"Descend" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the majority. The farms are small, averaging four or five acres, and descend by primogeniture; flax, hemp, corn, are their staples. Basques were the first whalers, so it is declared, and St. Jean used to be a noted port for their vessels; the whales have since sought more northern banks, and St. Jean is reduced to ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... fog. They did not know whether it portended good or evil, but realized that something of moment was at hand. Astse Hastin ascended the mountain through the fog to learn what it meant, but found nothing unusual. As he turned to descend, a faint, apparently distant cry reached his ears, but he paid no heed. Ere long the same sound came to him again; then a third and a fourth time, whereupon he turned and walked in the direction whence it ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... Marmion, with a short laugh. "I consider ordinary politics—juggling with phrases to delude the ignorance and flatter the prejudices of the mob, and bartering principles for place and power—to be about the most contemptible vocation a man can descend to, but those are low politics in more senses than one. Now high politics, as a psychological study, to an outsider are a very different matter. But I am digressing. I did not invite you here to discuss trivialities like these. I want to ask you—of course, you ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... the wood was broken by sunlight. He was at the final ring of trees. To get to the water he must descend again. A dead trunk extended over the water. If he could run out on that and lower the ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... which it belongs[2] we read of an old custom among the inhabitants, to remove with their flocks in the beginning of each summer to the upland pastures, and bivouac there till they were obliged to descend in the month of August. The open-air life, the free intercourse of families, the roaming frolics of the young men, the songs and merriment of young and old, seem to have made this a singularly happy time. The writer of the account (Mr. Clark, of Ulva) says ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... Haytersbank gully led to the farm, and nowhere else. Still any one wishing to descend to the shore might do so by first going up to the Robsons' house, and skirting the walls till they came to the little slender path down to the shore. But by the farm, by the very house-door they must of necessity pass. Philip slackened his pace, keeping under the shadow ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... east, and in part by that of its tributary the Noe on the south. The flanks of the plateau are deeply scored by abrupt ravines, often known as "cloughs" (an Anglo-Saxon word, cloh) watered by streams which sometimes descend over precipitous ledges in picturesque falls, such as the Kinder Downfall, formed by the brook of that name which rises on Kinder Scout. The most picturesque cloughs are found on the south, descending to Edale, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... and put it on that of the boy. Then he drew a circle around the boy and told him not to be frightened at what would happen, but to stretch out his arms three times, and that the third time the ground would open, and that then he must descend and get a tabo [24] that he would find, and that with that in their hands they could quickly return. The boy, from fear of the man, did as he was told, and when the ground opened, went down into the cave and ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... discomfort that comes to modern people in ordinary modern life if some unusual circumstance throws them temporarily on their own resources. She lingered aimlessly for some time at the head of the stairs, and then, leaning heavily against the rail, began to descend slowly, one step at a time, to prolong the transit. Where the stairs turned she noticed a stain on the crisp sleeve of her white dress. It came, evidently, from one of the grapes she had eaten that morning under the maple tree. A current of cool air blew past her. It was the first relief ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... When we did descend, however, our tea and toast were thoroughly enjoyed, thanks to the appetizing air; and it was a pleasure to see our fellow-guests sunning themselves in the gardens, and making plans for ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... fly as low as they pleased, they would know all that was going on in an enemy's lines. They must keep up so high that through the aviator's glasses a man on the road is the size of a pin- head. To descend low is as certain death as to put your head over the parapet of a trench when the enemy's trench is only a hundred yards away. There are dead lines in the air, no ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... absorbed even the echo of the young human voices passing away. A light breeze stirred the tender green grass, shaking down a shower of pink almond bloom as it swept fan-like through the luminous air,—a skylark half lost in the brilliant blue, began to descend earthwards, flinging out a sparkling fountain of music with every quiver of his jewel- like wings, and away in the sheltered shade of a small hazel copse, the faint fluty notes of a nightingale trembled with a mysterious sweetness suggestive ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... Exchange. There I shall find the market reporters for both of our sunrise sheets; if they are not there I shall wait until they arrive. These gifted young men I shall draw to one side; to them I shall, with great gusto, relate a tale of Number One white Australian wheat, shortly to descend upon the United States of America in no less than eighteen vessels, now chartered for that purpose, with more to follow. In proof of this statement I shall exhibit the ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... girl has to pretend that never did she descend to dissemblance. —Which, nevertheless, ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... Chateau-Chinon. It is not possible for him to do this on account of the marriage agreement of our daughter Jeanne and my cousin of Clermont, his son, wherein it was stipulated that Chateau-Chinon should go to them and their heirs. Moreover, it cannot descend in the female line, and in default of heirs male it must return to the crown as a ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... not shift, and the rain did not descend, and before the evening set in the fire was within two miles of them, and distant roaring rent the air; the heat and smoke became more oppressive, and the party were ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... to make it more difficult for their enemies to surprise them, build their huts on the limbs of the trees where the thick foliage almost completely hides the structures from view. The inmates possess almost the agility of monkeys, and they climb up or descend from their little houses with astonishing ease. It is believed they are the only Africans yet known ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... labor past, by Bridewell all descend, (As morning pray'r and flagellation end) To where Fleet-ditch, with disemboguing streams Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames, The king of dykes! than whom, no sluice of mud With deeper ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... river had caused a small sand-bank. It was necessary to descend from the high shore to tow the vessel ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... them, I was beginning to get sleepy when the train stopped short and woke me up. We were at a station; and the station-master's office flamed like a forge fire in the darkness of the night. I had one leg numbed, I was shivering from cold, I descend to warm up a bit. I walk up and down the platform, I go to look at the engine, which they uncouple, and which they replace by another, and walking by the office I hear the bills and the tic-tac of the telegraph. The employee, with back turned to me, was stooping a little ...
— Sac-Au-Dos - 1907 • Joris Karl Huysmans
... said he is, I am sure, I repeat, that, before God and the world, you would have felt no trifling twinges of remorse. Excellent and virtuous fathers, and masters of like quality, ought not to let their arm in wrath descend upon their sons and servants with such inconsiderate haste, seeing that subsequent repentance will avail them nothing. But now that God has overruled the malign influences of the stars and saved me for your Holiness, I humbly ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... on the race-ground itself; those who are thirteen years of age and upwards until their marriage shall continue to share in contests if they are not more than twenty, and shall be compelled to run up to eighteen; and they shall descend into the arena in suitable dresses. Let these be the regulations about contests in running ...
— Laws • Plato
... the right, a short distance north of the river, the picturesque Deerfield Hills, a beginning of the scenic highlands which stretch away towards the Adirondack Mts. Fifteen miles north of Utica on West Canada Creek, are Trenton Falls,* which descend 312 feet in two miles through a sandstone chasm, in a series of cataracts, some of them having an 80-foot fall. The falls are reached on the branch line of the New York Central leading from Utica ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... moment he went. Sitting still in my place, I heard him heavily and slowly leave the room, descend the step at the door, and go out into ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... and never did any other people inherit so rich a legacy. It has rendered us prosperous in peace and triumphant in war. The national flag has floated in glory over every sea. Under its shadow American citizens have found protection and respect in all lands beneath the sun. If we descend to considerations of purely material interest, when in the history of all time has a confederacy been bound together by such strong ties of mutual interest? Each portion of it is dependent on all and all upon each portion for prosperity ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... that we should decide soon upon our course. We had failed to find the sphere, we no longer had time to seek it, and once these valves were closed with us outside, we were lost men. The great night of space would descend upon us—that blackness of the void which is the only absolute death. All my being shrank from that approach. We must get into the moon again, though we were slain in doing it. I was haunted by a vision of our freezing to death, of our hammering with our last ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... committed against the lives of men we descend next to offences against their goods, in which, that we may be the more clearly understood, we shall begin with the lowest kind of thefts. The Law calls it larceny where there is felonious and fraudulent taking and carrying away the mere personal goods of another, so ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... bedchamber, concealed himself in the armoire, and in the dead of the night, and in the deep and helpless sleep of his victim, have done the deed. What need of weapons—the suffocating pillows would stop speech and life. What so easy as escape,—to pass into the anteroom; to unbolt the door; to descend into the courtyard; to give the signal to the porter in his lodge, who, without seeing him, would pull the cordon, and give ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book XI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... turn, I spread my wings like a bird, I descend to the house of darkness, to the dwelling of Irkalla, To the house from which there is no exit, The road on which there is no return, To the house whose dwellers long for light, Dust is their nourishment ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... been devoid of courage. But—but—don't ask me to descend with you," she prayed, as she lifted the lantern and turned it dexterously enough on that portion of the door where a ring lay outlined in the depths ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... cuticle to keep it soft and moist. But the most curious part of the skin is the system of innumerable minute perspiration-tubes. Fig. 60 is a drawing of one very greatly magnified. These tubes open on the cuticle, and the openings are called pores of the skin. They descend into the true skin, and there form a coil, as is seen in the drawing. These tubes are hollow, like a pipe-stem, and their inner surface consists of wonderfully minute capillaries filled with the impure venous blood. And in these small tubes the same process is going ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... are, for the greatest part, of this rank and temper, I suppose, sir, every gentleman knows, from daily observation; and, therefore, it will, I hope, be thought necessary to descend to their understandings, and to give them laws in terms of which they will know the meaning; we shall, otherwise, more consult the interest of the lawyers than the innholders, and only, by one alteration, produce ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... appearance about mid-summer, making its web on the leaf, drawing it together, and then devouring his own house. It is a small, greenish, and very active worm, who, if he "smells a rat," will drop out of his web, and descend to the ground in double-quick time. I know of no other plan, than to catch him and crush his web between ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann
... in with the general taste ... he has descended to sing its praises in more than one place." By 1762, as we shall see, smoking was quite unfashionable, and consequently it was necessary to explain how it was that a poet could "descend" so low as to sing the ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... had to be crossed and re-crossed many times. The existing stately tree is the fruit of this patient labour; it grows at twice the pace of our oaks, and attains far larger dimensions; it is quite useless as a timber tree, but produces enormous acorns which, in windy weather, descend in showers from the trees and batter the corrugated iron roofs of the houses with a ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... halt when we came to a rapid river, running between high cliffs, over which, we had learned from our guides, a strong wooden bridge had been thrown. Had it not been for this bridge the passage of the river would have cost us great delay, as we should have had to descend by narrow pathways to the bottom of the cliffs, then to throw a pontoon across, and ascend on the other side. In the face of an enemy this would have ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... be impossible, Harry," said Mr. Hammond, gently. "They might escape in the darkness, and take your friend, and Tom, with them. We'll get ready to descend on their camp at daybreak. ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... the sick and the helpless began. This indeed included the greater portion of the survivors, for there were but two or three score on board who were capable of dragging themselves about, the rest being completely prostrate by disease, exhaustion, hunger, and thirst. Geoffrey was about to descend into one of the boats, when the officer in command said roughly: "Remain on board and do your work, there is no need for your going into the hospital." One of the ship's officers, however, explained that the lad had altogether lost his senses, and was unable either to understand when ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... down the knife and fork with promptness; and the servant was bade to show the Kentucky gentleman, into the parlor. Our arrangement was, that, with the departure of the lady from the table Julia should leave it also—descend the stairs, and ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... Olympian throne Jove stooped to earth For ends inglorious in the god of gods! Leaving the beauty of celestial birth, To rob Humanity's less fair abodes: Oh, passion more rapacious than divine, That stole the peace of innocence away! So, when descend those tireless wings of thine, They stoop ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... three quarters of an hour took us to the northern rim of the valley. Here we again saw the snowy mass of Coropuna, glistening in the sunlight, seventy-five miles away to the northwest. Our view was a short one, for in less than three minutes we had to descend another canyon. We crossed this and climbed out on the pampa of Sihuas. There was little to interest us in our immediate surroundings, but in the distance was Coropuna, and I had just begun to study the problem of possible routes for climbing the highest peak when ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... object of his affections, who looks radiant in, let us say, white batiste; while the unemployed Twin, in (possibly) blue poplin, holds discreetly aloof. After lunch the Twins, leaving their victim to smoke a cigar, retire swiftly to their room, where they exchange costumes, and descend again to the drawing-room. There Dolly, now arrayed in white batiste, enters upon the path of dalliance where Dilly left off; and Dilly, relieved from duty, crochets in a window-recess, and silently enjoys ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... and also, so great is the variety of arts of which they were masters, that no one can come properly armed for any business of importance and credit without being tolerably versed in their writings. It is owing to them that men have turned out orators, generals, and statesmen; and, to descend to less important matters, it is from this Academy, as from a regular magazine of all the arts, that mathematicians, poets, musicians, aye, and physicians too, ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... falsely, and found himself in his bed in Dr. Leete's house, with the morning sun of the twentieth century shining in his eyes. Looking from the window of his room, he saw Edith in the garden gathering flowers for the breakfast table, and hastened to descend to her and relate his experience. At this point we will leave him to continue ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... of the air passed us and then our winged car began to descend. It circled smoothly down to the field like a swooping bird, and, when we landed there, Rastin and Thicourt led me back to the ground-vehicle. It was late afternoon by then, the sun sinking westward, and darkness ...
— The Man Who Saw the Future • Edmond Hamilton
... conquered Mexico and sent expeditions northward in search of the cities of Cibola, where it was said that gold and silver were abundant. One of these parties is reported to have reached a mighty canon, into which it was impossible to descend. The canon was so deep that rocks standing in the bottom, which were in reality higher than the Seville cathedral, appeared no taller ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks
... blubber-hook was inserted into the original hole there cut by the spades of the mates. But how did so clumsy and weighty a mass as that same hook get fixed in that hole? It was inserted there by my particular friend Queequeg, whose duty it was, as harpooneer, to descend upon the monster's back for the special purpose referred to. But in very many cases, circumstances require that the harpooneer shall remain on the whale till the whole tensing or stripping operation is concluded. The whale, be it observed, lies almost entirely submerged, excepting the immediate parts ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... him; which gave him no surprise or uneasiness, for he remembered in his dream to have been there before. Although these streets were very precipitous, insomuch that to get from one to another it was necessary to descend great heights by ladders that were too short, and ropes that moved deep bells, and swung and swayed as they were clung to, the danger gave him little emotion beyond the first thrill of terror; his anxieties being concentrated on his dress which was quite unfitted for some festival that was about ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... Baalbek. A narrow-gauge railway extends across the Lebanon Mountains from Beyrout to Damascus. The distance is but ninety miles, but as the train has to rise to an elevation of nearly five thousand feet and then descend to the valley beyond, the average speed does not exceed ten or twelve miles an hour. On Wednesday morning the steamer stopped at the little seaport of Haifa just long enough to send ashore sixty passengers. Some of these wished to take the side trip to Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... their nature; for if the son of a golden or silver parent has an admixture of brass and iron, then nature orders a transposition of ranks, and the eye of the ruler must not be pitiful towards his child because he has to descend in the scale and become a husbandman or artisan; just as there may be others sprung from the artisan class, who are raised to honour, and become guardians and auxiliaries. For an oracle says that when a man of brass or iron guards the State, it ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... here," said the voice of the young man, a little in advance, "I will show you the way down." When they felt themselves near him, they heard his voice again. "Be good enough to step carefully forward, until you feel the first step of a descending stair. Then descend cautiously, if you please." Each one put out a foot, and in a moment they were all going down a stairway, of which the treads were ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... rivers—massive railway bridges and lines of track were swept away as if they had been cobwebs. It was while looking out of her window toward the high railroad bridge over Honey Creek, that Kate Shelley saw the advancing head-light of a locomotive descend into an abyss and become extinguished, carrying with it the light of two lives. It was then she realized in all its force that a terrible catastrophe had occurred, and another more terrible, if not averted, would soon follow ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... and hurt by her tone, but forbore to press his company on her. With another farewell to the King, he stood at the top of the long dark winding stair watching the group descend,—first Von Glauben, next De Launay,—thirdly, the King,—and ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... below; the one is a thin vein of whin-stone or basaltes, full of round particles of steatites impregnated with copper; it is but a few inches wide, and proceeds in a kind of zigzag. The other appears to have been calcareous spar, but the greatest part of it is now dissolved out. The strata here descend to the bottom of the river, which is above the place of the pudding-stone and vertical strata. Neither are these last discoverable below the town of Jedburgh, at least so far as I have seen; and the line of division, or ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... as we descend," said Clay, speaking over his shoulder, "you see a tin house. It is the home of the resident director of the Olancho Mining Company (Limited), and of his able lieutenants, Mr. Theodore Langham and ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... situation. Let me descend for a moment to my own trivial adventures since leaving the British front. Of France I hope to say more in the future, and so I will pass at a bound to Padua, where it appeared that the Austrian front had politely advanced to meet me, for I was wakened betimes in ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... member. It is a realm shorn of its fairest province. According to Apollinaris, all that Christ assumed was an animated body. His theory is like an ingenious system of canal locks for letting divine personality descend from the upper to the lower waters. The ingenuity displayed in it condemns it. It is an artificial makeshift. The psychology on which it rests is antiquated. The picture of Christ it presents does not correspond to the recorded facts of His life. Christ's human ...
— Monophysitism Past and Present - A Study in Christology • A. A. Luce
... Celtic legends there may be found a lovely belief that our thoughts are independent realities, that they go about in the void seeking creatures to control. They are as bodiless souls. When they descend into a human being they possess his moods, ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... phenomena: "It is the preliminary of sexual union, it constitutes the first act of it. By it the image of the male is graven on the consciousness of the female, and in a manner impregnates it, so as to determine there, as the effects of this representation descend to the depths of the organism, the physiological modifications necessary to fecundation." Beaunis, again, in an analysis of the sexual sensations, was inclined to think that the dances and parades of the male are solely intended to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... he uses a great deal of gesture, suiting the action to the word. His hands, which are small and well formed, are black with dirt; he does not descend to the ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... Paris. But we are getting near; it is time to alight and walk. He might be frightened, if we were to descend upon him ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... surprised at the peculiar and original features of what may be called the Peruvian aristocracy, we shall be still more so as we descend to the lower orders of the community, and see the very artificial character of their institutions,—as artificial as those of ancient Sparta, and, though in a different way, quite as repugnant to the essential ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... violently, hoping the chalk would descend to save him the necessity of answering, but ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... couple. The organ begins the recessional. The bride takes her bouquet from her maid of honor (who removes the veil if she wore one over her face). She then turns toward her husband—her bouquet in her right hand—and puts her left hand through his right arm, and they descend ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... occasion, and thanked me for my good service. But what is praise more than emptiness, and what does it profit me that Cortes said he relied on me, next to God, for procuring guides? We learnt from the prisoners that it was necessary to descend the river for two days march, when we would come to a town of two hundred houses, called Oculiztli; which he did accordingly, passing some large buildings where the travelling Indian merchants ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... dispenser of coins. Still, I rather like the idea of possessing this queer bit of money as a pocket-piece. I intend to keep it forever, and let it descend as an heirloom to the generations that follow me," he said, laughingly. "Why are you so curious ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... of houses irregularly placed on the rising ground above the beach. To cross the intervening railway, Rhoda could either pass through the little station, in which case she would also pass the hotel and be observable from its chief windows, or descend by a longer road which led under a bridge, and in this way avoid the hotel altogether. She took the former route. On the sands were a few scattered people, and some children subdued to Sunday decorum. The tide was rising. She went down to ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... record is of value now chiefly for the insight it gives us into Wordsworth's mind. Among other things he said, 'that it was the province of a great poet to raise people up to his own level, not to descend to theirs',—memorable words, the more memorable that a literary life of sixty years ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... descend," he said; "your weight is too great for safety. When the bucket comes up again, follow me, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... for about half an hour, enjoying ourselves exceedingly in the delightful cool which about this time of the day always appeared to descend upon the great plain of Kor, and which in some degree atoned for the want of any land or sea breeze—for all wind was kept off by the rocky mountain wall—we began to get a clear view of what Billali had ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... of his glory, from which he was to descend with such a rapid step toward the abyss, he experienced a sort of intoxication, forgot all the reproaches that his good sense, the only conscience of conquerors, had addrest to him for two months, and for a moment believed still ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... man study the world as much as he pleases; let him descend into the minutest details; dissect the vilest of animals; narrowly consider the least grain of corn sown in the ground, and the manner in which it germinates and multiplies; attentively observe with what precautions a rose-bud blows and opens in the sun, and closes again at night; ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... the rod seemed to hover above the little box containing all that were left of Jack's old coins. And even as he and Paul looked they saw it descend until the light box was tilted partly over, when the point of the long rod was pushed into it vigorously. Jack was reminded somewhat of a human hand groping about. And then, as the fishing pole was rapidly withdrawn, ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... The obscure millions of a great empire have much less to dread from the cruelty than from the avarice of their masters, and their humble happiness is principally affected by the grievance of excessive taxes, which, gently pressing on the wealthy, descend with accelerated weight on the meaner and more indigent classes of society. An ingenious philosopher [168] has calculated the universal measure of the public impositions by the degrees of freedom and servitude; and ventures to assert, that, according to ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... head, circle about these chapels and lead from one to the other. Nothing could be more fantastic than these passages; the architect seems to have taken pleasure in tangling up their threading ways. You ascend, you descend, you seem to go out of the building, you seem to return, twisting about a cornice to follow the curves of a bell-tower, and walking through thick walls in tortuous passages that might be compared to the capillary tubes of madrepores, ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... degree, may yet be the strongest principle in his heart, and strong enough to be the guide of his actions, so as to denominate him a good and virtuous man. The case is here as in scales: it is not one weight considered in itself, which determines whether the scale shall ascend or descend, but this depends upon the proportion which that one weight hath to ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... maze of wonder, and half believed this was that Heaven of which his mother had told him so much. He half expected to see the skies open and the son of God descend in all his glory. Toward night, the hour of solemn service approached, and the vast sylvan bower of the deep umbrageous forest was illuminated by numerous lamps suspended around the line of tents which encircled ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... improved, according to this promise of the artist. His subject was chosen with much felicity; it was a representation of the forges of Vulcan under Mount AEtna. The interior of the mount discovered Vulcan and his Cyclops. Venus was seen to descend, and demand of her consort armour for AEneas. Opposite to this was seen the palace of Vulcan, which presented a deep and brilliant perspective. The labours of the Cyclops produced numberless very happy combinations of artificial fires. The public with pleasing astonishment beheld the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... shalt thou know full well, And one special token afore will I thee tell. Super quem videris spiritum descendentem et manentem Super eum, hic est qui baptizat spiritu sancto. Among all other whom thou shalt baptize there, Upon whom thou seest the Holy Ghost descend In shape of a dove, resting upon his shoulder, Hold him for the same that shall the world amend By baptism of spirit, and also to man extend Most special grace. For he must repair his fall, Restoring again ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... no Baseness for the Greatest to descend and looke into their owne Estate. Some forbeare it, not upon Negligence alone, But doubting to bring themselves into Melancholy in respect they shall finde it Broken. But wounds cannot be cured without Searching. Hee that ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... twenty inches diameter, removed the sod as gently and carefully as possible: the hole is then sunk perpendicularly for a foot deep, or more if the ground be not firm. It is now worked gradually wider as they descend, till at length it becomes six or seven feet deep, shaped nearly like a kettle or the lower part of a large still with the bottom somewhat sunk at the centre. As the earth is dug it is handed up in a vessel and carefully laid ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... submitting to this operation he testified his willingness to serve him forever, i.e. during his life, for Jewish Rabbins who must have understood Jewish slavery, (as it is called,) "affirm that servants were set free at the death of their masters and did not descend to their heirs:" or that he was to serve him until the year of Jubilee, when all servants were set at liberty. To protect servants from violence, it was ordained that if a master struck out the tooth or destroyed the eye of a servant, that servant immediately became free, for such ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... North and West escarpments met. From this high corner of the square earthworks a vast extent of country could be seen. A footpath ran steeply down the green slope, conducting from the shady promenade on the walls to a road at the bottom of the scarp. It was by this path the Scotchman had to descend. ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... shriek and unhorsed her gallant, whom I caned soundly until he escaped in the confusion consequent on the servants, mother, and aunts all rushing into the room. While this was going on the Charpillon, half-naked, remained crouched behind the sofa, trembling lest the blows should begin to descend on her. Then the three hags set upon me like furies; but their abuse only irritated me, and I broke the pier-'glass, the china, and the furniture, and as they still howled and shrieked I roared out that if they did not cease I would break their heads. At ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... descend to this low way of intrigue, when he shall consider that he has a footboy or an apprentice for his rival, and that he is seldom or never admitted, but when they have been his tasters; and the fool of fortune, though he comes at the latter end of the feast, yet pays the whole reckoning; and ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... perambulator, stood upon polished rails, which disappeared under the door itself, showing that the thing was intended to be moved from one room to another in a certain way and in a fixed line. The rails, had the door been opened, would have been seen to descend upon the other side by a gentle inclined plane into the centre of a huge marble basin, and the contrivance thus made it possible to wheel a person into a bath and out again without necessitating ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... Oxford. A noble fountain of bronze figures in the centre of it, is sending forth its clear and agitated waters into the air—only to fall, in pellucid drops, into a basin of capacious dimensions: again to be carried upwards, and again to descend. 'Tis a magnificent fountain; and I wish such an one were in the centre of the street above mentioned, or in that of Waterloo Place. But to proceed with my Journal ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... extended his russia-leather case with the blandest smile. It was a very handsome case. Captain Paget was a man who could descend into some unknown depths of the social ocean in the last stage of shabbiness, and who, while his acquaintance were congratulating themselves upon the fact of his permanent disappearance, would start up suddenly in an unexpected place, provided with every necessity and ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... two hundred feet or so the stairs, though worn and almost perpendicular, for the place was like the shaft of a mine, were not difficult to descend, to any of us except Joshua, whom I heard puffing and groaning behind me. Then came a gallery running eastward at a steep slope for perhaps fifty paces, and at the end of it a second shaft of about the same depth as the first, but ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... you see only the "great events," the movements of armies, and the decisive battles, let us now descend into the lowland, good reader. I will lay before you some incidents, not to be found in the "official reports;" and I promise to carry you ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... judge at that distance, the troops were completely hemmed in, and were fighting for their lives, not to advance, but to return down the mountain. Should the house be taken, all hopes of their so doing would be lost, as it would leave the besiegers at liberty to descend by the path leading to it, and to cut off all ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... sound that was like a groan and began to descend the steps by his side. They walked several paces along the dim road in silence; then quite suddenly he ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... Monsieur? Bien; I will tell the proprietaire. He won't believe it—Monsieur Dubois tells too many lies; but perhaps it will keep him quiet. He will think of the return—of the money in the pocket. He will bid me inform him the very moment Monsieur Dubois shows his nose, that he may descend upon him, and so ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... clergyman of the Church of England. The profession which he had graced sat easily on him. Its external marks and signs were as pleasing to his friends as were its internal comforts to himself. He was a man of much quiet mirth, full of polished wit, and on some rare occasions he could descend to the more noisy hilarity of a joke. Loved by his friends he loved all the world. He had known no care and seen no sorrow. Always intended for holy orders he had entered them without a scruple, and remained within their pale ...
— The Relics of General Chasse • Anthony Trollope
... piers, but over them both, and when the pier-heads projected beyond her stern the motion of the lower vessel ceased; then the great piston, which supported the socket in which the ball of the Euterpe moved, slowly began to descend into the central portion of the Thalia, and as the tide was low, it was not long before each side of the upper hull rested firmly and securely upon the stone piers. Then the socket on the lower vessel descended rapidly until it was entirely clear of the ball, and the Thalia backed out from ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... Tshull is highly successful. There are countless gazelles, pheasants and partridges hiding in the tall grass. On the third day we were just on the point of following some bustards, which clumsily rise on their wings and after some time descend again to the ground, when a general alarm arose in the caravan. "The Arabs are coming!" was shouted everywhere. A throng had been noticed in the distance approaching very rapidly. The head of our column stopped, but since our whole caravan ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... of seeing old Jean, the hunter. He was usually not far away. But look as she might, she could discover no sign of him. There was only one thing in her favor. It would be light for some time yet. Being June, the darkness would not descend for two hours. She must escape, but how was she ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... in cold countries husbandmen plant vines, And with warm blood manure them; even so One summer she will bear unsavoury fruit, And ere next spring wither both branch and root. The act of blood let pass; only descend To matters ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... his own home, and his descriptions of them are touched with a peculiar feeling. Single picturesque glimpses charm him, too, like the little promontory of Capo di Monte that stretches out into the Lake of Bolsena. "Rocky steps," we read, "shaded by vines, descend to the water's edge, where the evergreen oaks stand between the cliffs, alive with the song of thrushes." On the path round the Lake of Nemi, beneath the chestnuts and fruit-trees, he feels that here, if anywhere, a poet's ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... afar and apart, the finger was about to descend upon the chronometer that timed his race. The dust atoms that a hundred years ago had been exalted to make a man now clamored for their humble rehabilitation. Man shall never, in this mortal body we use, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... with their former masters, their employers, the wealthier and more intelligent classes, whether loyal or disloyal; for, as a rule, these will treat them with greater personal consideration and kindness than others. The dislike of the negro, and hostility to negro equality, increase as you descend in the social scale. The freedmen, without political instruction or experience, who have had no country, no domicile, understand nothing of loyalty or of disloyalty. They have strong local attachments, but they can have no patriotism. If they adhered to the Union ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... canon at this point given in Captain Dutton's report are from Point Sublime, on the north side. There seems to have been no way of reaching the river from that point. From the south side the descent, though wearisome, is feasible. It reverses mountaineering to descend 6000 feet for a view, and there is a certain pleasure in standing on a mountain summit without the trouble of climbing it. Hance, the guide, who has charge of the well, has made a path to the bottom. The route is seven miles long. Half-way down ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... year Sharpe was slain by a number of Protestants, who were looking for a minor persecutor, and who thought that Heaven had specially delivered the Archbishop into their hands when they encountered his carriage, from which they made him descend, and murdered him in presence of his daughter, using swords and pistols. Among the many stories told of Claverhouse (then Viscount of Dundee) is one to the effect that he was shot on the battlefield of Killiecrankie by one of his servants, who used a silver button from his livery-coat, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... and said, "You know, Elinor, that this is a kind of talking which I cannot bear. If you only hope to have your assertion contradicted, as I must suppose to be the case, you ought to recollect that I am the last person in the world to do it. I cannot descend to be tricked out of assurances, that ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... that there may be someone hidden in those bushes, or in a hollow tree, watching our work, and drinking in all we say. When fellows descend to such low practices as betraying their schoolmates to the enemy, they become very crafty. On the whole, it will be better to change the code just before the game to-morrow," remarked the coach, later on, during ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... to him beyond measure, and to admire his forethought. He never seemed to hesitate for a moment. He had evidently decided upon his course beforehand, and there was no delay. Reaching the station, he assisted Dolly to descend from the cab and led her at once to a seat where she could command a view of all who made their appearance upon the platform. Then he left her and went to make inquiries from the officials. He was not absent long. In a few minutes he returned with the necessary ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... reach it. But Maggie Miller was equal to any emergency, and venturing out to the very edge of the rock she poised herself on one foot, and looked down the dizzy height to see if it were possible to descend. ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... habitual authority of his voice—notwithstanding his reiterated threats—the brute-tamer cannot obtain silence: on the contrary, the barking of several dogs is soon added to the roaring of the wild beasts. Morok seizes a pike, and approaches the ladder; he is about to descend, when he sees some ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... enemy, marched away to Argos. And having intelligence that Antigonus was already in possession of the high grounds, he encamped about Nauplia, and the next day dispatched a herald to Antigonus, calling him a villain, and challenging him to descend into the plain field and fight with him for the kingdom. He answered, that his conduct should be measured by times as well as by arms, and that if Pyrrhus had no leisure to live, there were ways enough open to death. To both the kings, also, came ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... gather Experiments to prove their Doctrines, contenting themselves with a few only, to satisfie those that are not capable of a Nobler Conviction. And indeed they employ Experiments rather to illustrate then to demonstrate their Doctrines, as Astronomers use Sphaeres of pastboard, to descend to the capacities of such as must be taught by their senses, for want of being arriv'd to a clear apprehension of purely Mathematical Notions and Truths. I speak thus Eleutherius (adds Themistius) only to do right to Reason, and ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... a moment to fasten the trap-door; I, by drift of groping, found the outlet from the attic, and proceeded to descend the narrow garret staircase. I lingered in the long passage to which this led, separating the front and back rooms of the third storey: narrow, low, and dim, with only one little window at the far end, and looking, with its two rows ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte |
