"Sinking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mused the other lad, with a shake of his head; "and to think of that poor old lady, an invalid, you said, and confined to a wheelchair, watching the sinking sun faithfully each evening as it sets, still yearning for her boy to come back. It is a dream that has become a part of her very existence. Why, even if young Joel had lived he would now be over sixty years of age, ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... already from the heaven's high steep The dewy night wheels down, and sinking slow, The stars are gently wooing us to sleep. But, if thy longing be so great to know The tale of Troy's last agony and woe, The toils we suffered, though my heart doth ache, And grief would fain the memory forego Of scenes so sad, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... helpless in their unrelaxing grasp. If one could have kept a record of one's physical sensations it would have been a fine collection of absurdities and contradictions. Hardly touching the ground and yet leaden-footed; with a sinking heart and an excited brain; hot and trembling with a secret faintness, and yet as firm as a rock and with a sort of indifference to it all, I did reach the door which was frightfully like any other commonplace door, but at the same time had ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... Tyrilla's face, The specious front shines out with borrow'd grace; Tho' pasteboards, glitt'ring like a tinsell'd coat, A rasa tabula within denote: Yet, if a venal and corrupted age, And modern vices should provoke thy rage; If, warn'd once more by their impending fate, A sinking country and an injur'd state, Thy great assistance should again demand, And call forth reason to defend the land; Then shall we view these sheets with glad surprise, Inspir'd with thought, and speaking to our eyes; Each vacant space shall then, enrich'd, dispense True force of ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... wretched treatment, Sometimes forgetting the taste of bread, And scarce remembering what meat meant, That my poor stomach's past reform; And there are times when, mad with thinking, I'd sell out heaven for something warm To prop a horrible inward sinking. ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... contemplating this analogy, which, I think, he might have carried further, very much to the advantage of his argument. He might have shown, that these "hunters, whose game is man," have many sports analogous to our own. As we drown whelps and kittens, they amuse themselves, now and then, with sinking a ship, and stand round the fields of Blenheim, or the walls of Prague, as we encircle a cockpit. As we shoot a bird flying, they take a man in the midst of his business or pleasure, and knock him down with an apoplexy. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... my aunt informed me, to my infinite terror, that he was coming to speak to her herself on the next day. On the next day, still bundled up in my curious habiliments, I sat counting the time, flushed and heated by the conflict of sinking hopes and rising fears within me; and waiting to be startled by the sight of the gloomy face, whose ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... be thought an honorable termination to my misfortunes, that I might not seem to live an object of contempt, if, sinking under my afflictions, I tamely submit to injustice. But now I can neither live with pleasure, nor can die without disgrace.[55] I implore you, therefore, Conscript Fathers, by your regard for yourselves,[56] for your children, and for your parents, and by the majesty of the Roman ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... spray; the old ship rolling, plunging, and now and then quivering, as some side wave struck her, with a complication of motions, sidelong and headlong, the huge waves flying before us and yet carrying us on,—wild motions, rolling, pitching, sinking down the long green slope into the valley, to be flung up into the tumult of wind and wave again. In all this complexity of forces we were as helpless as feathers in the wind, cut off from mother earth as much as if we were carried away on the clouds; the feeling of absolute insignificance ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... her companion were less easy to him. The great broad chin, with creases in it large enough to hide a finger in; the astonished eyes, that seemed to expostulate with themselves for sinking deeper and deeper into the yielding fat of the soft face; the nose afflicted with that disordered action of its functions which is generally termed The Snuffles; the short thick throat and labouring chest, with other ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... Society Diarist quoted by Cosmo Hamilton writes of an occasion when: "he was given, rather foolishly, a little gold period chair and as he made his points it slowly collapsed under him. He rose just in time and sinking into another chair that someone put behind him began at the word he had last spoken. No acting could have secured such an effect of complete indifference. It was evident that he had barely ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... yet time, lord, and the gear is good," answered Skallagrim, and one by one he threw pieces down into the boat. As the last fell the Raven sank to her bulwarks. Then Skallagrim stepped from the sinking deck into the boat, and cut the cord, ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... its redemption in their own hands. For these reasons this stock has always been something higher in the market than any other, and it now sells at 93 dollars a share of 100 dollars, which is about 3-1/4 per cent. At the price at which the commissioners of the sinking fund are limited, they cannot buy this stock; but when all the rest of the debt is paid, this must come next, and as soon as the government offers to purchase, it will rise still higher, perhaps to par. ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... the affairs of the hospital have been in a bad state, and the loss of the suit has completed it." Then Monsieur de Marne felt his conscience reproach him for what he had done: he pictured to himself those unfortunate people leaving the hospital in tears, sinking with weakness and grief, and perhaps calling for curses upon him. He thought of the three days that they had been without either bread or broth, and he fancied he saw their pale and emaciated countenances, and began to consider ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... blaze of a cannon, when the report followed, and the hissing of a ball was heard. Almost on the instant the little craft received a terrible shock; and, in the midst of a cloud of spray thrown around it, the two rowers were seen tumbling over the side and sinking below the surface of the water. Two of the sharks disappeared at ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... bright day in March—one of those which almost redeem the reputation of that desperado of a month. Eph was leaning on his fence, looking now down the bay and now to where the sun was sinking in the marshes. He knew that all the other men had gone to the town-meeting, where he had had no heart to intrude himself—that free democratic parliament where he had often gone with his father in childhood; where the boys, rejoicing in a general ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... depths. It has been shown that the long skeletal processes which grow out from these organisms have significance not merely as a supporting skeleton, but also as an extension of the superficial area, which increases the contact with the water-particles, and prevents the floating organisms from sinking. It has been established that the processes are considerably shorter in the colder layers of the ocean, and that they may be twelve times as long[36] in the warmer layers, thus corresponding to the greater or smaller amount of friction which takes place in the ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... all, Little Jule was not to be confided in. Lively enough, and playful she was, but on that very account the more to be distrusted. Who knew, but that like some vivacious old mortal all at once sinking into a decline, she might, some dark night, spring a leak and carry us all to the bottom. However, she played us no such ugly trick, and therefore, I wrong Little ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... Jack was at work with the pick, something curious happened. Instead of sinking into the earth it glanced ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger
... think of preferring the latter? The Americans of the Southern States have two powerful passions which will always keep them aloof; the first is the fear of being assimilated to the negroes, their former slaves; and the second the dread of sinking ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... the chariot waited, bade the driver cross the canal by a bridge there was here. We drove on a while in silence, following a track which ran between the cultivated land and the desert. At length I pointed to the sinking sun and asked if it were not ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... was illumined suddenly by a white flame, whether from the leaping of some inner emotion or from the sinking firelight which blazed up fitfully Miss Saidie could not tell. As she turned her head with an impatient movement her black hair slipped its heavy coil and spread in a shadowy mass upon ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... at the mouth of the Gulch was a busy scene, every foot was good paying stuff, for in the eddy, where the torrents in winter rushed down into the Yuba, the gold had settled down and lay thick among the gravel. But most of the parties were sinking, and it was a long way down to the bed-rock; for the hills on both sides sloped steeply, and the Yuba must here at one time have rushed through a narrow gorge, until, in some wild freak, it brought down millions of tons of gravel, and resumed its course seventy ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... merged queerly and the place was by waters she had never seen. They were upon some board or ground or something that reached far out, and at the end of this was Carrie. They looked about, and now the thing was sinking, and Minnie heard the low sip ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... bivouac where we were; and there we stayed all day, while horse and foot and guns, English, Dutch, and Hanoverians, were streaming through. The devil's music went on till evening, sometimes rising into a roar, sometimes sinking into a grumble, until about eight o'clock in the evening it stopped altogether. We were eating our hearts out, as you may think, to know what it all meant, but we knew that what the Duke did would be for the best, so we just ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the way. "Man falling—stand from under!" was the cry—how familiar it is!—and acquaintances and friends fled in mad skedaddle. He would surely be asking favors—would be trying to borrow money. It is no peculiarity of rats to desert a sinking ship; it is simply an inevitable precaution in a social system modeled as yet upon nature's cruel law of the survival of the fittest. A falling man is first of all a warning to all other men high enough up to be able to fall—a warning to them ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... Pierre, beginning to catch the light, sink below us in distance; and above them, southwardly, an amazing silouette begins to rise,—all blue,—a mountain wall capped with cusps and cones, seeming high as Pele itself in the middle, but sinking down to the sea-level westward. There are a number of extraordinary acuminations; but the most impressive shape is the nearest,—a tremendous conoidal mass crowned with a group of peaks, of which two, taller than the rest, tell their name at once by the beauty of their forms,— the ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... crushing streets and alleys; From the churches' solemn and reverend night, All come forth to the cheerful light. How lively, see! the multitude sallies, Scattering through gardens and fields remote, While over the river, that broadly dallies, Dances so many a festive boat; And overladen, nigh to sinking, The last full wherry takes the stream. Yonder afar, from the hill-paths blinking, Their clothes are colors that softly gleam. I hear the noise of the village, even; Here is the People's proper Heaven; Here high and low contented see! Here I ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... beginning of our era, and so the religious cults draw out their existence to a late period; but as the writing and the civilization yield before new forces that entirely alter the character of Oriental culture, so also the religion, after sinking ever lower into the bogs of superstition, disappears, much as the canals and little streams of the Euphrates valley, through the neglect which settled over the country, become lost in ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... as if he could not reach the side of the vessel. Instantly Fairburn threw off his jacket, and plunged overboard, while I cast a rope towards him. He swam out with powerful strokes towards the poor fellow, and grasped him just as he was on the point of sinking. As the brig had only been drifting to leeward, they were at no great distance. I again hove the rope towards them. Fairburn seized it, and, lifting the light form of the Malay lad under his left arm, he ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... new bow and arrow, and if there is a villain there, you'll see how quick I'll lay him out. I'm not afraid, anyway, where Fritz is," he added, half to himself. They marched along very softly, their little bare feet sinking into the soft velvet carpet. Louis went boldly ahead with his bow and arrow. Carrie followed, her jet-black hair streaming down over her white night dress, and little Hope came close behind, hugging her white ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... and vanity; that a true national good breeding would not know, or seem to know, whether the nation is old or young; whether the tides of being are in their flow or ebb; whether these coursers of the sun are sinking slowly to rest, wearied with a journey of a thousand years, or just bounding from the Orient unbreathed. Higher laws than those of taste determine the consciousness of nations. Higher laws than those ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... priests who came with him, and watching the lighted tapers blow about in the wind, for the window was open and there was a strong draught, suddenly I felt a pain in my head which was worse than anything I had felt before,—a dreadful pain, which made me feel giddy and confused. I felt myself sinking, and I suppose I must have cried out, for I remember that some one lifted me and put a wet cloth on my head. The last thing I saw was Teresina's pale, quiet face, with the white and gold confirmation ribbon bound about her brows. I never saw her again. When I came to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... warning to them from time to time, to which they paid no sort of attention. At last he desisted, saying they might drown themselves if they had a mind, for never a bit would he help them; but no sooner did the sinking figure of the adventurous little boy catch his eye, than, diver fashion, he joined the palms of his hands over his head, inverted his position in one instant, and urging himself into swifter motion by a smart push with his feet against the anchor, shot head foremost into the water. ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... Caustic, like a preux chevalier, pressed forward to offer his aid where the pressure was most oppressive, and where the fainting ladies were dropping by dozens, like ripe fruit in autumn. As for myself, I was just in time to receive in my arms a beautiful girl who was on the point of sinking, and, being provided with hartshorn, my assistance was so effectual, with the aid of a neighbouring window, that I had the satisfaction of restoring her in a few minutes to her friends, who did all they could, by crowding round her with ill-timed condolements, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... grim and great, Fought to make and to save the State: Weary marches and sinking ships; Cheers ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... sky, was reflected in her, something of the fatality. What was, WAS. With all his young will he could not alter it. He saw her face, the skin still fresh and pink and downy, but crow's-feet near her eyes, her eyelids steady, sinking a little, her mouth always closed with disillusion; and there was on her the same eternal look, as if she knew fate at last. He beat against it with all the strength ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... With a sinking heart he recalled Cynthia's description of the man. To a certain extent it still fitted him, but he imagined that those twelve years had had a hardening effect upon him, making rigid that which had always been stubborn, driving the iron deeper and ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... it's I!" the boy returned, apparently easier, but sinking back against the wall; while his restored friend, who had sat down beside him, took his ...
— The Pupil • Henry James
... at him aghast, and there was no doubt about his determination. With a sinking heart the clerk realized that he should have to make good to Mr. Judson the seven odd dollars of difference, and then he lost his head. Slipping round the counter to the door of the shop, he turned the key, thrust it in his pocket, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... to be sure—they imagined that she felt the separation more acutely than they did. Still, as the period for their departure approached, there was not one of the family, notwithstanding what she felt herself, who labored so incessantly to soothe and sustain the spirits of her father, who was fast sinking under the prospect of being "forever removed," as he said, "from the places his heart had grown into." She was in fact the general consoler of the family, and yet her eye scarcely ever met that of her brother that a tear did not tremble in it, and she felt disposed to burst out ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... rose, and tried to walk across the floor to the window. As he stepped out, the floor seemed to go down under him, and he quickly grasped the bed; he put out his foot again, and the floor rose up; he was dizzier than before, and he had a queer sinking feeling in his stomach. As the floor tilted down sideways again, he made a dash to the opposite wall, and held on there by the window; but the floor sank again, and he made another dash, back to bed. ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... 0.444 inch, giving a surface area of one-fourth square inch. It is fitted with a guard plate, which works loosely until the penetration has progressed to a depth of 0.222 inch, whereupon it tightens. (See Fig. 43.) The effect is that of sinking a ball half its diameter into the specimen. This apparatus is fitted into the movable head of ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record
... least regard for the truth. In respect to priority, it is a specious claim; but attended with no validity. When a gradual darkness has been overspreading the world, it requires as much time to emerge from the cloud, as there passed when we were sinking into it: so that they who come later may enjoy a greater portion of light, than those who preceded them by ages. Besides, it is to be considered, that the writers, to whom I chiefly appeal, lived ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... gathered their detachments, and every man had turned his face to the Texan prairies. Crockett was already far advanced on the way. Sam Houston was known to be kindling the fire on the spot; "and I suppose you know, father," said Jack, sinking his voice to a whisper, "that we have still ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... how happy my years had been while passed under her roof; but that now I had begun to wonder whether I had not duties elsewhere, in making a home for Harry,—and whether the fulfilment of these duties, quiet ones they must needs be in the case of such a cripple as myself, would not prevent my sinking into the querulous habit of thinking and talking, into which I found myself occasionally falling. Add to which, there was the prospect of benefit from the more bracing air of ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... burst, cartridges exploded, wide gaps were torn out of the sides of both vessels. "Have you struck?" cried the British captain. "No!" thundered Paul Jones. At last the Serapis yielded; but the Bon Homme Richard was fast sinking. Captain Jones left her and took possession of the Serapis. The American vessel rolled and lurched and pitched and plunged. The little silken flag that had never been conquered waved in the morning breeze for the last time, and then went down, "flying on the ship that ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan
... over and burst in front of us to the right. For an instant I felt in an awful funk, and my one idea was to flee from that sinister spot as fast as I could. We seemed to be going right for it, "looking for trouble," in fact, as the Tommies would say, and it gave one rather a funny sinking feeling in one's tummy! A shell might come whizzing along so easily just as the last one had done.[2] Someone at that moment said "Let's go back," and with that all my fears vanished in a moment as if by magic. "Rather not, this is ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... was the first step in a fight I can't remember even now without a sinking at the heart. The farmers of Jackson County, of which Pulaski was the county seat, found in litigation their chief distraction from the stupefying dullness of farm life in those days of pause, after the Indian and nature had been conquered and before ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... thing happened. The idol, and the great slab of stone on which it rested and of which it was a part, slowly moved; the head sinking, and the other end of the slab, on which the legs were carved, rising in the air! Young sprang up with a cry as he felt the stone sinking beneath him; and the figure, relieved of his weight, settled back into its former position with a slight jar. In a moment that the ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... The fall would be dreadful, for my hopes have never been nearer being realized than now! I am certain that what has prevented me from sinking under my sufferings has been my constant hope to profit by the important revelation which this woman made me at the ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... if they can but make things fine, Have consciences by no means tender In sinking all that, will not shine, All vulgar facts, that spoil their splendour:— As Irish country squires they say, Whene'er the Viceroy travels nigh, Compound with beggars, on the way, To be lock'd up, till he goes by; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various
... thoughts of retiring with the remains of his forces into Languedoc and Dauphiny, and defending himself as long as possible in those remote provinces. But it was fortunate for this good prince that, as he lay under the dominion of the fair, the women whom he consulted had the spirit to support his sinking resolution in this desperate extremity. Mary of Anjou, his queen, a princess of great merit and prudence, vehemently opposed this measure, which, she foresaw, would discourage all his partisans, and serve as a general signal for deserting a prince who seemed himself to despair ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... some masterly sketches of life and manners that have long since disappeared. The Greek islands have since fallen under the dominion of European uniformity; the costume of the people, the form of their government, are shabby imitations of Western models. But the cloudless sky, the sun slowly sinking behind Morea's hills, the sea on whose azure brow Time writes no wrinkle, and the marbled steep of Sunium, are still unchanged; and the peaceful tourist in these waters will see at once that Byron was a true workman in line and colour, and will feel the intellectual pleasure that ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... sunk so gradually, so persistently, and for so long a series of years as Egypt had now been sinking, if there is a revival, it must almost necessarily come from without. The corpse cannot rise without assistance—the expiring patient cannot cure himself. All the vital powers being sapped, all the energies ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... was fading into evening. High overhead in the clear heavens small rosy clouds seemed hardly to move across the sky but to be sinking into its depths ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... son accordingly retired to her usual sitting-room; where, since her overcharged bosom had found relief in tears, and her sinking spirits had been raised by the kind and comforting words of her dutiful son, she told him all that had occurred during the two preceding days, which constituted the brief but eventful period of his absence. ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... smiling like an idiot. He made some introductory remarks of his own—that "he was sorry the other chap hadn't turned up, that he was happy to have the privilege of expounding to them his views on this great subject "—and then with an ominous sinking of heart plucked forth his papers and launched into ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... me as if you never saw me before, Angus!" she said, her voice sinking softly, as she pronounced ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... turned her face away; she sighed deeply, stretched her thin hands on the pillow, and seemed to be sinking, sinking down through the bed. She ceased to breathe and lay in ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... of perhaps seventeen, who, sinking to his knees, threw up an arm across his face, then raised both ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... him, so that he concluded at length to make inquiries. [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 124.] The publisher confessed that he had not even undertaken to read them, and Nathaniel carried them back, with a sinking heart, to his little chamber in the house on Herbert Street,—where he may have had melancholy thoughts enough ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... appears an indescribable chaos; the tops of the hills exhibit the same strata as far as the eye can reach; and appear to have once formed the level of the country; and the valleys to be formed by the sinking of the earth, rather than the rising of the hills. Through the deep cracks and chasms thus formed, the rivers and brooks make their way, which renders it difficult to follow them. All these basaltic channels are called cut rocks by the ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... though I do not pretend to any knowledge in farming, I cannot help thinking, were water wanted only for the use of a family, a vast difficulty, and an inconvenience not to be got the better of, unless it were possible to get water by sinking wells at every half ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... The sun was sinking slowly as Isaura sat at her window, gazing dreamily on the rose-hued clouds that made the western borderland between earth and heaven. On the table before her lay a few sheets of manuscript hastily written, not yet reperused. ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... there was no visible chronicle of time in the House of Aselzion, save such as was evidenced by the broadening or waning light of day. Just now I knew it was late afternoon, as the window where I sat faced the west, and the sun was sinking in a blaze of glory immediately opposite to me. Bars of gold and purple and pale blue formed a kind of cloud gateway across the heavens, and behind this the splendid orb shone in a halo of deep rose. Watching the royal pageantry of colour on all sides, I allowed myself ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... she is 'ware of shadows Going out across the meadows From the slowly sinking sun,— Going through the misty spaces That the rippling ruby laces, Shadows, like the violets tangled, Like the soft light, softly mingled, Till the two seem just ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... he asked himself. Safe! Was anything safe from this devilish mystery that could pluck each cowering human from the lowest depths of this steel freighter, that could drag her down in the water till the radio man sent his cry: "We are sinking!..." ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... at the beauties of the light summer night he suddenly began to wonder. Could it be that he saw aright? But it actually looked as if the firmament were sinking. Anyway, to his vision it was much nearer ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... shallow, with a hole in the middle about one foot across. The water was perfectly calm. But every six minutes a sudden spurt of water and steam would rise about thirty feet, for thirty seconds, and then settle economically, without waste of water, into the pool, sinking with pulsations as on an elastic cushion a foot below the bottom of the pool. One could stride the opening like a colossus for five and one half minutes without fear. He might be using the calm depth for a mirror. But stay a moment too ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... sea-birds and by maddening billows; still I saw her, as at the moment when she ran past us, standing amongst the shrouds, with her white draperies streaming before the wind. There she stood, with hair dishevelled, one hand clutched amongst the tackling—rising, sinking, fluttering, trembling, praying; there for leagues I saw her as she stood, raising at intervals one hand to heaven, amidst the fiery crests of the pursuing waves and the raving of the storm; until at last, upon a sound from afar of malicious laughter and mockery, all was hidden ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... but it was with a far more terrible chill, as he felt that it was all those hours since Pete had been covered in. Worse, the position of the root indicated that one side had been driven right into the cave, the old roof, as it were, sinking down, and only one thing could have happened—the unfortunate occupant must ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... itself. Many very celebrated rivers never had so much water in their lives. Hence there was great amazement when the discrepancy was discovered. But of late years Dakota farmers away to the south and east of those points on the Missouri, sinking artesian wells, found immense volumes of water where the geologists said there would n't be any. So it is believed that the farmers have tapped the water leaking from that big hole in the Missouri River away up in ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... natural consequence, the school was composed of the elite of the South. Clang! clang! clang! sounded the great bell from the belfry as Daisy, with a sinking, homesick feeling stealing over her, walked slowly up the paved walk by John Brooks' side toward the ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... from doing good, they will do harm. They will give double wages, it may be. But then, forty-five men will be better provided for, whilst forty-five others will come to augment the number of those who are sinking into the grave. Upon this supposition, it is not the lowering of wages which is the mischief, it is the scarcity of capital. Low wages are not the cause, but the effect of the evil. I may add, that they are to a certain extent the remedy. ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... was suddenly interrupted. At the same moment both young men experienced a sinking sensation, as if the earth had been cut away from beneath their feet; then there was a crash, and they were violently thrown against each other; then they vaguely knew that the cab, heeling over, was being jolted ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... terrible legion on the border. Out there, somewhere, lived desperados, robbers, road-agents, murderers. More and more rumor had brought tidings of them into the once quiet village. Joan felt a slight cold sinking sensation at her heart. But this was only a magnificent threat of Jim's. He could not do such a thing. She would never let him, even if he could. But after the incomprehensible manner of woman, she ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... muse of the occasion was gradually sinking to the intellectual level of the company—with a consequence unforeseen, ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... painting, whenever you have no company in the house. You are not going to become a cipher, surely, Clarissa! What with Miss Granger's schools, and Miss Granger's clothing-club, and Miss Granger's premiums and prizes for this, that, and the other, you stand a fair chance of sinking into the veriest nobody, or you would, if it were not for your pretty face. And then you really must have employment for your mind, Clary. Look at me; see ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... capacity for the appreciation of stately form and exquisite workmanship. Built by the accomplished and learned Lichfield in the pure perpendicular style, at a time when Gothic architecture was fast sinking in its decline, it would seem to be, not only one of the triumphs of mediaeval art, but one of the very last efforts of a dying tradition; in it we see embodied the lofty thought of one of our noblest abbots. Though it has ...
— Evesham • Edmund H. New
... to, although Perry protested that as the charts showed a life-saving station every five miles or so all down the shore it was a shame not to take a chance. "I've always wanted to be taken off a sinking ship in a breeches-buoy," ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... ones, in which travelled the main party with their luggage. They met with disaster very soon after their start, one of the canoes having struck a rock, which made a hole in its side and caused the sinking of the craft. Fortunately, no lives were lost, but the voyage was interrupted. The party went ashore and did not resume their journey until their luggage was dried and the canoe repaired. On the ninth, ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... rigging, and the song of the forefoot as it drives the water before it in little curving ripples. And so the fleet floats out and out, and presently is lost on the glowing eastern sky-line. At sundown the boats come racing back, heading for the sinking sun, borne on the evening wind, which sets steadily shorewards, and at about the same hour the great seine-boats, with their crews of labouring paddlers, beat ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... immediately to go to the Lodge, or wait for orders. The accustomed method for those who have their majesties' commands to come to them is, to present themselves to the people in waiting, and by them to be announced. My heart, however, was already sinking, and my spirits every moment were growing more agitated, and my sweet Mrs. Delany determined to spare me the additional task of passing through such awe-striking formalities. She therefore employed my dear father-delighted ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... looked where the others looked, but saw only the burning blue with the white stand marked upon it. It was crowded like the deck of a sinking vessel, and Esther wondered at the excitement, the cause of which was hidden from her. She wandered to the edge of the crowd until she came to a chalk road where horses and mules were tethered. A little higher up she entered the crowd again, and came suddenly upon a switchback railway. Full ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... sterling out of the Irish Church Surplus Fund, and forty-nine years were allowed for repayment of the purchase-money to the State at 4 per cent., of which L2 15s. was interest on the advance and L1 5s. went to a sinking fund for the liquidation of ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... majority of the displays represented scenes of the war,—such as an engagement between Japanese infantry and mounted Cossacks, a night attack by torpedo boats, the sinking of a battleship. In the last-mentioned display, Russian bluejackets appeared, swimming for their lives in a rough sea;—the pasteboard waves and the swimming figures being made to rise and fall by the pulling of a string; while the crackling of quick-firing ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... ranges of Kerry were fast fading over the waters; well-known peaks, outlines familiar from childhood to the dwellers at Dunore, were sinking beneath the great circle of the sea. Cape Clear is left behind, and the lonely Fassnet lighthouse; the Ocean Queen is coming to the blue water, and the long solemn swell raises and sinks her ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... the girl as, with a wide sweep of his hat, the quarter-breed turned and made his way toward the camp of the Indians, which was located in a spruce thicket a short distance above the clearing. As he disappeared in the timber, Chloe felt a sudden sinking of the heart; a strange sense of desertion, of loneliness possessed her as she gazed into the deepening shadows of the wall of ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... could not understand at first. Then he discovered it. The wolves were gone. Remained only the trampled snow to show how closely they had pressed him. Sleep was welling up and gripping him again, his head was sinking down upon his knees, when he roused with ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... his hand, filled only with seaweed, and dripping with briny tears!—And between him and those golden sands, a radiant image floated, like the spirit in Dante's Paradise, singing "Ave-Maria!" and while it sang, down-sinking, and slowly ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... as arose from the crowd of on-lookers! It was a sound that none of them had ever heard before or could expect ever to hear again, unless he should be one of the last boat-load rescued from a sinking vessel. Then, those who had resisted the overflow of their emotion, who had stood in white despair as they thought of these two young lives soon to be wrapped in their burning shroud,—those stern men—the old sea-captain, ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of us went to see the Canal defences, dug the previous year, about four miles east of the Canal. The sand was so soft, no amount of ordinary sandbagging or revetting would make it stand up, and all the trenches were made by sinking complete wooden frames into a wide scooped out trench, and then shovelling the sand back on either side of the frame. The original digging had to be about 20 feet wide to allow them to sink the frames sufficiently deep in the sand. It must have been a colossal work, and this was only a ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... high temperature and delirium; days of heart-sinking when Strang's pulse was barely perceptible; days when he lay conscious, eyes weary and drawn, the sweat of pain on his face. Linday was indefatigable, cruelly efficient, audacious and fortunate, daring hazard after hazard and ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... 2,200,000 men, and was being increased at an average rate of 250,000 a month. In transit from home ports to ports in Europe and Siberia, only one transport ship was lost, and of its complement of troops 126 men were drowned. The sinking was caused by collision with another ship in the same convoy, not by an enemy submarine. The United States has not lost one man in transport, by an act of ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... the diagrams show the position and form of the air-cases which prevent a lifeboat from sinking. The white oblong space in Figure 2 is the free space available for crew and passengers. In Figure 3 is seen the depth to which the air-chambers descend, and the height to which the bow ...
— Battles with the Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... monstrous provoking, for if one's ever so cold, he lollops so, that one's quite starved. But you must know there's another thing he does that is quite as bad, for if he gets a seat, he never offers to move, if he sees one sinking with fatigue. And besides, if one is waiting for one's carriage two hours together, he makes it a rule never to stir a step to see for it. Only think ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... step over every obstruction. I was, I must confess, grievously frightened by the shadows! I saw living things moving to and fro— forms gigantic and forms dwarfish seemed sometimes approaching us, sometimes hiding behind masses of rock, or sinking back into nothingness. Lights and shadows, fears and anxiety, thus took alternate possession ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... water; and others were found in the adjoining creeks. Afterwards, however, the water suddenly disappeared again; and for eight miles farther its bed was entirely dry, although fine grass was growing in it. We had every prospect of passing the night without water, as the sun was sinking fast; but we fortunately reached a small hole before dark, containing a little water, which we had to share with our horses, with a small brown snake, and with a large flight of bronze-winged pigeons; the latter, surprised at our ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... of the monsoon, and waiting its return. Leaving Ormus on that day, we arrived in Swally roads on the 24th of that month, where the London, Jonas, and Lion, loaded for England, and sailed homewards bound on the 30th December. Before setting sail, news was brought of sinking three Portuguese carracks off the port of Masulipatam, by the English and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... thus speaking, he saw the other stork hovering over their heads, and sinking slowly to the ground. He drew the box quickly out of his girdle, and took a good pinch; then he presented it to the Grand-Vizier, who also snuffed some of the powder, and both exclaimed "MUTABOR!" Immediately their ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... "right boy"? I had for a moment a sinking feeling of terror in the thought that the enemy had captured him. Mother Borton's warning that they had found his place of hiding returned to confirm this thought. But in an instant I remembered that the enemy had followed me in force to Livermore in chase of the wrong ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... representatives of the people. The rest are—what? Nothing—unless it be a mob. But the clear meaning of this libel was an appeal to violence, in fact, and to stigmatize the House." "Then he charges the House with sinking material evidence; which in fact is accusing the House of injustice. This is a charge the most shocking; the most severe, and the most unjust and virulent, against the good, the tender House of Commons; that safeguard of our liberty, and guardian ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... the danger now. It was less than ten minutes away from their planet, and now great numbers of ships of all sorts started up from the planet, swarming out like rats from a sinking vessel. ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... Missionary Labours and Scenes in South Africa, gives us a very remarkable example of the disappearing of one of the most significant words from the language of a tribe sinking ever deeper in savagery; and with the disappearing of the word, of course, the disappearing as well of the great spiritual fact and truth whereof that word was at once the vehicle and the guardian. The Bechuanas, a Caffre tribe, employed formerly the word 'Morimo,' to designate ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... be secured by his giving his country a Constitution, which will at once place his establishment beyond the caprice and the tyranny of corrupt administrations, and secure hereafter the first monarchy in Europe from the possibility of sinking under weak Princes, by whom the royal splendour of France has too often been debased into the mere tool of vicious and mercenary noblesse, and sycophantic courtiers. A King, protected by a Constitution, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the wise, and the child from the elder turned; And again in the glimmering house-ways the golden Sigurd burned; He stood outside in the sunlight, and tarried never a deal, But leapt on the cloudy Greyfell with the clank of gold and steel, And he rode through the sinking day to the walls of the kingly stead, And came to Regin's dwelling when the wind was fallen dead, And the great sun just departing: then blood-red grew the west, And the fowl flew home from the sea-mead, and ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... a sinking heart, and heard nothing but the farewell twitter and whistle of the birds in the bushes around. How many stories had she listened to by the winter hearth, of children stolen by the fairies, at nightfall, ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... sinners. Say, when thou art upon thy knees, Lord, here is a Jerusalem sinner! a sinner of the biggest size! one whose burden is of the greatest bulk and heaviest weight! one that cannot stand long without sinking into hell, without thy supporting hand! "Be not thou far from me, O Lord! O my strength, haste thou to help me I say, put in thy name with Magdalen, with Manasseh, that thou mayst fare as the Magdalen and the Manasseh sinners do. The man in the gospel made the desperate condition of his ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan
... was quickly stung into action, and the French mounted men charged, only to be driven back in confusion. The constable himself headed the leading line of dismounted men-at-arms; weighted with their armour, and sinking deep into the mud with every step, they yet reached and engaged the English men-at-arms; for a time the fighting was severe. The thin line of the defenders was borne back and King Henry was almost beaten to the ground. But at this moment the archers, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of myself," remarked Willis, "it is a crime to go down with a sinking ship so long as there is a straw ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... eye is like the Star of Eve, And sweet your voice, as Seraph's song Yet not your heavenly beauty gives 5 This heart with Passion soft to glow: Within your soul a voice there lives! It bids you hear the tale of Woe. When sinking low the sufferer wan Beholds no hand outstretch'd to save, 10 Fair, as the bosom of the Swan That rises graceful o'er the wave, I've seen your breast with pity heave, And therefore love ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... God, gentlemen hearers, I have performed my promise. I have redeemed my pledge. I have explained, according to my ability, the definitions, postulates, axioms, and the first eight propositions of the Elements of Euclid. Here, sinking under the weight of years, I lay down ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... to give his resolution greater force, as they who run in the stadium make as much noise as they can. The wrestlers, too, do the same when they are training; and the boxers, when they aim a blow with the cestus at their adversary, give a groan, not because they are in pain, or from a sinking of their spirits, but because their whole body is put upon the stretch by the throwing out of these groans, and the blow ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... remember is taking a swim and sinking, mother. I am very much obliged to you, and can get ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... fragrance. A little stream running down the side of the hill was used by the natives to water their plantations of taro, for which the side hill was formed into terraced beds. Paroquets and humming birds flew about, and the sun was sinking brilliantly in the western ocean line as he looked. So far, everything was fair, sweet, lovely; a contrast to what he met when he reached the lower grounds again. There the swarms of mosquitos compelled Mr. ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... on deck the morning after the sinking of the bark he was surprised to find the schooner under way again. Wilbur and Charlie had berthed forward during that night—Charlie with the hands, Wilbur in the Captain's hammock. The reason for this change of quarters had been found in a peremptory order ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... sculler was in the water. In the same moment two guns and two ducks were flung to the ground, two jackets were torn off, two pairs of shoes kicked away, and two men splashed into the water. Meanwhile the sculler had dropped quietly out of the sinking skiff, and after a glance at the two heads, one fair and the other dark, ploughing towards her, turned on her side and began to swim slowly in their direction so as to lessen the distance as much ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... Twice Wagon Point was occupied only by the wounded and the dead. Much of the fighting was either hand to hand or at such short range that the effect of the bullet could be almost read in the expression on the face of the stricken opponent; now of anguish, despair, or hatred, now of a gentle sinking to sleep after toil. The homely name of Wagon Hill, far away from the fatherland under the southern sun, will abide for all time in the chronicles of the deeds of the British private soldier. It was his own battle, by which he ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... tug of that something back of the dark lenses, some speculation going on in the man's mind concerning him. And he felt the firm fingers contract ever so slightly, sinking into the muscles of his forearm for a second with a hint of how they could bruise and paralyze at will. Once more a faint sense of revulsion fought with his natural inclination to aid the handicapped mariner, ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn |
