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Prostrate   /prˈɑstreɪt/   Listen
Prostrate

adjective
1.
Stretched out and lying at full length along the ground.  Synonym: flat.
2.
Lying face downward.  Synonym: prone.



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"Prostrate" Quotes from Famous Books



... (whatever my querulous weakness might suggest) a far better. The storm has gone over me, and I lie like one of those old oaks which the late hurricane has scattered about me. I am stripped of all my honours, I am torn up by the roots, and lie prostrate on the earth! There, and prostrate there, I most unfeignedly recognise the divine justice, and in some degree submit to it. But whilst I humble myself before God, I do not know that it is forbidden to repel the attacks of unjust and inconsiderate men. The patience of Job is proverbial. ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... Entente, or fighting with the Entente against Germany until Germany herself gave way. A slight foretaste of what would have happened was given us through the separatist steps taken by Andrassy at the last moment. This utterly defeated, already annihilated and prostrate Germany had yet the power to fling troops toward the Tyrol, and had not the revolution overwhelmed all Germany like a conflagration, smothering the war itself, I am not sure but that the Tyrol might at the last moment have been harried ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... a rush of feet in the darkness, followed by a metallic clang, as of hobnailed boots on metal. Hans, lying prostrate and half-stunned beneath the galvanised iron sheeting, which, dislodged from its former position by the impact of a heavy body descending from above, now forms part of the flooring of the trench, is suddenly aware that this same trench is full ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)

... immediate orders that Zadig should be brought before him, and that his two friends and the lady should be set at liberty. Zadig fell prostrate on the ground before the king and queen; humbly begged their pardon for having made such bad verses and spoke with so much propriety, wit, and good sense, that their majesties desired they might see him again. He did himself that honor, and ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... foliage, pink and yellow, in the light. The beauty wrought in her a dreamy receptive mood. Climbing higher, she came upon a very curious dip or hollow in the ground. In its narrowest part a man was lying prostrate; his face was buried in his hat, which was lying upon the ground between his hands; the whole expression of his body was that of attention concentrated upon something within the hat. When she came close he moved with a convulsive ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... War and the German avalanche which overwhelmed Belgium. Her banks were converted into hospitals; her industry lay prostrate; her people faced starvation. Some vital agency was necessary to centralize relief at home in the same way that the Commission for Relief in Belgium,—the famous ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... watched the whole spectacle as in a dream. So swift had been the action, so fantastic the denouement, that he could not at first reconcile it all with reality. He went slowly over to the prostrate "Slim" Rawley, whom the others had laid out decently upon the ground, half expecting him to leap up and laugh in their faces; but the already stiffening figure with the fiendish scowl upon its face, ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... my man," said the count, unravelling the prostrate and doubly knotted figure at our feet; "lend a hand, Patsey." Much to my astonishment, he obeyed the summons with alacrity, and proceeded to unharness the mare with the greatest despatch. My attention was, however, soon turned from him to my own more immediate concerns, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... take up a loaded musket. Sitting in the captain's chair, and leaning back, he placed the muzzle to his throat and touched the trigger with his naked foot. As the loud report rang out, and the cabin filled with smoke, the boy crawled from his dark retreat, and, stepping over the prostrate figure of Deschard, he reached the deck ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke

... strange orchid still lay there, black now and putrescent. The door banged intermittently in the morning breeze, and all the array of Wedderburn's orchids was shrivelled and prostrate. But Wedderburn himself was bright and garrulous upstairs in the glory of ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... he has sinned, and prostrate in adoration before the form of Christ, he is "caught up in the whirl and drift" of his vesture, and carried along with ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald

... an houre['s] discourse a Pesant's shape May represent the person of a king; Then in the person of the great Lentulus I doe salute Sunne-bright Terentia. Lady, vouchsafe a Saint-like smile on him (From that angell forme) whose honord minde Lies prostrate lowly at Terentia's feete; Who hath put off a Golden victors honour And left the Parthyan spoyle to Lepido; Whome many Ladies have bedecked with favours Of rich esteeme, oh proud he deignd to weare them, Yet guiftes and givers hee did slight esteeme; ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen

... his bed at the dead hours of the night, and retiring to his study, he would cast himself on the floor, and "wrestle with the Lord." He kept, usually, one day of each week in such fasting, sometimes two. In his vigils, very protracted, he would, in this prostrate position, be bathed in tears. By such exhausting processes, continued through days and nights, without food or rest, his nature failed; he grew faint; physical weakness laid him open to delusions of the ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... Usurper of the Homage and Reverence which Mankind ought of right to pay to their Maker, so his Usurpation also, like the World it self, must have an End: Satan is call'd the God of the World, as Men too much prostrate and prostitute themselves to him, yet he is not the Governor of this World; and therefore the Homage and Worship he has from the World is an Usurpation; and this will have an End, because the World it self will have an End; and all Mankind, as they had a beginning ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... length, upon the levee, and sat upon a great, prostrate beam. The air was pungent with the dust of commerce. The great river slipped yellowly past. Across it Algiers lay, a longitudinous black bulk against a vibrant electric haze ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... seen hundreds of worshipers prostrate, repeating their prayers with the most profound reverence, while the sight of the image filled me with boyish glee that I could hardly suppress. The identical image that was labeled Bluebeard in the museum is now Saint Peter. The "Disconsolate ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... larger houses a field or two. "Yes, sir, master is at home. If you'll please to ring the bell, one of the girls will come out." This was said by Mrs Baggett, advancing almost over the body of her prostrate husband. "Drunken brute!" she said, by way of a salute, as she passed him. He only laughed aloud, and looked around upon the ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope

... lead forth her brood of young for the first time. While the scratching and feeding are going on, all of a sudden the hen utters a loud shriek, and flaps her wings. The little chicks, although they have never seen a hawk, scurry hither and thither, and so prostrate their little brown and ashen bodies upon the ground as almost to conceal themselves. The Negro Folk Rhymes of warning must be looked upon a little in this same light. They are but the strains of terror given by the promptings of a mother ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley

... under bare poles. A snow-white sea-bird came for shelter from the storm, and poised on the deck to rest. The incident filled my sailors with awe; to them it was a portentous omen, and in distress they dragged themselves together and, prostrate before the bird, prayed the Holy Virgin to ask God to keep them from harm. The rain beat on us in torrents, as the bark tossed and reeled ahead, and day turned black as night. The gale was from E.S.E., and our course ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum

... go for his national foe, and, as soon as he's thoroughly licked him, Should he dare to demand a concession of land from his prostrate and paralyzed victim, It is then you arise and his arm you arrest when his harvest is ripe for the reaping, And a people oppressed may in confidence rest when ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley

... Mary. And even at that moment the poor rags fell off them, and she saw them dressed in royal robes of surpassing splendour; and the Child Jesus grew to the stature of a man, whilst over the wound of His side there gleamed the radiance of a brilliant star. Dominica fell prostrate at their feet as they rose into the air; and taking the roses from His mother's bosom, the Divine Spouse scattered them over the head and garments of His beloved, and said, "O My spouse! thou hast adorned My image with garlands and roses, and therefore do I sprinkle thee with these flowers, ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton

... was quite close now, and the trail was no longer filled with blanket rolls and haversacks, nor did pitiful, prostrate figures lie in wait behind each rock. I guessed this must mean that I now was well in advance of the farthest point to which Capron's troop had moved, and I was running forward feeling confident that I must be close on our ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis

... glistened from under every chair, and from the hearth, and out from among the ashes, like unto so many evil eyes glaring upon him for his stupidity and carelessness; and how little Fanny unwound from one foot of the prostrate six feet seven and a-half several yards of snow-white muslin—the innocent cause of the disaster; and how, light as a bird, she sprung, merrily laughing, from the room, with the fluttering fragments of her cobweb dress ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... on account of his cunning and long standing among them, worshipped by the gang of German Illuminati as an idol rather than revered as an apostle. He is their Baal, before whom they hope to oblige all nations upon earth to prostrate themselves as soon as infidelity has entirely banished Christianity; for the Illuminati do not expect to reign till the last Christian is buried under the rubbish of the last altar of Christ. It is not the fault of Montgelas if such an event has ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... outstretched hand. One can never forget such a spectacle; but I was not nearly so much impressed in a religious sense as when, forty years later, I stood in the portals of a Mohammedan mosque in Central India and saw a thousand turbaned Moslems prostrate themselves with their foreheads in the dust before a voice which proclaimed the presence of the awful, ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... the wise youth rose, and leisurely trotted to the scene of battle, where stood St. George puffing over the prostrate Dragon. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... servant, have brought hope, not obedience, and have come as a beggar, and not for lucre!—Do unto me what is worthy of thyself; but deal not with me as I myself have deserved.—Whether thou wilt slay me or pardon my offence, my head and face are prostrate at thy threshold. Thy servant has no will of his own; whatever thou commandest, that he will perform. At the door of the Cabah I saw a petitioner, who was praying and weeping bitterly. I ask not, saying, "Approve of my obedience, but draw the ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... initiated is then seized and blindfolded, after which the doors are thrown open, and he is carried into the dining-room, and laid upon the table athwart the chalk lines. The emperor immediately draws his short hunting-knife, and after making several mystic passes with it in the air, strikes the prostrate body of the neophyte a smart blow with the flat of the broad blade. The huntsman toots forth the signal of "dead! dead!" which is used to call the pack off the quarry, and the new-fledged "weide-man" is permitted to struggle off the ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... filled his heart and the wild thrill of combat tingled along every nerve. With the strength and ferocity of a panther he hurled himself at Bud Hayes, landing with such force that Bud was hurled several feet away from the prostrate Herb, ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman

... silence. The prostrate man uttered a slight groan, as if in pain, and drew up his leg to change his position. After a pause, he said, in a restrained voice, "I differ from you, Mr. Hathaway; but enough of this for the present. I have something else to say. It will be necessary ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte

... another word to say, but he cast himself at full length upon the prostrate gentleman, and, tightly embracing his frail figure, defended him with his own body from the first onset of the ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... charming Pieta of Fra Bartolommeo's occupies a place near the Pieta of Andrea del Sarto, the two pictures forming a most interesting contrast of style. The kneeling Virgin and S. John support the head of the prostrate Saviour, S. Catherine and Mary Magdalen weep at his feet, the latter in an agony of grief crouches prone on the ground hiding her face. The colouring is extremely rich, broad masses of full-tone melting softly into deep shadows. ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)

... Porvenir, under the heading, 'Suicide of a Priest,' I read that one of these very canons of the Cathedral at Cordova had shot himself. A report was heard, said the journal, and the Civil Guard arriving, found the man prostrate with blood pouring from his ear, a revolver by his side. He was transported to the hospital, the sacrament administered, and he died. In his pockets they found a letter, a pawn-ticket, a woman's bracelet, and some ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham

... face above the prostrate form of his wife, calling to her in endearing whispers while, with his handkerchief he wiped from her lips the oozing, crimson stream. His teeth chattered. Once before he had seen such a stream. It was long ago—long ago, but he remembered it well. He was back—a little boy, ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... was destruction. On the sea it leaves wrecks. What does it leave on land? Funerals. When it subsides, New England is prostrate. It has left its legacy: this legacy is coughs and patent medicines. This is an epic; this is destiny. You think Providence is expelled out ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... girl was engaged, as he thought, at the very moment in which she had accepted him! To have been made use of as a step, on which a disadvantageous marriage might be avoided without detriment to her own interest! It was this feeling which made him utterly prostrate,—which told him that death itself would be the one desirable way out of his difficulties if death were ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope

... quarter had not been long under way when, following a scrimmage, a knot of Yale players gathered about a prostrate figure. ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes

... hand, his companion leaped forward and, with a cat-like motion, dropped down beside the prostrate form. Tearing away at jacket and shirt, he bared the breast and placed his ear close down upon ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell

... him a good opportunity of measuring its size, the limbs of which seemed to touch the sky. The ancient trunk was black, wrinkled, and partly buried in the earth by the weight of its fall; even as it lay prostrate, it was several feet higher than ourselves, while the large branches, scattered and broken, were equal in diameter to the biggest chestnut-trees. A flapping of wings suddenly attracted our attention, and we saw two couples of enormous crows ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart

... dress was simple and would have been rude but for the quaintly ornamented silver girdle that bound her waist, and the massive bracelets on her arms. Like the girl she was seen for the first time; her almost supernatural appearance inspired wonder and awe. She bent over the prostrate form: "Marie said with her last breath," she muttered to herself, "that ere the oaks were green again the sweetest maidens in the island would be in her embrace, but she cannot summon this one now! her vext spirit has not yet ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous

... rifles were discharged simultaneously by Gazen and myself. There was little noise, but the car trembled with the shock, and the prostrate man ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro

... and many warriors and a multitude of people accompanied them beyond the limits of A-lur and after they had bid them good-bye and Tarzan had invoked the blessings of God upon them the three Europeans saw their simple, loyal friends prostrate in the dust behind them until the cavalcade had wound out of the city and disappeared among the trees of the ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... was dead, returned to the cottage to look after the lad, who still remained prostrate and embracing the corpse in the chamber. Edward then reflected upon what had best be done. After a time, he decided upon dragging away the body of the robber named Ben outside of the threshold, and then securing the door. This, with some trouble, he effected, and he then made fast the ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat

... the bridge, and, for a time, both mind and body were prostrate and enfeebled. Cleveland had the sagacity to discover that the affections had their share in the change that he grieved to witness, but he had also the delicacy not to force himself into the young man's confidence. ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... bien fini! Allons! Jettez-le!" growled the grim boatswain, dropping his loaded club, as all three spurned the prostrate body, and then, with a heavy lurch, it bounded off the sodden bank ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... was nearly fainting, and who was prostrate with terror, could only sob out: 'Good heavens! ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... begins to look as though I will have to pillow my head on the soft side of a bowlder, and take lodgings on the footsteps of a bald mountain to-night; and it will scarcely invite sleep to know that two pairs of sharp, wolfish eyes are peering wistfully through the darkness at one's prostrate form, and two red tongues are licking about in hungry anticipation of one's blood. Moreover, these animals have an unpleasant habit of congregating after night to pay their compliments to the pale moon, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... taught her the insufficiency of such a method, the eighteenth century did its work. Above all, it produced Bishop Butler.—The previous century, (the seventeenth,) witnessed the supremacy of fanaticism. It saw the monarchy laid prostrate, and the Church trampled under foot, and the use of the Liturgy prohibited by Act of Parliament. The "Sufferings of the Clergy" fill a folio volume. But this was the century which produced our great ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... ready to bite without yet daring, so mutually formidable are they. After a certain period of waiting, during which the pair merely exchange threats, the stronger of the two, the one on top, closes her lethal engine and grinds the head of the prostrate foe. Then she calmly devours the deceased by ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... them and stared with frank curiosity past his employer, who had often entrusted him with messages requiring secrecy, past his employer's companion, to the third figure in the room—a prostrate figure which lay quite still under the heavy folds of a long dark ulster with its face ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace

... wonderingly up at her. She recognized the presence of Dr. Sunderland, of Michael and several of the waitresses, and a flighty woman in blue taffeta—an ubiquitous patron,—but she made her way past them at once, and sank on her knees before the prostrate child. ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley

... the Barang's men another white went down. Then the native guards broke and ran, flinging guns away in their panic. The remaining officer, glaring around with savage hate in his eyes, turned to run too, but before leaving the spot he sprang over to Barry and placed his pistol to the prostrate skipper's head. ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle

... an old score!" I shouted, as I brought him down on the instant with a cut which laid him bleeding and prostrate at my feet. ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed

... smote Porter Barkley full upon the temple, and he fell like a log. Dan Anderson checked himself, seeing the utter unconsciousness of the fallen man. For a moment he looked down upon him, then walked a few steps aside, standing as does the wild stag by its prostrate rival. The fierce heats of that land, still primitive, now flamed in his soul, gone swiftly and utterly savage. It was some moments before he thrust the heavy weapon back into its scabbard, and, turning, ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... prostrate and babbled of all things, past, present and to come. Three names dotted his babblings. One was that of his mother, one of his captain, and the third that of Ethel Dent. With all three of them, he appeared to be upon the best of terms. Finally, on the ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... which they plunged, and running a short distance, at a signal from Howard, they dropped flat upon their faces, and crawled beneath thy sheltering projections of the rocks, Terror at the same time nestling down by the prostrate form of Elwood. ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis

... making any noise, to the place we used to call our little postern. It looked so sad, compared with what it used to be, so desolate and brambled up and ruinous, that I scarcely should have known it, except for the gray pedestal of the prostrate dial we used to moralise about. And the ground inside it, that was nice turf once, with the rill running down it that perhaps supplied the moat—all stony now, and overgrown, and tangled, with ugly-looking elder-bushes sprawling through ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... the rush for more than a moment. And even that check was the result of surprise more than fear. A party of those Arabs who were armed with rifles instantly replied, but the bullets passed harmlessly over the prostrate men. ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne

... crown immortally Long guard it yours! If I affect it more Than as your honour and as your renown, Let me no more from this obedience rise, Which my most inward true and duteous spirit Teacheth, this prostrate and exterior bending. God witness with me, when I here came in, And found no course of breath within your majesty, How cold it struck my heart! If I do feign, O, let me in my present wildness die And never live to show the incredulous world The noble change that I have ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]

... of the company, who is so harshly tyrannical that his men hate him, and resolve to slay him in the battle. But he survives both open and secret foes, and at the end of the conflict they find him lying prostrate, his whole body shaken with sobs, and saying brokenly, "Fifty-two! Fifty-two!" Fifty-two of his company had been killed, and despite his cruelty to them, he had loved ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps

... continuing his connection with the empire in whose service he had won it, and by whom only it could be fully appreciated. He was now a great marshal of a great empire, one of the Paladins around the imperial throne; 10 in China he would be nobody, or (worse than that) a mendicant alien, prostrate at the feet, and soliciting the precarious alms, of a prince with whom he had no connection. Besides, it might reasonably be expected that the Czarina, grateful for the really efficient aid given by the Tartar 15 prince, would ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey

... riotous invasion of Villa Elsa, when there had been confirmed the abject and tumultuous surrender of the two ladies, mind, body and soul, to mere money, prostrate at the feet of an American "pig," Gard experienced a numbness of heart. True, the daughter was tied to the apron strings of her mother. But then Jim could only fling his pocketbook in her face. He had done it and she, sheep-like, ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry

... the prostrate figure inside the cottage and laid him down like a log on the floor. He never moved nor uttered a sound, and I was afraid at first that I had finished him for good and all. I next knelt down and proceeded to unfasten the helmet, which, from its appearance, was something ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade

... had reached the house, and Mr. Seymour was tiptoeing about, getting out one remedy after another for his prostrate wife, who feebly assured him she was better. By the time he had given her smelling salts, a little port, a whiff of ammonia, some soda and water, a smell of camphor, and had bathed her forehead in Florida water, alcohol, witch-hazel, and rubbed it with camphor ice ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington

... soft pity in the chief inspire, Touch'd with the dear remembrance of his sire. Then with his hand (as prostrate still he lay) The old man's cheek he gently turn'd away. Now each by turns indulged the gush of woe; And now the mingled tides together flow: This low on earth, that gently bending o'er; A father one, and one a son deplore: But great Achilles ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... to sell my life dearly should they prove to be Englishmen. As soon as they observed me they halted, and sent one of their number up to me. Evidently they knew not whether I was friend or foe, for they reconnoitred my prostrate form behind the anthill with great circumspection and caution; but I speedily recognised comrades-in-arms. I think the long tail which is peculiar to the Basuto pony enabled me to identify them as such, and one friend, who was their outpost, brought me a reserve horse, and what was ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen

... longer replied. Their faces, which had become impassive, seemed made of wax behind their long whiskers. Then the Prussian officer began to laugh. And still, lolling back, he began to sneer. He sneered at the downfall of France, insulted the prostrate enemy; he sneered at Austria, which had been recently conquered; he sneered at the valiant but fruitless defence of the departments; he sneered at the Garde Mobile and at the useless artillery. He announced that Bismarck was going to build a city ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... the middle of the south aisle. After gazing with wonder and delight at the still majestic pillars, that, like ghosts of the departed brethren, seemed to protest against the desolation around them, they took their way along the nave, through broken arches, and over prostrate fragments of stone, to the eastern extremity of the fane, and having admired the light shafts and clerestory windows of the choir, as well as the magnificent painted glass over the altar, they stopped before an arched doorway on the right, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... the lingering wreck Of Thebes, Palmyra, Babylon, Balbec; The prostrate obelisk, or shatter'd dome, Uprooted pedestal, and yawning tomb, On loitering steps reflective TASTE surveys With folded arms and sympathetic gaze; Charm'd with poetic Melancholy treads O'er ruin'd towns and desolated meads; Or rides sublime on Time's expanded ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin

... shoulder-straps and lays his lance in rest. Then each spurs toward the other as fast as their horses can carry them. And he who had to defend the ford first attacks the other, striking him so hard that his lance is completely splintered. The other strikes him in return so that he throws him prostrate into the ford, and the water closes over him. Having accomplished that, he draws back and dismounts, thinking he could drive and chase away a hundred such. While he draws from the scabbard his sword of steel, the other jumps up and draws his excellent flashing blade. Then they clash again, ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... young lady whom he loved, forever to abandon all ambitious prospects that might have tempted him into uncertainties, humbly to content himself with the certainties of his Indian clerkship, to dedicate himself for the future to the care of his desolate and prostrate sister, and to leave the rest to God. These sacrifices he made in no hurry or tumult, but deliberately, and in religious tranquillity. These sacrifices were accepted in heaven—and even on this earth they had their reward. She, for whom he gave up all, ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... to the east, and raising his arms to heaven, and extending them towards Mecca, gave thanks for his safe arrival on the beach. After repeated genuflections, in which the earth was touched by his prostrate forehead, he arose, and taking the path towards Kambia, struck up a loud chant in honor of the prophet, in which he was joined by the ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... they tremble at sight of his terrible countenance. But if ever there were an unbecoming, hateful, ridiculous spectacle, it is that of a body of magistrates in their robes of ceremony, and headed by their chief, prostrate before an infant in long clothes, who to their pompous harangue replies only by screams or ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... dropped and dropped, as though for miles. I struck with terrific force upon a grass-covered but hard and unyielding surface. A pang of agony, poignant in its intensity, darted in an upward direction through my lower right limb and I dropped prostrate upon ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... placed with the party watching the house, followed the grand master and governor upstairs. A few blows with an axe splintered the door; its fastenings gave way, and they entered the room. The window was open, and two figures lay prostrate ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty

... Drachenhausen was whirled backward and downward, and the cruel iron hoofs crashed over his prostrate body, as horse and man passed with a rush beyond him and to the bridge-head beyond. A shout went up from those who stood watching. The next moment the prostrate figure rose and staggered blindly to the side of the bridge, and stood leaning ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle

... slay so good a champion?" said the Grand Duke, as at the end of that terrific combat the knight in rose armor stood over his prostrate foe, whose helmet had rolled off when he was at length unhorsed, and whose bloodshot eyes glared unutterable hate and ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Goold's supporters had come into the hall supplied with huge stones, which, at a given signal, they had flung at the inoffensive members of Parliament who occupied the platform, adding, as a corroborative detail, that the lady who accompanied Augusta Goold had twice kicked the prostrate Mr. Shea in the stomach. The Daily Independent advanced the ingenious theory that the contest had been precipitated by a malevolent student of Trinity College, who had flung an apple of discord—on this occasion ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham

... country's sake. There was nothing extraordinary to her in the thought that, in the reign of George V, torturing enemies were abroad with knife and bastinado and poison cup. She saw herself standing over his prostrate body, with countless slain enemies before her, and a dripping spear in her hand. She got a glimpse of King George, with ringlets, velvet suit and Vandyke lace collar gravely smiling as he received the papers from her hands. She was still ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... are in peace: An is joyful: the enemies of Athom are overthrown and Aptu is in peace, An is joyful: the giver of life is pleased: at the overthrow of the enemies of her Lord: the gods of Kher-sa make salutations: they of the Adytum prostrate themselves. ...
— Egyptian Literature

... stood contemplating the monarch oak lying prostrate on the ground. Reine had turned pale; her dark ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... the first Leo, when from his rifled palace on one of the devastated hills of Rome he looked out upon the Christian world, pillaged, sacked, overrun with barbarians, full of untold calamities,—order and law crushed; literature and art prostrate; justice a byword; murders and assassinations unavenged; central power destroyed; vice, in all its enormities, vulgarities, and obscenities, rampant and multiplying itself; false opinions gaining ground; soldiers ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... was trying to read in the darkened dining room. Heat was beating against the prostrate city in metallic waves, but since noon there had been occasional distant flashes toward the west, and faint rumblings that predicted the coming storm. In an hour or two the streets would be awash, ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris

... few days after, he set out with a great company of Chicasaws, deputed to carry the Pipe to the French General, and deliver up the two Englishmen. When they came before M. de Biainville, they fell prostrate at his feet, and made him the same protestations of fidelity and friendship, as they had already made to M. de Celoron; threw the blame on the English; said they were entirely fallen out with them, and had taken these two, and put them in his hands, ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... his pocket a rouble, and threw it up in the air. Ammalat raised himself in the saddle, without waiting till it fell; but at the very instant his horse stumbled with all his four legs together, and striking the dust with his nostrils, rolled prostrate. All uttered a cry of terror; but the dexterous horseman, standing up in the stirrups, without losing his seat, or even leaning forward, as if he had been aware that he was going to fall, fired rapidly, and hitting the rouble with his ball, hurled it far among the people. The crowd shouted ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... this great victory, he entreated to be allowed to walk barefooted and unaccompanied to church, that he might humbly prostrate himself before the Lord of Hosts, in acknowledgement that the victory was entirely due to God, and not to the Portuguese valour; but he was constrained to enter the city in triumph. The streets were crowded with men, and the windows and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... arms by stretching. Released from his pressure, the table flew up upon two legs with remarkable swiftness, and then turned over upon Mr. DIBBLE and Mr. E. DROOD; bringing the two latter and their chairs to the floor under a shower of plates and crackers, and resting invertedly upon their prostrate forms, like some species of four-pillared monumental temple without ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various

... get him back again, Brownie?' Elsie put in. She was paler than ever now, and prostrate with the after-effects ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... working his way along the room, when suddenly he stumbled over something on the floor. It was a man lying prostrate. ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow

... was not a moment to be lost. With the speed of lightning he sprung forward, and with a single blow laid him who struggled with the carman prostrate. To pass then to the aid of the female was only the work of an instant. With equal success he struck down the villain with whom she was struggling. Such was the rapidity of his motions, that he had not yet ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... await developments," she said a moment later, as they observed the whole band go face downward on the sand again—all save the chief. The white people seated themselves on the ledge and watched the impassioned jabberer. Presently the prostrate figures arose and in mute submission spread forth their arms and bent their heads, standing like bronze statues in the glaring sunlight, all to the increased astonishment of those who had expected to become victims of ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon

... prostrate on the deserted pavement. Hugues stood up proudly until a musket-ball broke his arm ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... I looked down from the roof of the boat upon the giants of the forest, which had for so many centuries reared their heads undisturbed, but now lay prostrate before civilisation, the same feelings were conjured up in my mind as when I have, in my wanderings, surveyed such fragments of dismembered empires as the ruins of Carthage or of Rome. There the reign of ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... the power of Jesus' name! Let angels prostrate fall; Bring forth the royal diadem, To crown Him ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... little time for reflection; scarcely had he hastily wiped off with the little cloak that lay beside him the blood which covered the face of the prostrate man than he started back in horror, for the person who had sought his life was the very one whom he had honoured with his highest confidence, and had chosen as the teacher and companion of the wife who was dearer ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... another, to the begetting of endless commendations of one another in the world, while, in the meantime, the soul, which indeed is the true inventor of all, is overlooked, not regarded, but dragged up and down by every lust, and prostrate, and made a slave to every silly and beastly thing. O the amazing darkness that hath covered the face of the hearts of the children of men, that they cannot deliver their soul, nor say, 'Is there not ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... my father and two brothers put to death, and hast threatened to slay me," replied the undaunted youth. The prostrate king, looking at him in silence a ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene

... silence that had followed Peter's call was broken. "There came a voice out of the cloud, This is My Beloved Son; hear ye Him." Startled by such a response, "they fell on their face and were sore afraid." They did not dare to look about them. The Cloud of Glory lifted. How long they lay prostrate and trembling, we do not know. At last a hand gently touched them. It was the hand of Jesus. His voice bid them, "Arise, and be not afraid. And when they had lifted up their eyes they saw no man, save ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed

... afterwards another reached my ears, coming from the same direction. At last I gained the summit of a cliff, when, looking down, I saw Guy bending over the prostrate form ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston

... stars appeared. The languor of fatigue overcame me, and I slept prostrate on the cushions of the deck as the murmurous reverberations from the walls of the rock-bound canal rose and fell, with the cadence of the waves, splashing ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap

... this silent tribute to the Spaniard's prowess; his face lighted up with a soldier's joy. He planted one foot staunchly across a prostrate corpse, and right jauntily rang out the hissing music of their steel. Instinctively I paused to watch, and as instinctively understood that though pressed to his best, de la Mora desired to be left ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson

... caravansarai, the one at Gusheh seems to draw the chilly winds from every direction, and I arise from a rude couch, made wretchedly uncomfortable by draughts, the attacks of insects, and the persistent determination of a horse to use my prostrate form as a rest for his nose-bag, to find myself the possessor of a ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... soldier of peace, scorning further argument in words with such a crafty reis, mindful of the lessons of his youth, raised his right hand, and with one blow between the eyes, laid the Arab captain prostrate on his ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... his hand and with a grin, laid it on the bar. Laramie, watching Stone coldly, did not move. His left foot still rested on the rail, his left arm on the bar. But without taking his eyes off the prostrate man he in some way saw the white-faced bartender peering over in ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman

... of crying came upon her now, in which she once more hid her face among the stones, and lay before us, a prostrate image of humiliation and ruin. Knowing that this state must pass, before we could speak to her with any hope, I ventured to restrain him when he would have raised her, and we stood by in silence until she became ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... was dragging the infuriated animal from the prostrate body of Walter Goddard. Stamboul had tasted blood; it was no easy matter to make him relinquish his prey. The cloud passed from the moon, driven before the blast, and a ray of light fell through the trees upon the scene. Juxon stood wrestling with his hound, holding to his heavy ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford

... Grant rush from the back door, and then fall upon the ground. Two or three Indians followed her, in one of whom Fanny recognized Lean Bear, the stalwart chief she had endeavored to conciliate. He bent over the prostrate form of the woman, was seen to strike several blows with his tomahawk, and then ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic

... vision, as she stood stone-still, Maria saw herself alone in the chapel by night, prostrate, repentant, washing the altar steps with tears, forgiven of God, since God could still forgive her, honoured on earth as before, since none but the silent confessor could ever know what she had done, still less what she had meant to do. Her sorrow would be real, overwhelming, ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford

... her rooming house they lingered. A honey-colored moon hung like a lantern over the block-long row of shabby-fronted houses. On her steps and to her fermenting fancy the shadow of an ash can sprawled like a prostrate human being. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... which prostrate; there are others which sear but leave the body intact—feet still supporting it—eyes still gazing ahead unmoved—lips moving with mechanical exactness and sometimes still retaining their smile. Only the soul which gave life to all of ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... prostrate figure sadly. "Ellen," she began; then she stopped, for her own voice quivered. Then she went on, quite steadily. "Ellen," ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... recorded of CHENIER, the French dramatic poet, which parallels the horrid tale of Collot D'Herbois, which some have been willing to doubt from its enormity. It is said, that this monster, in the revolutionary period, when he had the power to save the life of his brother Andre, while his father, prostrate before a wretched son, was imploring for the life of an innocent brother, remained silent; it is further said that he appropriated to himself a tragedy which he found among his brother's manuscripts. "Fratricide ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... Lord, I have the bliss To date to you a line from this "Demoralized" metropolis; Where, by plebeians low and scurvy, The throne was turned quite topsy-turvy, And Kingship, tumbled from its seat, "Stood prostrate" at the people's feet; Where (still to use your Lordship's tropes) The level of obedience slopes Upward and downward, as the stream Of hydra faction kicks the beam![1] Where the poor Palace changes masters Quicker than a snake its skin, And LOUIS is rolled out on castors, While BONEY'S ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... much up again, fording the Shiraoi river only more than twenty times, and often making a pathway of its treacherous bed and rushing waters, because the forest was impassable from the great size of the prostrate trees. The horses look at these jumps, hold back, try to turn, and then, making up their minds, suddenly plunge down or up. When the last vestige of a trail disappeared, I signed to the Aino to go on, and our subsequent "exploration" was all done at the rate ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... chosen the very best moment for their attack. The artillery-men were in an open field surrounded by the forest. The Indians, from behind stumps, logs, and trees, took deliberate aim, and almost every bullet laid a soldier prostrate. Quite a panic ensued. Two of the colonels, abandoning their regiments, rushed across the creek to escape the deadly fire. There is no evidence that the Indians were superior in numbers to the Americans. But it cannot be denied that the Americans, though under the leadership of Andrew Jackson, were ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott

... came when Tyrrel, who had been expelled from the rural assembly which met every week at the market-town, forced his way in. He was intoxicated, and at once attacked Falkland, knocking him down, and then kicking his prostrate enemy before anyone had time ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... top of each other, and on recovering themselves bit each other savagely. The ravine became a wild gulch, the dry bed of some awful torrent; there were huge shelves of rock, great overhanging walls of rock, great prostrate trees, cedar spikes and cacti to wound the feet, and then a precipice fully 500 feet deep! The trail was a trail made by bears in search of bear cherries, ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... from which the strongest winds blow, the spot was protected by still higher land towards the interior, and the fine trees of various kinds and sizes, (some of them evidently the growth of many years), among which could be seen no prostrate trunks, showed, as we thought, that nothing was to be feared ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... was—a voice sounded, cutting him to the heart. That voice cried, "You have killed him, you devils!" Then young Tom King threw himself on his father's prostrate body, weeping bitterly. Carson attempted to lift the boy, but once more before his eyes a change took place, and Tom King became Lizette, ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish

... a thrill, the thrill of fear, passed over him as he remembered that there was no home. It was in the winter, a year and a half after his arrival in town, that he had suffered the loss of his father. He lay for many days prostrate, overwhelmed with sorrow and with the thought that now indeed he was utterly alone in the world. Miss Deacon was to live with another cousin in Yorkshire; the old home was at last ended and done. He felt sorry that he had not written more frequently ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen

... had had with the villains (pointing to the unhappy officer and his men). The villagers threw up their hands with shrill exclamations at this moving recital, and, going up to the cart, gazen open-mouthed and not without a secret sympathy at the prostrate forms. ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... of Dr. Kane's;—how when, on one of his voyages, in their ice-girt winter quarters, the whole ship's company, save himself, were prostrate below decks, and he with incredible strength and fortitude was literally doing everything, not even omitting to register regular observations of the instruments;—in the midst of that unsurpassable heroism among the polar solitudes, he felt at night a dissatisfaction with the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various

... vigor, tenacity of purpose, and granite strength of will concentrated within it, struck suddenly down, and falling backward in a collapse of which the thunder might shake the vitals of the earth, and you have this prostrate colossus. Even now one seems to hear it fall, to feel the warm soil trembling beneath one's feet as one approaches it. A row of statues of enormous size, with arms crossed as if in resignation, glowing in the sun, ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens

... Four soldiers were conducting him to the King; trunks, my Brother's and his own, sealed, were coming on in the rear. Pale and downcast, he took off his hat to salute me,"— poor Katte, to me always so prostrate in silent respect, and now so unhappy! "A moment after, the King, hearing he was come, went out exclaiming, 'Now I shall have proof about the scoundrel Fritz and the offscouring (CANAILLE) Wilhelmina; clear proofs to cut the heads off them.'"—The two Hofdames again interfered; and one of them, ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... folds of its writhings like the wet gutturizing of a back-broken horse. Instinct with repulsion, I stood a moment dismayed, when light flashed from an open doorway a dozen yards further down the street, and a woman ran across to the prostrate form. ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... been nearly killed by the collision, and is lying prostrate after being cannoned on to the path, very feebly). And what about me, gentlemen? Have I any ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton

... fire. Leveling his glasses he could make out that several of the Indians were grouped about some object in the road, and presently one or two came running to the spot with buckets of water which they dashed over a prostrate form. It was Manuelito, who had probably ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King

... dead than alive. You'd hardly know him now. Of course, when Mitchell was unable to locate his daughter, to inform her of the death of her child, everybody began to suspect the truth, especially as Buckton's mother was almost prostrate, and made ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... bridge, and the same instant convert the two into an aqueduct, filled with a rushing torrent from the reservoir, which will sweep the intruders away. Before they shall have either gathered their discomfited wits or raised their prostrate bones, my father will be out upon them, nor shall they find shelter for their shame ere every soul in the castle has witnessed ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... Smith led his men at a double-quick to the abattis, where they were stopped as the others had been, and suffered severely. The rush through a hundred yards of undergrowth, succeeded by a jam and crowding of a regiment into the narrow neck, and confronted by the tangled mass of prostrate timber and the guns of the hidden foe—was more than the men could stand. They would give way, rally in the thick woods, try it again, but unsuccessfully. The fire did not seem, to those of us who were not immediately engaged, ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... service his stature would permit. In those days many volunteer organizations were busy seeking to "help." There was a kind of competition among them for wounded. This ambulance had got one and was taking him to Paris, off the regular route of the wounded who were being sent south. The boot-soles of a prostrate figure showed out of the dark recess of the interior. This French officer, a major, had been hit in the shoulder. He tried to control the catch in his voice which belied his assertion that he was suffering little pain. The drizzling rain was chilly. It ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... Day" found her a prostrate and degraded being; and, although it has brought numerous advantages to her sons, it has produced but the simplest changes in her social and domestic condition. She is still the crude, rude, ignorant mother. Remote from cities, the dweller still in the old plantation hut, neighboring to the ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... the threepenny box and give it a good home in a respectable family of books. Certainly, it had so far filled the humble position of a shelf-liner, and its accidental elevation into daylight on the top of a prostrate folio had evidently turned its head. It was now doing its best to disseminate socialistic principles among the set of scurvy octavos and duodecimos ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne

... off the shoulders of the prostrate prelate, was presented to him with an injunction to receive and to preach the gospel. Finally, the bishop bestowed on him the kiss of peace; and all the other bishops did so in their turn. Posada then retired, and his head and hands being washed, he soon ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... head-winds, and the sea was very rough, and although the yacht did not make the time that might have been expected of her in fair weather, she did very well, and Burke was satisfied. The two stewards were kept very busy with the prostrate and dejected members of the Synod, and Mrs. Cliff and the stewardess devoted their best efforts to the alleviation of the woes of Willy, which they were glad ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton

... brought with him some exquisite specific: it was evident, from the grave self-complacency of the stranger, that with a glance, he had detected the cause of sickness in the horse,—and that, in a few seconds, the prostrate animal, revivified by the cunning of the sage, would be up, and once more curvetting and caracoling. The master of the steed eyed the stranger with an affectionate anxiety; the mob were awed into breathless expectation. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... no noise, no outcry, no sound of struggle. There was nothing to be seen but the peaceful, prostrate figures of the two men darkly outlined on the ledge. They might have been sleeping in each other's arms. In the black silence the stealthy tread of Wiles in the ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte

... round on 'is shoulder, using my weight on it. I bring my left leg behind 'is left leg. I throw 'im over. Then I give the beggar what for. So!" The words were hardly out of his mouth before he had thrown himself upon the nearest private and laid him prostrate. The others smiled faintly as No. 98678 picked himself up and nonchalantly returned to his old position as if this were a banal compliment. "Now then. First butt exercise." One rank advanced upon the other, and ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan

... folly to ignore that we live in a motor age. The motor car reflects our standard of living and gauges the speed of our present-day life. It long ago ran down Simple Living, and never halted to inquire about the prostrate figure which fell as its victim. With full recognition of motor-car transportation we must turn it to the most practical use. It can not supersede the railway lines, no matter how generously we afford it highways out of the Public Treasury. If freight ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Warren Harding • Warren Harding

... his portrait of Francesco Sforza. The two elaborate models he constructed and the majority of his minute designs have been destroyed. He intended, we are told, to represent the first Duke of the Sforza dynasty on his charger, trampling the body of a prostrate and just conquered enemy. Rubens' transcript from the "Battle of the Standard," enables us to comprehend to some extent how Lionardo might have treated this motive. The severe and cautious style of Donatello, after gaining freedom and fervour from Leopardi, was adapted ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... The shape of the fungus is peculiar, a sort of semi-circular outline that may be called dimidiate. The margins were involute. They protruded from a split in the bark of a dead birch tree which lay prostrate on the ground, several feet in length, and it was literally covered with the fungi, some an inch wide and snow white, and the largest 5 or 6 inches in width, and of a brownish-gray tinge. These specimens became as hard as wood after ...
— Among the Mushrooms - A Guide For Beginners • Ellen M. Dallas and Caroline A. Burgin

... On the beach, lying prostrate, with the water lapping about his feet, he found a man in the last stage of exhaustion. The blood was flowing from his mouth, and as Dominic turned him over to stanch its flow, he found that his tongue had been cut out, and hence the unearthly ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... Muscovite incursion. Even so, nothing is accomplished of a lasting character. France will go on fighting as she did after 1870, and we shall be found at her side. Or, assuming the worst hypothesis of all, that France lies prostrate under the heel of her German conqueror, does any one suppose that Great Britain will desist from fighting? We know perfectly well that, with the aid of our Fleet, we shall still be in a position to defy the German invader and make use of our enormous reserves to wear out ...
— Armageddon—And After • W. L. Courtney

... circuit of the kitchen discontentedly and finding nothing to his taste went into the adjoining room, and after walking over the full length of Caleb's prostrate form curled himself up in a hollow at the foot of ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... groans beneath the weight of its own freedom. When a man has no guide, no master but himself, he is miserable; we want guidance, and if we find a man nobler, wiser than ourselves, it is almost our instinct to prostrate our affections before that man, as the crowds did by Jordan, and say, "Be my example, my guide, my soul's sovereign." That passionate need of worship—hero-worship it has been called—is a primal, universal instinct of the heart. Christ is the answer to it. Men will not do; we try to find ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson

... with his finger, and the driver of the elephant instantly conveyed to the animal the pleasure of the Nawaub. Curling his long trunk around the neck of the ill-fated European, the monster suddenly threw the wretch prostrate before him, and stamping his huge shapeless foot upon his breast, put an end at once to his life, and to his crimes. The cry which the victim uttered was mimicked by the roar of the monster, and a sound like an hysterical laugh mingling with a scream, ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... eighth and ninth centuries there was not even a people to be civilized. The construction of Charles was, of necessity, temporary. His Empire was supported by artificial columns, resting upon the earth, which fell prostrate almost as soon as the hand of their architect was cold. His institutions had not struck down into the soil. There were no extensive and vigorous roots to nourish, from below, a flourishing ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... until they almost trod on the prostrate men. Then, before they could imagine what had occurred, each found herself on the ground with a ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne

... man wholly black. He is apparently consulted more and appealed to more, in the business of the body, than any man in it. It is admitted by his white opposition colleagues that he has more native ability than half the white men in the State" The Prostrate State—J. S. Pike. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... anticipate all movement upon the other side, ordered charge at five o'clock. Lee charged at half-past four. Grant was determined to reach Spottsylvania first, but there, too, Lee awaited him, having had some hours to rest. Prostrate and half-delirious in his tent one day during Grant's effort to flank him, he kept murmuring: "We must strike them; we must not let them pass without striking them." Longstreet was too slow for him, and so was even the ever-ready A.P. Hill. Years later, Lee's dying ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord

... engaging in politics, caring more for the honor of the public station than for the remuneration, and often went on sporting trips, being used to out-of-door life from boyhood. "The high sense of personal worth, the habit of command, the tyranny engendered by the submission of the prostrate race, made the Southern gentleman jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,"[6] and, as a result, the duel was very common. Men went about fully armed and used their pistols with slight provocation. They were used to exercising ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... of blood left no doubt that the caribou had been hard hit, but it was followed for nearly a mile before they came upon the prostrate animal. ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace

... Paul and his company were riding forward beneath the blaze of the Syrian sun, a light which dimmed even that fierce glare shone round about them, a shock vibrated through the atmosphere, and in a moment they found themselves prostrate upon the ground. The rest was for Paul alone: a voice sounded in his ears, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" and, as he looked up and asked the radiant Figure that had spoken, "Who art Thou, Lord?" the answer was, "I am Jesus, ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker

... story of having waited for her, and that she had never returned to the machine, Ross had been perfectly sure that she had been kidnapped, and he had gone impetuously to the police station to start an immediate search. Elinor was prostrate in her room, visioning all sorts of dreadful things that might have happened to an Arethusa always too prone to make chance acquaintances, when Arethusa herself, as repentant and contrite a cause of it all as it was possible for ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox

... clanging of the brass tongues in the cupola, the deep throb of the organ, and the rolling waves of the voices of the people singing the grand Hallelujah, found their way into the darkened chamber. But above all other sounds in the ears of the Pope as he lay prostrate on the altar steps was the sound of a voice which said, "You, the Vicar of Jesus Christ; you, the rock on which the Saviour built His Church; you, the living voice of God; you, the infallible one; you, who fill the most exalted ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... witness of her cousin's guilt, and James, carried away with the wicked impetuosity of his passionate accusations of Donald's life, did not see the fair face set in white despair and the eyes close wearily, as with a piteous cry she fell prostrate at his feet. ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... happiness of the whole social body besides. Like vultures, that in the midst of combats soar in safety above the destruction raging beneath, but descend at its close and tranquilly devour the mangled carcases which the exterminating engines of war have laid prostrate for their repast, these men out of the influence of the oppressive disabilities which are overwhelming all but themselves, eagerly watch the progress of the surrounding misery, and impatiently await its completion; ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... poor little one was dead frantic telegrams had come from the Morleys, in consternation at his disappearance, and Mimo, quite prostrate in his sorrow, as he had been at her mother's death, had left all ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn

... not break down Mr. Slope's spirit, because he had other hopes. But, alas, at last there came to him a note from his friend Sir Nicholas, informing him that the deanship was disposed of. Let us give Mr. Slope his due. He did not lie prostrate under this blow, or give himself up to vain lamentations; he did not henceforward despair of life and call upon gods above and gods below to carry him off. He sat himself down in his chair, counted out what monies ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... into a Persian despotism, was not satisfied when a senator, an aged man, a man who had filled the highest offices in the state, prostrated himself before him in the presence of all the nobles, just as the vanquished prostrate themselves before their conqueror! He discovered a place below his knees down to which he might thrust liberty. What is this but trampling upon the commonwealth, and that, too, with the left foot, though you may say that this point ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca

... the stranger swung round. The latter darted at Bell, but he came too late. Bell's fist shot out and caught him fairly on the forehead. Then the stick in Bell's left hand came down with crushing force on the prostrate man's skull. So utterly dazed and surprised was he that he lay on the ground for a moment, ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White

... he jumped some of the wood rolled from beneath his feet, and he was turned in such a manner that he fell prostrate ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis

... swooping upon Annie, and answered him with a hissing blow over his down-bent head, followed by a succession of furious blows upon every part of his person, as it twisted and writhed and doubled; till, making no attempt at resistance, he was knocked down by the storm, and lay prostrate under the fierce lashes, the master holding him down with one foot, and laying on with the whole force of the opposite arm. At length Malison stopped, exhausted, and turning, white with rage, towards Annie, who was almost in a fit ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... of feet and a flash of steel. Donald Roy leaped forward just in time, and next moment Hamish Gorm lay stretched on the turf, muttering Gaelic oaths and tearing at the sod with his dirk in an impotent rage. Sir Robert looked down at the prostrate ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... the errant earth in winter seems Prostrate to lie, and petulant of mood; Restrained in icy fetters all the babbling streams, Like naughty babes ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs

... We first debase the nature of man by making him a slave, and then very coolly tell him that he must always remain a slave because he does not know how to use freedom. We first crush people to the earth, and then claim the right of trampling on them for ever, because they are prostrate. Truly, human selfishness never invented a rule, which ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child



Words linked to "Prostrate" :   semi-prostrate, lie down, modify, throw, flat, prone, change, unerect, lie, bow down, alter, prostration



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