"Descend" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... refinement acquired and inherited was of the noble kind which could prefer the roughest action for humanity to elegant allurements of gratified taste. The best gift of scholarship is the power it gives a man to descend with all the force of his acquired position, and come into effective union with the world of facts. For it is the crucial test of brave qualities that they are truer and more practical for being filtered through libraries. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... soil, and to erode the canyons between the ancient craters until they are like Grand Canyons of the Colorado, with numberless waterfalls plunging thousands of feet in the sheer or dissipating into veils of vapour, and evanescing in mid-air to descend softly and invisibly through a mirage of rainbows, like so much dew or ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... focused on getting you inside a shop. Once you are there, he stations himself close behind you, reenforcing the combined importunities of the shopkeeper and his assembled staff with gentle suggestions. The depths of self-abasement to which a shopkeeper in Europe will descend in an effort to sell his goods surpasses the power of description. The London tradesman goes pretty far in this direction. Often he goes as far as the sidewalk, clinging to the hem of your garment and begging you to return ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... fortresses on the Po to join them, probably by water, and awaited the commencement of the favourable season, when they proposed to occupy in the defensive the passes of the Apennines, and then, taking up the offensive, to descend into the valley of the Po and effect a junction somewhere near Placentia. But Hannibal by no means intended to defend the valley of the Po. He knew Rome better perhaps than the Romans knew it themselves, and was very well aware how decidedly he was the weaker and continued to be ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the paper which you sent me, and hope you will destroy it at once. I could not take the property you have so kindly devised to me, and you can readily see what trouble I should have in bestowing it where it should descend as an inheritance. ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... saw the spirit of fear Creep through his camp, and discipline to fail, And sentinels desert their guard at night, Thus in his fear he spake: "By daring much Fear is disguised; let me be first in arms, And bid my soldiers to the plain descend, While still my soldiers. Idle days breed doubt. By fight forestall the plot (24). Soon as the thirst Of bloodshed fills the mind, and eager hands Grip firm the sword, and pressed upon the brow The helm brings valour to the failing heart — Who ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... descend into the valley there will be no lack of plenty to drink; but on beginning the ascent of the mountains we must be careful ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... began to cast its missiles against the wall. Against these Walter could do little. He had no sacks, which, filled with earth, he might have lowered to cover the part of the walls assailed, and beyond annoying those working the machines by flights of arrows shot high in the air, so as to descend point downwards among them, he ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets?" But these things are handled already in the handling of which this first part of the observation is proved; wherefore, without more words, I will, God assisting by his grace, descend to the second ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... realize now that we had been living for years like one who has a presentiment that something dreadful is hanging over him which will suddenly descend upon his head, and who carries this feeling of dread about with him with an uneasy conscience, trying to drown it in the tumult and restlessness of daily life. We realize the situation now, because we know where we should have fixed our gaze and understand the task to the accomplishment ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... addressing her own image; "poor, pale face, thou art suspected! poor thin cheeks, poor tired eyes, thou and thy tears are in disgrace. Very well, put an end to thy suffering; let those kisses that have wasted thee, close thy lids! Descend into the cold earth, poor trembling body that can no longer support its own weight. When thou art there, perchance thou wilt be believed, if doubt believes in death. O sorrowful specter! On the banks of what stream wilt thou wander and groan? What fires ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... reached the summit, where the temples and idols stood, and here a great drum beat, and the priests sacrificed victim after victim in my honour and I grew sick with the sight of wickedness and blood. Presently they invited me to descend from the litter, laying rich carpets and flowers for my feet to tread on, and I was much afraid, for I thought that they were about to sacrifice me to myself or some other divinity. But this was not so. They led me to the edge of the pyramid, or as near as I would go, for I shrank ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... deficient in strength, yet always musical. His essays, in general, are on the surface of life; if ever original, it was in pieces of humour. Sir Roger de Coverly, and the tory fox-hunter, need not to be mentioned. Johnson had a fund of humour, but he did not know it; nor was he willing to descend to the familiar idiom, and the variety of diction, which that mode of composition required. The letter, in the Rambler, No. 12, from a young girl that wants a place, will illustrate this observation. Addison possessed an unclouded imagination, alive to the first objects ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... wolves," the officer said. "They are savage brutes, and when in company will not hesitate to attack small parties of men. They abound in the mountains, and are a scourge to the shepherds of the plains, especially in the cold weather, when they descend and commit ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... witnessed, perhaps some of us may even have experienced. There is consequently little merit in presenting it to the mind's eye. It is easy, comparatively speaking, to portray the feelings and passions of our own kind. We have only, as Dryden expresses it, to descend into ourselves to find the secret imperfections of our mind. It is therefore in his portraiture of the canine race that the illustrious author has so far excelled all his contemporaries—in fact, he has ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... shining gems, because Their sparkling beauty cheers the eye, And, by the force of nature's laws, They never in profusion lie. Could we, Aladdin like, descend Into a place where diamonds grow, Our minds would then most surely tend To ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... earned as a retaining fee, not as a discharge from his duties. Comparing him with his contemporaries, we see how vast was the advantage. Elevated above Grub Street, he had no temptation to manufacture rubbish or descend to actual meanness like De Foe. Independent of patronage, he was not forced to become a 'tame cat' in the hands of a duchess, like his friend Gay. Standing apart from politics, he was free from those disappointed pangs which contributed ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... to find boys at the south-west corner of Santo, where the natives frequently descend to the shore. A neighbour of Mr. Ch., a young Frenchman, was going there in a small cutter to buy wood for dyeing mats to sell to the natives of Malekula, and he kindly took me with him. We sailed through the channel one ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... am with ye still. Your monarch and your heroes have deserted ye, but I am with ye to the last! Go not to the Alhambra: the fort is impenetrable—the guard faithful. Night will be wasted, and day bring upon you the Christian army. March to the gates; pour along the Vega; descend at ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... delicacy of feeling. He pinched himself to amass a small sum of money from time to time, and then religiously took away the seemingly delirious picture, to hang it beside his masterpieces. Such windfalls came too seldom, and Claude was obliged to descend to 'trade art,' repugnant as it was to him. Such, indeed, was his despair at having fallen into that poison house, where he had sworn never to set foot, that he would have preferred starving to death, ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... he himself felt by no means sure that at any moment some scaly monster might not descend from the roof; "but I'll tell you what we'll ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... way is still onward. We resist the attraction of Cressbrook village on its lofty eminence, and plunge to the right, into Wardlow Dale. Here we are buried deep in woods, and yet behold still deeper the valley descend below us. There is an Alpine feeling upon us. We are carried once more, as in a dream, into the Saxon Switzerland. Above us stretch the boldest ranges of lofty precipices, and deep amid the woods are heard the voices of children. These come from ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... Europe in the spring, and Mrs Jo hovering on the brink of a 'vortex'—for the forthcoming book had been sadly delayed by the late domestic events. As she sat at her desk, settling papers or meditatively nibbling her pen while waiting for the divine afflatus to descend upon her, she often forgot her fictitious heroes and heroines in studying the live models before her, and thus by chance looks, words, and gestures discovered a little romance ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... like mine! 1. Thou first rung, Clio, celebrate my name; 2. Euterp, in tragic numbers do the same. 3. This rung, I see, Terpsichore's thy flute; 4. Erato, sing me to the Gods; ah, do't: 5. Thalia, don't make me a comedy; 6. Urania, raise me tow'rds the starry sky: 7. Calliope, to ballad-strains descend, 8. And Polyhymnia, tune them for your friend; 9. So shall Melpomene mourn my fatal ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... descend, and Kinton remembered that the city named in his message was only about twenty miles from his home. The brief twilight of Tepokt was passing by the time he set foot on the landing field, and he paused to ...
— Exile • Horace Brown Fyfe
... descend to tradesmen and mechanics, the case is reversed: the wife manages every thing in the house and shop, while the husband lounges in the back-shop an idle spectator, or struts about ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... was far advanced in years, a feeble, emaciate old man of very diminutive stature. In the days of his prime, he had been a renowned warrior. Hearing of the arrival of the Spaniards, he was disposed to regard them as enemies, and seizing his tomahawk, he was eager to descend from his castle and lead ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... with the people. His noble birth and lineage entitled him to their respect. He was of a rare type of manly beauty—was wealthy, and used his gold with liberality—gave abundant largesses to the poorer classes—was lavish in his expenditure upon the arts—did not disdain, at times, to descend from his natural station and associate with his inferiors, thereby pleasing the fancy of the masses for social equality—patronized poets and actors, who, in return, sang or spouted his praise, and thus still further added to his fame—and was noted for a bold, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... when every thing should have become settled and consolidated in Greece, and his family was established in the hearts of his countrymen, he could leave Macedon more safely. Public affairs would go on more steadily while he lived, and, in case of his death, the crown would descend, with comparatively little danger of ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the Woolsey boys knew the symptoms. They lifted the old man up and put him on his bed, gave him whiskey, and then consulted as to their next duty. They could not leave him there alone upon the mountain-top; nor was it an easy matter to descend to the bottom of the canon ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... a subdued tone, "that you Contemplate sacrificing yourself for her. 'I will descend to her level, and protect her from the mob,' and so on. That's what you are saying to your virtuous self, waxing big in your own eyes as a worm does in carrion. But it's all a sham; nothing else but a lie! You're ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... as we descend from the apostolic age, the spirit of the dominant body in the Church betrays a growing want of Christian charity. There soon appeared a disposition, on the part of some, to monopolize religion, and to disown all who ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... of earth, Awaits the mold of baked clay. Up, comrades, up, and aid the birth— THE BELL that shall be born today! Who would honor obtain, With the sweat and the pain, The praise that Man gives to the Master must buy!— But the blessing withal must descend from on high! And well an earnest word beseems The work the earnest hand prepares; Its load more light the labor deems, When sweet discourse the labor shares. So let us ponder—nor in vain— What strength can work when labor wills; For who would not the fool ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... steps to water them, "God only can give the increase." To Him then who is able to prosper the work of his servant's hand, I commend this Appeal in fervent prayer, that as he "hath chosen the weak things of the world, to confound the things which are mighty," so He may guise His blessing, to descend and carry conviction to the hearts of many Lydias through these speaking pages. Farewell—Count me not your "enemy because I have told you the truth," but believe ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... miles long, and evidently hitherto unknown. Some of the men took one of the boats and went ashore; they found many gull's eggs, and had a narrow escape from losing their lives. They ascended a hill of snow which was as solid as a block of marble, but in attempting to descend, they found themselves obliged to slide to the bottom, and were in imminent danger of being hurled upon the sharp rocks by which it was surrounded; happily, they received no injury. The next day we had a hard struggle with a polar bear, ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... barbarians. And thus, through an unjust desire of governing, he in a manner shut himself up in a prison. Besides, he would not trust his throat to a barber, but had his daughters taught to shave; so that these royal virgins were forced to descend to the base and slavish employment of shaving the head and beard of their father. Nor would he trust even them, when they were grown up, with a razor; but contrived how they might burn off the hair ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... top of Himavan the mighty Mashawara stood; And "Descend," he gave the word to the heaven-meandering water— Full of wrath, the mandate heard Himavan's majestic daughter. To a giant's stature soaring and intolerable speed, From heaven's height down rush'd she pouring upon Siva's sacred head. Him the goddess thought in scorn with her resistless ...
— Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems • Henry Hart Milman
... Sure. But even as he grinned and his lips shaped a joke, Jason felt them like a veneer on the outside. Something plastered on with a life of its own. Inside he was numb and immovable. His body was stiff as his eyes still watched that arch of alien flesh descend and smother the one-armed Pyrran with ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... suggested to Felicia's imagination some funeral of an African chief, at which thousands of sacrificed victims accompany the soul of a prince so that it shall not pass alone into the kingdom of spirits, and made her fancy that perhaps this pompous and interminable retinue was about to descend and disappear in the superhuman grave large enough to receive the whole ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... little water that they could easily proceed fourscore or a hundred miles up the great rivers; their weight was so inconsiderable, that they were transported on wagons from one river to another; and the pirates who had entered the mouth of the Seine, or of the Rhine, might descend, with the rapid stream of the Rhone, into the Mediterranean. Under the reign of Valentinian, the maritime provinces of Gaul were afflicted by the Saxons: a military count was stationed for the defence of the sea-coast, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... of literature and art describe the same periodical revolutions and parallel eras. After the golden age of Latinity, we gradually slide into the silver, and at length precipitately descend into the iron. In the history of painting, after the splendid epoch of Raphael, Titian, and Correggio, we meet with pleasure the Oarraccis, Domenichino, Guido, and Albano; as we read Paterculus, Quintilian, Seneca, Juvenal, and Silius Italicus, after their ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... ridiculously insistent in maintaining such perfect independence? Can you not believe I get well paid for all you cost me, if we descend to the vulgarity of dollars and cents, in having a bright, original young creature about the house with a fiery, independent, nature, ready to fight with her rich friends for the ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... feuds, and familiarized, by daily habit, with Seigneurial powers and practices, they had not yet learned to suspect their inconsistence with reason and right. They were willing to submit to equality of taxation, but not to descend from their rank and prerogatives to be incorporated in session with the Tiers Etat. Among the Clergy, on the other hand, it had been apprehended that the higher orders of the Hierarchy, by their wealth and connections, would have carried the elections ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... seemed to lead a quite still and self-contained life: a man devoted to the higher Philosophies, indeed; yet more likely, if he published at all, to publish a refutation of Hegel and Bardili, both of whom, strangely enough, he included under a common ban; than to descend, as he has here done, into the angry noisy Forum, with an Argument that cannot but exasperate and divide. Not, that we can remember, was the Philosophy of Clothes once touched upon between us. If through the high, silent, meditative Transcendentalism of our Friend we detected any ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... Second, to descend to a more popular form of art, but one from which the revenue is far more certain, Memphis has, in W.C. Handy, a negro ragtime composer whose dance tunes are widely known. Among his compositions may be ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... would have had to find security for costs in the event of the petition turning out to be frivolous, and would have been obliged at least to maintain their own witnesses. It was inconvenient, unjust, and degrading to the character of the house, it was asserted, to descend into the politics of borough elections, and that applications like this ought to be resisted. On the other hand, Sir Francis Burdett argued that if the petition were rejected, it would be viewed as indicating a want of that constitutional jealousy which should ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... take along with him his glory or earthly happiness; for, as the Holy Ghost tells us: "Be thou not afraid, when a man shall be made rich, and when the glory of his house shall be increased. For when he shall die, he shall take nothing away; nor will his glory descend with him." ...
— The Happiness of Heaven - By a Father of the Society of Jesus • F. J. Boudreaux
... coolies, hurry to and fro with scoops of seed resting on their shoulders. When they get in line, at right angles to the direction in which the wind is blowing, they move slowly along, letting the seed descend on the heap below, while the wind winnows it, and carries the dust in dense clouds to leeward. This is repeated over and over again, till the seed is as clean as it can be made. It is put through bamboo sieves, so formed ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... Lincoln is a certain tone of familiar dignity, which, while it is perhaps the most difficult attainment of mere style, is also no doubtful indication of personal character. There must be something essentially noble in an elective ruler who can descend to the level of confidential ease without forfeiting respect, something very manly in one who can break through the etiquette of his conventional rank and trust himself to the reason and intelligence of those who have elected ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... beyond feeding all whom it directly or indirectly employs, of course depends upon what the remainder of the produce can be sold for. The higher the market value of produce, the lower are the soils to which cultivation can descend, consistently with affording to the capital employed the ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... and presentable clothes, pale from indoor confinement and fever, but once more the straight and strong cavalier of the hills, he hastened into her presence when the summons came for him to descend. He dropped to his knee and kissed her hand, determined to play the game, notwithstanding his doubts. As he arose she glanced for a flitting second into his dark eyes, and ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... about to descend the hill, after visiting a number of points, a little woman approached and made an inquiry about the running of trains. She was one of the survivors and wished to reach Clearfield, where her grown-up sons were. "I'd walk it if I could," she said, "but it's too far, and I'm too old now." She was ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... tumbling off the ladder. By a superhuman effort, however, he managed to drag her out, and then clasping her waist with one arm, whilst with the other he held on like grim death, he hung breathless for a moment, and then began slowly to descend. ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... sometimes. I suppose we all occasionally have questions to decide that to us are perplexing and important, though of little consequence to the world. Come; if we are to see the old garden, we must make the most of the fading light. After my interview with Old Plod, I can't descend to cows and pigs; so ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... cause when you stoop to use its machinery to assist your own private vengeance. I ask you for your own sake to consider your words. Lucille is mine—mine she will remain, even though you should descend to something more despicable, more cowardly than ordinary treason, to wrest her from me. You reproach me with the failures of my life. Great they may have been, but if you attempt this you will find that I am ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... former, battering away at them with the stock of his gun, and the latter, exercising upon their shoulders whatever they possessed in the way of lassoes, axe-handles and sabre-blades, maintained the argument effectually for some time in this way, and did not descend to questions until muscular fatigue caused them to desist. The catechism subsequently put to the porters elicited the reply, from the spokesman of the recusants, that they were tired of being afraid of the wild Indians; that they objected to marching into the dens of tigers; that, perceiving ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... when the ladies had gone to bed, Lord Chiltern took his friend off to the smoking-room. At Harrington Hall it was not unusual for the ladies and gentlemen to descend together into the very comfortable Pandemonium which was so called, when,—as was the case at present,—the terms of intimacy between them were sufficient to warrant such a proceeding. But on this occasion Lady Chiltern went very discreetly ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... petals with graceful bend, Drink in the sunbeams as they descend; And lade with fragrance the heated air As it floats around us everywhere; And the world grows better by its advent, This lovely ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... sorrow by speaking thus abruptly, but that the Prince's, or rather the King's desire was urgent, that the matter should be determined without loss of time. To you, in all justice, does he will that the castles and manors of Clarenham should descend, but on ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... its name from its rapid fall. The word comes from a root which signifies "to descend," and the name itself means "the down-flowing." We can trace it back to the Egyptian monuments of the nineteenth and twentieth dynasties. Ramses II., the Pharaoh of the Oppression, has inscribed it on the walls of Karnak, and Ramses III., who must have reigned while the Israelites were still in ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce
... he was laid upon the ground, and his head was placed upon a stone. An Indian warrior of herculean strength stood by, with a massive club, to give the death blow by crushing in the skull. Just as the fatal stroke was about to descend, a beautiful Indian girl, Pocahontas, the daughter of the king, rushed forward and throwing her arms around the neck of Captain Smith, placed her head upon his. The Indians regarded this as an indication ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... descend to thy child?" said a voice close by. It sounded so clear, so deep—its tones went to her heart. She looked up, and near her stood a man wrapped in a large mourning cloak, with a hood drawn over the head; but she could see the countenance ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... to which adheres a covering, which is at once coat and legging, without wrinkles. The borders of the fastenings are furnished with globular buttons, extended round and caught up here and there by chains. The coverings of the legs descend to the shoes and are continued even to the heels. Then they cover the feet with large socks, or, as it were, half-buskins fastened by buckles, over which they wear a half-boot, and besides, as I have already said, they ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells
... even from Abraham's time these monuments had been safely kept amongst the Jews, and laid up in their treasury; because in them it might easily and most assuredly be found of what lineage everyone did descend. So (in good faith) do these men, when they would have all their own doings in estimation, as though they had been delivered to us even from the Apostles, or from Christ Himself: to the end there might be found nowhere anything ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... to know," the other said. "Obviously! And if he owns timber lands, I think it's up to you to be a help. Lots of interesting angles to the lumber business. And if the timber lands are going to descend to you, you'll have to look after ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... men below," gasped Aristide, fumbling for his trousers. "They command that I descend at once and admit them. There is something which tells me it is the police—the police at ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... the sea in a semicircle. Between the two extremities of the chain, there lies a beautiful plain, watered by numerous rivers which rise in these mountains. The natives are ferocious and warlike, and it is thought they are of the same race as the cannibals, for when they descend from their mountains to fight with their neighbours in the plain, they eat all whom they kill. It was with the cacique of these mountains that Guarionex took refuge, bringing him gifts, consisting of ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... men kneeling on the pavement. After a while a long train of young girls, walking two and two, each with a lighted taper in her hand, and all dressed in black with a white veil, came from behind the altar, and began to descend the nave; the four first carrying a Virgin and child upon a table. The priests and choristers arose from their knees and followed after, singing "Ave Mary" as they went. In this order they made the circuit of the cathedral, passing twice before me where I leaned against a pillar. The ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in Germany. He was enraptured with this, his first visit to the Continent. On our outward journey we halted at Brussels, in those days a bright and happy city with nothing in its cheerful, prosperous air to suggest that in less than a year there would descend upon it the baleful shadow of the Great War. Much in the old Germany appealed powerfully to our son, and even of the new Germany, with its energy and its zeal for learning, he was something of an admirer. But he hated in modern Germany its brazen materialism and boastful arrogance. ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... countries divides the patrician from the plebeian. The yeoman was not inclined to murmur at dignities to which his own children might rise. The grandee was not inclined to insult a class into which his own children must descend.... Thus our democracy was, from an early period, the most aristocratic, and our aristocracy the most democratic in the world; a peculiarity which has lasted down to the present day, and which has produced many important moral ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... 'your prudence amazes me—where DID you study life so well!—you are right. In such a case as yours, the object is a fitting establishment. You could not descend to an inadequate one from Mr Boffin's house, and even if your beauty alone could not command it, it is to be assumed that ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... These yearnings why are they? these thoughts in the darkness why are they? Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sunlight expands my blood? Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank? Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me? ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... themselves with moderate ambitions constituting themselves in conformity with their means, their spirit and their circumstances. Let us not aspire to impossible things, lest, desiring to rise above the region of freedom, we descend to the region of tyranny. From absolute liberty, peoples invariably descend to absolute power, and the means between those two extremes is social liberty." ... "In order to constitute a stable government, a national spirit ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... silver, and jewelry, of white plumes and waving pennons, amid the acclamations of myriads of spectators on the surrounding hills, and the shrill burst of pipes, trumpets, and clarions, two horsemen were seen to emerge, and, in the sight of both nations, slowly descend into the valley from opposite sides. These were the two sovereigns. As they approached nearer they spurred their horses to a gallop; then, uncovering, embraced each other on horseback, and, after ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... previously awakened. How, then, is that ascendency over the mind, which the singular destiny of Orestes naturally acquires, to be preserved, when he no longer is to be regarded as the innocent sufferer who claims our interest, and when he is content to descend to the level of ordinary men? In this very difficult passage Talma is eminently successful; no vehemence of manner accompanies the desperate resolution he expresses, the recollection of the misery he has suffered, and the dread of the greater misfortunes which his present intentions must ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... course over our soil,—not to run in such streams as will cut away the surface, nor in such quantities as to make the ground inconveniently wet, but to spread itself in beneficent irrigation, and to deposit the fertilizing matters which it contains, then to descend through a well-drained subsoil, to a ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... law by adopting a course of action which may be utterly repugnant to both. If only the wife alone will commit adultery, if only the husband will commit adultery and also inflict some act of cruelty upon his wife, if the innocent party will descend to the degradation of employing detectives and hunting up witnesses, the law is at their feet and hastens to accord to both parties the permission to remarry. Provided, of course, that the parties have arranged this without "collusion." That is to say that our law, with its ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... strong conformist. He became grave. When I was indiscreet enough to reveal that I was inclined to pin my faith to the concrete liberty of women, rather than to a vague and abstract "human freedom," which was supposed to descend upon the world, once the Germans were beaten, I know he wanted to call me "seditious." But he is ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... discontent was louder, for the rulers of the east did not travel far from their own dominions if they followed the customs of their fathers, and observed their people's will. The Streltsy, a privileged class of soldiers, rose on the eve of the departure for the west. Their punishment did not descend on them at once, but Peter planned a dark vengeance ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... quarter of a mile distant from the sombre old pile in which the family lived. "You take Clara round by the bridge, and I will get over the stepping-stones." And so the lad, with his rod in his hand, began to descend the steep bank. ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... more, but he grasped honest Jean's hand and left the house. The landlord hurried after him, but it was only to see him descend the steps of the quay and enter the boat, which, in a minute or two, was lost in ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... powers, to save Austria, and preserve the Catholic religion. However sensibly the imperial pride might feel the humiliation, in being forced to make so unequivocal an admission of past errors and present necessity; however painful it was to descend to humble entreaties, from the height of imperial command; however doubtful the fidelity of so deeply injured and implacable a character; however loudly and urgently the Spanish minister and the ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... the sunlight. Cecil watched them cross the terrace, and descend out of sight by the steps. They would descend—he knew their ways—past the shrubbery, and past the tennis-lawn and the dahlia-bed, until they reached the kitchen garden, and there, in the presence of the potatoes and the peas, the ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... is done! Now I have filled thy soul with song and sun. Forth! Now thou soarest on triumphant wings,— Forth! Now thy Svanhild is the swan that sings! [Takes off the ring and presses a kiss upon it. To the abysmal ooze of ocean bed Descend, my dream!—I ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... reason, therefore, to worry about a ship becoming obsolete, any more than there is over the fact that the best suit of to-day may be that for the office next year, and may finally descend to a dependent, or be cut down for a child. Whatever money a nation is willing to spend on maintaining its first line of ships, it is not weaker, but stronger, when one of these drops into the reserve and is replaced by a newer ship. The great ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... we saw beyond our bows, silhouetted against the rose-coral of the evening sky, the slender campaniles and the crenellated ramparts of Zara. It was so still and calm and beautiful that I felt as though I were looking at a scene upon a stage and that the curtain would descend at any moment and destroy the illusion. The little group of white-clad naval officers who greeted us upon the quay informed us that the governor-general, Admiral Count Millo, had placed at our disposal the yacht Zara, formerly the property ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... been all the morning very doubtful, and thick clouds were gathering in the sky. My earnest prayer was that it would continue moderate; I began, however, to fear that my hopes would be disappointed. The clouds grew thicker and seemed to descend lower and lower, while a mist arose which ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... interspersed with innumerable pleasant towns, villages, and houses, and among them many of considerable magnitude. So that, while you view the downs, and think the country wild and uninhabited, yet when you come to descend into these vales you are surprised with the most pleasant ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... generally rested with the lady. The broker finally opened the door, and finding the page with ear glued against the keyhole, quietly took that young gentleman by the lobe of his left ear, and leading him to the head of the staircase, advised him, as a friend, to descend it as speedily as possible, before his gravitation was assisted by the application of an extraneous power. This accomplished, he returned to the boudoir, and locking the door, sat down beside his wife. The latter playfully tapped his cheek with her bouquet, but the broker took no notice ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... by experience how salt the savor is of other's bread, and how sad a path it is to climb and descend another's stairs.—Dante. ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... sulphur, being held above the thin portion of the top of the kiln, which is at once closed with ginesi, and the "calcarone" is left to itself for about a week. During the burning process the flames gradually descend, and the sulphur contained in the ore is melted by the heat from above. In about seven or eight days sulphuric fumes and sublimed sulphur commence to escape, when it becomes necessary to add a new coat of ginesi to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various
... rode through a rolling country, quite well watered and wooded, separating the waters of the Eurotas from those of the Alpheus, Laconia from Arcadia. As we reached the highest point, and were about to descend, Dhemetri pointed out a village, distinguished by a single tall, slender cypress, with the words; 'There is Megalopolis.' This is the city founded by Epaminondas, almost the only statesman of antiquity who seems to have had a dim conception of the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... it will," Bill Watson reminded him. "But the fact remains that your mother came from what is sometimes called 'the landed gentry' of England, and the estates there, or property, descend to eldest sons differently than property does in this country. It may be ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... entertaining to observe the prudence of these animals in making their way down such dangerous rocks. They sometimes put their heads over the edge of the precipice, and examine with anxious circumspection every possible way by which they can descend, and at length are sure to fix on that which, upon the whole, is the best. Having observed this in several instances, I laid the bridle on the neck of my mule, and allowed him to take his own way, without ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... mother, and Nature had claimed her now. She knew it all; she knew that she could never be a dancer again. She had stolen out on to the deck each morning in her slippers, and had seen the dawn break through the clouds and descend upon the quivering waters. She had seen the eastern sky streaked with faint but marvellous colouring, growing deeper and deeper, until the sun's rim had risen from out of the water. Grey had become mauve, and white amber. It was wonderful! And by night she had leaned ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Child of Bethlehem! Descend to us, we pray; Cast out our sin, and enter in, Be born in us to-day. We hear the Christmas angels The great glad tidings tell; Oh come to us, abide with ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... medicine to eleven of them, and next morning all were better. Food is abundant and cheap. Our course is nearly south, and in "wadys," from which, following the trade-road, we often ascend the heights, and then from the villages, which are on the higher land, we descend to another on the same wady. No running water is seen; the people depend on wells ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... that air should actually be expelled from the chest; it suffices that the muscles of the chest and abdomen should contract with great force, whilst by the closure of the glottis no air escapes. In violent vomiting or retching the diaphragm is made to descend by the chest being filled with air; it is then held in this position by the closure of the glottis, "as well as by the contraction of its own fibres."[13] The abdominal muscles now contract strongly upon the stomach, its proper muscles likewise contracting, and ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... of Mac's voice in my ear, and struggling to rise, saw that he held in his hand a letter bearing a special-delivery stamp. It is one of the terrors, and no doubt advantages of the American mail, that a letter may descend upon one at unexpected hours. You may be locking up for the night, or enjoying your beauty sleep in the early morn, when a breathless messenger will hammer at your door with a letter, quite possibly containing a bill. Such a missive my friend held over me like a Damocles sword, between ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... lunch, she found Dick awaiting her in the hall. With a lowering face he watched her descend and, his hand ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... the children have attained their majority, the homestead must be divided, she taking one-half. If she die first the husband has the right of occupancy for life, whether he marry or not, but the homestead must descend to ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... one want to harm me for? Don't worry about me, mother, as if I were a little child, for no one is going to molest me;" and with a confident, unsuspecting air he would close the door behind him, descend the stairs, and pass out to ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... looking down one of these clefts, one sees nothing but the rock walls with a foaming, rapid rushing below. At one of these most remarkable points, a rude stairway has been constructed, by which the traveller can descend to the bottom, and, standing by the water's edge, look up to the top of this singular chasm. The walls finally lower, and the river flows out into a broad basin, whence it ere long finds its way into Lake Champlain. The banks are wooded with pines, hemlocks, spruce, arbor vitaae, beech, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... farther imaginings do we greet the day, and how variously! Our eyes do not require a visual picture of the lone wild turkey on his cypress roost to know that he is ruffling his feathers, craning his neck inquisitively downward in all directions, before chancing to descend to earth and breakfast; nor need we see the panther skulking from his lair to know that he has stopped to lick his paw and pass it over his face—the feline morning ablution. Each creature has a particular mode of resurrection after its hours of mimic death; ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... and carefully lower his feet as he held on by the stone. From that he lowered himself, and, partly supported by the top of the leaden stack-pipe, he slowly changed his right hand to the loop of the rope; then softly gliding by the wide-open head of the pipe, he began to descend with the rope well twined round his right leg, and held to the calf of his heavy boot by the edge of his left ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... attendants of the castle, and took his horse and aided him to descend from the saddle; and then other attendants came and led him away into the castle and so to an apartment where there was a warm bath of tepid water, and where were soft towels and napkins of linen for to dry himself upon after he was bathed. And when he had bathed and refreshed himself, ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... your majesty would so greatly descend from your own exalted station as to honor my dwelling with your ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... art of war and taught their men how to hold their shields over their heads, and thus they warded off the chairs and tables and were able to creep along under cover, approach the city, climb up the walls and descend into the piazza. The first who entered went round to open the gates and let the rest in. As soon as they had recovered from their surprise at finding that the inhabitants had all escaped, they began to commit sacrileges. Balestrazzo, Emperor of Turgovia, occupied ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... tribes of barbarians, moved by human lust for gain to descend upon the Roman Empire and eventually bring about its fall, was the tribe of Goths, and in the course of centuries "Gothic" has become a generic term, implying that which is not Roman. We speak of Gothic architecture, Gothic ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... so near the top, that dangerous ambition is extinguished; and it is hardly to be expected that, as a body, they should move downwards, unless they find themselves supported in their position upon the right of others, in which case we have always seen that, although they descend gradually, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... a great effect upon all the internal organs of the torso. It affects any sort of displacement and any kind of congestion. The exercises may be practiced slowly, rising and then staying the activity for a little while, and then allowing the body slowly to descend. ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry
... did not mean to go back on his word; and accordingly he carefully climbed over the edge of the opening, found a resting place for his feet on the top round of the ladder, and then began to slowly descend. ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... than I deserve," said the old woman in a low tone, as she gazed somewhat vacantly at the dead wall opposite, and let her eyes slowly descend the spout. ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... to the mirror. "Make answer, you who have dared to imagine that a goddess was ever drawn to descend into womanhood except by kisses, brawn and ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... was passed and they began to descend the other side. Suddenly they saw the twinkling of stars ahead. Alice first caught sight of the ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... River, about sixty miles north. The canyon commences very much like the McElmo Canyon in Southwestern Colorado, whose vertical walls are at first about three feet high, with a level space between from three hundred to five hundred feet in width; its walls rising slowly as you descend. Without a present running stream, and bordered with open prairie land, it makes a novel appearance to the eye. Lieutenant Simpson remarks that after leaving the pueblo Pintado, which is above the commencement ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... tumble your house of cards? I could go to Colonel Annesley and say to him that if he delivers these plans to you, I shall denounce him to the secret service officers. I might cause his utter financial ruin, but his name would descend to his daughter untarnished." ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... would descend to talk politics with our fellow-guests. We should have been unhappy indeed had it not been for this pastime. It seems to me strange that these debtors took such a keen interest in outside affairs, even tho' it was a time of great agitation. We read with eagerness the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... tenderness the merry hours they had passed together in the old place. Of course we hunted out Goldsmith's abode, and Dr. Johnson's, saw the site of the Earl of Essex's palace, and the steps by which he was wont to descend to the river, now so far removed. But most interesting of all to us there was "Pip's" room, to which Dickens led us, and the staircase where the convict stumbled up in the dark, and the chimney nearest the river where, although less exposed ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... falls into the Sleep of the Shadow; the patient is then brought before him. In the lodge, the patient confesses his sins to his doctor, and when that ghostly friend has heard all, he sings and plays the tambour, invoking the spirit to descend on the sick man. The singing of barbarous songs was part of classical spiritualism; the Norse witch, in The Saga of Eric the Red, insisted on the song of Warlocks being chanted, which secured the attendance of 'many powerful spirits'; and modern spiritualists ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... on the hill-top tossed his gun over his shoulder and called his two silvery-coated dogs to heel; then he started to descend the slope, the November sunlight dancing on the polished gun-barrels. Down through the scrubby thickets he strode; burr and thorn scraped his canvas jacket, blackberry-vines caught at elbow and knee. With an unfeigned scowl he ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... the sound of heavy footsteps in the hall below. He hoped, by freeing himself from Chester, who had now grappled with him again, that he could gain a moment's advantage, jump into the next room, dash through the hall and descend by the rear before the crowd ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... The elder brother said, "I will now give more thought to you and study how you find out all about these things. We have a lot of meat and we did not know how to get it home; now that you have come let us return; you shall carry the meat." When halfway home they were about to descend a mesa, and when on the edge they sat down to rest; then they saw far down the mesa four mountain sheep, and the brothers commanded the youth to kill one for them. They said, "Our meat is dry; your legs are fresh, so you will kill the sheep." ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... us descend. You can do this for yourself now; you do not need my help." He took my hand, and a mist enveloped us. Suddenly the mist broke up and streamed away. I ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson |
