"Receding" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the red clouds of evening, arching low to the horizon; on the serene and shining pathway of the stars. Let us think that his dying eyes read a mystic meaning which only the rapt and parting soul may know. Let us believe that in the silence of the receding world he heard the great waves breaking on a further shore, and felt already upon his wasted brow the breath of the ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... still spelled traffick, almanack, frolick, havock, and it was quite possible for his critics to follow him through a long list of words of this class and detect his frequent aberration from a uniform rule. Yet, instead of receding from his position, the latest edition advances; a nicer discrimination is made in the etymological origin of the variation, but in point of practice a much more general conformity to the rule is recorded. There can be no question that the k ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... own irreligion to be provoked. Afterwards, when both were schoolboys, Robert had yearly increased in conscientiousness under good discipline and training, but, in their holiday meetings, had found Owen's standard receding as his own advanced, and heard the once-deficient manly spirit asserted by boasts of exploits and deceptions repugnant to a well-conditioned lad. He saw Miss Charlecote's perfect confidence abused and trifled with, and the more he grew in a sense ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... person approached the partially revived bonfire. It proved to be a well-known and respected widow of the neighbourhood, of a standing which can only be expressed by the word genteel. Her face, encompassed by the blackness of the receding heath, showed whitely, and ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... Ah! you never yet Were far away from Venice, never saw Her beautiful towers in the receding distance, While every furrow of the vessel's track Seemed ploughing deep into your heart; you never 210 Saw day go down upon your native spires[bo] So calmly with its gold and crimson glory, And after ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... she was looking into the fire with eyes that as yet saw only the ruins of a dream that had been so beautiful, the rapidly receding shadow of the man whom she had once made a ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... cottage, he hated the Hamleys and Roger especially, with a very choice and particular hatred. 'That prig,' as hereafter he always designated Roger—'he shall pay for it yet,' he said to himself by way of consolation, after the father and son had left him. 'What a lout it is!'—watching the receding figure. 'The old chap has twice as much spunk,' as the squire tugged at his bridle-reins. 'The old mare could make her way better without being led, my fine fellow. But I see through your dodge. You're ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... blackened against it; at the top fading from pink to pale yellow, to green, to light blue, to the turquoise iridescence of the desert sky. The long, thin shadows of the early hours drew backward like receding serpents, then suddenly the sun looked over the shoulder of the ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... the walls of the ancient Mexican and Peruvian edifices are often vertical; but where this is the case the pyramidal form is attained by piling, one on the other, successive tiers of masonry, each receding from the other and leaving a parapet or platform at ...
— Some Observations on the Ethnography and Archaeology of the American Aborigines • Samuel George Morton
... help being carried onward, and downward, perhaps, on the hill of life, the swift milestones marking their forties, fifties—how many tens or lustres shall we say?—he sits under Time, the white-wigged charioteer, with his back to the horses, and his face to the past, looking at the receding landscape and the hills fading into the gray distance. Ah me! those gray, distant hills were green once, and HERE, and covered with smiling people! As we came UP the hill there was difficulty, and here and there a hard pull to be sure, but strength, and spirits, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... behind him at Borghetto. Thus the Romans were completely enclosed, having the lake on the right, the main army on the hill of Torre in front, the Gualandra hills filled with the light-armed on their left flank, and being prevented from receding by the cavalry, who, the further they advanced, stopped up all the outlets in the rear. A fog rising from the lake now spread itself over the army of the consul, but the high lands were in the sunshine, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... could she find in sitting here with him if her mother's apprehensive mind did not leave the room for a moment? What pleasure if a vulgar world were whispering? She reflected with some bitterness that one danger was receding. He had not entered this room since the day of her return. Although he had called several times, he had come in the evening, when she always sat with her mother, or in the morning, when Mrs. Madison ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... open circles touched the ground, ran a deep bed of coarse gravel, covered with a thick layer of smooth round pebbles, forming a perfectly drained pathway about three feet in width which extended uniformly from one end of the archway to the other. Conforming to the contour of the arches, rising and receding in unison, this pathway was bordered on either side by what appeared to be a continuous terrace of three stone benches, each one foot high and of the same width. These benches really were very heavy square terra cotta pipes, ingeniously cemented together with telescopic ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... constant vicissitude of cultivated scenery, was like no motion at all. It was life without the trouble of living; nothing was ever more quietly agreeable. In this happy state of mind and body we gazed at Christ-Church meadows, as we passed, and at the receding spires and towers of Oxford, and on a good deal of pleasant variety along the banks: young men rowing or fishing; troops of naked boys bathing, as if this were Arcadia, in the simplicity of the Golden Age; country-houses, cottages, water-side inns, all with something fresh about them, as not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... and modelling he practiced by the way, and especially excelled in admirable likenesses from memory. Great admiration was excited by his mysterious 'camera obscura,' in which he showed at one time the stars and the moon rising over rocky hills, at another wide landscapes with mountains and gulfs receding into dim perspective, and with fleets advancing on the waters in shade or sunshine. And that which others created he welcomed joyfully, and held every human achievement which followed the laws of beauty for something almost divine. To all this must be added his literary works, first ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... towards the shore. They both struck out bravely, and soon reached the cask. They had little at first to do, except to keep themselves afloat. All those who anxiously watched them, knew that the trial would come as they neared the beach, and got within the power of the under suck of the receding waves. At first they merely accompanied the cask, and supporting themselves by it, ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... The face and the form of the solitary man, whose position brought every part of this sad prospect fully within the range of his contemplation, showed the wear of the times. The eyes went deeper into their caverns, and seemed to send their search farther than ever away into a receding distance; the furrows sank far into the sallow face; a stoop bent the shoulders, as if the burden of the soul had even a physical weight. Yet still he sought neither counsel, nor strength, nor sympathy from any ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... dreadest e'er we saw, The hardest heart that beateth now, in watery fear will thaw. But lo! 'twas but a moment, like a wayward Beauty's wrath, And the moon resumes in heaven, see! her all serener path— And the clouds receding slowly rest upon the horizon round, And the katydids and waters make the only living sound. 'Tis yet a night of loveliness, and fondly we may deem, That Heaven and Earth are resting in the ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... boldest determination that had yet been formed; and an instant assault upon the French divisions on the Main might perhaps even now have given the Prussian army the superiority in the first encounter. But some fatal excuse was always at hand to justify Brunswick in receding from his resolutions. A positive assurance was brought into camp by Lucchesini that Napoleon had laid his plans for remaining on the defensive on the south of the Thuringian Forest. If this were true, there might yet be time to improve the plan of the campaign; ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... her receding back, made a seventeenth-century sweep with his college cap, and then some hitherto unexplored regions of his mind flashed ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... communication between the cars, those in front and rear had to be guided by the wild gesticulations of those in the smoking car. The engineer did not notice anything amiss, and sat placidly upon his high seat, watching the fast receding rails as they flashed under and out of sight beneath the ponderous driving-wheels of the engine. At last someone in the forward car, not accustomed to, but familiar with the dangers of a railroad car by the wild rumors given currency in his rural district ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... the Kurram Valley and carry the Shutargardan Pass by storm, an exploit fully equal to his former capture of the Peiwar Kotal in the same mountain range. Somewhat further on he met the Ameer, and was unfavourably impressed with him: "An insignificant-looking man, . . . with a receding forehead, a conical-shaped head, and no chin to speak of, . . . possessed moreover of a very shifty eye." Yakub justified this opinion by seeking on various pretexts to delay the British advance, and by sending to Cabul news as to the ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... had subsided quickly in her characteristic manner. She sat absently nibbling the handle of the obliging pan, while staring after the receding figure, its girlish slenderness stiffened as if to warn away all friendliness. "She's stubborner than ever. I say, Berta, ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... him—and he told me. 'Oh, that's the Sewall place,' he said, 'Young Breckenridge Sewall, you know.' I looked up at the window again. The man was closing it now. Is he dark, quite dark, stoops a little, with a receding ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... rolled in with a roar that shook the ground; fringed with foam that showed even through that dense midnight darkness, the waves were hungry for their prey. Each breaker curved high above the heads of the men, and, receding, the undertow sucked at their feet and tried to drag them under. It did not seem possible that a boat could be launched in such a sea. With scarcely a word of command, however, every man, knowing from long practice his position and specific duties, took his station ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... tortuous pass from the street and fling itself upon the closed barrier, appealing in eloquent indignation to the inexorable Cerberus, and then gazing, with face against the lattice, in imbecile despair at the receding boat. Simultaneous with the thud of the shutting gate is the clank of chains and the rattle of clamps and clogs, as of the striking off of fetters and handcuffs, an asthmatic jingle of a bell somewhere in the body of the boat, a slight slush of revolving paddle-wheels, and the great brute, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... Professor McGregor, after a careful anatomical study, has reproduced the head and bust of Pithecanthropus, which helps us to visualize this primitive species as of rather low cultural type. The low forehead, massive jaw, and receding chin give us a vision of an undeveloped species of the human race, in some respects not much above the anthropoid apes, yet ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... flowers and curiosities, and receding farther and farther from the path, for a time, and then returning towards it again, according to her own fancy or caprice, without paying any regard ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... Dingaan—and threatened her with a little, red-handled spear, asking her how she dared to sit upon the throne of the Spirit of his nation. She began to tell him her story, but as she spoke the wide receding walls of that grey hall fell apart and crumbled, and amidst a mighty laughter the great-eyed Shapes rebuilt them to the fashion of the cave in the mound beneath the tree of the dwarf-folk. The sound of the ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... is the best argument on the other side, and if you look straight at it for six seconds, you will see it dissolve like a lump of sugar in a tumbler of water and disappear under your very eyes. For the fact remains that when I listen to the receding footsteps of my little charmer, the sigh that escapes me expresses something of relief as well as regret. The signs of change have perhaps not yet appeared, and I wish not to see them. Good-bye, little one, we part in good ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... the girls laughed at his intensity, but Jeb's face lighted up with relief, while Sary's clouded with doubt. Then Jeb led the horses away, and a happy whistle sounded from his lips as he marched towards the barn. And Sary stood looking after his receding form as if she was seeing her ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... suggested nothing of interest beyond the vanishing perspective of a long track tangent. Then to the north, whence blew a cool and gentle wind, but the landscape offered nothing attractive to her eyes; its receding horizon told no new story. Then she ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... he watched New York receding from his sight. Hadn't he paid too high a price, after all? Remembering his bride's eyes, pure terror assailed him. No woman had ever looked at Peter like that before. He tried to keep from feeling bitter toward his uncle. Well! He was in for it! He would make his work his bride, ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... Mrs. Greenacre, from whose well-covered bosom all milk of human kindness was receding, as far as the family of ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... by their resemblance the material link. Mr. John Brodrick was a more thick-set, an older, graver-lined, and grizzled Hugh, a Hugh who had lost his sombre fixity of gaze. Dr. Henry Brodrick was a tall, attenuated John, with a slightly, ever so slightly receding chin. Mrs. Heron was Hugh again made feminine and slender. She had Hugh's features, refined and diminished. She had Hugh's eyes, filled with some tragic sorrow of her own. Her hair was white, every thread of it, though she could not have been more ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... ferns dotted the steep pitch of the bank below; the stream that clattered among the stones at the bottom shone very cool and shadowy under the alders; and a clearing on the other side revealed, over the receding woods, the broken hill-tops of ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... one hath watched thee even as I, And unto thee and thy receding ray Poured forth his thoughts with many a treasured sigh Too sweet and strange for the remorseless day; But thou hast gone and left unto their sight Too great a host of stars, and yet ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... resolution was held motionless, neither advancing nor receding; it was veritably the slack water of her resolution. She was afraid to go on. Not afraid in sense of fear as it is usually understood, but with the opposition of virginal instincts; those instincts which are natural, ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... creed of Unbelief. It would be very absurd then, because Christianity does not instantly abolish, or fully explain, all these strange and darker realities, to fall back upon the opposite ground of skepticism. This is only receding from the best solution to the worst—or, rather, to no solution at all. For I maintain that Christianity gives us not merely the best, but the only solution of these problems. It will be my purpose in this discourse, at ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... seemed a large subterranean hall, arched as it were with high cupolas of crystal, and divided into long aisles by columns of glittering spar, in some parts spread into wide horizontal chambers, in others terminated by the dark mouths of deep and steep abysses receding into the ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... my spirit sad? Because 'tis parting, each succeeding year, With something that it used to hold more dear Than aught that now remains; Because the past, like a receding sail, Flits into dimness, and the lonely gale O'er vacant ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... summer was exceedingly wet. Nevertheless, the decade closed more hopefully than it opened, and found farmers taking a keener interest in grass land, in live stock and in dairying. Cattle-breeders did well in 1889, but sheep-breeders fared better; on the other hand, owing to receding prices, corn growers were more disheartened than ever. With the incoming of the last decade of the century there seemed to be some justifiable hopes of the dawn of better times, but they were speedily ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... anger at being thus gently lifted up, from beneath the kind Somersetshire mists, into an hour's publicity? Who can tell? We are all passing one another, in mist-darkened barges, swift or slow. She is a wraith, a shadow, a receding phantom; but I wave my hand to her over the years! I shall always associate her with Lotte; and I never smell the peculiar smell of Tarpaulin without thinking of "the Sorrows ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... Receding and speeding, And shocking and rocking, And darting and parting. And threading and spreading, And whizzing and hissing, And dripping and skipping, And hitting and splitting, And shining and twining, And rattling and battling, And shaking and quaking, And pouring ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... flooded, although the water rapidly was receding, and while a few corpses eddied out from the flood's edge, yet in the center of the area it was stated that only two ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... lobate Wisconsin ice sheet toward the north and east, the southern and western ends of the basins of the Great Lakes were uncovered first; and here, between the receding ice front and the slopes of land which faced it, lakes gathered which increased ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... contradiction; which manifestly appears if innovation and veteration be referred to the measure itself. For since "before" and "after" of duration cannot exist together, if aeviternity has "before" and "after," it must follow that with the receding of the first part of aeviternity, the after part of aeviternity must newly appear; and thus innovation would occur in aeviternity itself, as it does in time. And if they be referred to the things measured, even then an incongruity would follow. For ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... hostess caused Miss Crossman to pause. In fact, they all stared wonderingly at Georgiana. She stood upon the hearthrug, her colour, usually ready to glow in her dusky face, now receding suggestively, her dark eyes sparkling dangerously. "The only trouble with that sort of thing," she answered with suspicious quietness, "or rather the two troubles with it are these: In the first place, the women ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... pursued his way towards the Lodge, through one of the long sweeping glades which traversed the forest, varying in breadth, till the trees were now so close that the boughs made darkness over his head, then receding farther to let in glimpses of the moon, and anon opening yet wider into little meadows, or savannahs, on which the moonbeams lay in silvery silence; as he thus proceeded on his lonely course, the various effects produced ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... yet sing on to him that hath ears to hear. When he returns to seek them, the shadowy door will open to his touch, the long-drawn aisles receding will guide his eye to the carven choir, and there they still stand, the sweet singers, content to repeat ancient psalm and new song to the prayer of the humblest whose heart would ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... houses, and the inhabitants go ashore in cockle-shell boats. When the tide is low the foundation posts rise out of the mud and sand, and the people go inland on foot, dodging piles of seaweed and similar debris, left by the receding waves. ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... a sun, appeared high in the air over the temple, illuminating it throughout; and a great song arose from the men in white, which went rolling round and round the building, now receding to the end, and now approaching, down the other side, the place where we stood. For some of the singers were regularly ceasing, and the next to them as regularly taking up the song, so that it crept onwards with gradations produced by changes which could not themselves be detected, for only a ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... those two sharks as they swam lazily to and fro between me and the fast receding wreckage. It really looked as though they were aware of my presence, had divined my purpose, and were determined to frustrate it. For what seemed at least half-an-hour, but was probably not more than ten minutes, the voracious fish tacked this way and that, approaching me ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... wheels had disappeared from the path that I was treading; that it became more narrow, and exhibited fewer marks of being frequented. These appearances were discouraging. I now suspected that I had taken a wrong direction, and, instead of approaching, was receding from, the ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... woman's unselfish love for him made him realize them. He felt his soul sweeping out on the great tide of things. Farther and farther it swept; his patron saint, caution, beckoning frantically from the receding shore, was miles behind. "Judith!" he said, and he scarce recognized his own voice. "Judith!" he struggled as a swimmer in a drowning clutch. Then his patron saint threw him a life-line and he saved ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... self-deceit before the presence of death. Pride and ambition, ostentation and avarice—the fallacies of the world, the complacent lies of society, the hopes and griefs that were of earth alone—all unrealities, in short, had passed for these shivering, helpless beings, with the life that seemed receding from them—that hour of horror revealed them to themselves and to others: there would be no more smiling lips over blackest hearts; no more bold looks over craven spirits; those murderous waters, as ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... in the wet season, leaving but a narrow margin for the road, but in the dry season this margin is greatly enlarged. I have already explained the composition of tequisquite, and the manner of its production; here it was lying in courses, or spots, as it had been left by the receding and drying up of the water during the present dry season. Little piles of it had been gathered up here and there to be taken to town for use, probably by the bakers or soap-boilers, who are said to pay fourteen shillings an aroba for it. Besides a little stunted grass, there was here no sign ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... shone in a bright, windy sky. The snow was nearly gone, the brook still leaped in a furious torrent, but there was no more danger from it. The waters were, in fact, receding slowly. Jerome worked all day near the ruinous site of his mill, and Martin Cheeseman with him. He had a quantity of logs and lumber, which had escaped the flood, to care for. Cheeseman inquired if he was going ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... were a painter, for the sake Of a sweet picture, and of her who led, A fitting guide, with light, but reverent tread, Into that mountain mystery! First a lake Tinted with sunset; next the wavy lines Of far receding hills; and yet more far, Monadnock lifting from his night of pines His rosy forehead to the evening star. Beside us, purple-zoned, Wachuset laid His head against the West, whose warm light made His aureole; and o'er him, sharp and clear, Like a shaft of lightning in mid launching ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... bowl, and a canvas firmly stretched over the top, permitting only the head and arms to remain exposed, and judging from the dripping condition of the worthy little sea-craft, it could not have been many moments since it had come to anchor on the smooth, hard beach; probably the now receding waves had borne the precious burden to this most ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... come to the rescue, tossed him out of the window. The train was dashing round a curve at thirty miles an hour, and when Donald stretched out his neck to find out whether Gum was killed, it was with small hope of ever seeing him more. For two minutes the miner gazed at the receding distance, then, without uttering a word, turned round and felled the conductor ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... sent to her, but would wear the clothes which she had brought, until she found that the king was displeased, and would be obeyed; whereupon she conformed, against the advice of her women, who continued their opiniatrety, without any one of them receding from their own mode, which exposed them the more to reproach."—Continuation of Clarendon's Life, p. 168. In a short time after their arrival in England, they were ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Belleville, and Mt. Martre.... We ascended from the town for about 3 miles to a sort of large rambling village, in situation and circumstances somewhat like Highgate. This was Belleville, whose heights run on receding from Paris a considerable distance, but terminate rather abruptly in the direction of Mont Martre, from which they are separated by a low, swampy valley containing all the dead horses, filth, and exuvious putrefactions ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... immediately. The night was clear, and by the faint light of the stars the course of the receding boats could be traced. The sailing-master of the "Richard," a Mr. Trent, being the first to discover the treachery, sprang into a boat with a few armed men, and set out in hot pursuit. The bow-gun of the "Richard" was hastily trained on the deserters, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... allowed build a fire on the lumber pier, and were forced to ascend the St. Lawrence in quest of a retired spot above the landing of St. Croix, on the right bank of the river. The tide had been a high one when we beached our boat at the foot of a bluff. Two hours later the receding tide left us a quarter of a mile from the current. The river was fully two miles wide at this point, and so powerful was its current that steamers anchored in it were obliged to keep their wheels slowly revolving to ease the strain on their anchors. Early on Monday morning ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... interest. It was conceived and carried on in a spirit of boundless hope and enthusiasm. Time and a narrowing subscription list proved too hard a trial, and its four volumes remain stranded, like some rare and curiously patterned shell which a storm of yesterday has left beyond the reach of the receding waves. Thoreau wrote for nearly every number. Margaret Fuller, less attractive in print than in conversation, did her part as a contributor as well as editor. Theodore Parker came down with his "trip-hammer" in its pages. Mrs. Ellen Hooper published a few poems in its columns which remain, always ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... above the chimneys. From somewhere in the city came sounds like the distant beating of drums, and beyond, far beyond, a vague muttering, now growing, swelling, rumbling in the distance like the pounding of surf upon the rocks, now like the surf again, receding, growling, menacing. The cold had become intense, a bitter piercing cold which strained and snapped at joist and beam and turned the slush of yesterday to flint. From the street below every sound ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... Eumenes was staring down at him as if he were peering into a dusky burrow. And Jack could make out the eyes. They were large, much larger than they should have been at the speed with which Jack was receding. They were not the pale pink of an albino's. They were black from corner to corner and built of a dozen or so hexagons whose edges ...
— They Twinkled Like Jewels • Philip Jose Farmer
... pulled out, the little barefoot drummer with $6.50 hobbled across the muddy street, the proudest boy in all Oregon; but he was not so happy as were his five big brothers in the receding car. ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... the walls were crowding in on her to crush her, and then receding to immeasurable distances, and the blood and air from her pierced lungs bubbled through the bullet-holes in the serge stuff ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... dishes which she used in the sumptuous banquets that were attended by crowds of gentlemen. A net was spread under the water to hold the dishes and thus they were cleaned. It hasn't been twenty years since the river washed the very entrance of the cave, but it has gradually been receding, just as the memory of her is dying out ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... wet to the waists, dragging the tempest-tossed sea-weed to the shore with large wooden rakes. This occupation was not merely arduous but dangerous. More than once had little Jim, who was of lighter build than the girl, been fairly dragged off his feet by the force of the receding wave, as it wrestled with him for the possession of the mass of floating weed which he had hooked in his rake. The weed thus drawn to shore was subsequently sorted, the greater part being used for manure, while the rest was burned in one of ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... she was walking; and though the western front of the church was still in shade, had begun to suck up the mists, and to make the air feel at least somewhat more genial and wholesome. The monk pushed back the cowl of his frock, which had hitherto been drawn over his head, the better to watch the receding figure of the girl as she moved slowly along the path; and still, as he gazed after her, he shook his head from time to time with an ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... preserve a cheerful expression of countenance, and even to cultivate a certain elegance of movement. In passing, it may be remarked that his fellow tchinovniks were a peculiarly plain, unsightly lot, some of them having faces like badly baked bread, swollen cheeks, receding chins, and cracked and blistered upper lips. Indeed, not a man of them was handsome. Also, their tone of voice always contained a note of sullenness, as though they had a mind to knock some one on the head; ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... village they had just quitted. Presently, however, as they drew nearer, they beheld, reflected from one of the upper windows, a faint light that fell upon the ground immediately in front of the auberge; and, at intervals, the figure of a human being approaching and receding from it as if in the act of ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... glaciers of this and every other mountain in the northern hemisphere are receding, and that they are now mere pygmies compared with their former selves, is well known. What their destructive power must have been when their volume was many times greater than now may be judged from the moraines along their former ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams
... fading from the river now, the water was becoming like liquid silver, then, in a moment, like liquid steel. On the dahabeeyah, which began to look as if it were a long way off and were receding from her, shone a red and a blue light. Still the vehement voices of the brown fellahin at work by the shaduf rose unwearied along the Nile. During the last days Mrs. Armine's ears had grown accustomed to these voices, so accustomed to them that it was already becoming difficult ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... sometimes slapping their armpits, sometimes pinching each other with their nails, sometimes clasping each other tightly, sometimes twining their legs round each other's loins, sometimes rolling on the ground, sometimes advancing, sometimes receding, sometimes rising up, and sometimes leaping up. Indeed, those two and thirty kinds of separate manoeuvres that characterise encounters of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... them, little heeding Blast of wind or torrent's roar, As I follow the receding Footsteps that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... event were to destroy the hope which he still cherished, and which I feared was his main support? Would his religion then prove of a quality and power sufficient to keep him from drifting away with the receding tide of his hopes and imaginations? In this anxiety perhaps I regarded too exclusively the faith of Roger, and thought too little about the faith of God. However this may be, I could not rest, but thought and thought, until at last I made ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... among the group that watched the receding cloud the eyes that would linger longest and would find it hardest to turn away would be those of the Blessed Mother. Her mission about our Lord during all these past years had been a very characteristically womanly mission, a mission of silence and help and sympathy. She was with the women who ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... the trunks of the trees and their quivering leaves, and far away at the end the delicate tracery of an old-fashioned trellis against the wall. It was so hard to succeed; one must hold on so long to reach the desired point, always close at hand and always receding. Why was it that Colette seemed every moment on the point of falling into his arms, and yet when he went back he had to begin again from the beginning? It looked as if in his absence some one for amusement pulled down his work. Who was it? It was that dead fellow, ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... a short man, with protruding cheeks, and a nose ending in an amorphous flare of purple and scarlet. His mustache, red like that of his brother, and constituting the only point of physical resemblance between them, grew down over a receding chin, being forced thereto by the bulbous overhang of the nose. He had rufous side-whiskers, clipped moderately close, and carroty hair mixed with gray. His erect shoulders and straight back were a little ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... examined the clearing between the house and the forest? Monsieur could see for himself the snow was too deep and crusty among the trees for Madame to go twenty paces into the woods. Besides, foot-marks could be traced from the garden to the bush. He need not fear wild animals. They were receding into the mountains as spring advanced. Let him take another look about the open; and Hamilton tore out-doors, followed by the whole household; but from the Chateau in the center of the glade to the encircling border of snow-laden evergreens there ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... relentless closing To grief—the woman-shame no art can heal— To that small life beneath my heart reposing! Man, man, the wild beast for its young can feel! Proud flew the sails—receding from the land, I watched them waning from the wistful eye, Round the gay maids on Seine's voluptuous strand, Breathes the false ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... height in a shower of spray, so close to the edge of the fall that we could almost wet our hands in its rim. Once at the top, we found that Nature had been as accommodating to the sight-seer as man himself; for the ledge we landed on was a perfect breastwork, built from the receding precipices on either side of the canon to the very crown of the cataract. The weakest nerves need not have trembled, when once within the parapet, on the smooth, flat rampart, and looking down into the tremendous boiling chasm whence we ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... long associated with merry, mischievous sprites of "middies," there had been for many a year the representation of a funeral urn, with the sentence, "Here Nelson died." The visitors looked at the spot without speaking. There, on this very day in the fast-receding past, amidst the hardly subdued din of a great naval battle, the dying hero with his failing breath made the brief, tender appeal to his faithful captain, "Kiss me, Hardy." The Queen requested that there ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... in the earth left bare by the receding Nile, and the soft south wind blew over the desert and nursed it, and the sun kissed it in pity; after which it could not else than grow and flourish. I stand in its shade now, and it thanks me with much perfume. As with the roses, so with the men ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... among the neighboring hills, and watch, from some bare peak, the broad-winged vulture sailing slowly and steadily through the skies. He would watch it until it became a mere speck in the blue distance: we may often catch ourselves gazing after receding objects as though they were bearing away a thought we had fixed upon them. His wound was nearly well, and the freshness of health was again in his cheeks; but his spirit had lost a part of its sprightliness, ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... somethin' under his arm that he looked to be crumplin' up as small as he could"—the word "crumpling" went acutely to Mrs. Kilfoyle's heart—and some long-sighted people declared that they could still catch glimpses of a receding figure through the hovering fog ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... more delightful climate than even Honolulu, being situated on the windward side of the island in the path of the fresh north-east trades. The scenery is magnificent; on one side is the blue sea, on the other the wonderful wall of the pali, receding here and there into beautiful mountain valleys. Everywhere are grassy pastures over which roam the hundreds of horses which are owned by the lepers. Some of them have their own carts, rigs, and traps. In the little harbour of Kalaupapa lie fishing boats and a steam launch, ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... mate, rushed boldly forward. He was within a few yards of the bank, when the sea, sweeping by as it receded, rose up to his middle. He vainly attempted to stem it; he was lifted off his feet, and was being hurried out among the breakers when Owen, springing forward into the receding water as it swept round the sand-bank, caught him by the arm, and they were both pulled up ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... the room; Lorelei sprung in, gave her one kiss, and was seen to run swiftly toward the beach, wringing her hands. Fancy flew after; but, when she reached the shore, there was nothing to be seen but the scattered pebbles, shells, and weeds that made the mock mermaid, floating away on a receding wave. ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... this means they have not only been kept in a wandering state, but been led to look upon us as unjust and indifferent to their fate. Thus, though lavish in its expenditures upon the subject, Government has constantly defeated its own policy, and the Indians in general, receding farther and farther to the west, have retained their savage habits. A portion, however, of the Southern tribes, having mingled much with the whites and made some progress in the arts of civilized life, have lately attempted to erect an independent government within the limits of Georgia ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... when the agitation for the suffrage had apparently reached a stationary condition, neither advancing nor receding, in which it was destined to remain for some years longer. Other causes, as the abolition of West Indian slavery and the corn laws, have had a similar period of apparent torpor succeeding the first activity. Justin McCarthy in his "History of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... embraced tenderly, and Fernand departed, once more to fulfill his frightful doom! Nisida watched his receding form until it was lost in the groves intervening between the plains and the acclivities of the range of mountains; and then she seated herself again on the sand, wondering of what nature her husband's secret could be, and why it compelled him ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... into that forlorn country the day before, looking for Carrot. He had been a pioneer and a reputed hero, not so many years gone past. Now he was an Ishmael, receding and receding before the tide of civilization. Like the eagle in Byron's lines on Kirke White, he might blame himself, or at any rate credit himself, for the turn things had taken. He had winged the shaft that was draining his life, ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... to keep the mouth clean, particles of food lodge and decompose there, causing irritation of the mucous membrane, caries of the teeth, and foetor of the saliva and breath. When osseous ankylosis occurs in childhood, it leads to arrest of development of the mandible, which is small and markedly receding, so that the teeth do not oppose those ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... pallet P'. This it does, and will at first, through the impulse received from the tooth d be forced back by the momentum of the pallet, that is, suffer a recoil; but on the return journey of the pallet P', the tooth e will then add its impulse to the receding pallet. The tooth e having thus accomplished its mission, will now slip by and the tooth c will come in lock with the pallet P and, after the manner just described for e, continue the escapement. ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... There was a little receding court which lay in front of Madame Le Prun's windows, which were furnished with a heavy stone balcony. On the side opposite was a high wall, which divided the pleasure-grounds from the wild, wooded park that lay immediately beyond, and in this was a door with a private ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... of getting back—escape and exchange. Exchange was like the ever receding mirage of the desert, that lures the thirsty traveler on over the parched sands, with illusions of refreshing springs, only to leave his bones at last to whiten by the side of those of his unremembered ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... it prayed, Till She, the deity, made answer Through youth, through age, through death To her own far away's receding star. ...
— Sandhya - Songs of Twilight • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... is on the other foot—I'm darned sore at you." He tried to find his receding hairline with his thin eyebrows. "Don't look so amazed—do you think I haven't figured out my defending that TK Crescas was no accident? You set ...
— Modus Vivendi • Gordon Randall Garrett
... next moment he controlled himself; 'twas indeed as if he himself called the receding blood back to his heart, and he took her hand and held it in both his ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... capitals, which are carved with foliage of Norman character, share a common five-sided abacus, while the bases are circular and rest on radiating brackets smaller than themselves. These brackets, which are said to be unique, have square corners and are moulded, but only on the front, and their receding portion consists of a concave moulding containing a convex block. In the north-west corner there is but a single shaft, which rises from the bench-table, is banded at the string-course, and has a square-topped capital. The vaulting has wall-ribs, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett
... front is as unique in design as it is architecturally beautiful. There is that rarest of features in English cathedrals—an elaborately sculptured screen, thoroughly honest in construction. In originality of conception this front is perhaps unrivalled, at least on English soil; there are three receding stories, so admirably proportioned as to produce a beautiful effect in perspective. The glory of the great west window is further enhanced by the graduated arcades which have the appearance of receding behind it. Above the west window rises a second and smaller triangular ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... Christ's left to Christ's right, as He sees it. Thus, therefore, following the order of the great statues: first in the central porch, there are six apostles on Christ's right hand, and six on His left. On His left hand, next to Him, Peter; then in receding order, Andrew, James, John, Matthew, Simon; on His right hand, next Him, Paul; and in receding order, James the Bishop, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas and Jude. These opposite ranks of the Apostles occupy what may be called the apse ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... Pua ehu Kamalena (yellow child). This exclamation is descriptive of the man's visual impression on seeing the canoe with its crowd of passengers and paddlers, in the misty light of morning, receding in the distance. The kamalena is a mountain shrub ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... open, and a slender female form bend forth, and look earnestly into the darkness. A moment or two, she stood thus, and then stepped forth quickly, and leaning upon the iron railing of the door steps, fixed eagerly her eyes upon the slowly receding forms of the ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... the Theban seer Himself, his golden sceptre in his hand, Who knew me, and, enquiring, thus began. Why, hapless Chief! leaving the cheerful day, 110 Arriv'st thou to behold the dead, and this Unpleasant land? but, from the trench awhile Receding, turn thy faulchion keen away, That I may drink the blood, and tell thee truth. He spake; I thence receding, deep infix'd My sword bright-studded in the sheath again. The noble prophet then, approaching, drank The blood, and, satisfied, address'd me thus. Thou ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... lady's machine beside him with one skilful hand and Bert teuf-teuffing steadily, was to realise how pluck may triumph even over insolvency. Their landlord, the butcher, said, "Gurr," as they passed, and shouted, "Go it!" in a loud, savage tone to their receding backs. ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... Herbert in a low voice if he saw nothing, but though he mechanically followed the direction of my eyes, he shook his head in bewilderment. And for a moment or two he remained thus. Then I began to notice that the figure was growing less clear, as if it were receding, yet without growing smaller to the sight; it grew fainter and vaguer, the colours grew hazy. I rubbed my eyes once or twice with a half idea that my long watching was making them misty, but it was not so. My eyes were not at fault—slowly but surely Maud Bertram, or her ghost, melted away, ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... Trenton that he found it impossible to get angrier than he had been when she first spoke. In fact, he found his anger receding rather than augmenting. It was something so entirely new to meet a lady who had such an utter disregard for the rules of politeness that obtain in any civilized society that Mr. Trenton felt he was having a unique ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... minute, broodingly watching the neat receding back of Charles Wilbraham. How happy and how proud it looked, that serene and elegant back! How proud and how pleased Henry knew Charles Wilbraham to be, walking with the senior British delegate, whom every one admired, along the Quai du Mont Blanc! As proud and as ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... battle—bleeding, mangled forms, borne on stretchers. In those gloomy shades, dense with smoke, this strangest of battles, which no eye could follow, marked only by the shouts and volleys, now advancing, now receding, as either side gained or lost, surged to and fro. The third day, both armies, worn out by this desperate struggle, remained in their intrenchments. Neither side had been conquered. Grant had lost twenty ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... chamber that I met the Princess. The room was as I had first seen it. Only there was no ascetic old man with keen, deep-set eyes and receding forehead to rear his head back from the table as though he would presently strike across it like a serpent from ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... and calling for battle, were led into a plain called Idistavisus. It lies between the Visurgis and the hills, and winds irregularly along, as it is encroached upon by the projecting bases of the mountains or enlarged by the receding banks of the river. At their rear rose a majestic forest, the branches of the trees shooting up into the air, but the ground clear between their trunks. The army of barbarians occupied the plain and the entrances of the forest; the Cheruscans alone sat in ambush upon ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... criticism of David, of that year. "We would venture to ask," says this ingenious critic, "why the divine psalmist has so small a brain? Within this skull there is not compass for the poet's thoughts to range. We state as a physiological fact, that a head so small, with a brow so receding, could not have belonged to any man who has made himself conspicuous in the world's history. Again, descending to mere matter of costume, there cannot be a doubt that the purple mantle flung on the psalmist's shoulders is wholly wanting in study of detail, and constitutes ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... the explorers reached the end of the Canon of Lodore, which is nearly twenty-four miles long. The walls were never less than two thousand feet high except near the foot. They are very irregular, standing in perpendicular or overhanging cliffs here, terraced there, or receding in steep slopes broken by many side-gulches. The highest point of the wall is twenty-seven hundred feet, but the peaks a little distance off are a thousand feet higher. Yellow pines, nut pines, firs and cedars ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... brightness was opened secretly somewhere in the sky. Higher and higher swelled the clear moon-flood, until it poured over the eastern wall of forest into the road. A drove of wolves howled faintly in the distance, but they were receding, and the sound soon died away. The stars sparkled merrily through the stringent air; the small, round moon shone like silver; little breaths of dreaming wind wandered across the pointed fir-tops, as ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... in every detail of the situation, noting the position of the rocks that a receding wave left bare, so that he might find a clear path or trail in his dash for life. Nor did his gaze flinch as he saw the advancing wave break against the front ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... speed of the rocket took hold against the forces of gravity and it shot into the heavens, its roaring becoming a fading hiss of sound, the brilliant flash of flame from its exploding tubes, a receding beacon of light that gradually faded to a pinpoint ...
— The Monster • S. M. Tenneshaw
... have been of good size then—hence, they would be of the greater size, now, or else have disappeared entirely. There isn't a single tree which could correspond with Parmenter's, closer than four hundred yards, and, as the point would have been receding rather than gaining, we can assume, with tolerable certainty, that the beeches have vanished—either from decay or from wind storms, which must be very severe over in this exposed land. Hence, must not our first quest be for some trace of ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... brothers, named Newman, educated at the same school, trained in the same university, brought up under the same religious system—all human arts exhausted to mould their minds into strict uniformity, yet gradually receding from the same point in opposite directions, but in equally downward roads; one to embrace the most puerile legends of the middle ages, the other to open infidelity. Not so with those who follow the teachings of the Word of God, by which, and not by any ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... past generations. If we fix our thoughts on the permanence of life and the manifestations of progress, time appears to us as the great producer. Destroyer of all that is, producer of all that is to be, time has thus a double form. It is a mysterious tide, ever rising and ever receding; it is the power of death, and it is the power of life. All this, Gentlemen, is for the imagination. In the view of a calm reason, time is the simply negative condition of all development, as space is the negative condition of all motion. Just as without ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... lofty hills Do suddenly uprear their towering heads Amid the plain, while from beneath their crests The ground receding sinks; the trees, whose stem Seemed lately hid within their leafy tresses, Rise into elevation, and display Their branching shoulders; yonder streams, whose waters, Like silver threads, were scarce, but now, discerned, ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... his irresolute mouth, his receding chin, his unquenchable thirst for absinthe. I regarded him and I paid him no compliments. ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... fell and my eyes rested on a sandy-haired youth with a receding chin, a black eye, a crumpled shirt-front smeared with blood, and a dress-suit split and soiled with much ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I eat. I can see that he is patiently patterning his table deportment after mine. There's nothing that silent rough-mannered man wouldn't do for me. I've got so I never notice his nose, any more than I used to notice Uncle Carlton's receding chin. But I don't think Olie is getting enough to eat. All his mind seems taken up with trying to remember not to drink out of his saucer, as history sayeth ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... stopping to gather wild convolvulus and grasses. The sea was out now, and the mud stretched away, glistening red and brown in the sunlight. Beyond in the Ray lay a long line of bawleys, while a score or more nearer at hand lay heeled over on the mud as they had been left by the receding tide. ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... the gentleman calmly receding up the road, and as she looked the form seemed to grow familiar in front of her eyes. Surely she had seen that navy blue suit before, that brown hat and those boots! Yes! the very walk was familiar to her. She knew that black curly ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... in mixture with the early Gothic. The three portals are not remarkable, or uniform, and are severely plain, and, though of a noticeable receding depth, are bare and unpeopled. A well-proportioned rose window, though not so large as many in the greater cathedrals, has graceful radiating spokes and good glass. This is flanked by two unpierced lancet-pointed window-frames ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... duties were quickly dispatched, and the dusty men, led by her husband, galloped away. From the open window of her room she saw the receding cloud of dust, wondering at that urgent sense of duty which could make so fond a husband leave her, even though for a short time, after so long a separation. Thus she sat, dreamily thinking of her great ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... easy enough to tell the difference between these two classes of workers. If you are a brunette, with fairly prominent brows and somewhat sloping forehead, a chin prominent at the lower point and receding upward toward the mouth; if your head is high and square behind; if your fingers are long and square-tipped; if your flesh is elastic or hard in consistency, then you can trust yourself to take responsibility for things in which seeming trifles may be of the highest importance. If, ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... o'clock in the evening, the fog receding from us a little, gave us a sight of an ice island, several penguins and some snow peterels; we sounded, but found no ground at one hundred and forty fathoms. The fog soon returning, we spent the night in making boards over that space which ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... exercise than what he used in his painting-room,'—the writer means, in walking backwards and forwards to look at his picture; but the act of painting itself, of laying on the colours in the proper place and proper quantity, was a much harder exercise than this alternate receding from and returning to the picture. This last would be rather a relaxation and relief than an effort. It is not to be wondered at, that an artist like Sir Joshua, who delighted so much in the sensual and practical part of his art, should have found himself at ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... pier and jumped into the drifter's boat. Sitting in the stern I looked over my shoulder with very mixed feeling at the receding shores of the island of Ransay. It had baffled me, made a fool of me, nearly murdered me; but after all it had saved my life when the odds were a million to one against me, and it had crowded into that life the four most exciting days and nights I ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... by the receding water during the hottest period of the fall season becomes a dry, crackling waste of incrusted slime, curling up in the fierce sunshine, and readily crushed under foot, like frozen snow. The yellowish-white scales reflect the sunlight, producing a painful effect on the ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... her along, forcing her to run, and did not let go her arm until they had passed the sentinel at the gate and were out on the street. The gentlemen followed them with their eyes, saw them reappear once again on the street in the lamplight, and listened to the sound of the car receding in the distance. The Mussulman picked up his crutches, and winked at the Philosopher significantly, and said something with a yawn about going to bed. The cavalry officer looked down at the sick man curiously and ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... of the head for us both, and an earnest, friendly glance at the young man, Miss Haldin left us covering our heads and looking after her straight, supple figure receding rapidly. Her walk was not that hybrid and uncertain gliding affected by some women, but a frank, strong, healthy movement forward. Rapidly she increased the distance—disappeared with suddenness at last. I discovered only then that Mr. Razumov, after ramming his hat well over ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... my lingering footsteps slow retire, Some Spirit of the Air has waked thy string! 'Tis now a seraph bold, with touch of fire, 'Tis now the brush of Fairy's frolic wing. Receding now, the dying numbers ring Fainter and fainter down the rugged dell; And now the mountain breezes scarcely bring A wandering witch-note of the distant spell— And now, 'tis silent ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... the color receding from her face as suddenly as it had come, while she gained time in which to collect her astonished wits by putting the silver dagger down beside the telegram with needless exactitude before attempting ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... his whip across the backs of the trotting horses, making them plunge forward against that blank, impalpable wall of all-encircling, ever-receding, ever-present fog. The carriage had just crossed the long, white-railed bridge, spanning the little river and space of marsh on either side, and now entered Sandyfield Street. The tops of the tall Lombardy poplars were lost in gloom. Now and again the ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... Its appearance gave rise to much discussion among astronomers. On the 17th Sir John Herschel saw its nucleus from Collingwood in Kent, and on the following night a dim nebula only; so it was probably receding with great velocity.] ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... Such is, more or less, the history of them all. Havre, however, is in some measure an exception. It stands on a plain, that I should think had once been a marsh. The cliffs are near it, seaward, and towards the interior there are fine receding hills, leaving a sufficient site, notwithstanding, for ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... cry, he turned and ran in the direction of the receding storm, calling her name and looking frantically on both sides of the path where the cyclone had licked the ground as clean as a swept floor. He could see nothing at all of Elizabeth. Realizing at last that he was wasting his efforts, and that some degree of composure ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... new danger awaited them. The ice upon the shore was rising and falling and crumbling against the rocks with each incoming and receding sea. To successfully land it would be necessary to make a dash at the very instant that the ice came in contact with the shore. A moment too soon or a moment too late and they would inevitably be crushed to death. It was their only way of escape, ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... tall osiers standing by the buttress, and looked back at poor Knowl—the places we love and are leaving look so fairy-like and so sad in the clear distance, and this is the finest view of the gabled old house, with its slanting meadow-lands and noble timber reposing in solemn groups—I gazed at the receding vision, and the tears came at last, and I wept in silence long after the fair picture was hidden from view ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... as any that preceded it, or can follow it. He lived at a time when pride mounted high, and the senses held rule; a time when kings and nobles never had more of state and homage, and never less of personal responsibility and peril; when medieval winter was receding, and the summer sun of civilization was bringing into leaf and flower a thousand forms of luxurious enjoyment; when a new world of thought and beauty had opened upon the human mind, in the discovery ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... blind!" These oft-repeated words seemed fraught with a power that almost made her doubt her own senses. She saw, and yet she felt as if sight were receding from her eyes. ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... shows you the result of treating this, as well as other curves, in the manner just described. You see that whether the fragmentary curves are steep and receding far from the equator; or whether they are flat and lying close along the equator; whether they span less or more than 180 degrees; the curves determined on the supposition that they are the work ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... storm had chilled the air, she kindled a fire for him within a smaller cave, receding like a fire-place into the rocky wall opposite the opening. It was a long and tedious process which the man watched curiously. First, kneeling on the ground, she rubbed together two dry willow sticks until a little pile of dust had gathered. Then, still stooping, ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr
... more seated himself beside the fence, and resumed his occupation. When the last scrap of food was devoured, he arose, and, taking up a rough stick that served as a cane, he followed the receding ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... secret to him that the whole joyous world of sound was being gradually closed up to him; the charm of the human voice, the notes of the woodland birds, the sweet babblings of Nature, jargon to others, but intelligible to genius, the full-born splendors of heard music—all, all were fast receding from his grasp. ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... crossing for foot-passengers. To reach these planks, however, it was necessary to wade into the stream for full fifty yards, the "run" having overflowed its banks for that distance on either side of the bridge. The water was evidently receding, but, as we could not well wait, like the man in the fable, for it all to run by, we alighted, and counselled as to the best ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... where the slowly receding waters of the cave lingered in shallow pools above the small crevices long after the main portions had become dry. That the crust was formed on top of the water, instead of beneath its surface, has been proved ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... night that succeeded her last brief conference with Harold, the Vala wandered through the wild forest land, seeking haunts or employed in collecting herbs, hallowed to her dubious yet solemn lore; and the last stars were receding into the cold grey skies, when, returning homeward, she beheld within the circle of the Druid temple a motionless object, stretched on the ground near the Teuton's grave; she approached, and perceived what seemed a corpse, it was so still and stiff in its repose, ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... advantage of this target, and our successful fire gave him full proof of the skill of our gunners. The latter had a hard time of it; the high seas poured over the low deck, and they continually stood up to their necks in the cold salt water. They were often dragged off the deck by the great receding waves, but as they were tied by strong ropes to the cannons we were able to pull them up again, and fortunately no ...
— The Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner • Georg-Guenther von Forstner
... But Jocelyn was receding from the pretty widow's house with long strides. He went out very little during the next few days, but about a week later he kept an engagement to dine with Lady Iris Speedwell, whom he never neglected, because she was the brightest hostess ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... still holding the hand of dawn and went out to the cliff edge, as if there in the heaving waters he might read the Eternal Meaning and Purpose of it all. He thought how every individual man is one with the great tide of humanity, advancing with it, receding with it, subject to one eternal law he could not read. How the suffering and sin of one was the burden of all: the heroic endeavours and victories of one the gain of all. The little isolated aim ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... contradiction to all which he has maintained before, are, in fact, a concession of having been wrong from the beginning. Ewald, who, as we said above, himself refuses to allow the truth of Job's last and highest position, supposes that he is here receding from it, and confessing what an over precipitate passion had betrayed him into denying. For many reasons, principally because we are satisfied that Job said then no more than the real fact, we cannot think Ewald right; and the concessions are too large and too inconsistent ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... and deep-green serpentine spotted with flakes of snow, and marbles, that half refuse and half yield to the sunshine, Cleopatra-like, "their bluest veins to kiss"[155]—the shadow, as it steals back from them, revealing line after line of azure undulation, as a receding tide leaves the waved sand; their capitals rich with interwoven tracery, rooted knots of herbage, and drifting leaves of acanthus and vine, and mystical signs, all beginning and ending in the Cross; and above them, in the broad archivolts, ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... dangerous, and rendered a retrograde movement absolutely necessary. But Napoleon would not consent to this step, though he had at first pointed out Woronowo as a more secure position. In this war, still in his view rather political than military, he dreaded above all things the appearance of receding. He preferred risking everything rather than acknowledge to his enemies the ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote |
