"Level" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... if it's got around, public like, we can't shield her, Miss Pickett, an' I guess it's no use trying. Water will seek its own level, Miss Pickett. You remember her mother. Nobody ever knew a thing about her, an' you remember the talk that used to ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... stony field, seems not now to have any particular claim to its denomination. It is a district generally level, and sufficiently fertile, but like all the Western side of Scotland, incommoded by very frequent rain. It was, with the rest of the country, generally naked, till the present possessor finding, by the growth of some stately trees near ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... and then found its way over the flat to the rocks beneath. The cabin itself was large, and capable of holding many more people than had ever lived in it; but it was not too large, as we had to secure in it our provisions for many months. There were several bed-places level with the floor, which were rendered soft enough to lie on, by being filled with the feathers of birds. Furniture there was none, except two or three old axes, blunted with long use, a tin pannikin, ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... pouring from him so great an emanation of power that it seemed to crack and break down the poor little room. Mr. G.M. and myself had no desire to thwart him, and it never occurred to us to do so. We should as soon have thought of stopping a thunderstorm. We followed him outside on to the space of level ground before the house and listened humbly while ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Explanations which have been advanced have, it is true, been in many cases altogether untenable. For instance, some have asserted that the albatross, the condor, and other birds which float for a long time without moving their wings—and that, too, in some cases, at great heights above the sea-level, where the air is very thin—are supported by some gas within the hollow parts of their bones, as the balloon is supported by the hydrogen within it. The answer to this is that a balloon is not supported by the hydrogen within it, but by the surrounding ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... after week as I look through the big, open barn door I see a marsh hawk beating about low over the fields. He, or rather she (for I see by the greater size and browner color that it is the female), moves very slowly and deliberately on level, flexible wing, now over the meadow, now over the oat or millet field, then above the pasture and the swamp, tacking and turning, her eye bent upon the ground, and no doubt sending fear or panic through the heart of many a nibbling mouse ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... Parker. Of course, I shall do my level best to acquire the legal right to dispossess you before Mr. Parker acquires a similar right to dispossess me, but, in the interim, I announce an armistice. All those in favor of the motion will signify ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... up into his arms, lifting her in his big hands, making no more of her than if she had been a feather pillow, up till her face was on a level with his, pressing her close, while in swift, indignant rage she fought back at him, striking futilely while he held her, kissed her, and set her down as ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... thou shalt find grace if thou canst level that mountain that lies before my windows, and over which I am not able to see: and if this is done within eight days thou shalt have my daughter ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... lovely in its colour and formation, waved heavily its yellow blossoms as the breeze shook the stems; and there, mingling with a thousand various floral beauties, the azure lupine claimed its place, shedding almost a heavenly tint upon the earth. Thousands of roses were blooming on the more level ground, sending forth their rich fragrance, mixed with the delicate scent of the feathery ceanothus, (New Jersey tea.) The vivid greenness of the young leaves of the forest, the tender tint of the springing corn, were contrasted with the deep dark ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... of Raisky, he changed his trousers and sat down with his feet drawn up under him in the great armchair, so that his knees were on a level with his face, and he supported ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... of prominence in the furnishing of the church is given to the Altar—a table of stone or wood on which the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist is celebrated. It is raised several steps above the level of the choir and is railed in. Covering the Altar is an Altar-cloth, embroidered, and varying in color with the seasons of the Christian Year. The portion covering the front of the Altar is called the frontal; that covering the top of the ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester
... conclusion—that, because a solitary prize of 25 lb. weight may largely remunerate an emigrant to California, therefore a whole generation of emigrants will find the average profits of gold-washing, golddigging, etc., beyond those of Russia or of Borneo, is an insanity quite on a level with all the other insanities of the case. But, says the writer in the Times, the fact has justified the speculation; the result is equal to the anticipation; in practice nobody has been disappointed; everybody has succeeded; nobody complains of any delusion. We beg his pardon. ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... the city of Cuzco is very uneven. It stands on the slopes of three hills, where as many rivulets come together. The ancient builders had to resort to extensive terracing in order to secure level surfaces on which to build. These terraces, built in a substantial manner, and faced with stone, are still standing in many places. In this illustration we have a view of such a wall. Observe that the stones are not laid in regular courses, nor is there any regularity as to their size. This is a ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... not perceive that the obvious way to escape from the supposed difficulty, is to remember that neither Sophocles nor Plato was inspired!... Mr. Jowett's difficulty is occasioned by his assumption that the Bible stands on the same level as Plato and Sophocles. ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... turns of the street. One turn after another he counted, fixing as well as he could the topography of the town through which they were passing. At last he realized that they were leaving Dreiberg behind and were going down the mountain on the north side, toward Jugendheit. Once the level road was reached, a fast pace was set and maintained for miles. At the Ehrenstein barrier no question was asked, and Carmichael's one hope was shattered. At the Jugendheit barrier the carriage stopped. There were voices. Carmichael saw the flicker of a lantern. His captors got out. Presently ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... Framework Convention on Climate Change note - abbreviated as Climate Change opened for signature - 9 May 1992 entered into force - 21 March 1994 objective - to achieve stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a low enough level to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system parties - (181) Albania, Algeria, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, The Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... corruption of the name after its bearers took root in English soil—have been particularly distinguished—they never came much to the fore. Sometimes they were soldiers, sometimes merchants, but on the whole they have preserved a dead level of respectability, and a still deader level of mediocrity. From the time of Charles II. till the beginning of the present century they were merchants. About 1790 by grandfather made a considerable fortune out of brewing, and retired. In 1821 he died, and my father succeeded him, and ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... sensation in riding on the outside front seat, while going full speed down a sharp declivity, is certainly novel, with no apparent motive power, and no apparent means of stopping. The speed, of course, is always the same, whether up or down hill, or on level ground. Telegraph Hill is 394 feet high, Clay Street Hill 376 feet, and Russian Hill 360 feet. A San Francisco Sunday is painful to one accustomed to our English ways; travelling in every form, and buying and selling are very prevalent. The Y.M.C.A. have a large ...
— A start in life • C. F. Dowsett
... even extracted square roots, distinguished between concords and discords, also between ten different colors, and was able to recognize the photographs of people; altogether, Clever Hans was supposed to be at that time about upon a level with fifth-form boys (the fifth form is the lowest form but one in a German gymnasium). After investigating the matter, Stumpf and the members of his committee drew up the following conjoint report, according to which only one of two things was possible—either the horse could ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... for hospitality. We paid it in part to old Spencer Forsyth—he was my revered ancestor's friend—when he came over to England after the war. Got a portrait of him now at Guenn Oaks. Straight, lank, stern, level-eyed, shrewd-faced old boy—regular whackin' old Yankee type. I beg ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... may say that the Old Testament is the religious literature of Judaism. It is the literary deposit of the spiritual life of a nation, the written record and monument of a progressive process of religious development. It begins at the level of folklore and primitive tribal cults, such as are portrayed or reflected, for example, in parts of the Pentateuch and in the Books of Judges and Samuel. It culminates, in the utterances of the greatest of the prophets and in many of the Psalms, ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... in which the flower stems arranged along the central axis elongate, forming a broad convex or level top, the flowers opening successively from the outer edge towards ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame
... Saint Thomas's Church, man's free will was the aspiration to God, and he treated it as the architects of Chartres and Laon had treated their famous fleches. The square foundation-tower, the expression of God's power in act,—His Creation,—rose to the level of the Church facade as a part of the normal unity of God's energy; and then, suddenly, without show of effort, without break, without logical violence, became a many-sided, voluntary, vanishing human soul, and neither ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... Brice had glimpsed as it was rising, a minute or so before, now breasted the low tops of the orange trees across the highroad and sent a level shaft of light athwart the lawn. Its clear beams played vividly on the dark forest, revealing the screen of vines at the head of the path, and revealing also three crouching dark figures, close to the ground, at the very edge of the lawn, not six ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... during the war, and is now making an effort to fill her streets above the high-water level, and insure a dry foundation at all seasons of the year. This once accomplished, Cairo will become a ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... the Japanese bear died, and in the morning the keepers found it lying on the level concrete ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... unreality she perceived that the night had gone. Over the quiet street below there brooded that strange, metallic light which ushers in the dawn of a fine day. A cold breeze whispered to and fro. Above the house-tops the sky was a faint, level blue. ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... as she went by, and thought I had a faint remembrance of. She was lightly dressed; looked bold, and haggard, and flaunting, and poor; but seemed, for the time, to have given all that to the wind which was blowing, and to have nothing in her mind but going after them. As the dark distant level, absorbing their figures into itself, left but itself visible between us and the sea and clouds, her figure disappeared in like manner, still no ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... irresistible appeal to his auditors by frequent references to the ancient system of things in France, and to their situation and prospects under the new. It flowed at first gently like a river in a level country; but it grew afterwards into a mountain-torrent, and carried everything before it. On looking at the questions which he had written down for me, I found them consist of three. 1. What are the different ways of reducing ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... most astonishing feature of level-premium insurance is found in the fact that there is absolutely no obligation assumed on the part of the company, and no power anywhere to enforce an accounting for the vast sums entrusted to it, so long as it can be made to appear that it holds securities in the aggregate to meet the ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... made an odd gesture of deferential assent, lifting one open hand a little in front of him to the level of his face, with the wrist bent forward and the fingers ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... time they had arrived at the mouth of the little creek, and climbed out upon the upper level. ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... six French soldiers, who, hearing the noise, began to peer down the side of the cliff. Darkness prevented their seeing much, but the roots and bushes seemed all alive, and firing a volley down at random, they took to their heels and fled. The British vigorously pushed their way up, and were soon on level ground. Long before daylight 4,828 British troops stood upon the Heights of Abraham, commanding the city from the West. One solitary cannon had been toilsomely dragged up the ravine. It was destined to do good service against ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... Hamlin Garland has reported a conversation with Field, during the summer of 1893, when the latter, speaking of his work in Denver, and of "The Tribune Primer" as the most conspicuous thing he did there, said: "The other thing which rose above the level of my ordinary work was a bit of verse, 'The Wanderer,' which I credited to Modjeska, and which has given her no little annoyance." In his note to Mrs. Thompson's manuscript copy ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... travelled slowly, though it was cold, though it rained. Somewhat bare, flat, and treeless was the route along which our journey lay; and slimy canals crept, like half-torpid green snakes, beside the road; and formal pollard willows edged level fields, tilled like kitchen-garden beds. The sky, too, was monotonously gray; the atmosphere was stagnant and humid; yet amidst all these deadening influences, my fancy budded fresh and my heart basked in ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... the sky, with every sign of joy and exultation. The Indians, as Cartier saw them, seemed to have no settled home, but to wander to and fro in their canoes, taking fish and game as they went. Their land appeared to him the fairest that could be seen, level as a pond; in every opening of the forest he saw wild grains and berries, roses and fragrant herbs. It was, indeed, a land of promise that lay basking in the sunshine of a Canadian summer. The warmth led Cartier to give to the bay the name ...
— The Mariner of St. Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier • Stephen Leacock
... more praise than he could justly claim from his real merit, admit any acquaintance more dangerous than that of Savage; of whom likewise it must be confessed, that abilities really exalted above the common level, or virtue refined from passion, or proof against corruption, could not easily find an abler judge ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... this series of discourses by standing, as it were, in the street, on a level with all these phases of humanity. Ascend now some lofty post of observation; some high watch-tower. The mottled tide flows and dashes far below you. The sounds of strife and endeavor rise faintly to your ears, and are drowned in the upper air. So ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... your fishing, and let me dream. If God should attempt to reveal Himself to you to-night, which I wouldn't do, He would have to elevate and enlarge and change you to a celestial, so that you could understand Him; or shrink and shrivel Himself to your capacity, and address you on your level, as I do, using the language and imagery of this earth, and you would answer Him as you do me—'It is all of the earth—earthy.' I ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... of all the troops (18,000 men and 78 guns)[8] was held on a ground one mile in length by half a mile in breadth, perfectly level and well turfed. It would be considered a fine parade-ground for the plains of India, and must have entailed a considerable expenditure of time, labour, and money to make in such a hilly place ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... plaintiff or defendant meant it to mean—or vice versa, according to which end of the lawsuit such a Senator was arguing on, Mawruss, so you can imagine what is going to happen to that League of Nations covenant. Take a level-headed lawyer like Senator Hiram S. Johnson of California, Mawruss, which he 'ain't got the least disposition to believe that the League of Nations covenant means what President Wilson says it means, understand me, and when he gets through showing what he thinks it means, ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... St. George with determination. "See here, Jarvo, we are both level-headed. We pledge you our word of honour, in addition, not to dive overboard. ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... elevation called "the mountain." Each terrace commands all below it, and the whole forms a position of unsurpassed advantages for defense. Here, between these high grounds, and stretching on either side of the river, is the valley of the Rappahannock—almost a level plain of six miles in length, and averaging two and a half miles in breadth, narrowing in front of the town to less than a mile, and spreading out, at the point where our lower bridges were thrown across, to at least three ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... she descended the precipitous side of the amphitheatre with rapid steps, vaulting from tier to tier, and bounding with wonderful agility from one mass of ruin to another. At length she reached the level; and then, foaming and panting, she rushed to Alroy, threw herself upon the ground, embraced his feet, and wiped off the dust from his sandals ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... accomplished wonders in his parish, and many another, less efficient than himself, might have supposed nothing more was to be done. Not so, thought Father Duffy. Literally and figuratively hills were to be brought down, and level places to ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... party went at a walking pace, but on coming to a good, level stretch of road the master gave the order to trot, and his pupils were able to test the capacities of their steeds. Honor, at least, was most unwilling to pull up when Mr. Townsend called out "Halt!" I am afraid she did not want a lesson, only a scamper through the ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... me that joy, I should have lived in my death. I should have lost nothing in the loss of my all. Do they want to tell me now that all this was false? The psalm of my praise which was sung so devotedly, did it bring me down from my heaven, not to make heaven of earth, but only to level heaven itself ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... stretched before them, level and red hot in the blazing afternoon sun, they all uttered ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope
... standing gazing at lessening Tokimata, I heard a cry from behind me, and, turning, ducked just in time to escape being unceremoniously somersaulted into the water by a hawser stretched from bank to bank at a level singularly suited to such a trick. The rope was the stationary half of a ferry to which I had neglected to make timely obeisance. It marked, indeed, an incipient stage in the art of suspension bridges, the ferryboat itself supporting ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... offending volumes is to spoil his set. And I contend that the action taken by Messrs. Bell & Sons in improving several of their more or less obsolete editions will only be entirely praiseworthy if we may take it as an earnest of their desire to place the whole series on a level with contemporary ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Testing Box.—An apparatus for testing safety lamps and electric lights and fuses, consists of -in. iron plates, bolted together with 1 in. angle-irons to form a box with inside dimensions of 18 by 18 by 24 in. The box is placed on a stand at such a height that the observation windows are on a level with the observer's eye (Fig. 2, Plate XI), and it is connected, by a gas-pipe, with a supply of natural gas which can be measured by a gas-holder or meter alongside ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson
... these Roman dogs never learn that power is to be used, not abused? Why don't they spend some of their revenues to level these seven hills that shut off the light, and straighten and widen their abominable, ill-paved streets, and keep houses from piling up as if to storm Olympus? Pshaw, I had better stop croaking, and be up ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... could not bear the test of those methods," to remove history from the condemnation of being a mere series of arbitrary facts, or a biography of famous men, or the small-beer chronicle of court gossip and intrigues, and to raise it to the level of an exact science, subject to mental laws as rigid and infallible as the laws ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... said Frank. "Point it toward that little cone that seems to rise up like a chimney above the level of the cliff top. Got it now? Well, let your glass slowly drop straight down the face of the rock. Never mind the glint of the sun, and the fine rich color. I know it's just glorious, and all that; but we're after something more important now than pictures and color ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... "You are level-headed," Jacobs assured him. "You notice I have not turned an acre in on this boom. Why? I'm a citizen of Kansas. And while I like to increase my property, you know my sect bears that reputation—"Jacobs never blushed for his Jewish origin—"I want ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... its little heart beating doubtfully, like the ticking of a clock off the level, as if the last beat ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... quickened his pace; saw her turning off the main path among the copses. In his pursuit he got astray; he must have missed her track. Suddenly he was checked by the sound of voices, which seemed to come from a lower level just in front of him. Cautiously he stepped forward, till he could see through hazel bushes that there was a steep descent before him. Below, two persons were engaged in conversation, and he could ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... been left far behind, and we were bowling along on a road as level as a floor, when we saw two wolves quietly watching us half a mile away. We had agreed not to chase antelope again; but wolves were fair game at any time. Moreover, we were particularly glad to be able ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... sit down so that I may talk to you on my own level. You see, your determination not to marry struck me very much at the time because it voiced my own—er—determination also. I said to myself, 'Here are two people sufficiently original to wish to escape the common ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... was the cane he carried, instead of going armed. But he was forever leaving it anywhere about, so that, nine times out of ten, he went forth without it on his errant "browsing" around; and it was a wonder that this time he knew where to find it.] and, placing the ferule end to the wall, to act as a level, he bade the young man draw near and stand under. When the rod was carefully adjusted to the top of the ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... and already I had brought my pistol to a level with his head, when fortunately he repeated his question, "Who goes there?"—and this time I recognised the voice of Montresor, the very man I could then most ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... Scipio. Scipio becomes the secretary of Gil Blas, and settles down with him at "the castle of Lirias." His character and adventures are very similar to those of Gil Blas himself, but he never rises to the same level. Scipio begins by being a rogue, who pilfered and plundered all who employed him, but in the service of Gil Blas he was a model of fidelity ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... behind the pump and under the archway all day long, where wild yells and hootings take place over their remains. Little Swills and Miss M. Melvilleson enter into affable conversation with their patrons, feeling that these unusual occurrences level the barriers between professionals and non-professionals. Mr. Bogsby puts up "The popular song of King Death, with chorus by the whole strength of the company," as the great Harmonic feature of the week and announces in the bill that "J. G. B. is induced ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... a sister's affection. I had made so strong an effort to be honorable with myself, at least; to persuade myself that I was fulfilling an honest mission, but had failed, for at last I had fallen to the level of an ordinary hypocrite; I had found myself to be a purse-proud fool. When I went into that restaurant my sympathies were dead, and when that man pointed at the poor menial and said that his name ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... wife. This is the penalty that the man of intellectual curiosity and vanity pays for his violation of the divine edict that what has been revealed from Sinai shall suffice for him, and for his resistance to the natural process which seeks to reduce him to the respectable level of a ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... where all the stock stopped and watered; but from the slab hut, which was the only dwelling for miles, no waterhole was visible; the creek was simply a huge crack in the earth, and at the bottom, twenty feet below the level of the plain, was the water-hole. One waterhole in summer, and in winter a whole chain of them, but the creek seldom if ever flowed, except in a very wet season. It was a permanent waterhole—Murwidgee, fed by springs, and the white cockatoos and screaming ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... Their predecessors are spoken of by Marston, the dramatist, Stow, and Bishop Corbet. In 1708 (says Mr. Fairholt) the present Guildhall giants were carved by Richard Saunders. In 1837 Alderman Lucas exhibited two wickerwork copies of Gog and Magog, fourteen feet high, their faces on a level with the first-floor windows of Cheapside, and these monstrosities ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again. Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts, In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts, While from the bounded level of our mind, Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind; But more advanced, behold with strange surprise New distant scenes of endless science rise! So pleased at first the towering Alps we try, Mount o'er the vales, and ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... by them. An Englishman would, naturally enough, start at the conclusion confronting him, if he were to speculate as to the result of more than one battle had the great Suffren's captains and crews been quite up to the level of those commanded by stout old Sir Edward Hughes. Suffren, it should be said, before going to the East Indies, had 'thirty-eight years of almost uninterrupted sea-service.'[44] A glance at a chart of the world, with the scenes of the general actions of the war ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... meanwhile, and his friend, Nigel Christopherson, were in the midst of weather as hot as can be very well endured even by English people, who seem capable of resisting almost every sort of bad climate. The sun rose on the edge of the level plains every morning with horrible punctuality, and stared and blazed relentlessly until it had burned itself out in a beautiful rage and glory in the blood-red ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... According to the plans, it ran straight out to the ship docks and the open crater beyond. Anse turned the jeep into a side passage, and Conn recalled the snooper and sent it ahead. On the plan, it led to another natural cavern, half its width shown as level with the entrance. The other half was a pit, marked as sixty feet deep; above this and just under the ceiling, several passages branched out ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... shadow, as if the deep tone of a passing-bell, overhead, were mingling for ever with the plashing of the river as it glides by beneath; just so far, I say, as this differs from the straight and smooth strip of level dust, between two rows of round-topped acacia trees, wherein the inhabitants of an English watering-place or French fortified town take their delight,—so far I believe the life of the old Lucernois, with all its happy waves of light, and mountain ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... was only now that I realized what had happened above us, for there, some twelve feet over our heads, was the outline of the broken sledge. I saw at once what a frail support remained, and shouted to Lashly to ask what he could do, and then I knew the value of such a level-headed companion; for whilst he held on grimly to the sledge and us with one hand, his other was busily employed in withdrawing our ski. At length he succeeded in sliding two of these beneath the broken sledge, and so making ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... the centre of the table untasted. Every time the ritual cup-drinking came round, the children had glanced at the great silver goblet placed for the Prophet of Redemption. Alas! the brimming raisin wine remained ever at the same level. ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... according to the time he has served. He is not rewarded according to his works, but paid for length of service. The business offers no incentive to excel. Why work hard and honestly if you are going to get the dead-level wage each year anyway? Good clerks suffer because of the negligence of indifferent ones; but the former bring up the average of work—and that is all the bank cares. The staff of a bank is something to be worked en masse; ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... they managed, with some difficulty, to get a vehicle to convey them the rest of their journey. It was a sad, silent journey. To Tom, the pain caused by every jolt was excruciating. They did their best to ease him, holding him lying across their knees, while Jim drove along the level footpath; but by the time the school was reached the sufferer was again insensible, and so he remained till the surgeon ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... of His character is such a beautiful one that I feel that He can not err. I do not like the expression, "He's aye thinking about his own glory" (I quote from memory); it belittles the real fact, and almost puts the Supreme Being on a level with us poor mortals. The more time we spend upon our knees, in real communion with God, the better we shall comprehend His wonderful nature, and how impossible it is to submit that nature to the rules by which we judge human beings. ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... current issues: air pollution; water pollution from industrial emissions, raw sewage; contamination of drinking water supplies; trade in endangered species; low-level radioactive waste disposal ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... stepped out once more on the bank path, towards whose surface the tide was rapidly climbing up. He was making for the bridge once more, when his ears were thrilled by a faint, hoarse cry; and, as he looked in its direction, it was to see a white face, level with the muddy water, gliding rapidly down behind the saturated fleecy coat of a drowned sheep, which was evidently keeping ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... would see mocking-birds coming out of the savanna and flying into the live-oaks. A summer duck might dart from the cypresses, speed across the wide green level, and become a swerving, vanishing speck on the sky. The heron might come round the bayou's bend, and suddenly take fright and fly back again. The rattling kingfisher might come up the stream, and the blue crane sail silently through the purple haze that hung between the swamp and the bayou. She ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... higher circles. It falls short of any high intellectual interest. When we leave the striking situation and get to the second part, with the Spaniards and Will Atkins talking natural theology to his wife, it sinks to the level of the secondary stories. But for people who are not too proud to take a rather low order of amusement 'Robinson Crusoe' will always be one of the most charming of books. We have the romantic and adventurous incidents upon ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... presently John Humphreys appeared with the guards who surrounded the Queen's carriage. Raoul was smiling, for, like a true Parisian, he enjoyed a pretty show, but the Englishman strode along as if he had a mind to be done with the business. Just as he was on a level with me I received a great surprise. On the other side of the road a little man had pushed himself right into the front line of spectators, and was gazing anxiously up and down as if expecting ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... displayed, he would but double his vigilance to avoid and forget me, and find the task all the easier by his abatement of esteem. Oh strange infatuation of unconquerable prejudice! his very life will he sacrifice in preference to his name, and while the conflict of his mind threatens to level him with the dust, he disdains to unite himself where one ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... ached with a positive, definite pain that he was not younger, handsomer, and better equipped to win the love of his wife. As she stood in the garden, wearing the rose, her neat dress outlining her graceful form, the level rays of the sun lighting up her face and turning her hair to gold, he felt that he had never seen or imagined such a woman before. She was in harmony with the June evening and a part of it, while he, in his working ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... when the pontoon is swung and sunk to the desired depth by letting in the necessary amount of water, a vessel can be floated in and then secured. The pontoon, with the vessel on it, is then raised by pumping out the contained water until she is a little above the level of the berth. The whole is then swung round over the berth, the vessel then being high and dry to enable repairs or other operations to be conducted. For this purpose, one end of the pontoon is so formed as to enable it to fit around the ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... mattered had she been able to follow her bent and take the line she had once marked out; but she could not. She must give up the thought of independent research and teach for a living, cramping her talents to meet her pupils' intelligence, until, in time, she sank to their level. ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... save the necessity of posing before them; then, with a happy knack of its own, it draws and attaches others by the thread of the ruling passion of self-interest, keeping men of far greater abilities to play like puppets, and despising those whom it has brought down to its own level. The petty fixed idea naturally prevails; it has the advantage of persistence over ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... that under such a regimen he grew strong? We become weak by continual contact with our fellows. We sink to their level, we accommodate ourselves to their fashions and whims; we limit the natural developments of character on God's plan; we take on the colour of the bottom on which we lie. But in loneliness and solitude, wherein we meet God, we become strong. God's ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... true social organism from being formed. The latter has a tremendous effect on human character. The specialized society only develops economic efficiency. The evolution of humanity beyond its present level depends absolutely on its power to unite and create true social organisms. Life in its higher forms is only possible because of the union of myriads of tiny lives to form a larger being, which manifests will, ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... work to be done, a sifting-out process must obtain. In every branch of industry the less efficient are crowded out. Being crowded out because of inefficiency, they cannot go up, but must descend, and continue to descend, until they reach their proper level, a place in the industrial fabric where they are efficient. It follows, therefore, and it is inexorable, that the least efficient must descend to the very bottom, which is the shambles wherein they ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... steps, to a square dungeon without any visible outlet; but the earl found one, by raising a flat stone marked by an elevated cross; and again they penetrated lower into the bosom of the earth by a gradually declining path till they stopped on a subterranean level ground. "This vaulted passage," said Gloucester, "reaches, in a direct line, to Fincklay Abbey.** A particular circumstance constrained my uncle, the then abbot of that monastery, to discover it to me, ten years ago. He told me, that to ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... had been raised and placed in the dry-dock, the first thing done was to cut it down to the level of the berth-deck; that is, to the level of the deck below the gun-deck in the old rig. Then both ends of the ship were decked over for a distance of seventy feet; while the midship section was covered by a sort of roof, or pent-house, one hundred and seventy ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... she walked. There was a look of strength and of restfulness about the long fingers and beautifully moulded hands. Her face, calm and purposeful, was lifted to the sunlight. Suffering and sorrow had left thereon indelible marks; but the clear grey eyes, beneath level brows, were luminous with a light betokening the victory of a pure and noble spirit over passionate and ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... Tamburlaine, in the year following the death of Marlowe, proves of course nothing as to the date of its production; and even if it was written and acted in the year of its publication, it undoubtedly in the main represents the work of a prior era to the reformation of the stage by Marlowe. The level regularity of its unrhymed scenes is just like that of the weaker portions of Titus Andronicus and the First Part of King Henry the Sixth—the opening scene, for example, of either play. With Andronicus it has also in common the quality of ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... night, that the Tartars might conclude we were still there; but as soon as it was dark, and we could see the stars (for our guide would not stir before), having all our horses and camels ready loaded, we followed our new guide, who I soon found steered himself by the north star, the country being level ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... of night and the space of dim hazy dawn which forms the twilight of a Syrian morning. But when the very first line of the sun's disk began to rise above the level horizon, and when the very first level ray shot glimmering in dew along the surface of the desert, which the travellers had now attained, the sonorous voice of El Hakim himself overpowered and cut short the narrative of the tale-teller, while he caused to resound along the sands ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... of his principles in every-day life, he endeavoured, at all events, to cultivate in his intercourse with women a frankness of speech, a directness of bearing, beyond the usual. He shook hands as with one of his own sex, spine uncrooked; he greeted them with level voice, not as one who addresses a thing afraid of sound. To a girl or matron whom he liked, he said, in tone if not in phrase, "Let us be comrades." In his opinion this tended notably to the purifying of the ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... common for men to wish others reduced to their own level, and we ought to guard against such advice as may proceed from ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... into a dense thicket, traversed it, and climbing to the left, emerged suddenly upon a glade, round and level except at the northern side, where a swelling hillock was crowned with a huge oak-tree. It towered above the heath, a giant with contorted arms, beckoning to the host of lesser trees. "Here," cried Winfried, as his eyes flashed and his hand lifted his ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... into her healing arms. Not so in Summer in Arcady; the sunlight that brooded in calm over the forces of Nature that nursed Adam Moss's latent powers of loving into domestic serenity, rouses the fierce claw and tooth of Nature to drag Hilary and Daphne down to her level. As clearly as the poet saw that, 'all's Love, yet all's Law' so clearly is the same truth held in these stories with their divergent ends. The lawlessness of Nature is the lawlessness of man, untempered and ungoverned ...
— James Lane Allen: A Sketch of his Life and Work • Macmillan Company
... discovered that it would have been impossible to force our way but for the scythe; and Jupiter, by direction of his master, proceeded to clear for us a path to the foot of an immensely large tulip-tree, which stood, with some eight or ten oaks, upon the level, and far surpassed them all, and all other trees which I had then ever seen, in the beauty of its foliage and form, in the wide spread of its branches, and in the general majesty of its appearance. When we reached this tree, Legrand turned to Jupiter, and asked him if he thought he could ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... reach his objective, the lance becomes a terrible weapon in the hands of the horseman. In hand-to-hand fighting the man with the rifle and bayonet has some chance against the mounted man with the saber. While fighting upward from a lower level he has a pretty long reach, and the advantage of being completely in control of his own movements, whereas even the most expert horseman cannot control the step and movement of his mount as well as a man can control his own. Barring ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... brace and the largest bit. The Yale lock he had given up at a glance. It was placed high up in the door, feet above the handle, and the chain of holes with which Raffles had soon surrounded it were bored on a level with his eyes. Yet the clock in the hall chimed again, and two ringing strokes resounded through the silent house before we gained admittance ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... imaginative, but her understanding was excellent and utterly devoid of lumber and affectation. She had the sound practical sense of a vigorous and healthy mind, without a particle of vanity or conceit; she never attempted to plunge out of her depth, or to soar beyond the level of her comprehension and her knowledge. Her conversation therefore was happily described by an old and attached friend and very competent judge, when he said of it that 'her talk was so crisp.'[5] She had ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... submit to rule and measurement, and their excesses are struck off with the gavel of self-restraint; and when every action and every principle is accurately corrected and adjusted by the square of wisdom, the level of humility, and the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... the station-shed Kirk's hostess led him, then across a level sward, pausing at length upon the brink of a mighty chasm. It took him a moment to grasp the sheer magnitude of the thing; then he broke into his first real ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... impossible that after all they had gone through they should have failed. The journey in the fast motor car, after a breakdown of the Chicago Limited, rushing through the night like some live monster, tearing now through a plain of level lights, as they passed through some great city, vomiting fire and flame into the black darkness of the country places. It was like the ride of madmen, and more than once they had both hung on to their seats ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and essentially Venetian as is the work of these two painters, it does not reach the highest level. It falls short of grandeur, and has that worldly tone that borders on vulgarity. As we study it we feel that it marks the point to which Venetian art might have attained, the flood-mark it might have touched, if it had lacked the advent of the three or four great spirits, who, appearing about ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... the world knows culture; literary as the term goes; nor was there any one who made a happier speech than he, whether in the forum or around the festal board. Detractors, of course, he had—as which of those who raise their heads above the dead level have not?—but they usually contented themselves with saying, as Buck Klinker had once said, that his manners were a little too good to be true. To most he seemed a fine type of the young American of the modern South; a brave gentleman; ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... hospital of the Land Transport Corps, to remind the patients of the home comforts they longed so much for. It was a sad sight to see the once fine fellows, in their blue gowns, lying quiet and still, and reduced to such a level of weakness and helplessness. They all seemed glad for the little home tokens ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... to face with her. He was the more nervous of the two, being, much afraid of upsetting that composure which scandalised his wife, but which he preferred to tears; and as he believed her to be a mere child in perception, he explained down to her supposed level, while she listened in a strange inert way, feeling it hard to fix her attention, yet half-amused by the simplicity of his elucidations. "Would Ellen need to be told what ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge |
