"Descent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... without having to explain it. I glanced backwards, by and by, over my shoulder. He was standing where I had met him, half turned round, and looking after me. But when he saw that I was observing him, he hastily shifted about, and continued his descent ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... be it; one can get out of it, thank God! or at least, one can hope so, which shortens the time infinitely. Beside, the colonel might noise abroad my approaching descent into Cornwall, which would ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... of under ten thousand all told, a large proportion is of British descent; and presently a positively surprising number of Union Jacks sprang forth from their hiding-places and fluttered merrily all over the town. Everybody was thankful that no bombardment had taken place; but many even of the British residents regarded with sincere regret the ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... other to break; that otherwise, order and justice could not be maintained, and men would run from their wives, and abandon their children, mix confusedly with one another, and neither families be kept entire, nor inheritances be settled by legal descent. ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... right, and that I have made a mistake; yet, as the bottle is opened and not bad, suppose we drink it before I make another descent to the cellar' ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... is to be hoped that their efforts may be crowned with success. It is not talent which is lacking in Brazil, it is not patriotism; but persistence is not perhaps the chief characteristic among races of Portuguese descent. In these days of competition it is difficult to accomplish anything great ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... the immortality of Israelites, the former conceived the Immortality of Israel. It is not necessary here to trace the origin and history of the Messianic idea in Judaism. That this idea had a strong nationalistic tinge is obvious. The Messiah was to be a person of Davidic descent, who would be the restorer of Israel's greatness. Throughout Jewish history, despite the constant injunction to refrain 'from calculating the date of the end,' men have arisen who have claimed to be Messiahs, and these have mostly asserted their claim on nationalistic pleas. ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... story, Chingachgook was buried there. Farther southward, the road that branches off to ascend Mount Vision is the one by which Judge Temple and his daughter approached the village in the opening scene of the story, and it was during their descent from the upper level of this road that the buck was shot by Edwards and Leather-Stocking, when Judge Temple's marksmanship had failed. Near the branching of this road a stairway climbs the mountain, and ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... The descent of the hill to the Thames is covered with verdure, the Thames at the foot of it forms near a semicircle, in which it seems to embrace woody plains, with meadows and country seats in its bosom. On one side you see the town and its magnificent bridge, and on the ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... mystic voyager to the Heaven-world of our ancestors. But poet and artist are rarely self-conscious of the processes of their own minds. They deliver their message with exultation but they find nothing worth recording in the descent upon them of the fiery tongues. So our poet has told us little about himself but much about circumstance, and I recall in his pages the Dublin of thirty years ago, and note how faithful the memory of eye and ear are, and ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... of the jungle changed to tamarisk, and I felt certain that I was near the spot of yesterday. I accordingly ordered the mahout to turn into the thick feathery foliage to the left, in search of the remembered water. There was a slight descent to a long but narrow hollow about 50 or 60 yards wide; this was filled with clear water for an ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... the descent to the bridge of Montereau, while the eight horses, lashed to a gallop, were bearing the carriage rapidly along (the First Consul already traveled like a king), the tap of one of the front wheels came off. The inhabitants who lined the ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... were in imminent peril. As soon as he was assured of this fact he started on his return to Fort Havens, which still lay a good three days' travel to the southwest. It was Tom's purpose to continue his descent until the following night, when, if nothing unexpected should intervene, he hoped to reach the point where he had left his mustang, and thence it would be plain sailing for the rest of the way. He knew the ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... lake could be seen not far below them, and, slipping, sliding amid a cascade of pebbles, the gold-seekers, now glowing with certainty of success, plunged straight toward the pool. Two or three times this precipitous method of descent led them into blind alleys from which they were obliged to climb, but at last, just as the sun went behind the imperial peak, they came out upon the shore of the little tarn which lay shallowly over a perfectly flat floor ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... of his strength, drove across the broken river to the head of the chute. Making it in the nick of time, he plunged in, with the water sucking at his thighs, and the sinews in his arms burning like fire. There followed a swift descent through cellars of dwindling depth, till he floated into the long, spume-flecked swells at the foot of the decline, where the canoe drifted sluggishly, full nearly to the gunwale. And here Belding leaned forward with his hands on her curved thwart, and pumped great gulps of air into his empty ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... he might have laid up the money and got a start, or, as some charitable persons said, it might have been given to the poor. However, the monuments were put up, and on them were epitaphs which recorded at length the virtues of those to whom they were erected, with their descent, and declared that they were Christians and Gentlepeople. Some one said to Floyd that he might have shortened the epitaphs, and have saved something. "I did not ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... raising the whole Acarnanian population made an expedition against Oeniadae, the fleet sailing along the Achelous, while the army laid waste the country. The inhabitants, however, showing no signs of submitting, he dismissed the land forces and himself sailed to Leucas, and making a descent upon Nericus was cut off during his retreat, and most of his troops with him, by the people in those parts aided by some coastguards; after which the Athenians sailed away, recovering their dead from the Leucadians ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... distinct in their methods and aims, and each has its own specialists. The pursuit, whose ultimate object is to distinguish the various kinds of organisms and show their true and not merely apparent relations to one another in structure and descent, requires large collections of specimens for comparison and reference: it can be carried on more successfully in the museum than among the animals or plants in their natural surroundings. This study, which may be called ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... opens out hereditary and undefined prospects beyond the perspectives of life and of inferior interests. Each of the titles conferred by him, that of prince, duke, count, baron, and even that of chevalier, is transmissible in direct descent, according to primogeniture from father to son, and sometimes from uncle to nephew, under specified conditions which are very acceptable, and of which the first is the institution of an inalienable majority, inattackable, consisting of this or that income or real property, of bank stock ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... of potential in a circuit and its subsequent raising by the action of the generator is illustrated by the diagram of a helix. In it the potential fall in the outer circuit is shown by the descent of the helix. This represents at once the outer circuit and the fall of potential in it. The vertical axis represents the portion of the circuit within the battery or generator in which the potential by the action of the generator is again ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... highest military talents, of the most illustrious descent,—a hero sprung from heroes,—should have served so many years, and with such distinction, in his Majesty's service, and should now be only a captain on half-pay. This, I say, comes of the infamous system of purchase, which sets up the highest honors ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... one responsibility. His elder brother, having persistently refused to provide himself with a wife and heir, the duty of perpetuating the family name fell upon him, Percival Hascombe, second son of the late Earl of Westenhanger, of Hascombe Hall, fifth in descent from the great Westenhanger whose marble effigy adorns the dullest and most respectable ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... down some unknown precipice, amongst the hollow rollings of a distant thunder-storm. Suddenly a loud voice resounded near me. And this time I think I did not hear, but felt it. There was something palpable in this voice, something that instantly stopped my helpless descent, and kept me from falling any further. This was a voice I knew well, but whose voice it was I could ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... violation of its provisions. In Jeypore I saw the half-acre of trunks and chests which the Maharaja of that province used for transporting his goods and chattels when he went to attend the coronation of the King of England. The Maharaja is a Hindu of the Hindus, claims descent from one of the high and mighty gods, and when he was named to go to London, straightway declared that the {234} caste law against leaving India stood hopelessly in the way. Finally, however, he was convinced that by taking all his household with him, his servants, his ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... to the summit of his greatness, we must leave him for a time. A few steps more and he will be on the brow of the hill; a short piece of table-land, and then the descent begins. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... Jimmu or not, the Japanese firmly believe in him. He stands on the list as the first of the mikados, and the reigning emperor claims unbroken descent from him. April 7 is looked upon as the anniversary of his accession to the throne, and is the Japanese national holiday, which is observed with public rejoicings and military and naval salutes. The year 1 was the year in ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... next morning I scrambled out of my berth at the imminent risk of broken bones, wondering why the inventive powers of our Yankee neighbours had not hit upon some arrangement to facilitate the descent; dressed, and went in search of fresh air. Picking my steps quietly between sleeping forms—for men in almost every attitude, some with blankets or great-coats rolled round them, were lying on the floor and lounges in the saloon—I reached the deck just as the sun rose above ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... from Chenderia in a litter, attended by his courtiers, who celebrated his clemency in pompous speeches, to which he replied with gracious smiles. At the foot of the steep descent he mounted his horse, and, followed by his troops, rode towards the caravanserai. Alone, and in silence, he rode twice round it, then, returning to the gate, which had just been closed by his order, he pulled up his horse, and, signing to his own bodyguard to attack the building, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... only among the 'active' pictures, with the exception of landscape. It usually serves to unite a group of people among whom there is no one especially striking—or the object of whose attention is in the center of the picture, as in the case of the Descent from the Cross. It imparts a certain amount of movement, but an equable and regular one, as the eye returns in an even sweep from one ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... saw that down the pit ran another ladderlike stair of stone, very narrow and precipitous. Without hesitation she began its descent. Down she went and down—one hundred steps, two hundred steps, two hundred and seventy-five steps, and all the way wherever the dust had gathered the man's and the woman's footprints ran before her. There was a double line of ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... The last of the descent, from the barbed wire fence, was a sliding fall of a dozen feet, and Saxon arrived on the soft dry ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... responded by drawing the left, then by ducking it and delivering his right in a swinging hook to the side of the head. It was too high up to be vitally effective; but when first it landed, King knew the old, familiar descent of the black veil of unconsciousness across his mind. For the instant, or for the slighest fraction of an instant, rather, he ceased. In the one moment he saw his opponent ducking out of his field of vision and ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... was not below, and did not wish to wait for its descent. Vere's writing was on the envelope he held; but Vere's writing distorted, frantic, tragic. He knew before he opened the envelope that it must contain some dreadful statement or some wild appeal; and he hurried to his room, almost feeling the pain ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... In addition, the volunteers who poured to the frontier from every side found themselves helpless, being without weapons or a commissariat: although the brave General Spear, with but a handful of men, made a descent subsequently upon the enemy at St. Albans, and put them to a most ignominious flight. According to General Meade, of the United States Army, between thirty and forty thousand of these brave fellows were furnished with transportation back to their homes at the expense of the Government; ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... an institution into an organism. Yet more than personal; this one in the midst is infinite; He is the whole where we are but fractions. But He does not hide Himself in His infinity; He is "among you," with men. Not by descent into the grave of the past, nor by ascent into heaven do we find Him; He is here, on every hand. This it is that transforms individual character, to know that He is by my side; this it is that solves our problems, to see Him linking my fellow to ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... the result as a first step to a work of great national importance, and of inestimable value with relation to family descent, title to property long in abeyance, &c. &c. As to statistics, I doubt whether any data worthy of consideration can be obtained from these sources, owing to the constant irregularities which occur ...
— Notes & Queries,No. 31., Saturday, June 1, 1850 • Various
... lawyer and bachelor, aged almost forty, was another old Virginian grandee with proved descent from the First Families. He was a fine, majestic creature, a gentleman according to the nicest requirements of the Virginia rule, a devoted Presbyterian, an authority on the "code", and a man always courteously ready to stand up before you in the field if ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... gentleman speaking to a gentleman, can say what I could not in the society of roturiers or common people. My family is an old and honorable one in Virginia—this, by way of explanation only, I beg you to note. We are thus, people of old descent, but my branch of the family is ruined. My object is to reinstate it; and you will perhaps compare me to the scheming young politician in Bulwer's 'My Novel,' who seeks to restore the family fortunes, and brighten up the lonely old house—in ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... Rocky Mountains rises by steps, if I may so call them. The traveller journeying west meets, every fifty or sixty miles, with a ridge of high hills; as he ascends these, he anticipates a corresponding descent upon the opposite side, but in most instances, on reaching this summit, he finds before him a level and fertile prairie. This is certainly the case south of the Red River, whatever it may be to the northward ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... Klaproth's Georgia and Caucasus, p. 160., ed. 4to.) From the Turkish use of the word "choss," we may infer that Enareans existed in the cradle of their race, and that the meaning only had suffered a slight modification on their descent from the Altai. De Pauw, in his Recherches sur les Americains, without quoting any authority, says there are men in Mogulistan, who dress as women, but are obliged to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various
... after tea, we started back, for the schoolmaster thought the descent would not take more than two hours and a half, but we needed more than three. For we were all very tired, and a great many of them had sore feet, especially Aunt Alma! We had said before, that it would be too much ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... man, and a certain partnership in and communication of advantages, and the affection itself of the human race; which originating in that first feeling according to which the offspring is loved by the parent, and the whole house united by the bonds of wedlock and descent, creeps gradually out of doors, first of all to one's relations, then to one's connexions, then to one's friends and neighbours, then to one's fellow-countrymen, and to the public friends and allies of one's country; then it embraces the whole human ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... Small. Insignificant means not signifying anything, and should be used only in contrast, expressed or implied, with something that is important for what it implies. The bear's tail may be insignificant to a naturalist tracing the animal's descent from an earlier species, but to the rest of us, not concerned with the matter, it is ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce
... book and ran on deck. Every one else was already there. I joined the row at the rail, indifferent, for the moment, to the fact that to display so much interest in their ridiculous island involved a descent from my pinnacle. Indeed, the chill altitude of pinnacles never agrees with me for long at a time, so that I am obliged to descend at intervals to breathe the air ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... mountain peak Or add a grain unto the universe Then talk of this fair ground as your domain. The earth is one and rests within His hand; The great and small His erring children are, But we who from Yisrael claim descent Are now the eldest of the family. The God of Justice never slumbereth. Jehovah is His ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... been any American determination on the question, whether American citizens and British subjects, born before the Revolution, can be aliens to one another. I know there is an opinion of Lord Coke's, in Colvin's case, that if England and Scotland should, in a course of descent, pass to separate Kings, those born under the same sovereign during the union, would remain natural subjects and not aliens. Common sense urges some considerations against this. Natural subjects owe allegiance; but we owe none. Aliens are the subjects of a foreign ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... The air seemed to possess some soothing influence which silenced everything around this meeting of the elements. The sea, like some huge bird, awaited the fiery lover who was approaching her shining, liquid bosom, and the sun hastened his descent, empurpled by the desire of their embrace. At length he joined her, and gradually disappeared. Then a freshness came from the horizon, and a breath of air rippled the surface of the water as if the vanished sun had given a ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... beauties, of musical science. I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact that the stem of the Usher race, all time-honored as it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain. It was this deficiency, I considered, while running over in thought the perfect keeping of the character of the premises with the accredited character of the people, and while speculating upon the possible influence ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... humorous to him than the vision of a fair young spirit striving consciously after ethereal perfection, but overweighted unconsciously by the bonds and fetters of human infirmity and passion, and dragged at last headlong down the abysmal descent to perdition?" "Abysmal" is ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... Eight years afterwards, on July 7, 1797, the "Asia," commanded by Captain Yard, when returning from Bengal, was captured in sight of Cape May, New Jersey, by the Spanish privateer "Julia," commanded by Don Baptista Mahon, a name indicating Irish descent. She was valued at $800,000. But the next month she was recaptured by an ...
— The Story of Commodore John Barry • Martin Griffin
... Eldorado should come, with a pedigree of lineal descent from some signory in the moon in one hand, and a ticket of good-behaviour from the nearest Independent chapel, in ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... Unfortunately, this statement involves no definition of what might be considered moral, under the circumstances. Now, there will be disagreeing estimates of what a moral character, upon which there has been no descent of heavenly grace, or where grace has not supervened to essay its recreation, or its moulding anew, should be; and there will also, I think, be divergent views as to a code of morals to be practised which shall comport with ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... is not so very far from Gschaid, from whose windows one can, in summer time, very well see the green pasture on which stands the gray hut with its small belfry; but below it there is a perpendicular wall with a descent of many fathoms which one could climb in summer, with the help of climbing-irons, but which was not to be scaled in winter. They were, therefore, compelled to go by way of the "neck" in order to get down to Gschaid. On their way, they came to the Sider meadow which is still nearer to Gschaid so ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... arts as basketry and rug making. If there be any reason for the existence of a raffia basket in hideous aniline hues it doth not yet appear. I think this bastard has usurped the place of the Indians' beautiful art of long descent, and it is distressing. White teachers who presume to instruct the Indians in basket making, or who substitute hairpin lace and the like, have much ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... very ancient descent. His lineage dwarfs that of the proudest nobles and kings. English peers whose ancestors came in with the Conqueror; the Guelphs, Hapsburgs, and Hohenzollens of our European thrones; are things of yesterday compared ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... as happened once or twice, a load of gravel nearly swept the foreman down the bank, Kermode was engaged in the vicinity. Another time, the bullying martinet was forced to jump into the muskeg, where he sank to the waist, in order to avoid a mass of ballast sent down before its descent was looked for. ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... all most affable—Van Tassel Cuyp with the automatic nervous snicker that deepened the furrows from nostril to mouth, a tall stoop-shouldered man of scant forty with the high colour, long, nervous nose, and dull eye of Dutch descent; and Colonel Augustus Magnelius Pietrus Vetchen, scion of an illustrious line whose ancestors had been colonial governors and judges before the British flag floated from the New Amsterdam fort. His daughter was the celebrated beauty, Mrs. Tom O'Hara. She had married O'Hara and so many incredible ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... ought not, perhaps, to censure too severely the Boer proclivities in favour of that ancient institution, nor to be surprised if it should be a work of time, accompanied with severe Providential chastisement, to uproot that fixed idea from the minds of the present generation, of Boer descent. The sin of enslaving their fellow-men may perhaps be reckoned, for them, among the "sins of ignorance." Nevertheless, the Recording Angel has not failed through all these generations to mark the woes of the slaves; and the historic ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... through the air to another tree on which it alighted near its base, and immediately began to ascend. I paced the distance from one tree to the other, and found it to be seventy yards, and the amount of descent not more than thirty-five or forty feet, or less than one in five. This, I think, proves that the animal must have some power of guiding itself through the air, otherwise in so long a distance it would have little chance of alighting exactly ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... the method in which the attack was to be made. It stated that ten ships were to be fortified, six or seven feet thick, with green timber bolted with iron, and covered with cork, junk, and raw hides. They were to carry guns of heavy metal, and to be bombproof on the top, with a descent for the shells to slide off. These vessels, which they supposed would be impregnable, were to be moored within half gunshot of the walls with iron chains; and large boats, with mantlets, were to lie off at some distance, full of troops ready to take advantage of occurrences; that ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... others. We would see that there are times when the better feelings, which God has given as a pure inheritance, are touched. We would see the inner life from Him, flowing down from its home in the hidden recesses of the soul, breaking and scattering the clouds of evil, which had impeded its descent—we would see the hard heart melted, though perhaps briefly, beneath angel influences. We would see that all alike are the beloved creations of the Almighty's hand, and we would weep over ourselves, as well as others, to feel how seldom we yield to the voice ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... all offices to all ranks. This, as yet, was productive less of actual than of moral effects. The liberal opinions possessed by a part of the aristocracy, and the legitimate influence which in all countries belongs to property and high descent (greatest, indeed, where the countries are most free)—secured, as a general rule, the principal situations in the state to rank and wealth. But the moral effect of the decree was to elevate the lower classes with a sense of their own power and dignity, and every victory achieved ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The descent was perilous, but already the sun hung low above the western hills, and she went down in the saddle with the cayuse slipping and stumbling horribly, until the roar of the river came faintly up to her. Then she drew bridle, and glanced ruefully at her attire. Her ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... twenty thousand Spanish soldiers, mostly infantry; but with cavalry and artillery that may be drawn from the surrounding country. On the mountains five thousand insurgents, many unarmed, watched for a favourable opportunity to make a descent upon the city. ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... the river varied in breadth from one hundred to two hundred feet, and except in two open spaces, a very strong current marked a deep descent the whole way. It flows over a bed of gravel, of which also its immediate banks are composed. Near to our encampment it is bounded by cliffs of fine sand from one hundred to two hundred feet high. Sandy plains ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... before the morning air blew away all our troubles, and we rumbled cheerfully onward, ready to encounter even the papal custom-house officers at Ponte Centino. Our road thither was a pretty steep descent. I remember the barren landscape of hills, with here and there a lonely farm-house, which there seemed to be no occasion ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... one day when we were together by appointment, at Saint-Cloud, seated upon the balustrade of the orangery, which covers the descent into the wood of the goulottes, the Regent spoke again to me of the Mississippi, and pressed me to ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... are gross and dull, If for that word I give thee not a Gull: Thus then I prove thou holdst a false position; I say thou art a man of fair condition, A man true of thy word, tall of thy hands, Of high descent and left good store of lands; Thou with false dice and cards hast never play'd, Corrupted never widow, wife or maid, And, as for swearing, none in all this realm, Doth seldomer in speech curse or blaspheme. In fine, your virtues are so rare and ample, For all our Song thou mayst be made ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... the piratical incursions of foreigners. As late as the year 1616 the French and English nations took part in these enormities. The most melancholy occurrence of this kind took place in 1627, in which year a great number of Algerine pirates made a descent upon the Icelandic coast, murdered about fifty of the inhabitants, and carried off nearly 400 others ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... Brown's descent upon Reid greatly interested her. True, there were very many things she could not assent to; yet the arguments seemed plausible enough, when lo! a metaphysical giant rescues Reid; tells her that Brown ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... his three hundred men, by the spring of Jezreel, on the slope of Mount Gilboa; while, on the north side of the valley, but farther down the descent to the Jordan, was drawn up the host ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... from the hotel, and went down towards his lodgings in Galata; he felt as he walked, like one treading a descent which led down into ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... As when a gold-embroidered zone Around an elephant is thrown. While, bearing far the lady, through The realms of sky the giant flew, She like a gleaming meteor cast A glory round her as she passed. Then from each limb in swift descent Dropped many a sparkling ornament: On earth they rested dim and pale Like fallen stars when virtues fail.(504) Around her neck a garland lay Bright as the Star-God's silvery ray: It fell and flashed like Ganga sent From heaven above ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... the mountain does not always climb. The winding road slants downward many a time; Yet each descent is higher than the last. Has thy path fallen? That will soon be past. Beyond the curve the way leads up and on. Think not thy goal forever lost or gone. Keep moving forward; if thine aim is right Thou canst not miss the shining mountain height. Who would attain to summits ...
— New Thought Pastels • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... "The descent is not by any means sheer. He can't possibly have got to the bottom. I will clamber ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... opened now and fixed themselves intently on the burdened figure of the man she loved, as, with infinite caution, he began the descent of ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... up that portion of Paul Jones' adventurous life when he was hovering off the British coast, watching for an opportunity to strike the enemy a blow. It deals more particularly with his descent upon Whitehaven, the seizure of Lady Selkirk's plate, and the famous battle with the Drake. The boy who figures in the tale is one who was taken from a derelict by Paul Jones shortly after this particular cruise was ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... he was, a descent of the dark stone stairs on all fours was beyond him; so he rose up, and reaching over, glided silently down the balustrade, to the great detriment of his buttons. But, arrived upon the mat at the bottom, he once more resumed his quadrupedal attitude, ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... climbed to the ridge-pole and Code began the descent, necessarily slow and careful because the ladders were loaded with men passing buckets. When he reached the ground he started for home on ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... disappeared on his departure. The city was left desolate, and what became of its remaining inhabitants no one knew. But this very uncertainty offered a favorable opportunity for various nations, some speaking Nahuatl and some other tongues, to claim descent from this mysterious, ancient and ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... scrooched low in the bucket, disappeared from view. It was hard work and slow, to pay out the rope evenly, but Billiard did not seem at all inclined to be critical, and accepted his rough, jolting descent without a murmur. Had the truth been known, the boy was too nearly paralyzed with fright to notice anything of his surroundings, and more than once he was on the point of signalling for his companions to hoist him to the surface again, but fear of ridicule kept ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... "Crucifixion" of Rubens, the "Christ on the Cross" of Vandyke; paintings also by Teniers, Otto Vennius, Albert Cuyp, and others, and Rembrandt's portrait of his wife,—a picture whose sweet strength and wealth of color draws one to it with almost a passion of admiration. We had already seen "The Descent from the Cross" and "The Raising of the Cross" by Rubens, in the cathedral. With all his power and rioting luxuriance of color, I cannot come to love him as I do Rembrandt. Doubtless he painted what he saw; and we still find the types of his female figures in the broad-hipped, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Barlasch sat down wearily against a pine tree, when they first caught sight of a distant church-tower. The country is much broken up into little valleys here, through which streams find their way to the Niemen. Each river necessitated a rapid descent and an arduous ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... first nearly smothered by the descent of snow, but when the first surprise was over they recognized their prisoner. I am ashamed to say that their feeling was that of unbounded delight, and they burst into a roar of laughter. The sound, indistinctly heard, terrified the old lady beyond measure, and ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... he circled, then swooped in a steep descent towards the westward stage. Throb throb throb, throb throb throb. The twilight was creeping on apace, the smoke from the Streatham stage that had been so dense and dark, was now a pillar of fire, and all the laced curves of the moving ways and the translucent roofs and ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... six students, of Celtic descent, gave themselves separately to the study of alchemy, and solved, one the mystery of the Pelican, another the mystery of the green Dragon, another the mystery of the Eagle, another that of Salt and Mercury. What seemed a succession of accidents, but was, the book declared, the contrivance of preternatural ...
— Rosa Alchemica • W. B. Yeats
... true aim of both expeditions was an attack on that power; and the attack proved singularly unsuccessful. Though Blake sailed to the Spanish coast, he failed to intercept the treasure fleet from America; and the second expedition, which made its way to the West Indies, was foiled in a descent on St. Domingo. It conquered Jamaica in May; but the conquest of this lesser island, important as it really was in breaking through the monopoly of the New World in the South which Spain had till now enjoyed, seemed at the time but a poor result for the vast expenditure of ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... The descent into the valley was perilous enough even for us. For the greater part of the way we had to swing ourselves down by the trees, many of which threatened to break under our weight and hurl us headlong to the bottom. But when, at last, we reached the stony land below, it was easier walking, ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... because they were afraid lest the Jews should seize upon them. He then made his army march on as far as Bethoron. Now the Jews did not so much press upon them when they were in large open places; but when they were penned up in their descent through narrow passages, then did some of them get before, and hindered them from getting out of them; and others of them thrust the hinder-most down into the lower places; and the whole multitude extended themselves over against the neck of the passage, and covered the Roman army ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... two and a half inches square. There are others about the size of a postage-stamp, while the largest one, "The Descent from the Cross" (No. 103), is twenty-two by sixteen and a half inches. The amount of labor on these large plates is overpowering, while the workmanship in the smaller ones is almost unbelievably fine—think of a child's face not over one-eighth of an inch wide, and hands ...
— Rembrandt and His Etchings • Louis Arthur Holman
... words you do not know. Did it go farther—did it account for minor differences in these words by showing that they sprang from related rather than identical originals, did it explain how and how variously their forms have been modified in the long process of their descent—it would pass beyond its strict utilitarian bounds. This it refrains from doing. And thus everything it contains it rigorously subjects to the test of serviceability. It helps you to bring more and more words into workaday harness—to gain such mastery over them that you can speak ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... out with the second settlement team, the volunteers of Samoan and Hawaiian descent, to carry on a yet more exciting and hazardous exploration. Just as the Project had probed into the past of Terra, so would Ashe and Ross now attempt to discover what lay in the past of Hawaika, to see this world as it had been at the height of the galactic civilization, and so to learn what they ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... was a handsome young gentleman, with a dark brown moustache and imperial to match. His complexion, too, was several shades darker than my own, though this, of course, did not detract from the purity of his descent, which was apparent in the clear white of his eyeballs, the transparent pink of his finger nails, and other signs peculiar to offspring of ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... When we were half-way down the stairs, the buzz of conversation stopped so suddenly that some foolish remark I happened to be making rang out like oratory. Every face was lifted toward us. My host and I completed our descent and went the length of the drawing-room through a silence which somewhat awed me. I couldn't help wishing that one could ever get that kind of attention in a concert-hall. In the music-room Stein insisted upon arranging things for ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... place where it was possible he might approach near enough to the camp to get a shot. He carefully studied the lay of the ground, the trees, rocks, bushes, grass,—everything that could help screen him from the keen eye of savage scouts. When he had marked his course he commenced his perilous descent. In an hour he had reached the bottom of the cliff. Dropping flat on the ground, he once more started his snail-like crawl. A stretch of swampy ground, luxuriant with rushes and saw-grass, made a part of the way easy for him, though it ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... understood the rationale of it. Once only I sealed with borrowed wax, to set Walter Scott a-wondering, signed with the imperial quartered arms of England, which my friend Field bears in compliment to his descent, in the female line, from Oliver Cromwell. It must have set his antiquarian curiosity upon watering. To your questions upon the currency, I refer you to Mr. Robinson's last speech, where, if you can find a solution, I cannot. I think this, though,—the best ministry we ever stumbled ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... our forage was brought into camp, thus saving us a fatigue. Moreover, on this line we could take an occasional joy-ride in a tram like an Irish jaunting-car, drawn by two mules probably also of Irish descent, who invariably ran away with the tram, and, desiring later to rest awhile, were as invariably thrust forward again by the violent impact from behind ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... quite right, as we proved subsequently when we compared the head of the fetish, which, as it will be remembered, he had brought away with him, with that of the statue. Allowing for an enormous debasement of art, they were essentially identical in the facial characteristics. This would suggest the descent of a tradition through countless generations. Or of course it may have been accidental. I am sure I do not know, but I think it possible that for unknown centuries other old statues may have existed in Orofena from which the idol was copied. Or some daring and impious spirit ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... people were, almost without exception, of French descent, and still kept up many of the old French customs of out-door fetes and ceremonies. Hetty found their joyous, child-like ways and manners singularly attractive and interesting. After the grim composure, and substantial, reflective methods of her ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... drift away into the land of faery, and doubtless also the busy teacher, who was more familiar with Jane Taylor and Cowper, was sadly puzzled. When the child at length sat down, scarcely knowing where she was in her sudden descent from the land of marvel, she heard the teacher say, to her amazement and discouragement, after an ominous pause, "I wonder if any young lady can tell me what this poem means?" There ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... dismissing her worshipers with a speech which she concludes with "a yawn of extraordinary virtue." Under its influence "all nature nods," and pulpits, colleges, and Parliament succumb. The poem closes with the magnificent description of the descent of Dullness and her final conquest of art, philosophy, and religion. It is said that Pope himself admired these lines so much that he could not repeat them without his voice faltering with emotion. "And well it might, sir," said Dr. Johnson when this anecdote was repeated to him, ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... and Venetians commenced to establish themselves in Dalmatia in the eleventh century, Istria coming even earlier more or less under their influence. In 1552, in the Council of Zara, out of seventeen noble families more than two-thirds were of Italian descent; and at Lesina the proportion was even greater. At Zara the Italians still preponderate, but the Slav element is in the majority in the greater part of Dalmatia, and even in the country parts of Istria. There are ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... especially as they are interspersed with minor hills of every grade of height and surface. The varied assortment of climates also supports the idea of a general training-ground for travellers. Bernier thought the first summit he crossed, coming from the south, "the dreadful rim of the world," but the descent of it plumped him, "as if by enchantment, into the centre of France." In sheltered places with a southern exposure the tropics reappear, but the vegetation of the foothills and middle mountains is said to be, but for the deodara cedar ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... knew my situation you would pronounce it unendurable. I should have thought so myself if I had had a foreshadowing of it a few years ago. But the human mind can get acclimated to anything. What with constant occupation and a happy consciousness of sustaining and cheering my poor old father in his descent to the grave, I am almost always in a state of serene contentment. In summer, my once extravagant love of beauty satisfies itself in watching the birds, the insects, and the flowers in my little ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... lasted. Lettice was surprised herself, to find how easily the task, which had appeared so awful, was discharged; but she had not long to congratulate herself. Gradually, at first by slow degrees, but afterward like the accelerated descent of a stone down the hill, acquired habit gave way to constitutional ill-humor. Alas, they tell us nature expelled with a pitchfork will make her way back again; most true of the unregenerated nature—most ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... The descent was gradual through a magnificent pine and spruce forest. Some of the trees were at least one hundred and fifty feet high, and were draped with beautiful gray moss which had looped itself from branch to ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... when I suppose that I have at length reached the valley of the Wish-Ton Wish," the visiter said, touching a soiled and slouched beaver that more than half concealed his features. The question was put in an English that bespoke a descent from those who dwell in the midland counties of the mother country, rather than in that intonation which is still to be traced, equally in the western portions of England and in the eastern states of the Union. Notwithstanding ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... blue heaven above us bent, The grand old gardener and his wife[624-1] Smile at the claims of long descent. ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... family were descended, and whose exploits are connected with Angel, Schleswig and Rendsburg. Danish tradition has preserved record of two governors of Schleswig, father and son, in their service, Frowinus (Freawine) and Wigo (Wig), from whom the royal family of Wessex claimed descent. During the 5th century the Angli invaded this country (see BRITAIN, Anglo-Saxon), after which time their name does not recur on the continent except in the title of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... smiled the grim smile of the wholly unfascinated. He was a dour business man of Scotch descent, who had made his money in palm-oil in the City of London; and having married Frida as a remarkably fine woman, with a splendid figure, to preside at his table, he had very small sympathy with what he considered her high-flown fads and nonsensical fancies. ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... young greengoose from the country!" was the answer, only that the words used were more offensive, and were followed by the usual garnishing of oaths and by blasphemous allusions to Melchisedec, from which Tom gathered that nothing was known to the world at large as to the parentage or descent of the man they called Lord Claud, and that this title had been bestowed upon him rather as a nickname than because it was ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the various ports of call, and was properly ashamed of the unsocial irritability which made me resent the feeling of being made one of a chattering, laughing, high-spirited horde of tourists, whose descent upon a foreign port seriously damaged whatever charm or interest it might possess. At least the trading residents of these ports were far more sensible than I, their preference undoubtedly causing them to welcome the wielders of camera ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... a daring commander. His successful journey through trackless forests between Cambridge and Quebec—his descent in boats through rivers choked with ice, and through dangerous rapids; the cold, hunger and exposure endured by himself and his soldiers, were feats of endurance of which any nation ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... up incessantly several tons of water every minute, and was inclosed by the superstitious gratitude of the inhabitants with the peristylium of a sacred place. At the extreme back, towards the north, which could not be seen from the point of view where we last stationed ourselves, there was a sheer descent of rock, bestowing on the city, when it was seen at a distance on the Mediterranean side, the same bold and striking appearance which attaches to Castro Giovanni, the ancient Enna, in the heart ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... letter, is not only a surgeon but also the public executioner, although as yet his services have not been called into request in the latter capacity. It was his father who decapitated Sand. The Heidelberg executioner is noble by right of descent. The origin of his family's nobility is given ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... a greenish cast in the daylight. The walls of their rooms were covered with family portraits of the colonial period, and Mrs. Carr, who had parted with most of her treasures, often wondered how they had preserved so many proofs of a distinguished descent. Even her silver had gone—first the quaint old service with the Bolton crest, which had belonged to her mother; then, one by one, the forks and spoons; and, last of all, Gabriella's silver mug, which was carried, wrapped in a shawl, to the shop ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... and the common world, as it was accessible through the medium of the outer office—to which Mr Dombey's presence in his own room may be said to have struck like damp, or cold air—there were two degrees of descent. Mr Carker in his own office was the first step; Mr Morfin, in his own office, was the second. Each of these gentlemen occupied a little chamber like a bath-room, opening from the passage outside Mr Dombey's door. Mr Carker, as Grand Vizier, inhabited the room that was nearest to the Sultan. ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... to his great surprise, found Merlin as fresh as if he had undergone no fatigue during the day. It would almost seem, from his spirit, that he had partaken of the same wondrous elixir which had revived his master. Down the hill he plunged, regardless of the steep descent, and soon entered the thicket where the storm had fallen upon them, and where so many acts of witchcraft were performed. Now, neither accident nor obstacle occurred to check the headlong pace of the animal, though the stones rattled after him ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth |
