"Ebb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unimportant. Gambling had evidently been a passion with the valet, and peculation had followed, and Mark could have traced out the full tide before the reinstatement of Mrs. Egremont in her home, the gradual ebb during her reign, the diminished restraint under her daughter. The other servants had formerly been implicated, but, except a young groom and footman, Mark thought the present set quite free from the taint, and was glad to acquit Broadbent. But the last telegrams and the betting-book in the unhappy ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... then are the things which happened in Thessalia and in Achaia; and from these regions he proceeded to the Malian land, going along by a gulf of the sea, in which there is an ebb and flow of the tide every day. Round about this gulf there is a level space, which in parts is broad but in other parts very narrow; and mountains lofty and inaccessible surrounding this place enclose the whole land of Malis and ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... Table—the liturgical functions of the Ministry. Let pastoral activities and holy rites alike have ample place in our thoughts and work; but for Christ's sake, my Brother in the ministry of the Word and Sacraments, do not forget the Word. A Christian Church where preaching sinks to a low ebb, where the labour of public teaching and exhortation is neglected, in favour either of machinery or ritual, cannot possibly—I dare to say it deliberately—be in a truly healthy state now, and most assuredly is not laying up health and strength for years to come. For the very life of ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... going to the window looked out on the winter morning; the river was before me broad between outer bank and bank, but it was nearly dead ebb, and there was a wide space of mud on each side of the hurrying stream, driven on the faster as it seemed by the push of the south-west wind. On the other side of the water the few willow-trees left us by the Thames Conservancy looked doubtfully alive against the bleak sky and the ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... books written by or relating to women; he aimed to secure not only every book, but every edition of such books. He was a most determined book-hunter, and when Holywell Street was at its lowest moral ebb, this eccentric gentleman used to visit all the bookshops almost daily, his inquiry being, 'Have you any women for me to-day?' Mr. Stainforth, who died in September, 1866, was for many years curate of Camden Church, Camberwell, and was from 1851 incumbent of All Hallow's, Staining, ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... visible form. Yet even if the severe judgment passed by contemporary writers upon the spiritual and moral condition of their age may be fairly qualified by some such considerations, it must certainly be allowed that religion and morality were, generally speaking, at a lower ebb than they have been at many other periods. For this the National Church must take a full share, but not more than a full share, of responsibility. The causes which elevate or depress the general tone of society have a corresponding influence, in kind if not in degree, upon ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... The sea is at ebb, and the sound of her utmost word Is soft as the least wave's lapse in a still small reach. From bay into bay, on quest of a goal deferred, From headland ever to headland and breach to breach Where earth gives ear to the message that all days preach ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... rule, looking across the channel, there seems to be no water—nothing but uneven and tortured ice. When the tide is at the ebb, the ship follows the narrow crack of water between the shore and the moving pack of the center, driving ahead with all her force; then, when the flood tide begins to rush violently southward, the ship must hurry to shelter in some niche of the shore ice, or behind some ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... what part it did not exist? The kingdom, he asserted, was in a state of universal distress, embracing alike agriculture, manufactures, trade, and commerce. These great interests had never before at one time been at so low an ebb, nor in a condition which demanded more imperatively the prompt and energetic interference of parliament. The speech ascribed the distress existing, so far as it had admitted it, to unfavourable seasons. This of course operated ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Washington's journal, how gloomy was the prospect presented to him at this time. He evidently saw little to encourage a hope of the favorable termination of the campaign of that year. Indeed, it is quite apparent that our national affairs were then at a lower ebb than they had ever been since the period immediately preceding the battle of Trenton. But by the merciful interposition of divine Providence, the course of events took a favorable turn much sooner than he had anticipated. ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... being affected by the changes of the moon as in our own country, and as it is in most other parts of the world,—at least in all those parts with which I am acquainted. Every day and every night, at twelve o'clock precisely, the tide is at the full; and at six o'clock every morning and evening it is ebb. I can speak with much confidence on this singular circumstance, as we took particular note of it, and never found it to alter. Of course, I must admit, we had to guess the hour of twelve midnight, and I think we could do this pretty correctly; but in ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... for one weak moment he longed for forgetfulness. He longed to shut out those hideous visions with which he was pursued. He longed for peace, for rest from the dull aching of his poor torn heart. His courage was at a low ebb. Something of the nature of the hour had got hold of him. It was sundown. There was the long black night between him and the morrow. He felt so helpless, ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... coral "mushrooms"—i.e., enormous boulders of coral rock, which, resembling a mushroom in shape, come to within a few feet of the surface of the water. Through these passages, the tide, especially the ebb, rushes with great velocity—six or seven knots at least—and vessels when leaving the lagoon, generally waited till slack water, or the first of the flood, when with the usual strong south-east trades, they could stem the current and avoid the dangerous "mushrooms." ...
— "Pig-Headed" Sailor Men - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... Joyce realised that she was both hungry and thirsty. Her lips were parched, her throat dry, nothing having passed them since early tea the previous afternoon, and she was at the lowest ebb of despondency and depression. Her surroundings helped to increase her misery, for the ground was a mixture of puddle and slush, and there seemed no chance of help anywhere. She seemed to have fallen into a deep crater, and but for a projection ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... selection, the rearrangement, the tracing of patterns upon, and the stylizing of, what William James called "the random irradiations and resettlements of our ideas." [Footnote: James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, p. 638] The alternative to the use of fictions is direct exposure to the ebb and flow of sensation. That is not a real alternative, for however refreshing it is to see at times with a perfectly innocent eye, innocence itself is not wisdom, though a source and corrective of wisdom. ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... I resolved therefore to wait there until I received fresh particulars. I despatched a courier to Madame de Saint-Simon, requesting her to send me another the next day, and I passed the rest of this day, in an ebb and flow of feelings; the man and the Christian struggling against the man and the courtier, and in the midst of a crowd of vague fancies catching glimpses of the future, painted in the most ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... gold—milagros. Each had received priestly blessing, and each was believed to have worked a miraculous cure. The relaxed lines of the priest's care-worn face instantly drew into an expression of hard austerity. Like the ebb of the ocean, his recalcitrant thought surged back again in ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... being a dull sailer, was the last which came to an anchor. The weather was fine: the wind N.W. and consequently too near to allow us to double Chassiron, with a contrary current. At seven in the evening, at the beginning of the ebb, we weighed anchor, and hoisted our sails; all the other vessels did the same: the signal to get under way had been given them a few minutes before. At night we found ourselves between the lights of Chassiron and La Baleine.[5] A few moments sufficed ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... silly!" protested Dot. "What a good thing I came out when I did! Things seem to be at a rather low ebb with you. But cheer up! What's a few head of cattle when all's said and done? When once this rascal is laid by the heels, you'll make up quicker than you know. Of course you will. Don't let yourself get downhearted! What is ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... not troops. The Dutch had no mind to land, and after firing three warships (the Royal James, the Royal Oak, and the London), and capturing the Royal Charles, "they thought they had done enough, and made use of the ebb to carry them back again."[129:1] These events occupied the tenth to the fifteenth of June, and for the impression they produced on Marvell's mind we are not dependent upon his restrained letters to his ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... The tide will ebb at day's decline: Ich bin dein! Impatient for the open sea, At anchor rocks the tossing ship, The ship which only waits for thee; Yet with no tremble of the lip I say again, thy hand in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... nearly 400 boys, but after this the school began to decline; in 1841 it was at a very low ebb—there were less than seventy boys. The reasons for this decline were manifold. Building had been going on apace round the quiet precincts, and parents fancied their sons would be better in the country; also, though the charges ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... personal matters: his poverty, the low ebb of his balance at the bank, his present profession, his approaching debut as an entertainer, the chances of his failure. He thought, too, of the astounding change in his life, the future, vacant of promise, devoid of meaning, a future so utterly new and blank that he could find ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... flickered out, as it had threatened to do, and he groped his way in darkness, though at another moment he would have walked with the sure foot of custom blindfold about the house. Somehow, the whole tide of his purpose seemed suddenly to ebb. He became conscious of the night, and stood in the dark to listen to its wild voices. There were other voices in the air, for he could hear his father speaking in a deep, loud hum, and Jervoyce answering from time to time in a treble like that of an hysteric ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... deluge first began to fall, That mighty ebb never to flow again, When this huge body's moisture was so great, It quite o'ercame the vital heat; That mountain which was highest, first of all Appear'd above the universal main, To bless the primitive sailor's weary sight; And 'twas perhaps Parnassus, if in height It be as great as 'tis in fame, ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... know that there is no settled price set by God upon any commodity that is bought or sold under the sun; but all things that we buy and sell do ebb and flow as to price like the tide. How then shall a man of tender conscience do, neither to wrong the seller, buyer, nor himself in the buying ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... This fight, although unimportant in itself, is memorable as being the first occasion upon which the mutineers and the British troops met. Hitherto the Sepoys had had it entirely their own way. Mutiny, havoc, murder, had gone on unchecked; but now the tide was to turn, never to ebb again until the Sepoy mutiny was drowned in a sea of blood. Upon this, their first meeting with the white troops, the Sepoys were confident of success. They were greatly superior in force; they had been carefully drilled in the ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... place of a weak and halting Christian defence against Arab emirs; pilgrims were going in thousands where there had been tens or units by the reopened land route through Hungary; only in the far East the first appearance of the Turks as Moslem champions,[23] threatened an ebb of the tide. Christendom had seen a wonderful expansion of the Heathen North; now that it had won the Northmen to itself, it was ready to imitate their example. The deliberate purpose of the Popes only ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... short period of slack water, and the ebb bears us seaward, past the Cowal shore, glinting in the wintry sunlight, the blue smoke in Dunoon valley curling upward to Kilbride Hill, past Skelmorlie Buoy (tolling a doleful benediction), past Rothesay Bay, with the misty Kyles beyond. The Garroch Head, with a cluster of Clyde Trust Hoppers, ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... for the Parliament. Prince Maurice hurriedly sent Colonel Digby to bring them to reason, but with great determination they resisted the Royal troops, who were driven back. During the next three months the fortunes of the Parliament in the West were at a very low ebb, and in September the town was summoned by Lord Goring. The store of ammunition was very low, and as soon as they were blockaded, the townspeople found themselves short of provisions. 'At that time but weakly garrisoned, the town surrendered on terms, ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... throughout France. He secured from his French Pope approval of the extermination of the entire order and the torture and execution of its chiefs. Whether the charges against them were true or not, their helplessness in the grip of the King shows clearly the low ebb to which knighthood had fallen, and the rising power of the monarchs. The day of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... at low ebb—there was barely enough of the precious gases to sustain us for another twelve hours. But would we be alive to know or care? ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... intrigues that were a part of his surroundings. More and more he showed himself a despot; he persecuted and imprisoned hundreds of Radicals, who were the overwhelming majority of the population. Espionage was rampant, the finances were in a state of chaos and Serbia's prestige was at such an ebb that, what with the disasters of 1885 and the reign of Alexander, the Macedonian Slavs were naturally more inclined to proclaim themselves Bulgars. Alexander annulled the constitution, imposed that of 1888, annulled this one also, superseded all the judges of appeal as well as ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... stock of food was getting down to such a low ebb that there was little choice when it came to preparing a meal. True, Jimmy would run over a long list of things that appealed especially to his clamorous appetite; but after all was said and done, it might be noticed that each meal was very much a repetition ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... trouble themselves to wait to reply. The poor vice-admiral followed reluctantly in the Lion. A single shot hit the Lion, and he edged away out of range, anchored, and drifted to sea again with the ebb. But Drake and all the rest dashed on, sank the guardship—a large galleon—and sent flying a fleet of galleys which ventured too near them ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... Lawrenceburg. This town was then a rival of Cincinnati. It had six churches—several more than were absolutely needed. The Baptists were strong, the Presbyterians were strenuous, the Episcopalians were exclusive, while the Congregationalists were at ebb-tide through the rascality of a preacher who had recently decamped and thrown a blanket of disgrace over the whole denomination for ten miles up the creek. Thus were things when Henry Ward Beecher assumed ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... expected; and though Peel's party be a compact body, and formidable in the House of Commons, I cannot think that there appears that in the working of his measures to make it likely that he should be soon again carried into power on the shoulders of the people. I think his political reputation must ebb further before it can rise again, if it should ever rise again. * * * * thought him 'broken and in low spirits,' when he met him at Longshaw; but Lord * * * *, who was there at the same time, came away more Peelite than ever, and told ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... inland course being shown by two dotted lines, indicating that the portion thus marked had never been properly surveyed. He was busily engaged as we entered laying down in pencil upon this chart certain corrections and remarks with reference to the ebb and flow of the ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... attention to a floating object which moved inside the mouth of the small, tidal creek that wandered through the marshy lowlands. In the shadowy light it could easily be mistaken for a log drifting down on the ebb of the tide. This was what the lads assumed it to be until they both noticed a behavior curious in a log. The long, low object turned athwart the current at the entrance of the creek and shot toward the nearest bank as though ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... tide was approaching high or when it began to ebb I had immortal experiences upon the reef. I went with Tiura or with the chief and a party, and found the waves dashing and foaming upon the natural mole, sweeping over it with the noise of thunder, crashing upon the sloping front, and riding their ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... a constant ebb and flow of men in the office, presumably professional cleaners. They came and went, or sat along the walls, waiting. A large percentage were foreigners but the clerks proved to be accomplished linguists. They talked, with more or less fluency, with Croats, ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... under way with the weather, or ebb, tide, a little before noon: latitude 8 deg. 52'. At four o'clock, the wind blew strong at south-east, with thick weather, and they anchored in 9 fathoms, blue mud; having made a course of E. N. E. nearly parallel to the coast. They remained here till the next afternoon; when the Hormuzeer ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... came to his own house and Roma opened the door to him, and he saw her, looking so ill, her cheeks so pale, her beautiful eyes so large and timid, and her whole face expressing such acute suffering, his anger began to ebb away, and he wanted to take her into his arms in spite ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... one object of resistance to invasion doubled its effective strength. Perhaps this moment was the flood-tide of Southern enthusiasm and confidence; which, after the Pennsylvania campaign, began to ebb. It is not intended to convey the idea that the South was prosperous. On the contrary, those who read the signs aright, saw and predicted its approaching decline. But, as far as its power of resistance went, it was at its highest when compared with the momentarily lessened aggressiveness of the North. ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... patriotism of 'Life for the Czar' (1836), his most famous work, endears him to the hearts of his countrymen. The scene of the opera is laid in the seventeenth century, when the Poles held Moscow and the fortunes of Russia were at the lowest ebb. Michael Fedorovich Romanov has just been elected Czar, and upon him the hopes of the people are centred. The Poles are determined to seize the person of the Czar, and some of them, disguised as ambassadors, summon the peasant ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... full from duties, as a stomach from a honeycomb. Ofttimes we make our liberty and access to God the ground of our acceptation; and according to the ebbings and flowings of our inherent righteousness, so doth the faith and confidence of justification ebb and flow. Christians, this ought not to be; in so doing, you make your own righteousness your righteousness before God; for when the unsatisfaction in the point of duty maketh you question your interest so often, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... moments nothing more was said; the old man continued to sob and the life of his companion continued to ebb away. The brutal blow that caused his death had mercifully numbed the power of feeling, so that whatever the gloomy journey he was about to take might mean to him, whether the same life he was leaving, or a larger, or none at all, he would move on through the darkness toward the one or ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... in the Father's love. 'My faculties are slipping away day by day,' he wrote to his niece from his deathbed. 'Happy is it for all of us that our true good lies not in them. As they ebb, may they leave us as little children trusting in the Father of Mercies and ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... all by surprise, and they were so astonished, that he had to repeat the call before they fully understood what was meant. Then they immediately gave three long and hearty cheers. The beach is covered with a soft blue mud. It being ebb tide, I could see some distance; found it would be impossible for me to take the horses along it; I therefore kept them where I had halted them, and allowed half the party to come on to the beach and gratify themselves by a sight of the sea, while the other half remained to watch the ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... that and many other expressions of regret, he went away and left me at leisure to go to the riding-school, where at this time of the year it was my wont to see the young men practise those manly arts, which, so far as I can judge, are at a lower ebb in these modern days of quips and quodlibets than in the stirring times of my youth. Then, thank God, it was held more necessary for a page to know his seven points of horsemanship than how to tie a ribbon, or prank a gown, or read ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... might flag in the face of the inevitable ebb and flow of the campaign against terrorism. But the American people will not. We understand that we cannot choose to disengage from the world, because in this globalized era, the world will engage us regardless. The choice is really about what kind of ...
— National Strategy for Combating Terrorism - February 2003 • United States
... by Christian charity and by common zeal for the essentials of the reformed faith. There had never before been such a day in England; and there has never since been such a day. The tide of feeling was already on the turn; and the ebb was even more rapid than the flow had been. In a very few hours the High Churchman began to feel tenderness for the enemy whose tyranny was now no longer feared, and dislike of the allies whose services were now no longer needed. It was easy to gratify both feelings by ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the shore was her schoolroom also. She learned to read from letters traced in the sand, and to make them herself with shells and pebbles. She did her sums that, way, too, after she had learned to count the sails in the harbor, the gulls feeding at ebb-tide, and the great granite blocks which ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... very meagre one, too; our provisions being at a low ebb—sentries were posted, and Coligny made all arrangements for battle, in case the enemy ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... the wind was yet steady from off shore, and beyond the headland lay Poole Harbour, at whose head is Wareham, where the Danes were. It is a great sea inlet with a narrow mouth, and one must have water enough on a rising tide to enter it. Now the ebb was running, and if the Danes came this morning, it ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... in a confused way, it is true, for she did not in the least remember the cause of the terrible condition she was in, that is to say, the question of money. She suffered only in her love, and felt her soul passing from her in this memory; as wounded men, dying, feel their life ebb from ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... in which the greatest interchange of property, and the most vigorous transactions of business, with all accompanying bustle and activity, take place. For an hour or two this continues. About three o'clock the tide is evidently on the ebb; business begins to slacken, and those who have their transactions brought to a close, meet their families and friends at the place of rendezvous—always a public house. It is now, indeed, when the heat and burden of the day have passed, and refreshment becomes both grateful and necessary, ...
— Lha Dhu; Or, The Dark Day - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... succeed in this work in Nebraska. It is of supreme importance to the cause. The example of Nebraska would soon be followed by other States. The current of such a reform knows no retiring ebb. The suffrage once acquired will never be relinquished; first, because it will recommend itself, as it has in Wyoming, by its results; second, because the women will jealously guard their rights, and defend ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... would do it! The memory of what had happened came fierily back, and made the pressing darkness burn. His wrath was brimming on the edge, ready to burst, and he felt proudly that it would no longer ebb in fear. Whisky had killed fear, and left a hysterical madman, all the more dangerous because he was so weak. Let his father try it on now; he was ready ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... than I had lost. I continued playing with a heap of gold before me, and on my putting a fistfull of sequins on a card it came out, and I went paroli and pair de paroli. I won again, and seeing that the bank was at a low ebb I stopped playing. Canano paid me, and told his cashier to get a thousand sequins, and as he was shuffling the cards I heard a cry of, "Here come ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... In England Locke's influence has been less dynamic than static; it has helped us to preserve a moderation in politics; to be content with piecemeal legislation, because to attempt too much might be to alienate the sympathies of the majority; to keep our political eye, so to speak, on the ebb and flow of public opinion—since it is public opinion that is the final court of appeal; to tolerate abuses until it is quite plain a great number of people are anxious to have the abuse removed; and above all to settle down in ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... I became a prey to dismal fear. That bravery which knows no ebb was never mine. Indeed, I am by nature timorous, for my fancy is quick, and I see with horrid clearness the incidents of a peril. Only a shamefaced conscience holds me true, so that, though I have often done temerarious ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... time his health was very bad—and it must be borne in mind that, throughout all this experience, his physical condition was one of ebb—and he was in considerable distress by reason of the negligence, the positive ill-treatment even, he received from his wife and step-children. His wife was vain, extravagant, unfeeling, and had a growing taste for private drinking; his ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... tribes had begun. If Rehoboam had ever formed the project of welding together the disintegrated elements of Israel, the taking of Jerusalem must have been a death-blow to his hopes. His arsenals were empty, his treasury at low ebb, and the prestige purchased by David's victories was effaced by the humiliation of his own defeat. The ease with which the edifice so laboriously constructed by the heroes of Benjamin and Judah had been overturned at the first shock, was a proof that the new ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... as the gathering of the sunrays to go down together; a perfect yet deepening peace was upon it. Cosmo scarcely left him, but watched and waited, with a cold spot at his heart, which kept growing bigger and bigger, as he saw his father slowly drifting out on the ebb-tide of this earthly life. Cosmo had now to go through that most painful experience of all—when the loved seem gradually withdrawing from human contact and human desires, their cares parting slowly farther and ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... weary of befriending you at play. What would have become of you, if your last misfortune had happened to you when your money had been at as low an ebb as I have known it? Attend carefully then to this necessary deity, and renounce the other. You will be missed at the court of France before you grow weary of this; but be that as it may, lay up a good store of money: when a man is rich he consoles ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... manifestations have been always vigorous though occasionally exaggerated. In any of the great departments of activity nationally pursued—as art has been pursued in France since Francis I.—there are always these rival currents, of which now one and now the other constantly affects the ebb and flow of the tide of thought and feeling. The classic and romantic duel of 1830, the rise of the naturalist opposition to Hugo and romanticism in our own day, are familiar instances of this phenomenon in literature. The revolt of Gericault ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... the big city, where the unquiet dregs are forever being shaken together, young Murray and the Captain had met and become friends. Both were at the lowest ebb possible to their fortunes; both had fallen from at least an intermediate Heaven of respectability and importance, and both were typical products of the monstrous and peculiar social curriculum of their overweening and bumptious civic ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... M'riar naturally exchanged confidences more and more; and in the end the old lady began to speak without reserve about her past. It came about thus. After Christmas, Dave being culture-bound, and work of a profitable nature for the moment at a low ebb, Aunt M'riar had fallen back on some arrears of stocking-darning. Dolly was engaged on the object to which she gave lifelong attention, that of keeping her doll asleep. I do not fancy that Dolly was very ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... his courage ebb at first that he very nearly made up his mind to retreat without attempting to see Captain Gary. In his unwashed, uncombed condition, the contrast between himself and those around was embarrassing enough even to ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... of all kinds of still life, and, thanks to the recording pen of J. T. Smith, that enthusiastic lover of old London, it is still possible to make the round of the gallery in the company of the artist-proprietor. Mr. Smith visited the gardens when public patronage had declined to a low ebb, so that he had the gallery all to himself, as he imagined. "Stepping back to study the picture of the 'Greenstall,' 'I ask your pardon,' said I, for I had trodden on some one's toes. 'Sir, it is granted,' replied a little, thick-set man with ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... were adepts at invention, and although the moral code of that period was at its lowest ebb, they pumped up a standard of celibacy for the French Emperor that would have put the obligation under which any of his priests were bound in the shade. So shocked were they at the breaches of orthodoxy ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... the coves indent the shore and fall And fill with ebb and flowing of the tides; Whereon some barge rocks or some dory rides, By which old orchards bloom, or, from the wall, Pelt every lane with fruit; where gardens, tall With roses, riot; swift my gladness glides To that old ...
— An Ode • Madison J. Cawein
... The ebb-tide favoured our navigation, and soon brought us within sight of an arm of the sea, stretching eastward, at the extremity of which the mission of St. Jose was built in the year 1797, on a very fertile spot. It is already one of the richest in California, ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... constituent parts, so in like manner Catholic Christendom is no simple exhibition of religious absolutism, but presents a continuous picture of Authority and Private Judgment alternately advancing and retreating as the ebb and flow of the tide;—it is a vast assemblage of human beings with wilful intellects and wild passions, brought together into one by the beauty and the Majesty of a Superhuman Power,—into what may be called ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... five dollars from the rock and slipped them into the pocket of Rufus's jacket as he spoke; then slipped himself off the rock, took the fishing tackle and baskets into the boat, and then his brother, and pushed out into the tide. There was a strong ebb, and they ran swiftly down past rock and mountain and valley, all in a cooler and fairer beauty than a few hours before when they had gone up. Rufus took off his hat and declared there was no place like home; and Winthrop sometimes pulled a few strong ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... went on in his cold voice. 'I have a better case than that, and one eminently suited to a country such as Spain, where a long war has reduced law and order to a somewhat low ebb. I at first thought of coming here to await my chance of shooting this man—his name, by the way, is Frederick Conyngham; but circumstances placed a better vengeance within my grasp—one ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... on the shame-fac'd Henry! bear him hence, And once again proclaim us king of England.— You are the fount that makes small brooks to flow. Now stops thy spring; my sea shall suck them dry And swell so much the higher by their ebb.— Hence with him to the Tower! let ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... the beach on all fours like a beetle, waving its limbs like feelers. Before I could throw open the window again it darted into the surf, and, when I leaned out into the chilling drizzle, I saw nothing save the flat ebb crawling on the coast—I heard nothing save the purring ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... to look at the passing ships, for he was fully occupied with the many odd jobs which are sure to present themselves, when a ship gets under weigh. The wind was favourable, and the Paramatta ran down to the mouth of the Medway before the tide had ceased to ebb. She anchored for three hours, and then made her way up to Chatham, where she brought up ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... cocoanuts, and through which could be seen the protected lagoon where the water lay flat like the ruffled surface of a mirror. Many square miles of water were in the irregular lagoon, all of which surged out on the ebb through the one narrow channel. So narrow was the channel, so large the outflow of water, that the passage was more like the rapids of a river than the mere tidal entrance to an atoll. The water boiled ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... and children should be forced to behold the last ebb of life, and to witness the struggle of the departing spirit of husbands and fathers, under such horrific circumstances, is shocking to humanity, and appalling, even ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... be careful," cautioned Rose. "The tide is running out, and there's not much water along here at the ebb. I hope ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... uniformity it becomes an easy matter for the natives to ascertain the height of the tide at any hour that the moon is visible. Whilst she appears to ascend the water falls and vice versa; the lowest of the ebb happening when she is in her meridian. The vulgar rule for calculating the tides is rendered also to Europeans more simple and practical from the same cause. There only needs to add together the epact, number of the month, and day of the month; the sum of which, if under thirty, gives the ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... places there was no vegetation whatever; nothing but the wet sand on which the waves had left their impress; the sea had inscribed on its receding strange hieroglyphics. I gazed from one of the highest points over the North Sea; it was ebb-tide; the sea had retired above a mile; the vessels lay like dead fishes upon the sand, and awaiting the returning tide. A few sailors had clambered down and moved about on the sandy ground like black points. Where the sea itself kept the white level sand in movement, ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... city, as the joyful people of Charleston return to their homes. The stars look down upon the lapping waters of the bay, where ride at anchor the shadowy vessels of the British fleet. Towards midnight, when the tide begins to ebb, the battered war ships slip their cables and sail out into the ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... and gray, the marsh that lay Out-stretched afar—a dreary waste Of tide lands low, where ebb and flow The waters, that ...
— Within the Golden Gate - A Souvenir of San Fransisco Bay • Laura Young Pinney
... sang, "Robert, toi que j'aime. Grace! Grace!" etc. Also she sang the waltz of "Pardon de Ploermel," a familiar cheval de bataille of my own, which I was glad to see cantering on the war-path again. In the mean time conversation was at low ebb for poor Laura. She told me some fragments which certainly were peculiar. For instance, she understood the gentle man who had last been talking to her to say that he had been married five times, had twenty- eight children, and had ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... before they fade away. Says James in his remarkable chapter on Instinct: "In all pedagogy the great thing is to strike while the iron is hot, and to seize the wave of the pupils' interest in each successive subject before its ebb has come, so that knowledge may be got and a habit of skill acquired—a headway of interest, in short, secured, on which afterwards the individual may float. There is a happy moment for fixing skill in drawing, for making ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... I awoke in about an hour with red-heat at my brain and with a sickening dread at my heart. 'It is fever,' thought I; 'I am going to be ill; and what is there to do in the morning at the ebb of the tide before Winifred can go upon the sands? I ought not to have come home at all,' I said. 'Suppose illness were to seize me and prevent my getting there?' The dreadful thought alone paralysed me quite. Under it I lay ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... plant this principle shows itself most conspicuously where the green leaf is heightened into the flower. While progressing from leaf to flower the plant undergoes a decisive ebb in its vitality. Compared with the leaf, the flower is a dying organ. This dying, however, is of a kind we may aptly call a 'dying into being'. Life in its mere vegetative form is here seen withdrawing in order that a higher ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... not know exactly where they are, but presume they are actively engaged. It is impossible for me, in the present condition of things, to furnish you a gun-boat. The credit of the Government is at a very low ebb; greenbacks are not worth more than forty or fifty cents on the dollar; and in this condition of things, if I was worth half as much as you, gentlemen, are represented to be, and as badly scared as you seem ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... are rather wider than the lockers below. If the wind is fair you won't have much of our company, because we shall hold on till we moor alongside the wharves of London; but if it's foul, or there is not enough of it to take us against tide, we have to anchor on the ebb, and then of course we ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... that they had won the victory, and Jackson sent a message to Richmond announcing it. Never had news come at a more opportune time. The fortunes of the South seemed to be at the lowest ebb. Richmond had heard of the great battle of Shiloh, the failure to destroy Grant and the death of Albert Sidney Johnston. New Orleans, the largest and richest city in the Confederacy, had been taken by the Northern fleet—the North was always triumphant ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... (the uncle of Hannibal) 243 B.C. The city is situated on a promontory running out into the sea, and possesses one of the finest harbours in the world, protected by an island as by a natural breakwater. But it had a weak side, and this had been betrayed by fishermen to Scipio. During ebb-tide the water of the shallow pool W. of the town fell so much that it was fordable and the bottom was firm. Of this Scipio took advantage. He first made a feint attack on the N. wall and then led 500 men across ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... and energy, Leo III; but the empire had sunk so low as a result of the misrule of his predecessors that his authority scarcely extended beyond the shores of the Sea of Marmora, and his resources were at a low ebb. The navy on which so much depended was brought to a high point of efficiency, but it was so inferior in numbers to the Saracen armada that he dared not attempt even ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... foreign usurpers, the generality quite disheartened, and the few, who dared to take her part, thus publicly insulted, was a shock I was not prepared for, and which, therefore, sunk my spirits to the lowest ebb of despondence. Such was the frame of mind wherein I left my native state, and set out, sick and alone, for the northward, with scarce a hope of ever seeing better days. About the middle of the second day, as I beat my solitary ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... magnanimously that he had only done his duty and wanted no reward. All he asked was that his tutor might be brought up and his head cut off. Then the scene changed to other situations, each very different, florid with details, but motivated by ending in the discomfiture of the tutor. In the ebb or ambivalent reaction of this passion he and the tutor ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... chapter. In San Francisco Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper gave generously of her valuable time and powerful influence. Mrs. Mary Wood Swift and Mrs. Mary S. Sperry responded many times when the finances were at the lowest ebb. It would be impossible to name even a small fraction of those who freely and continuously ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... dangerous passage as the English could not attempt without exposing their ships to the most imminent hazard. This was a very mortifying defeat to the French king, who had been so long flattered with an uninterrupted series of victories; it reduced James to the lowest ebb of despondence, as it frustrated the whole scheme of his embarkation, and overwhelmed his friends in England with grief and despair. Some historians allege that Russel did not improve his victory with all advantages that might have been obtained before the enemy recovered their consternation. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... for she was afraid of another invading hand; and blushing at the praise she could not disclaim ran away as soon as she was free. But as the tide of supper-time began to ebb, the doctor arrested Faith in her running about and saying that his sister had had no supper yet and wanted company, led her to the place his aunt had spoken of, a clear space at one end of the table, ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... her grave? Lord help us, it's no an ordinar grave that will haud her in, if a's true that folk said of Alice in her auld days; and if I gae to six feet deep—and a warlock's grave shouldna be an inch mair ebb, or her ain witch cummers would soon whirl her out of her shroud for a' their auld acquaintance—and be't six feet, or be't three, wha's to pay the ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... Cumberland from the S. of Scotland (Kirkcudbright and Dumfries); stretches inland from Balcarry Point 36 m., and from 2 to 20 m. broad; receives the Annan, Dee, Nith, Eden, and Derwent, and has valuable salmon-fishings; the spring tides ebb and flow with remarkable rapidity, the "bore" often reaching a speed of from 8 to 10 m. an hour; is spanned near Annan by a ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... stands for the myriad influences in the ebb and flow of immigration that carry the impulses, the ideals, and the new life of America into the heart of the ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... it—a period during which there was constant, incessant change, new bands or minor divisions of the tribe appearing on the scene, other divisions leaving the parent village for other sites, and the ebb and flow continuing until at some period in its history the population of a village sometimes became so reduced that the remainder, as a matter of precaution, or for some trifling reason, abandoned it en masse. This phase of ...
— Casa Grande Ruin • Cosmos Mindeleff
... command of the Army of the Potomac, whose vicissitudes and defeats have well-nigh broken its spirit and wiped out its efficiency. The patriotic fire is burning dimly in shrines where it has blazed brightly before. The tide of military life has possibly reached its lowest ebb, and the signs of the times are ominous of ill. Desertions are reported to be fearfully large. For this many of our friends at the North are responsible. Not only do their letters speak discouraging words to the soldier, but many of them sent ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... land-breeze, and found it sweet but insipid in her nostrils after the tonic freshness of the sea-air. She heard the voice of her beloved in the sough of the wind among the trees, and it made her inexpressibly melancholy. Her energy began to ebb. She did not care to move about much, but would sit silently sewing by the hour together, outwardly calm, inwardly all an ache to go back to the sea. She used to wonder whether the tide was coming in or going out; wonder if ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... two Scottish authors, Alison and Sir William Hamilton, the latter all "the more conspicuous and remarkable, as he now," says the "North British Review" (Feb. 1853), "stands so nearly alone in the ebb of literary activity in Scotland, which has been so apparent during this generation." McCulloch and Macaulay were both, I believe, born in Scotland, but in all else they are English. Glasgow has recently presented ...
— Letters on International Copyright; Second Edition • Henry C. Carey
... perfume, the timothy shaking out its little clouds of pollen as the sickle-bar strikes it, most of the song-birds still vocal, and the tide of summer standing poised at its full. Very soon it will begin to ebb, the stalks of the meadow grasses will become dry and harsh, the clover will fade, the girlish daisies will become coarse and matronly, the birds will sing fitfully or cease altogether, the pastures will turn brown, and the haymakers will find the hay half cured ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... catches down and foolish painted flies That spider wary and wise. Each morn it hangs a rainbow strung with dew Betwixt boughs green with sap, So fair, few creatures guess it is a trap: I will not mar the web, Though sad I am to see the small lives ebb. 40 ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti |
