinking of the ship Sea Venture off Bermuda in 1609) centered on the outer half ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... of officers with camp beds, but were less attractive to from eight to a dozen men, lying in the sand with all their possessions. To the eastward was the cemetery and then the ground rose into one or two insignificant little bluffs, afterwards sinking to a small flat area of harder ground, on which most of our parades were held. Beyond this was the barbed wire and redoubt line of the Kantara defences, of which more anon. To the north joining with the lakes and ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... daughter, and he wept for joy that she was not lying dead in the bottom of the lake. The old woman, however, seemed uneasy, and said to Thakane: 'I feel as if someone was watching us. I will not leave the girl to-day, but will take her back with me'; and sinking beneath the surface, she drew the girl after her. After they had gone, Thakane returned to the village, which Masilo had managed ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... at a great rate at the approach of what was to happen. Having thus received the oaths of all his followers, Captain Morgan commanded the surgeon of the expedition that, when the order was given, he, the medico, was to bore six holes in the boat, so that, it sinking under them, they might all be compelled to push forward, with no chance of retreat. And such was the ascendency of this man over his followers, and such was their awe of him, that not one of them uttered ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... all, although lesser poets are constantly rising above the literary horizon, challenging the admiration of the reading world for a few short months,—possibly years,—and then sinking into the obscurity of a forgotten past, the sun of English poetry has set forever. With Pope, Milton, and Dryden, England lost her last true poets. Henceforth all who claim that title must be more or less skilful imitators ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... to look to the reputation and safety of their own country, to rescue it from the degradation of becoming the Barbary of the Union, and of falling into the ranks of our own negroes. To that condition it is fast sinking. We shall be in the hands of the other States, what our indigenous predecessors were when invaded by the science and arts of Europe. The mass of education in Virginia, before the Revolution, placed her with the foremost of her sister colonies. What is her education now? ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... rolled away I beheld Claverhouse in the arms of his officers, sinking from his horse, and the blood flowing from a wound between the breast-plate and the armpit. The same night he was summoned to the audit ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... around a person to warm him. They thought these strange movements of the planets were accomplished by mounting them on subsidiary eccentric wheels in the revolving crystal sphere. All that was [Page 115] needed to give them a right conception was a sinking of their world and themselves to an appropriate proportion, and an enlargement of their vision, to take in from an exalted stand-point a view of the simplicity of the ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... kept up their drinking and their singing till late in the evening; the merchants and writers had gone earlier, and now but the officers and Brooks were left, and Mr. Spencer, superintending the removal of his vessels and fragments to the inn. The afternoon was sinking into the calm it ever has in this place, drowsing, mellowing; an air of trance lay all about, and even the pensioners, gathered at the head of the schoolroom near the door, seemed silent as his scholars to the ear of Brooks. He ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... Ferdinand, proceeded towards the spot pointed out by the little girl, and on entering the cot, beheld a sight which wrung their gentle hearts with pity. On a bundle of straw in one corner of the hovel, (for it deserved no better name,) lay a young woman, apparently fast sinking into the arms of death; at the foot of this wretched bed, sat a poor little half naked boy, crying for that food his wretched mother could not supply; an infant at her breast, was vainly endeavouring to procure the ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... few determined persons, hurried down and drove the crowd off the embankment back upon the shore, in order that those who were really of service might have free room to move. One way or another they contrived to seize hold of such as were sinking; and with or without assistance all who had been in the water were got out safe upon the bank, with the exception of one boy, whose struggles in his fright, instead of bringing him nearer to the embankment, had only carried him further from it. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... state of affairs fully; and Johnson, on learning that his particular friend, William T. Coleman, was the president of the Vigilance Committee, proposed to go and see him. En route we stopped at King's room, ascertained that he was slowly sinking, and could not live long; and then near midnight we walked to the Turnverein Hall, where the committee was known to be sitting in consultation. This hall was on Bush Street, at about the intersection ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... couple of hundred years ago a peasant was sinking a well down in the ashes, and he struck a petrified barroom, with a bartender standing behind the bar in the act of serving some whisky 2,000 years old, and the peasant located a claim there, and the authorities took possession of the prairie and have been digging the town out ever since, looking ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... bank with chattering teeth and an icy armor. My pocket thermometer showed two degrees above zero. Another storm was bearing down upon me from the range, and the sun was sinking. But the worst of it all was that there were several miles of rough and strange country between me and Grand Lake that would have to be made in the dark. I did not care to take any more chances on the ice, so I spent a hard hour climbing ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... responsibility when the question arose as to reprieving a prisoner. He mentions a case in which he had practically had to decide in favour of carrying out a capital sentence. 'For a week before,' he writes, 'I had the horrible feeling of watching the man sinking, and knowing that I had only to hold out my hand to save his life. I felt as if I could see his face and hear him say, "Let me live; I am only thirty-five; see what a strong, vigorous, active fellow I am, with perhaps fifty years before me: must I die?" and I mentally answered, Yes, you must. ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... time spent in this manner, Pacheco made sail for Cochin, and in the passage fell in with several ships belonging to the Moors, taking some, and burning or sinking others. On landing at the fort of Cochin, he learnt from the factor that the reports of the zamorin making preparations for the renewal of the war, were perfectly true, and even that the Moorish inhabitants of Cochin were adverse to the rajah for having taken part with the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... Swollen high by months of rain, And fast his blood was flowing, And he was sore in pain, And heavy with his armor, And spent with changing blows, And oft they thought him sinking, ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... so as to send you the last news relating to Philip's state of health. To my great regret, his illness seems to have made a serious advance since yesterday. When I ask if he is in pain, he says: "It isn't exactly pain; I feel as if I was sinking. Sometimes I am giddy; and sometimes I find myself feeling thirsty and sick." I have no opportunity of looking after him as I could wish; for Helena insists on nursing him, assisted by the housemaid. Maria is a very good girl in her way, but too stupid to be of much use. If he ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... the side of the pavement. He sprang out before the sleigh stopped, and ran into the hall. The house stood cold and silent, as if quite regardless of who had come to it. There was no one in the hall. "Oh God! Is everyone all right?" he thought, stopping for a moment with a sinking heart, and then immediately starting to run along the hall and up the warped steps of the familiar staircase. The well-known old door handle, which always angered the countess when it was not properly cleaned, turned as loosely as ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... presently heard like a trumpet. The caravan repelled the robbers. But five of its number were lost, some camels and mules driven off. The Bedouins departing with wild cries, there were left confusion and bewailing, slowly straightening, slowly sinking. The caravan, with a pang, recognized that ill luck ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... was afterwards turned into happiness. The Rishis said, 'O chaste lady of excellent disposition, observant of vows and endued with virtue, and sprung from an illustrious line, by thee hath the race of this foremost of kings, which was overwhelmed with calamities, and was sinking in an ocean of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... see them slowly climb the hill, As slow behind it sinking; Or, thronging close, from roadside rill, Or sunny lakelet, drinking. Now crowding in the narrow road, In thick and struggling masses, They glare upon the teamster's load, Or rattling ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... treatments, but as Bob's experience grew these were becoming fewer and of lesser importance. The creative necessity was steadily lessening as the work became more familiar. Often Bob found his eagerness sinking to a blank; his attention economizing itself to the bare needs of the occasion. He caught himself at times slipping away from the closest interest in what he had to do. His spirit, although he did not know it, was beginning once more ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... they neither of them knew, only there was a shout, an agony of sinking, a vision of a dark form and a something solid ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... he added, jestingly, "thought ourselves hunting in the open forest. I was afraid, for the minute, we should lose ourselves, for I could not find the road. The sun was sinking below the horizon; I sought vainly for footmarks; I began to feel the sharp pangs of hunger, and the gloomy depths of the forest resounded already with the roar of wild beasts. No, not that; there are no wild beasts here, I ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... similar gestures, the beautiful Alice Pyncheon awoke from her strange trance. She awoke without the slightest recollection of her visionary experience; but as one losing herself in a momentary reverie, and returning to the consciousness of actual life, in almost as brief an interval as the down-sinking flame of the hearth should quiver again up the chimney. On recognizing Matthew Maule, she assumed an air of somewhat cold but gentle dignity, the rather, as there was a certain peculiar smile on the carpenter's visage that stirred the native pride of the fair Alice. ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... servitude, are unable to expand themselves, or to attain that well-proportioned greatness which we admire in the ancients; who, living under a popular government, wrote with the same freedom as they acted." [111] This diminutive stature of mankind, if we pursue the metaphor, was daily sinking below the old standard, and the Roman world was indeed peopled by a race of pygmies; when the fierce giants of the north broke in, and mended the puny breed. They restored a manly spirit of freedom; and after the revolution of ten centuries, freedom became the happy ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... life Of him whom God had called to fill his throne. And wilt thou feel less zealous to regain The love and favour of thy heavenly King, And shrink because the path to glory lies Up the steep hill of duty? He who saved, Amidst the tempest on Gennesaret, Peter, when sinking in the waves, will aid Thy feeble steps, and guide thee to ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... awaiting him in Russia, and at the sight of so many corpses, and the awful scene, he said with deep melancholy, "This sight is one to fill kings with love of peace and horror of war." But at Austerlitz it was very different. The shrieks of the Russians sinking through the holes torn in the ice by cannon-balls were drowned in the shouts of the victors. The bright sunlight of that day of triumph dispelled, all traces of gloom in the ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... parts of the world the land has recently been submerged beneath the sea. In some places, especially those like the coasts of Virginia and central California which lie in middle latitudes, a recent slight submergence has succeeded a previous large emergence. Wherever such sinking of the land has taken place, it has given rise to countless bays, gulfs, capes, islands, and fiords. The ocean water has entered the valleys and has drowned their lower parts. It has surrounded the bases of hills ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington
... up the river I left the road to follow a narrow trail that leads to a bluff called Crown Butte. I had to go through a large field of wild rosebushes, then across an alkali bed, and then through more bushes. I had passed the first bushes and was more than half way across the alkali, Rollo's feet sinking down in the sticky mud at every step, when there appeared from the bushes in front of me, and right in the path, two immense gray wolves. If they had studied to surprise me in the worst place possible they could not have succeeded better. Rollo saw them, of course, ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... numerous captures, and Willy's bottle was soon full of active little creatures. Let us see what it contains. A large beetle is very conspicuous amongst the contents, now rushing to the top of the water, now sinking to the bottom, scattering far and wide the tiny water-fleas, and other little creatures by the strong and rapid movements of his swimming legs. This is the great water beetle; we will sit down on this clump of poplar tree by the side of the road, ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... on, but the sickly, ghastly pallor of his face frightened her. She swayed and leaned against the railing of the platform, a sinking, deadly apprehension gnawing at her, for it seemed from the expression of J. C.'s face that he had some knowledge of Corrigan's intentions. But J. C. had been through too many crises to surrender at the ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... and many a beautiful clear creek, and ten or more times over the winding Tangipahoa, by narrow clearings, and the old tracks of forgotten hurricanes, and many a wide plantation; until more than two hundred miles from the great city, still northward across the sinking and swelling fields, the low, dark dome of another State's Capitol must rise amid spires and trees into the blue, and the green ruins of fortifications be passed, and the iron roads be found branching ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... foundations of my life that had been so miraculously revealed. I did, indeed, stand suddenly stock still in the wood, and staring down the darkening vista of the path, saw not the entranced twilight that was sinking the path in a pool of olive green shadows, but a kind of bioscopic presentation of my own ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... In fancy she saw him going to the church in company with the prettiest and richest girl in the town, both well-dressed, happy and smiling, while she, Juli, followed her mistress, carrying novenas, buyos, and the cuspidor. Here the girl felt a lump rise in her throat, a sinking at her heart, and begged the Virgin to let her ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... in the midst of a dreary, treeless country, whose broad brown and grey fields were only broken by an occasional line of dark, doleful firs, at a knot of thatched hovels, all sinking and leaning every way but the right, the windows patched with paper, the doorways stopped with filth, which surrounded a beer-shop. That was my destination—unpromising enough for any one but an agitator. If discontent and misery are preparatives for liberty—and they are—so ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... entered the familiar office and saw Miss Wharton's dumpy figure occupying her dear Miss Wilder's place she felt a distinct sinking of the heart. The dean surveyed her out of cold blue eyes, that seemed to Grace to contain ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... lamentably few, while attempts to preserve the old gravestones are almost unknown. The ordinary experience is to find the churchyard more or less neglected and forgotten, and the grey and aged stones either sinking into the earth or tottering to their fall. It cannot be imagined that the clergy, the wardens, and the sextons have failed to see these things; but they have, presumedly, more pressing matters to attend to, and it seems to be nobody's business to attend ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... sinking under the mysterious disease which had hung upon him since his birth. It was hinted that his last hours were darkened by hallucinations, and the pious pictured him as haunted by profligate visions, while the free-thinkers maintained that he was the dupe of priestly jugglery. Toward ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... lose. Our fires are nearly out now. We've been in a sinking condition for forty-eight hours. We sprung a leak where we couldn't get at it, and our ...
— A List To Starboard - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... anchor near the entrance to Fusan harbour, set twenty-six of the vessels on fire, and dispersed the rest. Four other engagements ensued in rapid succession. The last and most important took place shortly after the Japanese troops had seized Pyong-yang. It resulted in the sinking of over seventy Japanese vessels, transports and fighting ships combined, which formed the main part of a flotilla carrying reinforcements by sea to the van of the invading army. This despatch of troops and supplies by water had been a leading feature of ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... would not be dealt from the next group or the one following. The men stood on the door-steps, or in the very middle of the road, awaiting us with lowering brows and sullen looks of suspicion, when with sinking hearts and placid faces we stopped to say a few words to one of our present enemies to whom we had formerly rendered some help in illness or destitution. The truth is, they generally looked somewhat ashamed on such occasions, and always answered politely, but without the frank and pleased looks ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... parent knees, a naked new-born child, Weeping thou sat'st while all around thee smiled; So live, that sinking in thy last long sleep, Calm thou mayst smile, while all around ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... loud I was ashamed," went on Elinor. "He sort of bawled it out. 'Remarkable talent, madame, remarkable talent.' And everybody turned around and looked at me till I felt like sinking through ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... wine was as much to blame as anything, I sprang down the steps and leapt aboard of the boat just as it was pushed off upon the swift tide. Full of Bersark rage, I cut one brawny copper-coloured thief down, and struck another with my fist between the eyes so that he went headlong into the water, sinking like lead, and deep into the great target of his neighbour's chest I drove my blade. Had there been a man beside me, had there been but two or three of all those silken triflers, too late come on the terraces above to watch, we might have won. But all alone what could ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... began the expedition. Each man was permitted to take his share with him upon his own vessel. Morgan made the distribution of his spoils at this time in order not to risk the loss of the entire treasure by the sinking of one ship, and in order that no one faction of his party might succeed in ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... when I went down to the drawing-room. There were three other strange women there, but I knew she was the only one who could be Mrs. Rennie. I felt such a horrible queer sinking feeling at my heart when I saw her. Oh, she was beautiful ... I had never seen anyone so beautiful. And Sidney was standing beside her, talking to her, with a smile on his face, but none in his eyes ... I ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... investigation. This order has been an obstruction to the disposition of the lands, and I expect to direct the Secretary of War to return to the practice under the opinion of the Attorney General which will enable us to dispose of the lands much more promptly, and to prepare a sinking fund with which to meet the $7,000,000 of bonds issued for the purchase of the lands. I have no doubt whatever that the Attorney General's construction was a proper one, and that it is in the interest of everyone that ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... life's blood, had by money and comforts, (which but for this incident would have been kept secret), for many months relieved an inmate of a London hospital. The patient was a poor, old female, in the last stage of decrepitude, and fast sinking beneath the sorrows of life. She had seen happier days, and the only relic which she possessed of better fortune, was a pair of silver framed spectacles; which, on her death-bed, she bequeathed to her benefactress. The poor old woman's relations were dead, and this guardian-spirit who soothed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... With a sinking heart Will watched them enter, but he plucked up spirit again when the last, a chief, pushed in, for in this warrior he recognized an Indian that he had ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... it wouldn't be a pretty story. Do you think maybe you wouldn't take to drink if you saw a sight like that? [Sinking back.] Since then I've looked for work, but I haven't cared much. Only sometimes I've thought I'd like to meet that young lawyer . ...
— The Second-Story Man • Upton Sinclair
... generals was least given to sleep, and had naturally the power of keeping awake longer than any other person. Thinking that he heard a noise near the door, he looked towards the light of the lamp which was already sinking down, and saw a frightful vision of a man of unusual size and savage countenance. At first he was startled, but observing that the figure neither moved nor spoke, but was standing silent by the bed, he asked him who he was. The phantom replied, "Thy bad daemon, ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... and for ever, thousands upon thousands of such men as came at the beginning. The effects that would have been thus produced in America and in England, in accelerating the progress of society here, and sinking it into debasement there; and thereby upon the fortunes of mankind the world over, is a subject on which a meditative and philosophical mind ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... the knocking and the voice? Now all was made clear. His path lay open before him—a far land called him, his quiet past was infinite leagues away. Already the staff was in his hands and the cross-roads were sinking into the distance behind. He was dimly conscious of the wan, shocked face of Faith in the crowd beneath him, which seemed blurred and swaying, of the bowed head of Luke Claridge, who, standing up, had taken off his hat in the presence of this news of his brother's death which he saw written ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... river, by Padua in Italy, they have hives of bees in open boates; the bees goe out to feed and gather till the honey-dews are spent neer the boate; and then the bee master rows the boate to a fresh place, and by the sinking of the boate knows when to take the ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... he meant, and went to the door. Finding that the rain still continued he returned to Dare, who was by this time sinking down in a one-sided attitude, as if hung up by the shoulder. Informing his companion that he was but little inclined to move far in such a tempestuous night, he decided to remain in the inn till next ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... were household odors of mint and thyme and sweet marjoram, which were pleasant to the soul of Briggs, and reminded him of roast goose on Christmas Day, with all its attendant succulent delicacies. He paced the path slowly,—the light of the sinking sun blazing gloriously on his plush breeches, silver cordons and tassels,—for he was in full-dress livery in honor of the fete, and looked exceedingly imposing. Now and then he glanced down at his calves with mild approval,—his silk ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... had been suffering for some time from consumption, was evidently fast sinking, but he still persevered in his undertaking. On the 28th of April the harbour of Saint Peter and Saint Paul was reached. The Russian inhabitants, on finding that the explorers were English, treated them with the greatest possible kindness, and through Major Behin, the Governor of Bolcheretsk, ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... the gorge fresh and free; the autumnal foliage, swaying in it, was like the flaunting splendors of red and gold banners; the western ranges had changed from blue to purple, for the sun was sinking. ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... foaming waters of swollen streams. Heavily laden, with arms, provisions, and ammunition strapped on their backs, French and Canadians slowly proceeded through the great woods, whose autumnal glories were vanishing fast under the influence of the chill winds of October. Slipping over moist logs, sinking into unsuspected swamps, climbing painfully over steep rocks, they went forward with undaunted determination. At night they had to sleep in the open on a bed of damp leaves. The crossing of rivers was sometimes dangerous. Tracy, who unfortunately ...
— The Great Intendant - A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada 1665-1672 • Thomas Chapais |
