"Sinking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... But he lives, and he cannot endure that he should be in his own eyes unworthy of life. This inward peace is therefore merely negative as regards what can make life pleasant; it is, in fact, only the escaping the danger of sinking in personal worth, after everything else that is valuable has been lost. It is the effect of a respect for something quite different from life, something in comparison and contrast with which life with all its enjoyment has no value. He still lives only because it is his duty, not because ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... "anathema." This little picture in oils faintly shadowed out himself sitting at his easel, working in the soft grey of the autumn evening, and Ida had painted it and given it to him, and that was why he admired it so much. For to speak the truth, our friend the Colonel was going, going fast—sinking out of sight of his former self into the depths of the ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... and there was no help, and no sign of the flood sinking. Pomp was quite right; it did "'top so," and we began to suffer ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... and it was clear that Walker was sinking. There was an internal haemorrhage and even Mackintosh in his ignorance could not fail to see that his chief had but an hour or two to live. He stood by the side of the bed stock still. For half an hour perhaps Walker lay with his eyes closed, ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... Congress, as they call it, hold council always with closed doors, like a knot of conspirators? The first tap of the Northern drum dispelled many illusions, and we need no better proof of which ship is sinking than that Mr. Caleb Gushing should have made such haste to come over to the old Constitution with the stars and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... found Fenella returning. She was carrying a great handful of roses which she had just gathered, and to his relief there was no expression of displeasure in her face. Perhaps, though, he reflected with a sinking heart, ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... being buried in the sand. Her posture was such as to suggest to the experienced eye of the sailor that she had driven over the reef, somewhat in the same way as the Mermaid had done; but, unlike the latter craft, had cleared it altogether and had there been brought to an anchor, subsequently sinking where she lay. She seemed to have been a three-masted ship, for Leslie could see the stumps of the fore and main masts, and believed he could make out the stump of the mizzenmast broken close off at the deck. She had the appearance of a craft of somewhere about the Elizabethan ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... and it was only an accidental succession of single heirs, that brought an undivided patrimony down to the present generation. One cannot help regretting that the estate is to be cut up now into five shares or more. Eleven thousand acres of fertile hill and dale, sinking and swelling gently, so as to attract all the benignity of sun or breeze—not more densely wooded than is common on our own western shores, and watered to an ornamental perfection—truly on any civilized land, such is ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... of expelling the British from New York roused the northern states from that apathy into which they appeared to be sinking, and vigorous measures were taken to fill their regiments. Yet those measures were not completely successful. In the month of June, when the army took the field, and encamped at Peekskill, its effective numbers did not exceed five ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... that descend to the lake, I could see on my left the old ruins and the lengthening shadows of the Abbey, which darkened a vast extent of the waters. In a few minutes I reached the spot. The sun was sinking behind the Alps, and the long twilight of autumn enveloped the mountains, the waves, and the shore. I did not stop at the ruins, and passed rapidly through the orchard where we had sat at the foot of ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... of the Old World. They combine the attributes of Apollo, Herakles, and Hermes. Like Herakles, they journey from east to west, smiting the powers of darkness, storm, and winter with the thunderbolts of Zeus or the unerring arrows of Phoibos, and sinking in a blaze of glory on the western verge of the world, where the waves meet the firmament. Or like Hermes, in a second cycle of legends, they rise with the soft breezes of a summer morning, driving before them the bright celestial cattle ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... bed, he thought, stroked his head and face with cool, soft hands, took the dressing from his leg, rubbed it with something that smelt like roses, and then waved her hands over him three times. At the last wave of her hands everything vanished, he felt himself sinking into the profoundest slumber, and remembered nothing more until he ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... sisters; "I've brought my new bow and arrow, and if there is a villain there, you'll see how quick I'll lay him out. I'm not afraid, anyway, where Fritz is," he added, half to himself. They marched along very softly, their little bare feet sinking into the soft velvet carpet. Louis went boldly ahead with his bow and arrow. Carrie followed, her jet-black hair streaming down over her white night dress, and little Hope came close behind, hugging her white kitty, who winked in astonishment at this strange proceeding. When they reached ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... every other nation on earth must have recourse to arms to amend or to restore their constitutions. The sale of our western lands begins this month. I hope from this measure a very speedy reduction of our national debt. It can only be applied to pay off the principal, being irrevocably made a sinking fund for that purpose. I have the honor to be, with much esteem and respect, Sir, your most ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... his "pull." There reached him presently that same sinking at the pit of the stomach he had known when Clay had thrashed him. He learned that when a lawbreaker is going strong, friends at court who are under obligations to him are a bulwark of strength, but when one's ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... foot suddenly kicked Seriosha in the eye: with the result that, letting go of Ilinka's leg and covering the wounded member with one hand, Seriosha hit out at him with all his might with the other one. Of course Ilinka's legs slipped down as, sinking exhausted to the floor and half-suffocated ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... was made to the circumstance, for before the following Sunday came round John Hardy had died. He had been sinking for months, and his death had been looked for for some time. It was not a blow to his daughter, and could hardly be a great grief, for he had been a drunken, worthless man, caring nothing for his child, and frequently brutally ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... at him. He groped back towards a chair, sinking into it. He'd almost found a refuge, and even hoped that he could find some ...
— Pursuit • Lester del Rey
... 1,550 persons were lost during the first year of the war through the sinking of merchant ships, nearly all of which were torpedoed. This applied to vessels of the Allies alone, twenty-two persons having been lost with neutral ships. The total of tonnage destroyed between February 18, 1915, when the German ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... one condition which will operate to unduly diminish our estimate of geologic time, and it is a condition which may possibly obtain at the present time. If the land is, on the whole, now sinking relatively to the ocean level, the denudation area tends, as we have seen, to move inwards. It will thus encroach upon regions which have not for long periods drained to the ocean. On such areas there is an accumulation ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... no more. The phosphorescent light died out, the mirror darkened, and on sinking back on his pillow, he realized with the wildest delight he was once again alone—his bedfellow ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... long as the German tongue is spoken. Well will it be if they are remembered in their entirety. They were the last message of the older generation to the new Germany which had arisen since the war; for already the shadow of death lay over the city; in the far South the Crown Prince was sinking to his grave, and but a few weeks were to pass before Bismarck stood at the bedside of the dying Emperor. He died on March 9, 1888, a few days before his ninety-first birthday, and with him passed the support on ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... sinking into a chair with the baby. "I believed them," he said slowly and uncomprehendingly. "They ...
— The Ultroom Error • Gerald Allan Sohl
... quick movement, the Hornet closed upon the Peacock, and poured round-shot into her for about fifteen minutes. The Peacock struck her colors, and at the same time raised a signal of distress. Her mainmast soon fell overboard, and she was in a sinking condition. The removal of the wounded to the Hornet was at once begun. At twilight she went down, carrying with her thirteen of her own crew and several of those of the Hornet. Nine of the former and three of ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... privileged, when she had fairly hunted us down and married us, would be very imperious and tyrannical. Not so with the Gy-ei: once married, the wings once suspended, and more amiable, complacent, docile mates, more sympathetic, more sinking their loftier capacities into the study of their husbands' comparatively frivolous tastes and whims, no poet could conceive in his visions of conjugal bliss. Lastly, among the more important characteristics of the Vril-ya, as distinguished from our mankind—lastly, and ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... finished he snatched for his case again, for this was to be the best cigarette of the whole day, and discovered that his sensuality had overreached itself for once, and that there were none left. He clutched at the silver box with a sinking heart, half-remembering that he had filled his case with the last of them this morning. It was a fact, and he knew that there were ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... glad," said the man in black, "that my candor is not sinking me in the estimation of every one present; but even if it did, I am obliged to tell the truth. I do not know what would have become of me if I had not had the good-fortune to catch the measles from ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... encouragement from his clergy which became his utter ruin, while trusting more to their logic than the rough philosophy of his Parliament, it came to an irreparable breach; for the house of peers, which alone had stood in this gap, now sinking down between the King and the commons, showed that Crassus was dead and the isthmus broken. But a monarchy, divested of its nobility, has no refuge under heaven but an army. Wherefore the dissolution of this government ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... the pony reared and plunged, and then uttered a cry almost human in its fear. Then came the sensation of sinking, sinking with the very earth itself. O'Shea had jumped from the cart and cut the traces. Caius was springing out, and felt his spring guided by a hand upon his arm. He could not have believed that the boy had so ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... entrance of any other body into the place it possesses, till it has left it. There is no idea which we receive more constantly from sensation than solidity. Whether we move or rest, in what posture soever we are, we always feel something under us that supports us, and hinders our further sinking downwards; and the bodies which we daily handle make us perceive that, whilst they remain between them, they do, by an insurmountable force, hinder the approach of the parts of our hands that press ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... whale sinking again, that was impossible. It may have sunk after being killed; but putrefaction had set in within the carcass and the gases which had thereby formed would keep the whale afloat until the fish and seabirds had stripped its bones, ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... . . Altogether, I feel horribly out of sorts, brother. My head feels empty; there's a sinking at my heart, a weakness. . . . I ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... 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 ...
— The Second-Story Man • Upton Sinclair
... mines, neither fine dust nor gases being ignited by it. The action is rending and not pulverising. Compared to gunpowder, it is more powerful in a ratio ranging from 2-1/2 to 4 to 1, according to the substance acted upon. It is largely used in blasting, pit sinking, quarrying, &c., but especially in coal mining. According to Dr Roth, the following is the equation ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... scarcely time to draw somewhat back from the casement when Waife came hurriedly into the room, followed, not by Merle, but by the tall rough-looking horseman whom they had encountered on the road. "Thank Heaven," cried Waife, sinking on a chair, "out of sight, out of hearing now! Now you may speak; now I can listen! O wretched son of my lost angel, whom I so vainly sought to save by the sacrifice of all my claims to the respect of men, for what purpose ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the Hare Indians, or Mackenzie river, was first described by Dr. Richardson, and is of a smaller size than the Esquimaux breed, but with broad feet, which prevent him from sinking into the snow. One of them, only seven months old, ran beside this gentleman's sledge for nine hundred miles, frequently carrying one of his master's mittens in his mouth; all are very gentle, and, like the Esquimaux ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... M. le Comte. Josephin should have been made to write it," the old notary cried wrathfully. "He is a good creature; he would have taken it all on his shoulders. But there is an end of it; the world is falling to pieces," the old man continued, sinking exhausted into a chair. "Du Croisier is a tiger; we must be careful not to rouse him. What time is it? Where is the draft? If it is at Paris, it might be bought back from the Kellers; they might accommodate us. Ah! but there are dangers on all sides; a single false step ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... these two courts were at this time the most luxurious in Europe. Stirling says the fatigues of the life of Velasquez shortened his days. He arrived at Madrid on his return, on June 26th, and from that time was gradually sinking. He died August 6th. He was buried with magnificent ceremonies in the Church of San Juan. His wife survived him but eight days; she was buried ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... perhaps you will think of kin to a Paradox) that divers times out of the same Animal or Vegetable, there may be extracted Oyles of Natures obviously differing. To which purpose I shall not insist on the swimming and sinking Oyles, which I have sometimes observ'd to float on, and subside under the spirit of Guajacum, and that of divers other Vegetables Distill'd with a strong and lasting Fire; Nor shall I insist on the observation elsewhere mention'd, ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... Did Mr. Lincoln regard the address which he had just delivered to a small and critical audience as a success? Did he have the faintest glimmer of the brilliant effect which was to follow? Did he feel the loneliness of the situation—the want of his loyal Illinois adherents? Did his sinking heart infer that he was but a speck of humanity to which the great city would never again give a thought? He was a plain man, an ungainly man; unadorned, apparently uncultivated, showing the awkwardness of self-conscious rusticity. His dress that night before a New York audience ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... physical rest and recreation, but moral improvement. The former are proper to the day only so far as they are subservient to the latter. The whole human race have the conscious need of being made better, purer, and more spiritual; the whole human race have one common danger of sinking to a mere animal life under the pressure of labor or in the dissipations of pleasure; and of the whole human race the proverb holds good, that what may be done any time is done at no time. Hence the Heavenly Father appoints one day as a special ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Dingle Bay as far as Ballyheige. But the grandeur of the scene Jay at our feet. Beneath us yawned at every side chasms of seemingly unfathomable depth, whose darkness it was impossible to penetrate, as the sun was sinking in the Atlantic. It was really a spectacle full of grandeur and of awe, and we remained enjoying it till the last ray of the sun ceased to glimmer on the ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... 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 had been seized with an ...
— The Great Intendant - A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada 1665-1672 • Thomas Chapais
... stood with mouths agape as the machine flew over the tree-tops, its light diminishing to a pin-point, its clamour sinking to the quiet hum of a bee, and then fading away altogether. In a minute ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... sisters, exclaimed, "See here!" and springing forward, plucked a fine crimson cluster of the mountain bramble. His sisters, on seeing this, rushed on with like eagerness. They soon forsook the little winding and craggy footpath, and hurried through sinking masses of moss and dry grass, from bush to bush, and place to place. They were soon far up above the valley, and almost every step revealed to them some delightful prize. The clusters of the mountain-bramble, resembling mulberries, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... been abandoned for some years. On arriving at the hill, the remembrance of scenes long past and gone naturally broke in upon the mind. All was changed: the house was in ruins and gradually sinking under the influence of the sun and rain; the roof had nearly fallen in; and the room, where once governors and generals had caroused, was now dismantled and tenanted by the ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... this occasion my curiosity overpowered all other feelings, and I spent two or three hours in gratifying it. I did not cut myself, and none of the ordinary symptoms of dissection-poison supervened, but poisoned I was somehow, and I remember sinking into a strange state of apathy. By way of a last chance, I was sent to the care of some good, kind people, friends of my father's, who lived in a farmhouse in the heart of Warwickshire. I remember staggering from my bed to the window ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... ethereal medium by some subtile telegraphy of feeling, which transcends understanding, and belongs to a miraculous region of life. For, when Fanny died in her German home, Felix, amidst a happy company in England, suddenly aware of some terrible calamity, from the disturbance of equilibrium and dread sinking of his soul, rushed to the piano, and poured out his anguish in an improvisation of wailing and mysterious strains, which held the assembly spell-bound and in tears. In a few days a letter reached him, announcing that his sister had died at that very hour. On receiving the tidings, he uttered a ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... oppressed of all creeds or nations'—and so forth, and so forth. Where was it now? Yes, that was it, in the place of honour, of course—the first leader under the clock in the 'Morning Intelligence.' His eye caught at once the opening key-words, 'No Englishman.' Sinking down into the easy-chair by the flowers in the window he prepared to run it through at his ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... will let down the net." It was soon filled with fishes; so great was the haul that the net began to break, and the busy fishermen signalled to those in the other boat to come to their assistance. The catch filled both boats so that they appeared to be in danger of sinking. Simon Peter was overcome with this new evidence of the Master's power, and, falling at the feet of Jesus, he exclaimed: "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord." Jesus answered graciously and with promise: "Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men."[428] The occupants ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... given out, and we suffered with thirst for several hours. Again the word to start was given. We rose at once, but our stiffened legs quivered beneath us, and we leaned on our alpenstocks for support. Still we plodded on for two more weary hours, cutting our steps in the icy cliffs, or sinking to our thighs in the treacherous snow-beds. We could see that we were nearing the top of the great chasm, for the clouds, now entirely cleared away, left our view unobstructed. We could even descry the black Kurdish tents upon the northeast slope, and, ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... very soon the edge of the polar ice-cap rose from the sea and closed the southern horizon like a wall. One morning they were alarmed by finding themselves floating amongst detached pieces of ice. But the fear of sinking passed away like their vigour, like their hopes; the shocks of the floes knocking against the ship's side could not rouse them from their apathy: and the Borgmester Dahl drifted out again unharmed into open water. ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... a sad sinking of spirit, to the pitch well-nigh of swounding, and with a sight of bitter tears, which will not be put back nor stayed in any wise, as you bear testimony unto me, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... attack of homesickness was upon her; that dreadful pulling of the heartstrings; that sinking feeling that she had cut herself loose from all to whom she ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... and vigour of liberty every moment sinking in me, and a servile fear of displeasing, stealing by degrees upon all my behaviour, till no word, or look, or action, was my own. As the solicitude to please increased, the power of pleasing grew less, and I was always clouded ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... help congratulating you on being ordained to the ministry to-day, for this above everything, that the Bible is henceforth to be continually in your hands; that the study of it is to be the work of your life; that you are to be continually sinking and bathing your mind in its truths; and that you are to have the pleasure of bringing forth what you have discovered in it to feed the minds of men. The ministerial profession is to be envied more for this than anything else. I promise ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... long absence, she had at last gone on with her dressing, and then, as he still did not appear, she had stepped for a moment to the room of a friend, who was sick, and had asked to see her when she was ready. Richard saw that she was out, and sinking into the first chair, his eyes fell upon the note lying near the bureau drawer. The room had partially been put to rights, but this had escaped Ethie's notice, and Richard picked it up, glowering with rage, and almost ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... the seeds after they have been covered. When this is not done, seeds will vegetate very unevenly, and, in dry weather, some of them not at all. Another advantage of rolling a field-crop is the greater facility and economy with which it can be harvested. It makes a level, smooth surface, sinking small stones out of the way of the scythe or reaper. Rolling makes grass-seed catch, when sown with a spring-crop. All beds of small seeds—as onions, beets, carrots, parsnips, &c.—should be rolled after planting. It will so ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... which I used to watch in Virginia, no budding woods or blooming gardens. There was only—spring itself; the throb of it, the light restlessness, the vital essence of it everywhere; in the sky, in the swift clouds, in the pale sunshine, and in the warm, high wind—rising suddenly, sinking suddenly, impulsive and playful like a big puppy that pawed you and then lay down to be petted. If I had been tossed down blindfold on that red prairie, I should have known ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... and the rattle of the cross-bow, and the white splinters sparkling off the fated tree as the bolt glanced and turned—and then the death shriek, and the stagger, and the heavy fall of the sturdy forester—and the bow dropping from the old man's hands, and the blood sinking to his heart in one chilling rush, and his glorious features collapsing into that look of changeless and rigid sorrow, which haunted me in the portrait upon the wall in childhood. ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... in the Desert, Browning describes the attempts that were made to revive the sinking man. It seemed quite hopeless. The most that ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... a golden sunset. The sun was sinking behind the delicate arcades of the Moorish garden, and spreading broad patches of rosy light upon the marble. The shrubs, with their bright flowers, were set against a tawny orange sky. The air ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... 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 ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... characterised by a peculiarly sharp outline. All ornamental sculpture is in comparatively low relief, and the absence of human and other figures is very marked. Enrichments were almost invariably so carved, by sinking portions only of the surfaces and leaving the arrises and principal places untouched, as to preserve the original constructive forms given by the mason (Fig. 184). The employment of the drill instead of the chisel, so common in debased ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... hemispherical end or steel ball having a diameter of 0.444 inch, giving a surface area of one-fourth square inch. It is fitted with a guard plate, which works loosely until the penetration has progressed to a depth of 0.222 inch, whereupon it tightens. (See Fig. 43.) The effect is that of sinking a ball half its diameter into the specimen. This apparatus is fitted into the movable head of the ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record
... hour or two by his side and dismiss all thought and care of the children during the interval, made her happy. A sort of halo, an occidental glow, came over life then. Troubles and other realities took on themselves a metaphysical impalpability, sinking to mere mental phenomena for serene contemplation, and no longer stood as pressing concretions which chafed body and soul. The youngsters, not immediately within sight, seemed rather bright and desirable appurtenances ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... Emden made her raid here. Had she found it temporarily undefended she could at one blow seriously have embarrassed the English cruisers patrolling these waters and at the same time cause a terrific loss to English commerce by sinking the many merchantmen at ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... had been thrown over them. In the after part of the day the open sky had spread southward—so that the interment took place when the air was as mild and serene as spring, just as the last sun of the year was sinking towards the mountains. Almost the entire congregation were present.... Thus, dear sister, I have given you a brief account of the solemn but peaceful winding up of what has been to me a sharp and long trial, and I know to yourself and family also. In eternity we shall more clearly ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... friends—among these, Pourtales—withdrew to an adjoining room, keeping watch over the patient through the open door. While Pourtales was standing there in his turn, not long after ten o'clock at night, Agassiz lifted himself up in bed, and said with emphasis: 'Le jeu est fini.' Then, sinking back, he passed away. ...
— Louis Agassiz as a Teacher • Lane Cooper
... struggling old men was sinking fast. The Signor Grimaldi had, thus far, generously sustained his friend, who was less expert than himself in the water, and he continued to cheer him with a hope he did not feel himself, nobly refusing to the last to ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... the Roland, sinking into deep troughs and climbing over watery mountain crests in an ocean that was like a great machine regularly at work, had plowed its way into fog. The siren ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... there: of a city where Age and Decay, fagged with distributing damage and repulsiveness among the other cities of the planet in accordance with the policy and business of their profession, come for rest and play between seasons, and treat themselves to the luxury and relaxation of sinking the shop and inventing and squandering charms all about, instead of abolishing such as they find, as it their habit when not ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... soul from sinking in despair. Hope is the sun, which as we journey towards it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us. Dr. Johnson has well and truly said that the flights of the human mind are not from enjoyment to enjoyment, but from hope to hope. It is a strange frailty of human nature that we part more willingly ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... decided that he would paint the scene, which offered unique opportunities for both humour and pathos. This picture, Hogarthian in type, was finished and exhibited before the close of the year. The exhibition was moderately successful, but the picture did not sell, and Haydon was once more sinking into despair, when the king expressed a desire to have the work sent down to Windsor for his inspection. Hopes were raised high once more, and this time were not disappointed. George IV. bought the 'Mock Election,' and promptly paid the price of five hundred ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... softly said the governess. "This is only a peopled wilderness to me!" Her heart smote her as the girl, with a sudden lonely sinking of the heart, threw her arms around the neck ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... went to his house on Beacon Hill. The servant said Mr. Bullion was not at home. Fletcher did not believe it, but the door was closed in his face before he could send a more urgent message, and with a sinking heart he retraced his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... 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 have a ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... he gurgled and gasped for breath; he was sinking to his knees when the yelling and crowing of the students on the platform straightened him up. He walked about a few minutes, ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... cruel fates ordain. You see the desp'rate state of our affairs, And heav'n's protecting pow'rs are deaf to pray'rs. The passive gods behold the Greeks defile Their temples, and abandon to the spoil Their own abodes: we, feeble few, conspire To save a sinking town, involv'd in fire. Then let us fall, but fall amidst our foes: Despair of life the means of living shows.' So bold a speech incourag'd their desire Of death, and ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... gigantic columns, crawling over rotting trunks long laid low, changing direction abruptly when blocked by some great butt too high to be scaled, sinking ankle-deep in clinging mud, the venturesome band wound along through the wilderness. Repeated glances at his compass showed McKay that the general trend of the march was southeast; but the impassable obstacles encountered at ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... environs with hands clasped behind him, occasionally gazing into the twinkling stars of the summer night, considering rather seriously many things. He had come out to think over his speech to the jury the next day in a murder case pending in the court. But the murderer kept sinking from his consciousness; the speech would not shape itself to please him, and the young lawyer was forever meeting rather squarely and abruptly the vision of Laura Nesbit, who seemed to be asking him disagreeable and conclusive questions, which he ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... people!" he cried again, "the spirit that brought me good fortune leaves me now, and I die, my people, I die!" Then, sinking upon his throne, he who a moment gone had received the worship of a god, writhed there in agony and ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... general, sinking into a chair and motioning the others to seats, "tell me all about it; and where, by the ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... the crew is a grumpy old man called Simon Hixon. After a long time Peter and Simon become more friendly. There is an accident and the vessel is cast up on a rock fairly near an island. The Captain is injured as he had been the last to leave the sinking vessel. ...
— The History of Little Peter, the Ship Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... the image of my Saviour, Jacopo, in those bright stars, that moon, the blue heavens, the misty bank of mountain, the waters on which we float, aye, even in my own sinking form, as in all which has come from his wisdom and power. I have prayed much since the ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... lower end of the field which they had now entered was a strip of woods, which promised seclusion and freedom from interruption. Poor Kit, as he was dragged forward by his relentless captor, found his spirits sinking to zero. ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... little milk again . . . Rabbi?" and at her bidding and the name he made a brave effort to swallow, but he was plainly sinking. ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... grass with gleams of gold, seemed to mock her misery as the gravelly earth rattled heavily down upon the coffin lid, and she knew they were covering up her mother. "If I, too, could die!" she murmured, sinking back in the carriage corner and covering her face with her veil. But not so easily could life be shaken off by her, the young and strong. She must live yet longer. She had a work to do—a work ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... down at the soft, miry road. The one wheel seemed to be sinking deeper and deeper into the clay, and the others showed a propensity to follow ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... guess they were intensely curious about him from the way they pointed and stared. It seemed to him that some of them could never have seen a white child before, they were so excited, especially the children, who looked half terrified. Were they cannibals these people? he wondered, with a sinking heart. ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... mother, for her sake, have mercy on her unworthy child! oh, save me from myself, restore me to my mother!" and sinking on her knees, the wretched girl buried her face in her hands, and minutes, which to her appeared like hours, rolled on in that wild burst of repentant and ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... instant, in the midst of the silver circle illumined by the light of the moon the same whirlpool which had been made by the sinking men was again obvious, and first were seen, rising above the waves, a wisp of hair, then a pale face with open eyes, yet, nevertheless, the eyes of death; then a body, which, after rising of itself even to the waist above the sea, turned gently on its back, according to the ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... done!" was that young man's decisive answer to the old salvage expert's warning. "This is a tougher job than I thought, for the bottom of the stone seems to be sinking slowly. If we can't finish our job now I'm afraid we'll lose our prize. But don't worry. We ought to be through in ...
— Tom Swift and His Giant Telescope • Victor Appleton
... dying men, which must be repeated; whereas ours are, in the Scripture phrase, but "meat for babes": at least, all I can pretend, is to undeceive the ignorant and those at distance; but their task is to keep up the sinking spirits of a ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... nations will be returned in the hostility of a thwarted and disappointed people. Not even the neutrals will be aloof from these hostilities and resentments. The world will still, in 1950 or so, be throwing much passion into the rights and wrongs of the sinking of the Lusitania. There will be a bitterness in the memories of this and the next generation that will make the spectacle of ardent Frenchmen or Englishmen or Belgians or Russians embracing Germans with gusto—unpleasant, to ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... pink of an ordinary sunset—but a fierce angry crimson which turned the wet sands and dark expanse of ocean into the colour of blood. Far away westward, where the sun—a molten ball of fire—was sinking behind the snow-clad peaks, frowned long lines of gloomy clouds—like prison bars through which the sinking orb glowed fiercely. Rising from the east to the zenith of the sky was a huge black cloud bearing a curious resemblance ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... thing which had broken Peter's faith mended it again. Fear sunk him by making him falter in his confidence; and, as he was sinking, the very desperation of his terror drove him back to his faith, and he 'cried' with a shrill, loud voice, heard above the roar of the boisterous wind, 'Lord, save me.' So difficulties and dangers, when they begin to tell ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... As a cat allows a mouse to escape her for a while, so had he been permitted to trifle with his fate, and lull himself into a false security. Escape was hopeless now. He never could escape; and as the unhappy man raised his despairing eyes, he saw that the sun, redly sinking behind a lofty pine which topped the opposite hill, shot a ray of crimson light into the glade below him. It was as though a bloody finger pointed at the corpse which lay there, and Rufus Dawes, shuddering at the dismal omen, averting ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... his head sinking against the back of the chair and his eyes closing. By closing his own eyes he shut out the view of those terrible eyes, which he feared might ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... Everyone was to act exactly as though in a sudden calamity. They might make up the boat-parties on the basis of congeniality if they wished; five minutes would be given for reaching the stations, without panic or disorder. They should prepare themselves as though they were actually going to leave a sinking ship. ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... for injuries alleged to have been inflicted upon French Roman Catholic priests. Their demand not having been at once complied with, and some treachery on the part of the natives having been detected, the French ships opened fire upon the war-junks, sinking and destroying many, and slaying more ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... deep sullen West water or "Ald-reche" of the Ouse winding through them. The old Roman road was sunk and gone long since under the bog, whether by English neglect, or whether (as some think) by actual and bodily sinking of the whole land. The narrowest space between dry land and dry land was a full half-mile; and how to cross that half-mile, no ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... made the dreaded confession. The rest would be easy. She even ventured to raise her eyes, and she perceived, with a sinking of the heart, that her estimate of her pupil's age was tolerably correct. He was a young man, apparently not more than five or six ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... Diaboliques, by my enemy Barbey d'Aurevilly. You will writhe with laughter. It is perhaps owing to the perversity of my mind, which likes unhealthy things, but the latter work seemed to me extremely amusing; it is the last word in the involuntary grotesque. In other respects, dead calm, France is sinking gently like a rotten hulk, and the hope of salvage, even for the staunchest, seems chimerical. You need to be here, in Paris, to have an idea of the universal depression, of the stupidity, of the decrepitude in which we ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... chain pumps beat a sort of prelude to what happened next. The gunner burst out of the hatch with blood running down his face, shouting that the Richard was sinking, and yelling for quarter as he made for the ensign-staff on the poop, for the flag was shot away. Him the commodore felled with a pistol-butt. At the gunner's heels were the hundred and fifty prisoners we had taken, released by the master at arms. They swarmed out ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in silence through all the house, and finally went to her own old room, so loved, so well remembered. As she crossed the threshold and looked around she felt her strength give way. A great sob escaped her, and sinking into a chair where she once used to sit in happier days, she gave herself up to her recollections. For a long time she lost herself in these. Hilda had left her to herself, as though her delicacy had prompted her not to intrude upon her friend at ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... a great traveller," added Wallbridge, puffing away at his pipe, as he watched the sun sinking to his rest beyond ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... are clamped into their walls for the purpose of stretching a net from one tower to the other. The net is intended to catch the sun. Stories of men who have caught the sun in a noose are widely spread. When the sun is going southward in the autumn, and sinking lower and lower in the Arctic sky, the Esquimaux of Iglulik play the game of cat's cradle in order to catch him in the meshes of the string and so prevent his disappearance. On the contrary, when the sun is moving northward in the spring, ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... happy for the woman, was the undoing of the child, inasmuch as his nose was so snubb'd, so rebuff'd, so rebated, and so refrigerated thereby, as never to arrive ad mensuram suam legitimam;—but that in case of the flaccidity and softness of the nurse or mother's breast—by sinking into it, quoth Paraeus, as into so much butter, the nose was comforted, nourish'd, plump'd up, refresh'd, refocillated, and set a ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... smallest amount of labour, had to be done in the early morning, before the sun had melted the crust which the night's frost had made on the snow. For even when the open fields were bare, the snow still lingered in the hollows of the wood, and to carry full pails safely, when one's feet were sinking into the mass made soft by the sunshine, was a feat not to be ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... bushes and spiked railing he knew so well sank out of sight beneath him, dwindling curiously in size. At first he thought his head must bump against the sky, but suddenly he stopped rising, and the green earth rushed up as if it would strike him in the face. This meant he was sinking again. The gate and railing flew by underneath him, and the next second he fell with a crash upon the soft grass of the lawn—upon the other side. He had been tossed over the gate into the garden, and the bull ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... without detection, the only difficulty being the sinking of the kegs under the boom; this, however, was successfully accomplished, and by midnight, the kegs were safely hidden in some bushes at the foot of the wall, and there John lay ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... directly,' I answered, my heart sinking within me at the tidings. 'You will just let ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... move to a certain extent independently of one another. This was conspicuous with those of Oxalis sensitiva, in which one cotyledon might be seen during the daytime rising up until it stood vertically, whilst the opposite one was sinking down. ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... watching us with those reflective eyes that were so full of light and at the same time so inscrutable. And then he would smile, his Dionysiac smile that made him all at once so far off and so foreign that I knew, with a sinking heart, that he didn't belong at all; that this beautiful and brilliant bird of passage was lightening for but a very brief space my ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... greatly overcome to utter a word so sudden and overwhelming had been the change during the last few minutes. Her form trembled from the vehemence of her emotion, and then the tears, which for so long had been restrained, came to her relief, and, sinking upon the ground, she buried her face in her hands and sobbed ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... weight against the weight of the steer. The flexible riata straightened as a rod of iron, the steer's head jerked sideways; his horns buried themselves in the ground; he fell, almost at her feet. And then, as the cowboy leaped from his horse, Helen felt herself sinking into a soft, thick darkness that, try as she ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... she answered, sinking into a low chair, "that you are an excellent player, but I am willing to take it for granted. I do not wish to play billiards. Draw that chair up to the fire and ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... leading, called out that we were off the path, and before I could pull up, my poor old tired horse was floundering in a quicksand up to the girths; I threw myself off and tried to wheel him round. H. was behind us, and we cried to him to halt where he was. I was sinking at every movement up to the knees, when the syce came to my rescue, and took charge of the horse. F.'s syce ran to extricate his master and horse; the two peons kept calling, 'Oh! my father, my father,' the horses snorted, and struggled desperately in the tenacious and treacherous quicksand; ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... had paused, horrified, at the mouth of a pit, and gazed down with a sick loathing at the 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 ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... that beef is rare, and can't help thinking That the old fable of the Minotaur— From which our modern morals rightly shrinking Condemn the royal lady's taste who wore A cow's shape for a mask—was only (sinking The allegory) a mere type, no more, That Pasiphae promoted breeding cattle, To make the Cretans ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... back to the hanging between the two rooms, he listened again. This time she was awake and softly humming the air of "The sands of Time are sinking." ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... Muse will cheer with renovating smile, The paralytic puling of CARLISLE; What heterogeneous honours deck the Peer, Lord, rhymester, petit-maitre, pamphleteer! So dull in youth, so drivelling in age, His scenes alone had damn'd our sinking stage. But Managers, for once, cried 'hold, enough,' Nor drugg'd their audience with the tragic stuff. Yet at their judgment let his Lordship laugh, And case his volumes in congenial calf: Yes! doff that covering where ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... of the water, had looked over and seen the sinking canoes. Even as they looked, and as the alarm brought others, the canoes filled with water and sank fifteen feet to the ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... My fears are fall'n upon me: oh, my heart! My son the pander! now I find our house Sinking to ruin. Earthquakes leave behind, Where they have tyranniz'd, iron, or lead, or stone; But woe to ruin, violent lust ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... to tarry there some days on his way home to Italy, and give his opinion on the health of Edward VI., who was then slowly recovering from an attack of smallpox and measles. The young King's recovery was more apparent than real, for he was, in fact, slowly sinking under the constitutional derangement which killed him a few months later. Cardan could hardly refuse to comply with this request, nor is there any evidence to show that he made this visit to London unwillingly. ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... left in ruins and practically every residence in the town was more or less damaged, fifteen or twenty being badly wrecked. The damage to residences was caused principally by the sinking of the foundations, which let many structures down ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... that the nervous system is a modified portion of the primitive epidermis? In the absence of proofs furnished by the concurrent testimony of embryologists during the last thirty or forty years, who would have believed that the brain arises from an infolded tract of the outer skin, which, sinking down beneath the surface, becomes imbedded in other tissues and eventually surrounded by a bony case? Yet the human nervous system in common with the nervous systems of lower animals is thus originated. In the words of Mr. Balfour, ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... craft was a big washtub, which he was required to propel a certain distance without sinking it, the one who went the farthest being ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh
... axe into a dry hemlock, the keen blade sinking deeper and deeper into the tree with each successive stroke, made with the precision and rapidity of a piston, until the tree fell with a sweeping crash (it had been as smoothly severed as if by a saw) and the two soon had its full length cut up and piled near the shanty ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... was turned upon the subject of the many young men flocking from the "old country" to the gold-fields, and their evident unfitness for them. "Every young man before paying his passage money," said he, "should take a few days' spell at well-sinking in England; if he can stand that comfortably, the diggings won't ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... was a maiden lady who did dressmaking in a small way; she fell ill, and although attended by all the physicians in the neighborhood, was sinking slowly into a decline when her cousin Cyrus asked her to come and keep house for him in Lewiston. She went, and in a year grew into a robust, hearty, cheerful woman. Returning to Riverboro on ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Then the thunder died away and the hail gave place to torrential rain, while the slender trees rocked in the blast and small branches drove past the tent, where the men crouched inside. After the rain ceased, suddenly, a fierce red light streamed along the saturated grass from the huge sinking sun. ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... true, however, it must be proved from the record which we have; for I know of nothing which can now add much weight to that testimony, unless it be the fulfilment of some sinking prophecies which yet remain to be fulfilled, or else the return of miraclous powers and a new revelation in further confirmation of what we already have. And if what we have be true, it seems we have ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... the empty spaces colored his narratives as he drew from memory half-finished pictures of the mad riot of primitive forces when the ice broke up and the floods hurled the thundering floes among the rocks; and of tangled woods sinking into profound silence in the stinging frost. Moreover, he unconsciously delineated his own character, and when he stopped, the others understood something of the practical resource and stubbornness that had ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... of the day Wilson sat glaring at Clayton, in his eyes the gleam of insanity. Toward evening, as the sun was sinking into the sea, he commenced to chuckle and mumble to himself, but his eyes never ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... A sense of being forsaken, left alone, came over her—something like the feeling that had nearly broken her heart when, long ago, they told her that her mother had gone to heaven. A great wave of bitterness passed over her sinking heart. She turned away, that her sister might not see ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... number of other pieces attributed to him, written in all the popular styles, except the two above referred to, merits and defects are mixed up in a very curious fashion. Never sinking to the lowest depth of the Elizabethan playwright, including some great ones, Heywood never rises to anything like the highest height. His chronicle plays are very weak, showing no grasp of heroic character, and a most lamentable slovenliness of rhythm. ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury |
