"Downwards" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... drollery, leave far behind the narrow bounds of the world of reality. In all these plays the composition is respectable, and without round-about goes at once to the point: all the characters, from God the Father downwards, state at once in the clearest terms what they have at heart, and the reasons which have caused them to make their appearance; they resemble those figures in old pictures who have written labels placed in their ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... black. The other prisoners wore a san-benito, a loose garment of yellow cloth, called in Spanish zamara, and on their heads was placed a high conical pasteboard cap, called coroza. On the dresses of those who were to be strangled were painted flames burning downwards, called fuego revolto, to intimate that they had escaped the fire; while the san-benito and coroza of those doomed to be burnt alive were covered with flames burning upwards, around which were painted devils carrying the faggots or fanning ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston
... horn on his forehead, on which there is a round spot with the representation of a man; the whole horn being black, except the spot in the middle which is white. The rhinoceros is much smaller than the elephant, and resembles the buffalo from the neck downwards, and excels all other creatures in extraordinary strength. His leg is all one thickness, from the shoulder to the foot, and the hoof is not cloven. The elephant flies from the rhinoceros, whose lowing is like that of an ox, with something of the cry of the camel. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... is rich, and extends upwards or downwards, it is cut away from between levels, in a regular systematic manner, strong beams being placed to support temporary platforms, on which the miners may stand and work as they ascend. When they have cut all the lode away up to the level above them, a false timber bottom is made to replace the ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... He pointed downwards as he spoke, and on looking over the side they saw the wreck of the boat at the bottom, in about ten feet of water, and crushed beneath a ponderous mass of lava, which must have been ejected from the volcano and afterwards descended upon ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... Applethwaite; and thence along the road at the foot of Skiddaw towards Bassenthwaite, for about a quarter of a mile. There are fine bird's eye views from the Castle-hill; from Ashness, on the road to Watenlath, and by following the Watenlath stream downwards to the Cataract of Lodore. This Lake also, if the weather be fine, ought to be circumnavigated. There are good views along the western side of Bassenthwaite Lake, and from Armathwaite at its foot; but ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... general course of the Peel below Walamoul to be nearly west; and after tracing this river downwards twenty-two miles (in direct distance), I crossed it at an excellent ford, named Wallamburra. I then traversed the extensive plain of Mulluba; and leaving that of Coonil on the right, extending far to ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... the round-gathered dress and bodice (in one) are very useful and suitable. The principal advantage of the princess dress is its continuity from the shoulders downwards, leaving the waist free of bands and tapes. With spotless collars and cuffs, our girl will be both suitably and well dressed. A good woollen combination under-garment for warmth and protection from the cold, thicker in winter, thinner in summer. One, or at the most two, woollen ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... side-scenes in the theatre of Civaism) introduces devils of another sort, but the general effect remains. The fire-priest Bhrigu says: "Untruth is a form of darkness, and by darkness one is brought to hell (downwards); veiled in darkness one sees not the light. Light is heaven, they say, and darkness is hell," xii. 190. 2-3. This antithesis of evil as darkness, good as light, is too native to India to admit of the suggestion that it might have been borrowed. But ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... two cars full of ladies were following her, when one of the cars, "of Phaetonic make" says the classical-minded narrator, suddenly broke. Grave as saints, beautiful as angels, the ladies, losing their balance, fell head downwards; and the crowd, while full of admiration for what they saw, "could not suppress their laughter." The author of the description calls it, as Fragonard would have done, "a lucky chance," sors bona; but there was nothing of Fragonard in him except this word: he was a ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... the camp to some secluded spot, where she digs a circular hole in the sandy soil under the shade of a tree. In this hole the girl squats with crossed legs and is covered with sand from the waist downwards. A digging-stick is planted firmly in the sand on each side of her, and the place is surrounded by a fence of bushes except in front, where her mother kindles a fire. Here the girl stays all day, sitting with her arms crossed ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... systematically made, and the chief results were the filling and bringing down of several flasks of air collected at different elevations, and the supposed observation that the magnetic dip was altered. A telescope fixed in the bottom of the car and pointing vertically downwards enabled the travellers to ascertain exactly the spot over which they were floating at any moment. Sacharof found that, on shouting downwards through his speaking-trumpet, the echo from the earth was quite distinct, and at his height was audible ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... river roared and rushed downwards on its course with a heedlessness that quite justified him in his hesitation. "Wait till to-morrow morning, and the Tennessee will be quieter. ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... villagers who gathered round could suggest a remedy, and in the meantime Bob continued rubbing his cheek against his foreleg, twitching and whining with pain; and before long the face and head began to swell on one side, the swelling extending to the nape and downwards to the throat. Presently Isaac himself, full of concern, arrived on the scene, having left his wife in charge of the flock, and at the same time a man from a neighbouring village came riding by and joined the group. ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... was in other rooms, where poor wrecks of men lay face downwards in hot-air boxes, where they stayed immovable and silent as though in their coffins, or with half their bodies submerged in electrolysed baths. Nurses were massaging limbs which had been maimed and smashed by shell-fire, and working ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... miserable Job, with a most awful yell, precipitated himself face downwards on the plank—he did not dare, small blame to him, to try to walk it, and commenced to draw himself across in little jerks, his poor legs hanging down on either side into ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... me; but in the posture I lay, could see nothing except the sky. In a little time I felt something alive moving on my left leg, which advancing gently forward over my breast, came almost up to my chin; when, bending my eyes downwards as much as I could, I perceived it to be a human creature not six inches high, with a bow and arrow in his hands, and a quiver at his back. In the mean time, I felt at least forty more of the same kind ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... downwards into the Cave of the Furies, under Areopagus: as they go, the escort of women and ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... solemnly assured that the world is steadily growing better; and I suppose that's so, for in days of old they crucified men head downwards for telling the truth, while now they only hammer them over the head with six-shooters and drag 'em around a Baptist college campus with a rope. All that a reformer now needs is a hard head and a rubber neck. The cheerful idiot, ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Court, and employed herself in intriguing for the return of Queen Henrietta to England, which was opposed at the time by Clarendon and others. Soon after this, and in the year of the Restoration, she died suddenly. Poets of all grades, from Waller downwards, have sung of her beauty, vivacity, and wit; and Sir Toby Matthew speaks of her as "too lofty and dignified to be capable of friendship, and having too great a heart to be susceptible of love,"—an extravagance of compliment hardly satisfactory in ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... was with the whole community reciting the Office, my soul became suddenly recollected, and seemed to me all bright as a mirror, clear behind, sideways, upwards, and downwards; and in the centre of it I saw Christ our Lord, as I usually see Him. It seemed to me that I saw Him distinctly in every part of my soul, as in a mirror, and at the same time the mirror was all sculptured—I cannot explain it—in our Lord Himself by a most ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... squawling kitten from its folds when he opens it, or goes out to dinner and finds a little blind kitten under his chair, or stays at home and finds a writhing kitten under the quilt, or wriggling among his boots, or hanging, head downwards, in his tobacco-jar, or being mangled by his terrier in the veranda,—when such a man finds one kitten, neither more nor less, once a day in a place where no kitten rightly could or should be, he is naturally upset. When he dare not murder his daily trove because he believes ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... weaker sex.—look you, Master Tressilian, a bolt lost is not a bow broken. Your true affection, as I will hold it to be, hath been, it seems, but ill requited; but you have scholarship, and you know there have been false Cressidas to be found, from the Trojan war downwards. Forget, good sir, this Lady Light o' Love—teach your affection to see with a wiser eye. This we say to you, more from the writings of learned men than our own knowledge, being, as we are, far removed by station and will from the enlargement ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... lining. A type-writer stood at one end and a sewing-machine at the other. On the writing-desk by the window, in the midst of a mass of letters and account-books, rested a large bowl filled with magnificent blooms of white and yellow chrysanthemums. A volume of Dante lay open face downwards on the corner. It did my heart good to see this untidiness, so characteristic of Judith, so familiar, so intimate. She had taken her trouble bravely, I reflected. The ordinary daily task had not been left undone. Through all she had ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... after his marriage, he was staying in London at the house of a friend. Going to see him, I noted in him a somewhat anxious look, and I did not wonder at it! Mr. Henley was seated in a great chair, the whole of his face, from the eyes downwards, muffled in a huge crimson silk pocket handkerchief, of which the point covered his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... superior force of the enemy and of repressing the movements of insurrection which everywhere were spreading among the Celts, had crossed the Po presumably at Placentia, and marched up the river to meet the enemy, while Hannibal after the capture of Turin marched downwards to relieve the Insubres and Boii. In the plain between the Ticino and the Sesia, not far from Vercelli, the Roman cavalry, which had advanced with the light infantry to make a reconnaissance in force, encountered the Punic cavalry sent out for the like purpose, both led by the generals in ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... mountain to the place of burial. They found a crevice in the rocks about four feet wide and three feet deep. By filling in loose rocks at either end they made a very nice tomb. The body was then put in face downwards, short sticks were put across, resting on projections of rock at the sides, brush was thrown on this, and flat rocks laid over the ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... resembling a deer in the body and a ram in the head. Its horns were the chief point of interest to Dick; and, truly, they were astounding! Their enormous size was out of all proportion to the animal's body, and they curved backwards and downwards, and then curled up again in a sharp point. These creatures frequent the inaccessible heights of the Rocky Mountains, and are difficult to approach. They have a great fondness for salt, and pay regular visits to the numerous caverns of these mountains, which ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... as well as the labourers with their wives and children, were all assembled at the potato digging, Harald Kaas appeared, carrying his wife under his left arm like a sack. He held her round the waist, feet first, her face downwards and hidden by her hair, her hands convulsively clutching his left thigh, her legs sometimes hanging down, sometimes straight out. He walked composedly out with her, holding in his right hand a bunch ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... he found himself, bathed in the cold sweat of more than mortal terror, lying face downwards on the floor of ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... and gazed downwards on the moonlit landscape far below, over the roofs and the walls of the village towards the open fields and the river, with beyond that the wooded country and the cultured land known as the Terra Vergine, and beyond those again the moors, the marshes, and the ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... digging a shallow pit in this swale that the relic was found. It is a gigantic human figure lying on its back, with its head to the east and feet to the west. The head is in the position commonly given to a corpse; the right arm extends downwards, with the hand and fingers spread stiffly across the abdomen; the left arm bends down along the left side, with the hand quite under the middle line of the body; the left hip is raised a trifle, the thigh and leg more so, so as to bring the lower part of the left leg and foot obliquely ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.
... the passage of Seneca to which we have referred tainted the whole body of the ancient philosophy from the time of Socrates downwards, and took possession of intellects with which that of Seneca cannot for a moment be compared. It pervades the dialogues of Plato. It may be distinctly traced in many parts of the works of Aristotle. Bacon has dropped hints from which it may ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... teaching power than the master knew, for not in vain had he been the pupil of Peter Simon—whose perfection stood in this, that he not only taught, but taught to teach. Life is propagation. The perfect thing, from the Spirit of God downwards sends ITSELF onward, not its work only, but its life. And in the reaction Cosmo soon found that, for making a man accurate, there is nothing like having to impart what he possesses. He learned more by trying to teach what he ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... And she lay face downwards on the downs, that were so strong, that cared only for their intercourse with the everlasting skies, and she wished she could become a strong mound smooth under the sky, bosom and limbs bared to all winds and clouds and ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... follow the inclinations of our appetite, be it to the left or right, upwards or downwards, according as we are wafted by the breath of occasion. We never meditate what we would have till the instant we have a mind to have it; and change like that little creature which receives its colour from what it is laid upon. What we but just now proposed to ourselves we ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... existence. The "higher life" was always tending toward? union with Reality; towards the gathering of it self up into One. The "lower life," framed for correspondence with the outward world of multiplicity, was always tending to fall downwards, and fritter the powers of the self among external things. This is but a restatement, in terms of practical existence, of the fact which Recollection brought home to us: that the human self is transitional, ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... overflowed in buds and leaves, Were clothed in golden splendours, interwoven With many shadows from the branches bare. And through their tops the west wind rushing went, Calling aloud the sleeping sap within: The thrill passed downwards from the roots in air To the roots tremulous in the embracing ground. And though no buds with little dots of light Sparkled the darkness of the hedgerow twigs; Softening, expanding in the warm light-bath, Seemed the dry ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... and downwards. I screwed round a bit, holding the jackstay with one hand, and steadying the insensible Ordinary with the other. In this way I could look below. At first, I could see nothing. Then the Second Mate's voice came up to ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... in a line," he continued, "sweeping their arms upwards and downwards, while their lips moved as if repeating some prayer or incantation. Suddenly they ceased to gesticulate, and broke out for the third time into the wild, weird, piercing cry which had roused me from my slumber. Never shall I forget ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... mountain could be ascended on that side, by one who could climb well—laying a strong emphasis on the word. The very doubt implied in this expression was enough to decide us; so we began the work. And work it was, too! The side was very steep, the trees all leaned downwards, and we slipped at every step on the dry leaves and grass. After making a short distance this way with the greatest labor, we came to the track of an avalanche, which had swept away the trees and earth. Here the rock had been worn rough by torrents, but by using both hands and feet, ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... was hung with portraits of knights in armor, and ladies in silken gowns; and the armor rattled, and the silken gowns rustled! And then there was a flight of stairs which went a good way upwards, and a little way downwards, and then one came on a balcony which was in a very dilapidated state, sure enough, with large holes and long crevices, but grass grew there and leaves out of them altogether, for the whole balcony ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... my seeming rudeness, both of them apparently took a decided step downwards from the social point ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... converse together, perforce of trivialities. Marian Yule spoke in rather slow tones, thoughtfully, gently; she had linked her fingers, and laid her hands, palms downwards, upon her lap—a nervous action. Her accent was pure, unpretentious; and she used none of the fashionable turns of speech which would have suggested the habit of ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... trees of the wood had donned their leaves except the cautious ash, which here and there gave a soft, pleasant greyness to the landscape. Far away in the champaign were spires, and towers, and stacks of chimneys belonging to some distant hidden farm-house, which were traced downwards through the golden air by the thin columns of blue smoke sent up from the evening fires. The view was bounded by some rising ground in deep purple ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... them. Then as she looked away beyond the fields to where in the distance the land sloped upwards into softly rising hills, a flight of birds attracted her attention. How prettily they flew, waving, now upwards, now downwards, like one long ribbon against the sky. "Or a little bird," she added. "If I was up there I could see so nicely where to go, and I could fly, fly, till I got ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... almost every paper in London, from the Times downwards, Sands had held positions as editor and sub-editor of numerous journals. But he had lost each one in turn, and was beginning to understand that he was fated to die of poverty, and was beginning to grow tired of the useless struggle. No ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... nothing but an iron staple projecting from the wall. Fandor seized it, stopped for a minute or two's breathing space, ascertained, by drawing it up, that of his cord there were only a few yards remaining; but he also perceived, and with what relief, that from where he was resting, downwards the chimney was, as far as he could see by his lantern's light, marked off into regular spaces by these iron staples which are sometimes placed there for the use of chimney cleaners and masons. Fandor found them a most convenient kind ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... under a father's roof—and though Darrell would have taken no steps to separate her from the husband she had chosen, still, in secret, he would have felt comparative relief and ease had she herself sought to divide her fate from one whose path downwards in dishonour his penetration instinctively divined. With an idea that some communication might be made to him, to which he might reply that Matilda, if compelled to quit her husband, should never want ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... must ever be summer—away where the river washes the feet of the old town of Abingdon, and thence by pleasant paths through Sunningwell we would ascend Boar's Hill. There on a grassy spot, a hanging wood partly revealed below us, we would lie face downwards on the turf and gaze on Oxford lying far below—the Oxford Turner saw—Oxford in fairy wreaths of light-blue haze, which as they part, now here now there, reveal her sparkling beauty. There is no other place ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How
... 'A little beyond the Varietes, I came to a corpse lying on the ground with its face downwards; I tried to raise it, aided by others, but we were repelled by the soldiers. A little farther on, there were two bodies, a man and a woman; then one alone, a workman' (we abridge the account). 'From Rue Montmartre to Rue du Sentier one literally walked in blood; at certain spots, ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... gnawed at the marly banks, and shook the ever-restless bulrushes, till it was swept away and down over the white pebbles and olive weeds, in one broad rippling sheet of molten silver, towards the distant sea. Downwards it fleeted ever, and bore his thoughts floating on its oily stream; and the great trout, with their yellow sides and peacock backs, lounged among the eddies, and the silver grayling dimpled and wandered ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... Glancing his eye downwards past a somewhat flippant sub-title, the elderly gentleman came, with intense amazement, to understand that the date of this singular performance was 1993. Other persons at a similar juncture would have pinched themselves to see if they were awake, or have ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... system, had it been properly worked. In this respect he differs from a contemporary troubadour, Guillem Figueira, whose violent satire against Rome shows him as opposed to the whole system from the papacy downwards. He was a native of Toulouse and migrated to Lombardy and to the court of Frederick II. when the crusade drove him from his home. "I wonder not, Rome, that men go astray, for thou hast cast the world into strife and misery; virtue and good works ...
— The Troubadours • H.J. Chaytor
... before the throne." On the right and left are the figures of the twelve apostles seated; beyond them, on the dexter side, are two archangels, St. Gabriel, "the angel of redemption," holding the standard of the cross, and St. Raphael, holding a sword with its point downwards, expressive of victory and peace; at their feet rise three figures, typical of the blessed received into glory. On the sinister side are also two archangels, St. Uriel holding his sword downwards, and St. Michael spearing the dragon, expressive ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... is grasped in the right hand, thumb up, while the blade of the chisel passes between the thumb and first finger of the left hand, the back of which rests on the work and holds it in place. As the right hand pushes the chisel downwards the thumb and first finger of the left hand control its motion. When chiseling it is well to stand so as to look along the line being cut. Incline the chisel toward you, and use the near part of the cutting edge for a guide and the farther corner for cutting, pushing the handle ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... there was one which Lord Oldborough did not open: he laid it on the table with the direction downwards, leaned his elbow upon it, and sat as if calmly listening to the abbe; but Mr. Percy, knowing his countenance, saw signs of extraordinary emotion, with ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... with Pogge—toad, under which form the devil was supposed to be personified; and hence probably originated such expressions as toadstools, paddock-stools, &c. The thorns of the eglantine are said to point downwards, because when the devil was excluded from heaven he tried to regain his lost position by means of a ladder composed of its thorns. But when the eglantine was only allowed to grow as a bush, out of spite he placed its thorns in their present eccentric position. The seed of the parsley, "is ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... the flame of the candle which stood between Plessy and himself. Plessy sprang up and blew the candle out; but little colourless flames were already licking along the envelope. Faversham held the letter downwards by a corner and the colourless flame flickered up into a tongue of yellow, the paper charred and curled in the track of the flames, the flames leapt to Faversham's fingers; he dropped the burning letter on the floor and crushed it with his ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... by a long line. I followed close behind him, to drive him if necessary. He did not need much driving, but took the ice quite readily. We had got to the centre of the river, when the surface suddenly bent downwards, and, to my horror, the poor horse plunged deep into black, quick-running water! He was not three yards in front of me when the ice broke. I recoiled involuntarily from the black, seething chasm; the horse, though he plunged suddenly down, never let his head ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... the feelings of the richer classes necessarily became, as Mr. Pimsoll remarked, not so much blunted as "stratified." They seldom went downwards towards the poor, from whom the well-to-do-people are separated by their manner of life, and whom they do not know under their best aspects, in their every-day life. But among themselves— allowance being made for the effects ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... at my mutilated face before I replace the black patch over the left eye, and I realize that, with my crooked shoulder, and the leg gone from the right knee downwards, that no woman can feel emotion for me again in ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... floor in a circle, talking, and he guessed they were discussing again the question of the road. The Samoan huts are formed in this way: Trunks of slender trees are placed in a circle at intervals of perhaps five or six feet; a tall tree is set in the middle and from this downwards slopes the thatched roof. Venetian blinds of coconut leaves can be pulled down at night or when it is raining. Ordinarily the hut is open all round so that the breeze can blow through freely. Walker rode to the edge of the hut and called ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... immediately wheeled also. This sudden change of motion threw me off my saddle, and I remained hanging by the side of the horse, with my leg over his neck: there I was, hanging on only by my leg, with my head downwards below the horse's belly. The bull rushed on to the charge, ranging up to the flank of the horse on the side where I was dangling, and the horse was so encumbered by my weight in that awkward position, that each moment the bull gained ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... suspicious of a place like this; but they are not — they plunge on till the snow-bridge breaks under them. Luckily the harness held, so that it was the affair of a moment to pull the poor beasts up again. Even a dog might well be expected to be a trifle shaken after hanging head downwards over such a fearful chasm; but apparently they took it very calmly, and were quite prepared to do ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... interfere with the immense housings that cavalry soldiers require; but it is not so handy, it does not lie so freely as the above, nor is it as well suited to a traveller or a sportsman. The gun is placed butt downwards, as in the Namaqua method, and leans backwards in the same way; but the under side of the gun, instead of being backwards, or towards the horse's tail, Is towards his head. The butt lies in a shallow bucket, ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... better," persisted the Old Maid, "for our ideals? I don't say we women are perfect—please don't think that. You are not more alive to our faults than we are. Read the women novelists from George Eliot downwards. But for your own sake—is it not well man should have something to look up to, and failing ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... to the stone palisading of one of New York's most famous roof gardens. Sogrange ordered an immense dinner but spent most of his time gazing downwards. They were higher up than at the hotel and they could see across the tangled maze of lights even to the river, across which the great ferry-boats were speeding all the while—huge creatures of streaming fire and whistling sirens. The air where ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed By a river, which its softened way did take In currents through the calmer water spread Around: the wildfowl nestled in the brake And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed: The woods[671] sloped downwards to its brink, and stood With their green faces fixed ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... reading. The two learned people of the village were the rector and the doctor. These two worthies kept up the old controversy between the professions, which grows out of the fact that one studies nature from below upwards, and the other from above downwards. The rector maintained that physicians contracted a squint which turns their eyes inwardly, while the muscles which roll their eyes upward become palsied. The doctor retorted that theological students developed ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Helix aspersa. Soon a number of guests hasten up—two, three or more—and, without any quarrel with real proprietor, all alike fall to. Let us leave them to themselves for a couple of days and then turn the shell, with the opening downwards. The contents flow out as easily as would soup from an overturned saucepan. When the sated diners retire from this ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... ladies and plunged towards the box. A young man was flung stomach downwards across the balustrade. Philip handed him up the bouquet and the note. Then his own hands were seized affectionately. It all seemed ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... glance, eyes sparkling with intelligence and interest; not a word was disregarded. Coningsby did not advance as was his custom; he had a sort of instinct, that the stranger was discoursing of matters of which he knew nothing. He turned to a table, he took up a book, which he began to read upside downwards. A hand was lightly placed on his shoulder. He looked round, it was another stranger; who said, however, in a ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... historic suggestions and characters." It is not apparent who the historic characters are, for the real Arthur is but a historic phantasm. "But then, in the midst of so much realism, the knights, from Arthur downwards, talk and act in ways with which we are familiar in modern ethical and psychological novels, but which are as impossible in real mediaeval knights as a Bengal tiger or a Polar bear would be in a drawing-room." I confess to little acquaintance with modern ethical novels; but real mediaeval ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... He thrust downwards at the broken boards. The extrication was no easy matter, and her torn boot showed him how badly the foot and ankle ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... cord. The suspension system is attached to the upper corners of the inverted triangle thus formed, and converges in straight lines through the gas space. The bracing terminates in collecting rings from which a short vertical cable extends downwards through a special accordion sleeve to pass through the lower wall of the envelope. These sleeves are of special design, the idea being to permit the gas to escape under pressure arising from expansion and at the same time to provide ample play for the cable which is necessary ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... found that it was not Paul, but Bob Swift, who was dangling, head downwards. The noose had caught him by one leg. A very laughable appearance he made, as he kicked and swung his arms, and swayed to and fro, ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... one!" said his wife. "I must take him," she said, picking up the baby and turning him face downwards over her arm while she seated herself. She spread open her knees and laid him, docile to her practised handling, across them. Anne watched her with the air ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... of the danger we had just escaped. Above our heads a long and wide split ran along the vault to a distance of several yards, and, at the place where it stopped, an enormous rock, detached from the dome, had been most providentially impeded in its fall downwards by one of the columns, which, acting as a sort of buttress, kept it suspended over the opening we had just made. Having, after mature examination, ascertained that the column and the rock were pretty solid, like rash men, accustomed to daunt all danger ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... Cheyenne to Deadwood. The horses on a run, about two hundred yards from the station; upon looking closely I saw they were pursued by Indians. The horses ran to the barn as was their custom. As the horses stopped I rode along side of the coach and found the driver John Slaughter, lying face downwards in the boot of the stage, he having been shot by the Indians. When the stage got to the station the Indians hid in the bushes. I immediately removed all baggage from the coach except the mail. I then took the driver's ...
— Life and Adventures of Calamity Jane • Calamity Jane
... for soap and water, and spent a considerable period in the task of scrubbing his cheeks (which, for the purpose, he supported from within with his tongue) and then of drying his full, round face, from the ears downwards, with a towel which he took from the waiter's shoulder. Twice he snorted into the waiter's countenance as he did this, and then he posted himself in front of the mirror, donned a false shirt-front, plucked ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... contrary, he listened; while his eyes passed swiftly round the room, to gather what was amiss. But all seemed in order. The lads' bowls and spoons stood on the table, the great roll of brown bread lay beside them, and a book, probably Claude's, lay face downwards on the board. The door of one of the bedrooms stood open. The Syndic's suspicious gaze halted at the closed door. He pointed ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... effort was made to make Paul's life at Garside unendurable. The dead set against him extended from the Fifth Form downwards. The views which Newall had expressed with so much force on the night he had been feathered reigned supreme throughout the school. It was felt that Paul had no place there, and that as he would not go of his own free will, it was the bounden duty of all of them to follow Newall's ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... still on her knees, and clasped her right hand round his wrist while he held hers in his strong grip. She leant forward and without hesitation swung out, suspended by one arm, into the darkness. He stooped, then knelt, and finally lay face downwards on the wall, lowering her all ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... distraction in himself; while the affections, leaving the mean and middle way of temperance, tend towards the one and the other extreme, and so are wafted on high or towards the right, and are also transported downwards to ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... risen close up to the girl, she vouchsafed no acknowledgment of my presence. I observed no motion—not even of the eyes; which, directed downwards, seemed fixed in steadfast gaze upon the ground. Nothing about her appeared to move—save the coruscation of metallic ornaments that glittered in the sun, as though her body were enveloped in scale-armour. Otherwise, ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... even faced The knowledge that is worse than hell; And loved the man I saw but now Hanging head downwards in the well. ...
— The Wild Knight and Other Poems • Gilbert Chesterton
... Jungfernsprung (Maiden's Leap). The beauty of this region is only surpassed by the situation of the town and castle of Tetschen. The castle stands on a rock, between twenty and thirty feet high, which seems to rise out of the Elbe; it is surrounded by hot-houses and charming gardens, shelving downwards as far as the town, which lies in a blooming valley, near a little harbour. The valley itself, encompassed by a chain of lofty mountains, seems quite shut out from the ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... leaning himself back on the chair, looked at his servant with a good deal of surprise, in consequence of the singularity of Ms manner. Dandy, on the other hand, took the candle-box from under his arm, and putting it flat on the table, with the label downwards, placed his two hands upon it, and looked the other right in the face; after which he closed one eye, and gave ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the room was wild and grisly with blood and the smell of burnt flesh, and David lay face downwards on the floor, writhing as the echoes of Paul's shrieks tortured his ears. But in the next room little Paul was still for ever, and all the ghostly labor was to ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... surprising when one considers the lack of civilising influences which ought to be exerted from the top downwards, but which have no root in the highest power they know, which is the arm of the law. It might be interesting to note a few proofs of the corruption which exists among those who wield the local weapons of justice—among the commissaries, police, and ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... recovering the weapon. There is no object to be gained by keeping the knife within the wound, and there is considerable danger of injury to the hand. If the knife is used by an expert it will never be held with the point downwards like a dagger, but the handle will be grasped for a direct thrust, as though the weapon were a sword. In this position the knife is always well under command, and it can be instantly withdrawn and the thrust repeated ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... I can't be good!" I managed to articulate; then I went to the sofa, fell on it face downwards, and sobbed on it for a quarter of an hour in genuine hysterics. She came close to me, put her arms round me and stayed motionless in that position. But the trouble was that the hysterics could not go on for ever, and ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... correcting the tone. Small metal pipes are flattened by contracting the tops inwards with a metal cone like a candle-extinguisher placed over the top and tapped; and sharpened by having the top splayed by a cone pushed in point downwards. Reeds of the striking variety (see Fig. 144) have a tuning-wire pressing on the tongue near the fixed end. The end of this wire projects through the casing. By moving it, the length of the vibrating part of the ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... brought Dawn home from Walker's committee meeting, and remained talking to her in the otherwise deserted dining-room till a late hour. As soon as he left Dawn came upstairs, and throwing herself face downwards on her ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... before they had been firm set with murderous intent. The out-held gun-arm dropped, and the weapon clattered heavily to the ground. The man reeled. He tottered forward. Then, with a sigh, a deep drawn sigh, his knees gave under him and he plunged face downwards amongst the litter of the Adresol whose secret he had come to steal. The deadly drug ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... an absorbing thought, may, it is true, annihilate or transform sensation; but this is explicable by the fact that the strongest emotions are excited by ideas. Hence, on the hypothesis, the impression radiating downwards to the emotional centres from the cerebral hemispheres, would counteract a sensory impression radiating upwards from them, by a literal interference analogous to that observed in opposing waves of sound. But as the direction of the impression generating emotion ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... honoured sir, would grin To see you turning deadeyes in, Not UP, as in the ancient way, But downwards, like a cutter's stay— You didn't oughter; Besides, in seizing shrouds on board, Breast backstays you have quite ignored; Great RODNEY kept unto the last Breast backstays on topgallant mast— They ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... He is in a sitting posture, in allusion to his immutable essence; the upper part of his body is uncovered, because it is in the upper regions of the universe (the stars) that he most conspicuously displays himself. He is covered from the waist downwards, because respecting terrestrial things he is more secret and concealed. He holds a scepter in his left hand, because on the left side is the heart, and the heart is the seat of the understanding, which, (in human beings) regulates every action." ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... the dissolution of concord, and the subversion of the general bulwarks of publick faith, it is superfluous to explain. To know the condition to which a compliance with this motion would reduce the British nation, we need only turn our eyes downwards upon the hourly scenes of common life; we need only attend to the occurrences which crowd perpetually upon our view, and consider the calamitous state of that man, of whom it is generally known that he cannot be trusted, and that secrets communicated ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... if even now, on that same ridge, 15 A speck should rise, and still enlarging, lengthening, As it clomb downwards, shape itself at last To a numerous cavalcade, and spurring foremost, Who but Sarolta's own dear lord returned From his ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... to raise the head of an infant's bedstead a little higher than the foot; though not so much as to incline him to slide downwards into the bed, for that would be to produce one ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... caber is a small tree, or beam, heavier at one end than the other. The performer holds this perpendicularly, with the smaller end downwards, and his object is to toss it so as to make it fall on the ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... result is that at each stride, the angle which the hind limbs describe round their centre of motion is much larger than the angle described by the fore limbs. And beyond this, as an aid in equalizing the strides, the hind part of the back is at each stride bent very much downwards and forwards. Hence the hind-quarters appear to be doing nearly all the work. Now a moment's observation shows that the bones and muscles composing the hind-quarters of the giraffe, perform actions differing in one or other way ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... uterus is Latin, and as Latin is the language of science, we will use that word. The uterus is the little nest or room in which the unborn baby has to live for three-fourths of a year. It is a small organ, about the size and shape of a small flattened pear. It is suspended with the small end downwards, and it is hollow. It is held in place by broad ligaments that extend outward to the sides, and by short, round ligaments from front to back. These ligaments do not hold it firmly in place, for it is necessary ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... have the van of his fleet to tack first, the admiral will put abroad the union flag at the staff of the fore topmast-head if the red flag be not abroad; but if the red flag be abroad then the fore topsail shall be lowered a little, and the union flag shall be spread from the cap of the fore topmast downwards. ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... estimating, measuring, and judging from the outside, and not from the inside; the more essential distinction is that the class in question views things from below upwards—while the esoteric class views things FROM ABOVE DOWNWARDS. There are heights of the soul from which tragedy itself no longer appears to operate tragically; and if all the woe in the world were taken together, who would dare to decide whether the sight of it would NECESSARILY seduce and constrain to sympathy, and thus ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... road lay through low-lying ground, and was crossed by another road which led abruptly downwards into ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... taking a hand of each, "very brave. Yes, I have received bad news from St. Jean d'Angely. There has been a fierce fight; our father headed a sortie, and has been seriously hurt. He was the bravest man there, every one says so from the king downwards. Even his ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx |
