"High-water mark" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... largely a question of background. A romantic love-affair might be defined as a love-affair in other than domestic surroundings. Who can use the word "romantic" with more authority than Coleridge? In Kubla Khan, a poem which some would choose as the high-water mark of English romantic poetry, he gets his effect from the description of a landscape combining the extremes of ...
— Romance - Two Lectures • Walter Raleigh
... dock a moment, to watch the boys beating back out over the bay, and then turned to go up the beach. They had never been on this part of the coast before. It was lonesome and deserted, save for one rather shabby hut just above high-water mark. Over beyond some distant sand dunes, the boys had been told, was the establishment of the boat-builder, where they had taken their craft to have ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View - Or, The Box That Was Found in the Sand • Laura Lee Hope
... being the "Soog" or market day, when I shall purchase my camels and milch goats. The banks of the river very uninteresting—flat, desert, and mimosa bush. The soil is not so rich as on the banks of the Blue Nile—the dhurra (grain) is small. The Nile is quite two miles wide up to this point, and the high-water mark is not more than five feet above the present level. The banks shelve gradually like the sands at low tide in England, and quite unlike the perpendicular banks of the Blue Nile. Busy at gunsmith's work. The nights and mornings are now cold, from 60 degrees to 62 degrees F. Johann makes ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... interstices of the rocks, stunted brushwood grows. But a chief peculiarity of some of the islands, and which renders them suitable to those who frequent them as pirates, are the numerous caves with which the rocks are perforated; some of them are above high-water mark, but the majority with the sea water flowing in and out of them, in some cases merely rushing in at high-water filling deep pools, which are detached from each other when the tide recedes, in others with a sufficient depth of water to allow a large boat to float ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... course, capture it; if, on the other hand, an English or a Chilian vessel arrives, I shall hand it over to them as their lawful prize. If neither of them come, which is most likely by far, it is worth nothing to anyone. I think we ought to get it ashore, and bury it in the sand above high-water mark." ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... a long bed of oysters, growing up to high-water mark, the upper ones poor, called "raccoon oysters" by the natives, but the lower ones, which are mostly covered with water, large, fat and delicious. We gathered about a bushel of these, built a fire of dead mangrove wood, which is the best of fuel, and when we had a good bed of coals threw ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... while she is young (although she was born before him), and now he belies his name, "Lord Keppel," by starting at every soft glimmer of the sea. Therefore now he is left to roam at his leisure above high-water mark, poking his nose into black dry weed, probing the winnow casts of yellow drift for oats, and snorting disappointment through a gritty ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... showed that men had once hewed stone therefrom. On one side was that passage through which we had come in, and on the other opened a sort of door which gave on to a stone ledge eight fathoms above high-water mark. For the cave was cut out just inside that iron cliff-face which lies between St. Alban's Head and Swanage. But the cliffs here are different from those on the other side of the Head, being neither so high as Hoar Head nor of ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... Mrs. Hastings, "has grown rapidly since Harry took hold. The old part represents the high-water mark of his father's efforts. Of course," she added reflectively, "Harry has had command of some capital since a relative of his died, but I ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... rise in June, when the snow melts on the Abyssinian mountains. High-water mark, some thirty feet above the ordinary level, is reached in September. The inhabitants then make haste to cut the confining dikes and to spread the fertilizing water over their fields. Egypt takes on the appearance of ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... to mind, and have drawn arguments from the victory over Goliath, for trust in victory over Saul, as he had done for the former from that over the lion and the bear. But faith does not always keep high-water mark, and we can only too easily sympathise with this momentary ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... At high-water mark stands one of the Terminalias with big terminal light green leaves, musty flowers, and purple fruit—gold, silver, and purple in close array—while over the sand the goat-footed convolvulus sends long, succulent shoots bearing huge pink flowers complementary ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... only thing to be said about it being that the loss was entirely voluntary on the part of this charming boy. He would cease to bow, as he passed. Then he found the marbles again, pocketed them as if nothing had happened, smiled, called, and hob-nobbed. A man's high-water mark is his calibre; and at high-water mark Mr. Channing's sea was to us buoyant, rich-tinted, sunlit; a great force, darkening and dazzling with beautiful emotions. He was in those days devoted to the outer air, and to the wonders of the nature we do not often understand, ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... a game of circles. In conversation we pluck up the termini which bound the common of silence on every side. The parties are not to be judged by the spirit they partake and even express under this Pentecost. To-morrow they will have receded from this high-water mark. To-morrow you shall find them stooping under the old pack-saddles. Yet let us enjoy the cloven flame whilst it glows on our walls. When each new speaker strikes a new light, emancipates us from the oppression of the ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... preparing our designs, and had first, by main strength, heaved the boat upon the beach so high that the tide would not float her off at high-water mark, and besides had broke a hole in her bottom too big to be quickly stopped, and were set down musing what we should do, we heard the ship fire a gun, and make a waft with her ensign as a signal for the boat to come on board-but no boat ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... once he saw a little ring in the rocky wall a little above high-water mark. He thought it was the sort of ring which is used for fastening boats to, so he fancied it wouldn't do any harm to rest a bit and lay to ashore, and have a snack of something, for he had been pulling at the oars ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... improved foreign service. It has heretofore been worse than we ever knew, and also better. On great occasions and in great fields our diplomatic record ranks with the best in the world. No nation stands higher in those new contributions to International Law which form the high-water mark of civilization from one generation to another. At the same time, in fields less under the public eye, our foreign service has been haphazard at the best, and often bad beyond belief—ludicrous and humiliating. The harm thus wrought to our national good name and the positive injury to our trade ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... nothing in it but a pair of scales. Any reading-room? Of course, there was a reading- room. Where? Where! why, over there. Where was over there? Why, THERE! Let Mr. Idle carry his eye to that bit of waste ground above high-water mark, where the rank grass and loose stones were most in a litter; and he would see a sort of long, ruinous brick loft, next door to a ruinous brick out-house, which loft had a ladder outside, to get up by. That was the reading-room, and if Mr. Idle didn't like the idea ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... own landing-places. Rosewarne, on the other hand, as Lady Killiow's steward, flatly refused to execute repairs upon another person's property. The Duchy, being appealed to, told the two parties (in effect) to fight it out. The Highway Board was ready enough to maintain the road down to high-water mark, but, on legal advice, declined to go farther. The Harbour Commissioners held that to repair a private ferry was no business of theirs, and, although the condition of the slipway had for years ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and gurgled along miniature headlands of rock that stretched out on either side of a little bay. The sand-hills straggled down almost to high-water mark, where the winter storms had piled a barrier of kelp and debris. At one place a rough track down to the shingle had been worn in the sand by the feet of fishermen using the cove in fine weather ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... leeward side of the island, and on going to the windward shore it was curious to notice the process by which these islands gradually become covered with vegetation. The whole shore just above high-water mark was covered with little seeds, beans, and various other atoms of vegetation which had been dropped by birds or cast up by the sea, and which in process of time will cover the island with trees and shrubs. The island did not ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... he seems to be shut out. This may be seen by his reference to Shelley in his last book, "Letters and Social Aims," and by his preference of the metaphysical poet throughout his writings. Wordsworth's famous "Ode" is, he says, the high-water mark of English literature. What he seems to value most in Shakespeare is the marvelous wit, the pregnant sayings. He finds no poet in France, and in his "English Traits" credits Tennyson with little but melody and color. (In our last readings, do we not surely come to feel the manly and robust ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... appear always the same, and his weakness is made the more noticeable when he affects strength. The sinews of goodness are courage, moral and physical, a fact which places all really good men and women beyond the reach of ridicule and above the high-water mark of the ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... new and democratic principles. The initial and fundamental covenant out of which grew the chief of all New England colonies—that of Massachusetts Bay—was formulated and signed in ancient Cambridge. In fact, in American Puritanism, with its social, civil, and religious results, may be seen the high-water mark of the intellectual and spiritual influence which, in the whole course of history, have thus far proceeded from the banks of the Cam." The church, in harmony with the genius of Christianity, has always fostered education. It assumes to guard Christianity by directing ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... and almost immediately thereafter a squatter took possession of the Sawdust Pile. Across the neck of the little promontory, and in line with extreme high-water mark on each side, he erected a driftwood fence; he had a canvas, driftwood, and corrugated-iron shanty well under way when Hector McKaye appeared on the scene and bade ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... was, he cursed me into washing the sand out of my hair with two consecutive goes of the precious liquid, whilst he swore the saddles of my horses, and obscene-languaged some supper for me. Even before the shower, the whole area of my mortal shrine, back from high-water mark round neck and wrists, had been pistol-proof with a thousand samples of dust, patiently collected over the same number of miles; but that did n't trouble me. I could get rid of it—along with much moral and mental virtue, unfortunately—possibly at the Runnymede swimming-hole, or failing that, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... the various careers of kings and emperors contain instructive lessons of Lost Opportunity. Allowing for the differences of climate and temperament, it may be taken for granted that no people of any country are constitutionally able to rise above a certain height of enthusiasm; and that when the high-water mark is reached, their enthusiasm cools, and a reaction invariably sets in. For this cause a monarch should never rely too much on the plaudits of the mob in a time of conquest, or public festival of jubilation. He should look upon such acclamation as the mere rising of a wave, ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... death has become obsolete through the scientific and philosophic developments of the later centuries. Walt Whitman also tells us "that nothing can happen more beautiful than death," and he has exprest the humanist view of mortality in a hymn which his admirers regard as the high-water mark of modern poetry. But will this rhapsody bear thinking about? Is death "delicate, lovely and soothing," "delicious," coming to us with "serenades"? Does death "lave us in a flood of bliss"? Does "the body gratefully nestle close to death"? Do we go forth to meet death ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... reaching the latter, we found an easy stage of water for crossing, though there was every evidence that the river had been on a recent rise, the debris of a late freshet littering the cutbank, while high-water mark could be easily noticed on the trees along the river bottom. Summer had advanced until the June freshets were to be expected, and for the next month we should be fortunate if our advance was not checked by floods and falling weather. The fortunate ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... at its best and German gunnery at its mightiest, the effort of Colossus shut in a ring of steel to force a decision; and the high-water mark of German persistence was where you stood on the edge of the area of mounds that shells had heaped and craters that shells had scooped by the concentration of fire on Fort Souville. A few Germans in the charge reached ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... runners from Ostend. At the beginning of the German occupation the Times could be obtained for a franc. Later it rose to 3 francs then 5, then 9, then 15 francs. Then with a sudden leap it reached 23 francs on one day. That was the high-water mark, for it came down after that. The Times was too expensive for the likes of me. I used to content myself with the Flandres Liberale, a half-penny paper published then in Ghent and sold in Brussels for a franc or more according to the difficulty in getting it in. These papers ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan
... girl turned without a word, four determined bare legs ploughing through the water, four scared eyes straining toward the land. Through an eternity of toil and fear they kept dumbly on, death at their heels, pride still in their hearts. At last they reach high-water mark—six hours ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... against George W. Curtis at the Republican State convention at Rochester as the high-water mark of his oratory. I sat in the seat next to Mr. Curtis when Conkling delivered his famous attack. His admirers thought this the best speech he ever made, and it certainly was a fine effort, emphasized by oratory ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... I think the Johnnies have made their high-water mark. Great work our army did down there at Vicksburg, and we'll have the chance to do just as well against Bragg. We'll defeat him, of course. Now, Mason, notice that light flickering ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... wills we should become. The former phase of the standard may sound abstract, cloudy, hard to connect with any definite anticipations; and so this form of it is concrete, historical, and gives human features to the fair ideal. His Resurrection is the high-water mark of the divine power, and to the same level it will rise again in regard to every Christian. The Lord, in the glory of His risen life, and in the riches of the gifts which He received when He ascended up on high, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... high-water mark everywhere. The three streets are all growing dark as each overflows into another. Some natives cross our path, old men or ill-shapen, contorted in their walk, stunted in the face; and even young people, too, over whom hovers the mystery of secret disorders or political ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... Darwin. In a sheltered archipelago they will seldom be distinguishable, from the absence of those huge rolling waves and breakers which in the wide ocean throw up a barrier of broken coral far above the usual high-water mark, while here they rarely rise to ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... strangling natural instincts for fifty years. Only pride of family remained. There were but few Tregenzas left and soon there would be none unless Tom carried on the name. Michael was the quintessence of the Tregenza spirit, the fruit of generations, the high-water mark. He stood on that giddy pinnacle which has religious mania for its precipice. To damn a dead woman was easier than to accept a wanton daughter. Better an unfaithful wife than that any soul born of Tregenza blood ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... statement made with regard to the fishermen at Spiggie and Ireland, in Dunrossness. The Act 29 Geo. II. c. 23 gives fishermen ample [Page 14 rpt.] powers to erect all apparatus and booths necessary for curing their fish on waste land within a hundred yards of high-water mark; but perhaps it could not be held as Mr. J. Harrison seems to think, to prevent a proprietor from enclosing and letting any part of his land adjacent to the sea for the ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... dragged considerably, although riding with both anchors down. The damage to the harbour works was very great. All the beacons at the mouths of the Norman and Albert Rivers were displaced, some being destroyed altogether. The lightship parted her cable, and was carried about 900 feet above ordinary high-water mark on the Bynoe beach, and two of the Department's boats were smashed. The dredged cuttings into the Norman River have stood very well, considering the gales and floods experienced during the year, for, except at one place near the second ...
— Report on the Department of Ports and Harbours for the Year 1890-1891 • Department of Ports and Harbours
... the Four Stages of Greek Religion I have found myself obliged to change its name. I felt there was a gap in the story. The high-water mark of Greek religious thought seems to me to have come just between the Olympian Religion and the Failure of Nerve; and the decline—if that is the right word—which is observable in the later ages of antiquity is a decline not from Olympianism but from the great ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... what little light of the fading day was left was obscured by the masses of storm clouds. The fisherman's hut was on the beach, not far from the high-water mark, and the booming of the surf on the shore came as a sort of melancholy accompaniment to the firing ...
— Larry Dexter's Great Search - or, The Hunt for the Missing Millionaire • Howard R. Garis
... steamed up to the chiefs village of Waisoma, a cloud of blue smoke rolling up among the palms told us that the fire was newly lighted. We found a shallow pit, nineteen feet wide, dug in the sandy soil, a stone's throw from high-water mark, in a small clearing among the cocoanuts between the beach and the dense forest. The pit was piled high with great blazing logs and round stones the size of a man's head. Mingled with the crackling roar of the fire were loud reports as splinters flew off from the stones, warning us to guard ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... projected. The scantiness of the streams of fresh water was thought at first unfavourable, but good springs have since been found by digging. The house built for Governor Phillip stands about fifty-six feet above high-water mark, and there, by sinking a well about fifteen feet in the rock, an excellent spring of ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... favourite food and favourite model of the pre-Glacial artists. Perhaps it was a better sitter than the mammoth; certainly it is much more frequently represented on these early prehistoric bas-reliefs. The high-water mark of palaeolithic art is undoubtedly to be found in the reindeer of the cave of Thayngen, in Switzerland, a capital and spirited representation of a buck grazing, in which the perspective of the two horns is better managed than a Chinese ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... shore, we put to sea under jib and foresail, and are five miles away before damages are repaired and we dare venture to return; head about, and make fast this time. Hurrah! After several trips of the small boat, succeed in landing luggage and provisions above high-water mark on the Farallones; each trip of the boat is an event, for it comes in on a big breaker, and grounds in a torrent ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... or "On Going a Journey," or "The Deceased"—this last is perhaps the high-water mark of the book. To vary the figure, this essay dips its Plimsoll-mark full under. It is freighted with far more than a dozen pages might be expected to carry safely. So quietly, so quaintly told, what a wealth of ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... of the old heroes, dating from a time when the faith was well established. There was no danger of a pagan revival, and, provided the Fians were Christianised, it might be legitimate to represent them as heroic and noble. The Colloquy would represent the high-water mark of this reaction among the lettered classes, for among the folk, to judge by popular tales, the Fians had never been regarded in other than a favourable light. The Colloquy re-established the dignity of the Fian band in the eyes of official Christianity. They are baptized or released ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... passage from a book which interested her, and her total disregard for cosmetics, would have horrified Millicent if she had known of her habits. The height of civilization to Millicent was expressed in a luxuriously-appointed dressing-table and in an excessive care of her body. Progress touched its high-water mark in the perfection of her creature comforts. Taken from this standpoint, progress could scarcely go any further, or so Michael would have thought if he had watched her ritual of ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... now exposed, was formerly covered with water. At the island of S. Maria (about thirty miles distant) the elevation was greater; on one part, Captain Fitz Roy founds beds of putrid mussel-shells still adhering to the rocks, ten feet above high-water mark: the inhabitants had formerly dived at lower-water spring-tides for these shells. The elevation of this province is particularly interesting, from its having been the theatre of several other violent ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... the struggle in the heart of Julia Anderson? Did he guess that her pride and defiance had by this time reached high-water mark? Did he divine this from seeing her there? He rose and started in through the door of the upper hall, the only opening to the porch, except the window. But this was a feint. He turned back and sat himself down upon the farther end of the settee from Julia. He understood human nature perfectly, ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... the best he had. The bed into whose grateful softness I sank was piled with mattresses to within two or three feet of the ceiling, and, with no step-ladder, getting in and out was a problem. This morning we noticed the high-water mark, four feet above the lower floor. Mrs. Fetler said they had lived ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... many ways, the high-water mark of Old Testament legislation. Every effort is made to eliminate that which experience had proved to be imperfect in the older laws and customs. The chief aim is to protect the rights of the wronged and dependent. The appeal throughout is not to the fear of punishment—in a large ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent
... sum of money is paid, which goes into the treasury of the municipality. The magistrates, however, without special permission, have no power to grant lots of land within a certain number of feet of or below high-water mark. The power is reserved to be exercised by the governor of the province. It being necessary for the convenient landing of ships, and for the discharging and receiving of their cargoes, that the beach in front of the town of San Francisco ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... both houses of Congress were democratic, by small majorities, for the first time since 1856. The tide ebbed in 1880, the Democrats losing control of the House, and suffering a decisive defeat in the presidential election; but with 1884 the fortune of the Democracy reached high-water mark. ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... assistance of a dog. The case is this:—On the south side of the river, and on a slip, or narrow cut or channel made on purpose for a mill, there stands a corn-mill; the mill-tail, or floor for the water below the wheels, is wharfed up on either side with stone above high-water mark, and for above twenty or thirty feet in length below it on that part of the river towards the sea; at the end of this wharfing is a grating of wood, the cross-bars of which stand bearing inward, sharp at the end, and pointing inward towards ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... postpone that part of his story to another hour. In a later lecture I will also give the end of the experience of Henry Alline, a devoted evangelist who worked in Nova Scotia a hundred years ago, and who thus vividly describes the high-water mark of the religious melancholy which formed its beginning. The type ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... the Final Humanity, the giant Body Soul of man. In our hearts dwelt a religion which compelled us to serve the ideal. We strove to become what organically we felt the "Human with his drippings of warm tears" may become. We were the standard-bearers of the advancing margin of the world. We were the high-water mark toward which all the tides forever make. We were ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... in the trees above the high-water mark and the flames back on the ridge still thrust and flared, but were unable to cross the wide, wet flood-belt. The settlement and the "big woods" ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... danger of floods, but they conserve our waterways, preventing a dangerous high-water mark in the season of heavy rains and melting snows, and then preventing a shrinkage in dry seasons when the only feeders of the rivers are the underground sources. In the summer of 1911, prolonged drought in North Carolina lowered the rivers to such an extent that towns dependent upon them suffered ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... if it had not been for the scent. The silence was absolute and the walls of the fissure apparently as unbroken as usual. No human eyes would have noted the wear of pads upon the stones, and one had to pass and look back to see the cleft in the walls of the ravine, far above the high-water mark, which formed the door of significant meaning for the man. Nels hadn't seen this much, but he couldn't miss now. He nosed the pebbles again and made an abrupt turn to the right. They climbed to the rocks near the entrance. The ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... about even on the tops of cliffs, which are between sixty and a hundred feet above the surface of the sea, when smooth; and detached masses of rock, of an enormous size, are well known to have been carried a considerable distance between low and high-water mark." "A little way from the Brough," says Dr. Patrick Neill, in his 'Tour through Orkney and Shetland,' "we saw the prodigious effects of a late winter storm: many great stones, one of them of several tons weight, had been tossed ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... write, and to write lies at that; and God knows it is; but it's the square thing. It don't cost anything to say you're well and happy, and sorry you can't make a remittance this mail; and if you don't I'll tell you what I think it is—I think it's about the high-water mark of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... subsequent to Aristophanes' day, and recognized by themselves as belonging to an entirely different genre. Hence the distinction drawn between 'The Old Comedy,' of which Cratinus and his younger contemporaries, Eupolis and Aristophanes, were the leading representatives, and which was at high-water mark just before and during the course of the great struggle of the Peloponnesian War, and 'The New Comedy,' a comedy of manners, the two chief exponents of which were Philemon and Menander, writing ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... salvage being paid by the claimant to the recaptor, not exceeding one-fourth part of the value of such labor or service, to be estimated according to the laws of the State of which the claimant shall be a citizen: but if the service of such negro, mulatto, Indian or other person, captured below high-water mark, shall not be legally claimed by a citizen of these United States, he ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... that our president in this instance has hit a high-water mark. He has taken hold of a very important idea and has developed it. After making an observation or two I am going to move a vote of appreciation to our president and accompany it with a vote of thanks to Senator Penney for coming down here from Michigan and lending his ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... west side of the harbour taking in ballast, one of the men employed in this work, had scalded his fingers in taking a stone up out of some water. This circumstance produced the discovery of several hot springs, at the foot of the cliff, and rather below high-water mark. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... you must go!" said Netty. And yet she would have been sorry if he had gone. The worst of reaching the high-water mark is that the ebb must necessarily be dreary. In a flash of thought she recollected Joseph Mangles' story. This was the sequel. Strange if he had heard his own story through the door of communication between Mangles' bedroom and the dining-room. For the other door, from the salon ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... the beach, we found that it was low water. The boat was at high-water mark. What should we do? We did as the fishermen in that region always do in the same circumstances—took two rollers, perhaps six inches in diameter, lifted the bow of the boat, put one of the rollers under it, and the other upon the sand about eight feet in front ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... been all over the lower storey, but a muddy deposit on the wooden floor, and a brown slimy high-water mark on the door jambs, alone remained to show what had happened. The piano had been hoisted upon a table, carpets and curtains bundled upstairs, and everything, apparently, saved. The poor garden, with its slime-daubed shrubs, broken ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... on three centuries of searching criticism. It indicates the high-water mark of Shakespearean scholarship. All recognized authorities are represented in the notes and explanatory matter, among them being Dyce, Coleridge, Dowden, Johnson, Malone, White and Hudson. The sets are in thirteen ...
— The Mayflower, January, 1905 • Various
... counselled him. "That's canting drivvle, made to console the unsuccessful. No man knows when he has reached his high-water mark. Yours may have come on the day you licked Stevie Ballard for gilding the tailless cat; it may not come till you ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... thickness of dikes varies according to the elevation of the ground they enclose, the rise of the tides, the direction of the prevailing winds, and other special causes of exposure, but it may be said that they are, in general, raised from fifteen to twenty feet above ordinary high-water mark. The water-slopes of river-dikes are protected by plantations of willows or strong semi-aquatic shrubs or grasses, but as these will not grow upon banks exposed to salt-water, sea-dikes must be faced with stone, ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... he was such a cheeky, precocious young vagabond. "Mean to say I can't buy twopenn'orth of diaculum plaster off of Mr. Ekings the 'poarthecary? Mean to say my aunt that orkupies a 'ouse in Chiswick clost to high-water mark don't send me to the 'poarthecaries just as often as not? For the mixture to be taken regular ... Ah!—where's the twopence? ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... which girt the shores of this island was very great, and large collections were made, as well of these as of the numerous zoophites which filled up every part of the reefs below high-water mark. This collection, of which unfortunately no duplicates were kept, was ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... until we were within a quarter of a mile of the camp, when the tide came in upon us so quickly that, after having been repeatedly thrown down by the surf, we were compelled to leave the horses jammed up in the rocks just above high-water mark, and proceeded on foot to ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... water, and was deeply humiliated to find that both water bags were empty,—the overgrown girl having used the last to wash her face. Casey didn't like her any the better for that, or for having accentuated the high-water mark, or for forcing him to apologize to the ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... sand; he then proceeded to survey the bank, and found that but a small portion was uncovered at high water; for, trifling as was the rise of the tide, the bank was so low that the water flowed almost over it. The most elevated part was not more than fifteen feet above high-water mark, and that was a small knoll of ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... Glass-House peaks. These peaks stood upon the low flat ground, considerably within the mountains, and, as far as could be judged, had every appearance of being volcanic. That they were so, indeed, was in some measure corroborated by the quantity of pumice stone which was lying at high-water mark upon the eastern shore of the river, on which Mr. Flinders had landed to mark the nature and appearance of the country, not being able from the strength of the ebb tide to proceed ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... nearly a mile in length between the two points, and of smooth sand. We had taken the only good landing-place, which is in the middle, it being more stony toward the ends. It is about twenty yards in width from high-water mark to a slight bank at which the soil begins, and so hard that it is a favorite place for running horses. It was growing dark, so that we could just distinguish the dim outlines of the two vessels in the offing; and the ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... be much cut up with creeks, is very flat on both sides, and is subject to inundations. This was evident from the signs of drift, to the height of six feet, on the trees that grew along the banks, themselves not more than a couple of yards above high-water mark. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... the increasing influence of this party in the Church; an influence which, as far as concerns the formularies of the Anglican body, was to reach its high-water mark in 1552 and 1553, in the revised prayer-book authorised by Parliament immediately after Somerset's death, and the "Forty-two Articles" promulgated about ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... cut off by the deep water there and in the caves beyond. Dropping the little girl as he realised the danger, Thomas glanced round the cave, still lighted up by Estelle's candle-ends. His quick eye noted the high-water mark, and some projections of rocky wall which it would be quite possible for him to reach, and remain in safety till the tide went down. But what about the children? For Julien he cared nothing, but Estelle was of the ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... she were merely human, there would be no conflict. If she were merely ascended from below, merely the result of the finest religious thought of the world, the high-water mark of spiritual attainment, again she could compromise, could ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson
... the rising of the land are scanty and imperfect. At Chatham Island, I noticed some great blocks of lava, cemented by calcareous matter, containing recent shells; but they occurred at the height of only a few feet above high-water mark. One of the officers gave me some fragments of shells, which he found embedded several hundred feet above the sea, in the tuff of two craters, distant from each other. It is possible, that these fragments ...
— Volcanic Islands • Charles Darwin
... of the court of Napoleon III just before the debacle of 1870 is a matter of history, and it reached its high-water mark during the Exposition year of 1867, when emperors, kings, and princes journeyed to Paris to do homage to the man of the hour. Court balls, receptions, gala performances at opera and theatre, and military reviews followed each other in bewildering ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... boy found himself on the right side of the river, he flew straight eastward, trying to seek his own country. But as he looked down from the air he saw a very strange sight—a beautiful girl chained to a stake at the high-water mark of the sea. The girl was so frightened or so tired that she was only prevented from falling by the iron chain about her waist, and there she hung, as if she were dead. The boy was very sorry for her and flew down and stood beside her. When he spoke she raised ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... of 1847 wore smoothly to its close—a happy "trimestre" during which the Institution F. Brossard reached the high-water mark of its prosperity. ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... there is talk of cutting down the force. It does not include those of our statesmen who spend their time in promoting corrupt jobs, or in hunting places for lazy heelers. It does not include the doctors who reach their high-water mark for professional knowledge on the day they graduate, or the lawyers who lie and cheat and procure injustice ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... were spent in the attempt. Edison's philosophic view of affairs is given in the following anecdote from Mr. Mallory: "During the boom times of 1902, when the old General Electric stock sold at its high-water mark of about $330, Mr. Edison and I were on our way from the cement plant at New Village, New Jersey, to his home at Orange. When we arrived at Dover, New Jersey, we got a New York newspaper, and I called his attention to the quotation of that day on General Electric. Mr. Edison ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... he returned to his hut. The river had risen another thirty feet since the evening before, and the height of the bank had decreased from a hundred feet to about thirty. For two more days it rained incessantly. The river had now risen to its high-water mark, ten feet below the bank. Godfrey asked the Ostjaks if there was no fear of its overflowing, but they told him that there was no cause for uneasiness, for that at its present point it overflowed at many places both above ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... landlocked, buried in woods, the trees coming right down to high-water mark, the shores mostly flat, and the hill-tops standing round at a distance in a sort of amphitheater, one here, one there. Two little rivers, or rather two swamps, emptied out into this pond, as you might call it and the foliage round that part of the shore had a kind of poisonous ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hastily. "I believe, as you do, that loving, even in THAT way, is the high-water mark ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... the sight of an old boat. If one I had used much and cared for were past its usefulness, I should say good by to it, and have it towed out to sea and sunk; it never should be left to fall to pieces above high-water mark. ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... none," I answered. "The whole thing's a mystery—so far. But, as you live hereabouts, perhaps you can suggest something. The doctors are of the opinion that he was murdered—here—yesterday evening: that his body had been lying here, just above high-water mark, since, probably, eight or nine o'clock last night. Now, what could he be doing down at this lonely spot? He went inland when he left ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... polishings and scorings are found in narrow glens, it is, no doubt, an open question whether some of them may not be the work of water. But nothing but the action of ice can have produced what I have seen in land-locked and quiet fords in Kerry—ice-flutings in polished rocks below high-water mark, so large that I could lie down in one of them. Nothing but the action of ice could produce what may be seen in any of our mountains- -whole sheets of rock ground down into rounded flats, irrespective of the lie of the beds, not in valleys, but on the brows and ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley
... submarine—said cormorant kindly obliging with quick diving act when approached; a food-ship laden with bananas represented by rushes culled from the banks; and a smuggler running cargoes of French wine contained in an elderly empty bottle discovered in the mud above high-water mark. It was breathless work. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 27, 1917 • Various
... native shore, and marching, with such of his retainers as the wars had left him, towards the hospitable shelter of Shurland Castle. It was then, upon that very beach, some hundred yards distant from high-water mark, that his eye fell upon something like an ugly woman in a red cloak. She was seated on what seemed to be a large stone, in an interesting attitude, with her elbows resting upon her knees, and her chin upon her thumbs The ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... we had put our strange girl visitor back into the sea from whence Mercer had taken her, I had watched from a comfortable seat well above the high-water mark that commanded that section of shore. For I had felt sure by that last strange gesture of hers that she ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... this: it was very stout-built but its planks wofully shrunk with the sun, and though much stove forward, more especially to larboard, yet its main timbers looked sound enough. Then, too, it lay none so far from high-water mark and despite its size and bulk I thought that by digging a channel I might bring water sufficient to float it, could I but make good the breakage and ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... extravagance in women's dress reached such a high-water mark that it was not unheard of for a New York woman to spend a third of her husband's income on clothes. All women of fashion bought clothes when it would not have occurred to them to buy furniture—when it would have seemed preposterous to buy a piece of jewelry—but ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... Bach had educated his people into the belief that there was only one way to play, and that was as he did it. It is not at all probable that Heinrich put forward any claims of perfection, but the people regarded his playing as high-water mark, and any variation from his standards was considered ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... the whole distance to Appleford, and the prospect was so exhilarating that everyone was at the high-water mark of enjoyment. Even poor Monica caught the prevailing spirit, and for the moment, at least, began to forget her cares. There was just room to pack both teachers and pupils into the four wagonettes which arrived from the George Inn, but ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... steamships organized foreign immigration on scale and system never before equaled; a high-water mark of American immigration came in the early eighties. Germans and Scandinavians were rushed by emigrant trains out to the prairies, to fill the remaining spaces in the older States of the Middle West. The census of 1890 showed in Minnesota ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... fears of the doubting colleague were appeased. In France, by Pitra's influence, the book was reviewed without making known that it supported the authorship of Hippolytus, which is still disputed by some impartial critics, and was always rejected by Newman. Hippolytus und Kallistus, the high-water mark of Doellinger's official assent and concurrence, came out in 1853. His ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... largely been one of surprises. I believe that any man's life will be filled with constant, unexpected encouragements of this kind if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day of his life—that is, tries to make each day reach as nearly as possible the high-water mark of pure, unselfish, useful living. I pity the man, black or white, who has never experienced the joy and satisfaction that come to one by reason of an effort to assist in making some one else more useful ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... the bow with a mock flourish, and began rolling down his shirt-cuffs; a thrill quivering through him—that thrill only felt by a painter when he is conscious that some work of his brush has reached the high-water mark of his abilities. For only the artist in him had been at work. What stirred him was not the personality of the Countess—not her charm nor beauty but the harmony of the colors playing about her figure: the reflected ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... about?" again demanded the younger man, seizing the rope halter and aiding the mare to flounder out upon the firmer sand below high-water mark. "What are you doing up so early? And what were you ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... planned their great triple offensive in August, 1862. Lee was to invade Maryland; Bragg was to invade Kentucky; Van Dorn was to break the hold of the Federals in the Southwest. If there is one moment that is to be considered the climax of Davis's career, the high-water mark of Confederate hope, it was the moment of joyous expectation when the triple offensive was launched, when Lee's army, on a brilliant autumn day, crossed the Potomac, ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... thoughts and mind (the latter getting quiet from the former, I suppose) than for the whole of me to rest a while in such a little scollop of the shingle as a new-moon tide, in little crescents, leaves just below high-water mark. And now it was new-moon tide again, a fortnight after the flooding of our fly by the activity of the full moon; and, feeling how I longed to understand these things—which seem to be denied to all who ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... strengthened, and that obstructions of all sorts had been placed across the river. Strong booms had been carried from side to side, and iron stakes driven into the bottom at intervals, reaching within two feet of high-water mark. The Chinese having neglected to remove the obstructions, after the admirals had waited several days, Mr Bruce and the French ambassador having arrived, the admiral sent in to say that unless his demands ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... Cathedral is 407 feet, whilst its base, or ground-line, is 52 feet. The base of the lowest building is that of the Bricklayer's Arms, Kent Road, the sill of the south door of which is only six inches above the high-water mark. The sill of the north entrance-door of Westminster Hall is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various
... right—they all knew him. The Leith millionaire, the summer resident, was a new factor in politics, and the rumours of the size of his fortune had reached a high-water mark in the Pelican Hotel that evening. Pushing through the crowd in the corridor outside the bridal suite waiting to shake hands with the new governor, Mr. Crewe gained an entrance in no time, and did not hesitate to interrupt the somewhat protracted felicitations ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... to the Porpoise by the help of the fallen masts. As the light grew, it was seen that about half a mile distant lay a dry sandbank above high-water mark, sufficiently large to receive the whole company, with such provisions as could be saved from the ship. Orders were at once given to remove to this patch, that gave promise of temporary safety, everything that ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... unconscious that Perigal's consideration in leaving her was the high-water mark of ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... the perilous task. The bed of the river at this place is rocky and shelving. At low water, these facts offer no great obstacles in crossing. The case is very different when the torrent has reached high-water mark—then, a single step will often plunge horse and rider into the angry waters beyond their depth. Kit Carson boldly took the lead, and before the infantry had all passed, the horses of the dragoons had to be sent back to assist them. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... brothers, the martyred father, the anguish of the prisoner, were all invented by the poet on that rainy day in the tavern at Ouchy. Even the level of the dungeon, below the water of the lake, turns out to be a mistake, although Bonivard believed it: the floor of the crypt is eight feet above high-water mark. As for the thoughts of the prisoner, they seem to have been mainly occupied with making Latin and French verses of an objectionable sort not adapted for general publication. (See Ls. Vulliemin: Chillon, Etude ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... confidently about him, but from the examination which I have given his poetry, I think that he treats his subjects with as little inflation as possible, and he now and then touches a point of naturalness—the high-water mark of balladry, to which modern poets, with their affected unaffectedness and elaborate simplicity, attain only with the greatest pains and labor. Such a triumph of Mercantini's is this poem which I am about to give. It ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... to wait on the others. Danny did not say a word, but just laid about him. At last he called Pearl to him, and, in a muffled whisper, asked: "What is there now that I haven't had?" Pearl then knew that he was approaching the high-water mark. ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... is an interesting lesson to be learned from a comparison between the New York Police Department as it is today and as it was twenty-five years ago. Then the scheme of organization was thoroughly bad—and the department was at its high-water mark of honest and effective activity. Now the scheme of organization is excellent—but the less said about the way it works the better. The answer to the riddle is this: today the New York police force is headed by Tammany; ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... at the goal of his hopes. Looking back, he for the first time realized the frightful peril he had escaped, and shuddered. To this shudder succeeded a thrill of triumph. "Why had he stayed so long, when escape was so easy?" Dragging the carcases above high-water mark, he rounded the little promontory and made for the fire. The recollection of the night when he had first approached it came upon him, and increased his exultation. How different a man was he now from then! Passing up the sand, he saw the stakes which he had directed Frere to cut ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... of bed was the sound of guns. He put his head out of window, and could hardly believe it was the peaceful place he'd come upon last evening. The beach swarmed with men like emmets. Near up, by high-water mark, men were unloading a long-boat for dear life—some passing kegs, others slinging them to horses, others running the horses up the cliff under his window. At first he thought it must be their trampling had woke him out of sleep, but the next moment bang! the room shook all about ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... one tittle the perfection with which it first burst upon the world. Its standard is as high, its subjects are as inexhaustible, as ever. We hear now and then of a decline in French art: the great artists who carried it to the high-water mark of modern times have all, or nearly all, passed away, but there is certainly no sign of a vacuum. The activity of production is as great as ever, the interest in art as vital. L'Art draws its material from past as well ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... was a sandy shore; the banks were high, and a clump of mimosas grew above high-water mark. It was there that we dug his grave. My men worked silently and sadly, for all loved Saat. He had been so good and true, that even their hard hearts had learned to respect his honesty. We laid him in his grave on the desert shore, ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... pointing to their footprints in the sand; "behold the first human footprints ever impressed upon this soil." And stepping rapidly forward until he had passed beyond the high-water mark, he unfurled a small union-jack which he carried in his hand, and, forcing the butt-end of the staff into the ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... their own and the seawater, the former of which they had saved in their canteens, and emptied out before us, and their only food being such nourishment as they could obtain from chewing a coarse rushy plant which grew about high-water mark, it cannot be matter of surprise that they were almost frantic after water, and that the portions of it which we sparingly administered to them, mixed with a little brandy, were most eagerly seized. Indeed the greatest firmness and ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... seen his father actually hurt him, although the child was too proud to admit it. Dinky-Dunk, I think, really wants his boy to be a bigger figure in the world than his dad. Milord's a middle-aged man now and knows his limitations. He has realized just how high the supremest high-water mark of his life will stand. And being human, he must nurse his human regrets over his failures in life. So now he wishes to see his thwarted powers come to fuller fruit in his offspring. I'm afraid he'd even run the risk of sacrificing the boy's happiness for the sake of knowing Dinkie's wagon ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... we take the boats down to the bay. While at this work we discover three sacks of flour from the wrecked boat that have lodged in the rocks. We carry them above high-water mark and leave them, as our cargoes are already too heavy for the three remaining boats. We also find two or three oars, which we place ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell |
