"Sink" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pressing on him now for three months, fell into his old state of sleeplessness, feverishness, and consequent depression; and it, these circumstances it is not wonderful that the firm ground of fact began to give a little beneath him and that his feet began to sink again into the mire or quag of stupor. Of these further flounderings in the quag he himself wrote an account to the King and Queen, so we may as well have ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... Mahommed. "Will the stars show me a road to possession of the harbor? Will they break the chain which defends its entrance? Will they sink or burn the ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... said to Henry on his fault and what had led to it; but what his father did say was likely to sink deeper as he grew older, and had more sense ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... on an unknown rock, we hasten to mark it down in our charts, or erect over the spot a lighthouse as a warning to others. Should it sink where it is likely to hinder the traffic, we set our engineers to work to remove it, even though it may be necessary to ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... over. The last of the retiring Greek ships was a galley of Pallene in Macedonia, commanded by a good soldier, Arminias. He was one of those who was doing his best to check the panic. Resolved that whoever else gave way he would sink rather than take to flight, he turned the prow of his trireme against the approaching enemy, and evading the ram of a Persian ship ran alongside of her. The intermingled oars broke like matchwood, and the two ships grappled. ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... who have no taste for its charms set store upon its results, and make some efforts to acquire it. In free and enlightened democratic ages, there is nothing to separate men from each other or to retain them in their peculiar sphere; they rise or sink with extreme rapidity. All classes live in perpetual intercourse from their great proximity to each other. They communicate and intermingle every day—they imitate and envy one other: this suggests to the people many ideas, notions, and desires which it would never have entertained if the distinctions ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... lived in the olden days you'd be a Caesar or an Alexander. But you wouldn't! You'd be a Nero—a Nero! Sink my self-respect to the extent of marrying into your family!" she exclaimed contemptuously. "Never! I am going to Washington without your aid. I am going to save my father if I have to go on my knees to every United States Senator. I'll go to the White House; I'll tell ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... low tone. It has not occurred to her that his words are a question rather than an asseveration. That he loves her, seems to her certain. A soft glow illumines her cheeks; her eyes sink beneath his; the idea that she is happy, or at all events ought to be happy, fills her with a curious wonderment. Do people always feel so strange, so surprised, so unsure, when love comes ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... know," she replied sadly. "It's horrid to have to give them up, but I couldn't help it. The ship would sink and no one was saved. I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... what extent can we increase this number? Remember that each successive ship is sunk before another torpedo is launched, and that every torpedo proceeds in a different direction; otherwise, by placing the ships in a straight line, we might sink as many as thirteen! It is an interesting little study in naval warfare, and eminently practical—provided the enemy will allow you to arrange his fleet for your convenience and promise to ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... be delivered to you in a box, which you must put into a bag with two shots, that, in case of falling in with an enemy, from which you cannot escape, you may be prepared to sink them, which, on such an event happening, we earnestly ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... made in the sciences to which they devoted themselves as a duty,—medicine especially;—and, last and worst, what depths of degradation they can sometimes see one another, and the population round them, sink into; without either doubting ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... have I been winging Toward vaporous heights which beckon and beguile I sink back, saddened to my inmost mind; Even as I list a-dream that mother singing The poesy of sweet tone, and sadden, while Her voice is cast in troubled wake behind The keel of her keen spirit. Thou art ...
— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson
... touch, and Starbuck may survive to hug his wife and child again.—Oh Mary! Mary!—boy! boy! boy!—But if I wake thee not to death, old man, who can tell to what unsounded deeps Starbuck's body this day week may sink, with all the crew! Great God, where art Thou? Shall I? shall I?—The wind has gone down and shifted, sir; the fore and main topsails are reefed and set; she heads ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... army, and which often left them maimed for life. If it were avarice—the fear of losing the gains from their business for four years—they would not empty their pockets and sell their houses and sink into debt, on the chance of successfully bribing the Czar's agents. The Jewish recruit dreaded, indeed, brutality and injustice at the hands of officers and comrades; he feared for his family, which he left, often enough, as dependents on the charity ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... over the grass so lightly and quickly that she had gone some steps before her feet began to sink in the black, oozy bog. Margaret saw the water bubbling up behind her, and cried to her in alarm to come back; and Rita, finding the earth plucking at her feet, turned willingly toward the solid ground; but return was impossible. She tried to ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... violence in the constitutional symptoms would be in proportion to the number and to the state of these local affections. Hence it follows that a person, either by accident or design, might be so filled with these wounds from contact with the virus that the constitution might sink under the pressure. ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... have, like Ostrovsky's, exalted feelings for natural beauties, but they possess, besides, a full consciousness of themselves, and they declare open war against society. Gorky lives the lives of his heroes; he seems to sink himself into them, and, at the same time, he idealizes them, and often uses them as his spokesmen. Far from being crushed by fate, his vagabonds clothe themselves with a certain pride in their misery; for them, the ideal existence is the one they lead, because it is free; ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... dull and undiscerning bauble! For so it argues thee, that thou could'st leave The slender fingers of her hand, to sink Beneath the waters. Yet what marvel is it That thou should'st lack discernment? let me rather Heap curses on myself, who, though endowed With reason, yet rejected ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... over, And the dancers sink to rest— There's a maid that has two lovers, And there's one she loves the best; He will cast him down before her, She will raise him with a sigh— Her love so bright who danced to-night across ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie
... room. Drake could no longer see more than the shape of her head and the soft waves of hair crowning it; he could not distinguish a single feature, but none the less, as she stood facing him, he felt of a sudden his heart sink within him and his whole strength ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... had passed the seas, and saw the Mountain of Flowers and Fruits lying before him. Then he felt happy and at home again, let his cloud sink down to earth and cried: "Here I am back again, children!" And at once, from the valley, from behind the rocks, out of the grass and from amid the trees came his apes. They came running up by thousands, surrounded and ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... nothing could induce a white man to put his hand to the plow, but the gaunt visage of starvation at his door. He even preferred ignominious starvation to honest work; and, in his desperate struggle to avoid the horror of the one and the disgrace of the other, he would sink himself lower in the scale of moral infamy than the black slave he despised. He would make of himself a monster of cruelty or of abject servility to avoid starvation or honest work. It was from this class of vermin ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... was an event for me, especially as Sir George, on my entering the room, took me by the hand, and drawing me toward Weber, assured him that I and all the young girls in England were over head and ears in love with him. With my guilty satchel round my neck, I felt ready to sink with confusion, and stammered out something about Herr von Weber's beautiful music, to which, with a comical, melancholy smile, he replied, "Ah, my music! it is always my music, but ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... early afternoon of the next day—and she was still ready if Carver would only come. She allowed Siwash to sink his warm nose in the amber waters of the ford while she waited. It was very still up there. In fact, only Virginia's repeated assurances that there were no cattle on the hills and her own knowledge that a homesteader's cabin was just ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... afresh roll them all over upon thee. I will try to look on, in the faith that all things shall work together for good to their souls, and that I shall yet see the day, or if I see it not, that it will come, when they shall bow at thy footstool, sink into the open arms of thy mercy in Christ, melted down in holy, humble, acquiescing, cordial submission to thy severest dealings with them; when thou shalt put a new song into their mouths, and they shall sing as I do now, It hath been very good for me that I ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... his life, would infuse new youth and strength into it, and make it of great profit and power, it would be in advancing an old and faithful servant. Jeremiah, the captain deserts the ship, but you and I will sink or float with it.' ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... that for a while you should be too agitated by what has passed to see your friends. Remember, however, that you owe it to them as well as to yourself not to sink into seclusion. Send me a line when you think that you can come to me that I may be at home. My journey to Prague was nothing. You forget that I am constantly going to Vienna on business connected with my own property there. Prague lies but a few hours ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... manner the position taken up by the United States—a position founded upon the generally accepted principles of international law. It testates the claim which America has always made, that a belligerent has no right to sink a presumably innocent merchantman and endanger the lives of its crew and passengers, but must first determine the character of its cargo and establish its contraband nature and must secure the safety of the people ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... are deceav'd, it is not blisse What you conceave a happy living is: To have your hands with rubies bright to glow, Then on your tortoise-bed your body throw, And sink your self in down, to drink in gold, And have your looser self in purple roll'd; With royal fare to make the tables groan, Or else with what from Lybick fields is mown, Nor in one vault hoard all your magazine, But at no cowards fate t' have frighted ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... swamp so tremenjeously," said the shiftless one, "that fur days thar will be no gittin' in or gittin' out. Anybody that tries it will sink over his head afore ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... became gradually aware that hitherto she had comprehended but little of Lady Mason's character. There was a power of endurance about her, and a courage that was almost awful to the mind of the weaker, softer, and better woman. Lady Mason, during her sojourn at The Cleeve, had seemed almost to sink under her misfortune; nor had there been any hypocrisy, any pretence in her apparent misery. She had been very wretched;—as wretched a human creature, we may say, as any crawling God's earth at that time. But ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... man might have recoiled at having work thrust into his hands before he had undergone the slightest practical training for conducting it. And Mark's imagination saw his first brief bringing others in its train, until he should sink in a sea of blue foolscap, helpless and entangled in clinging tentacles of red-tape. Perhaps this was a groundless alarm, but he had planned out a particular career for himself, a career of going about and observing (and it is well known that what a man of genius calls 'observing' ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... 1,500 miles—over which a working line of electric telegraph has thus been constructed and put in operation in the course of a single season is one of the minor obstacles surmounted. The want of timber is far more serious. From the sink of Carson River, less than one hundred miles this side of the Sierra, to the point at which the construction of the line was commenced on the Platte as aforesaid, there is no place at which a tree can fall across the fragile wires; ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... at length promise to stab Stradella during his next singing performance. While they lie-in-wait for him, Stradella sings the {12} hymn of the Holy Virgin's clemency towards sinners so touchingly, that his pursuers cast their swords away and sink on their knees, joining in the refrain. Full of astonishment Stradella learns of the danger in which he had been, but in the end he willingly pardons not only the banditti but also his wife's uncle, who, won over like the ruffians by the power of Stradella's song, humbly asks for ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... her bed on this particular May morning, stretching out her long figure, and then letting it sink luxuriously back into relaxed quiescence with a conscious joy in prolonging those last ten minutes when sleep is slowly, softly, one after another, ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... but he was obliged to jump off very frequently, to keep the oxen in a right direction. He stopped occasionally to put down a rafter, placing it so that its length should be in the line of his road, and taking care to sink one end into the snow, so as to leave the other out as far as possible, to prevent its being all buried up before they should return. Every now and then, too, he would answer the cry, as loud as ...
— Jonas on a Farm in Winter • Jacob Abbott
... he cried, 'it won't do to sink this chance! It'll never pop up ag'in. You must have spoke pretty plain to that toll-gate woman, considerin' the way she's been turnin' it ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... themselves infamous and unworthy. The nation listened for a time with kindly pity to their indignant protests, and then buried the troublesome and persistent clamorers in the silence of calm but considerate disbelief. They were quietly allowed to sink into the charitable grave of unquestioning oblivion. It was not any personal attaint which befouled their names and blasted their public prospects, but simply the fact that they had obeyed the nation's behest and done a work assigned to them by the country's rulers. ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... to such other artifices as might tend to make her vessel appear to be a Greek galley, she began to act as if she were one of the pursuers instead of one of the pursued. She bore down upon the ship of Damasithymus, saying to her crew that to attack and sink that ship was the only way to save their own lives. They accordingly attacked it with the utmost fury. The Athenian ships which were near, seeing Artemisia's galley thus engaged, supposed that it was one of their own, and pressed on, leaving the vessel ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... House list, I venture to believe,' said Dora. That in itself may show to what depths we sink. Yet it was a trenchant ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... solid masonry, in the centre of which was an arched portal. In front, and on one side of the convent, for such, as a single glance was sufficient to determine, was the purpose to which the roomy structure was appropriated, the ground was bare and open, until the platform began to sink towards the plain; and then the sunny southern slope had been turned to the best account. Luxuriant vineyards, a plantation of olive-trees, and a large and well-stocked orchard covered it, whilst the level at its foot was laid out in pasture and corn-fields. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... too much leisure, he considered, that, first of all, awe of the gods should be instilled into them, a principle of the greatest efficacy in dealing with the multitude, ignorant and uncivilized as it was in those times. But as this fear could not sink deeply into their minds without some fiction of a miracle, he pretended that he held nightly interviews with the goddess Egeria; that by her direction he instituted sacred rites such as would be most acceptable to the gods, and appointed their own priests ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... galley ahead of him. Then it would be too late. The violence of the current would drag and hurl vessel upon vessel. Whirling in the abyss, fouling the bottom, and crashing into one another, their timbers would part and they would sink into the watery depths with all on board, or else dash themselves on the rocky reef. A hundred more strokes of the oar, and the fleet would be annihilated ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... previously by the author of Lothair himself. "The ladies did their best to signalize what the Cardinal was and what he represented, by reverences which a posture-master might have envied and certainly could not have surpassed. They seemed to sink into the earth, and ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... would be enough to sink even an Itinerary, seemed forced upon me by the publication of A Journey to Edenborough in Scotland by Joseph Taylor, Late of the Inner Temple, Esquire. This journey was made two hundred years ago in the Long Vacation of 1705, but has just been printed from the ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... hind-legs, and swayed about uncertainly in front of her. Still clinging to the gate, Biddy thought of her mother and began to say her evening prayers; her knees were giving way, and she felt she must soon sink upon the ground. ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... Denmark, some other State, like Prussia, for instance, will take the duchies under its protection, and join them ultimately to its dominions; but such a result could never happen to Denmark, and she must sink into utter ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... "No, indeed. She'd sink down to China, I guess. There's just about no bottom at all to this mud, if you step in it. Keep—perfectly—still—Cricket," she hallooed, suddenly, through her hands, as Cricket shows ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... turn,—Why do you play at cards? Why drink? Why read?—To make some hour less dreary. It occupies me to turn back regards On what I've seen or pondered, sad or cheery; And what I write I cast upon the stream, To swim or sink—I have had at ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... necessities, and he was rapidly becoming a savage—for a man who can't speak and can make fire is very near the Australian. We may infer, what is probable from other cases, that a man living fifteen years by himself, like Crusoe, would either go mad or sink into the semi-savage state. De Foe really describes a man in prison, not in solitary confinement. We should not be so pedantic as to call for accuracy in such matters; but the difference between the fiction ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... haltingly, slowly, of Mr. Stephens' suggestion, but carefully as he chooses his words he feels her shrinking, wincing at the images they conjure up; and he tells himself with impatient self-reproach that he has been too quick, too abrupt—that he ought to have allowed the notion to sink into her mind slowly, that he should have made Daisy, or even his father, ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... chivalry, as we have a right to do; we raise up heroes of war and statesmanship, compared with whom your Napoleons, Mirabeaus, and Marats-yes, even your much-abused Roman orators and Athenian philosophers, sink into mere insignificance. Nor are we bad imitators of that art displayed by the Roman soldiers, when they entered the Forum and drenched it with Senatorial blood! Pardon ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... by Providence the all-providing care of God over his creatures. He is our staff. Without his aid and support, we should sink; all our efforts would be of no avail. Without his sustaining power, we could not endure the cares and troubles attending this life. He cares for us in the broad day, urging us to resist temptation. He watches us by night, that no harm shall ...
— Our Gift • Teachers of the School Street Universalist Sunday School, Boston
... one," thought he. "I am unmasked before the woman. I can no longer play the honest man, the true-hearted, generous benefactor. I am found out. I can only sink lower still!" ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... speculation—although he was customarily able to say that he was nearer to the all-necessary ingredient than ever, and could almost name the hour when success would dawn. And then Washington's heart world sink again and a sigh would tell ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... of my little doorway was a small, deep sink. Next to the sink was a very large ice chest. On the side of the ice chest next the sink hung the four soft-boiled-egg machines—those fascinating contrivances in which one deposited the eggs, set ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... and positively.) Listen, Tom; and you, too, Howard. I have never for a moment entertained the thought of giving up the letters. I may have led you to think so, but I wanted to see just how low, you, Tom, could sink. I saw how low you—all of you—this morning sank. I have learned—much. Where is this fine honor, Tom, which put you on a man-killing rage a moment ago? You'll barter it all for a few scraps of paper, and forgive and forget adultery which ...
— Theft - A Play In Four Acts • Jack London
... is of less specific gravity than water, therefore it floats on the surface of that liquid, whereas iron, being heavier, sinks. So that by changing the liquid to one lighter than cork, the cork will sink in it as does iron in water; in the second instance, if we change the liquid to one heavier than iron, the iron will float on it as does cork on water, and exactly as an ordinary flat-iron will float on quicksilver, bobbing up and down like ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin
... place, all set with sombre trees. And the night was dark, so he set a watch, and the goldsmith took the first, while the young prince slept by the Carpenter-lad, on a couch of clean, sweet leaves. And lest the heart of the prince should sink, ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... embodied creatures is death. Those persons that know this well are never stupefied, O wielder of the thunderbolt! They, however, who are overwhelmed with Passion and loss of judgment, do not know this, they whose understanding is lost, sink under the weight of misfortune. A person who acquires a keen understanding succeeds in destroying all his sins. A sinless person acquires the attribute of Goodness, and having acquired it becomes cheerful. They, however, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Then the letter told how poorly his mother was and how she had failed of late, and she said she thought he ought to get a furlough and come home, and when he did she would marry him. It was not very well written, nor wholly coherent; at least it took some time to sink fully into Darby's somewhat dazed intellect; but in time he took it in, and when he did he sat like a man overwhelmed. At the end of the letter, as if possibly she thought, in the greatness of her relief at her confession, that the temptation she held out might prove too great even for ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... according to the Exigency of their respective Textures; the Salt Adhering, for the most part, to the Sides and Top, and the Phlegme Fastening it self there too in great Drops, the Oyle and Spirit placing themselves Under, or Above one another, according as their Ponderousness makes them Swim or Sink. For 'tis Observable, that though Oyl or Liquid Sulphur be one of the Elements Separated by this Fiery Analysis, yet the Heat which Accidentally Unites the Particles of the other Volatile Principles, has not alwayes the same Operation on this, there ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... the women and the children left for the lodges, and soon the warriors began to go also, or fell asleep on the ground, wrapped in their blankets. The fires were allowed to sink low, and at last the older chiefs withdrew, ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... his own body, and can say with the poet, "The hand of Douglass is his own." "The world is all before him, where to choose;" and poor as may be my opinion of the British parliament, I cannot believe that it will ever sink to such a depth of infamy as to pass a law for the recapture of fugitive Irishmen! The shame and scandal of kidnapping will long remain wholly monopolized by the American congress. The Irishman has not only the liberty to emigrate from his country, but he has liberty at home. He can write, ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... embarrassments, they are extremely anxious to realize upon it. Mr. Minor is naturally desirous of having it sold at an advantage; but he is on the bond, and has been making continuous efforts with no success. No one can tell how low property will sink, business property especially, that depreciates so rapidly if neglected. The mortgage is considered one-third of what the property was valued at seven years ago; but we have all shrunk a trifle since that," ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... but a little way when one of the ships, which was commanded by Bjarni Grimulfsson, lagged so far behind that it lost sight of the others. The men then discovered that shipworms[4] had bored the hull so that it was about to sink. None could hope to be saved but in the stern boat, and that would not hold half ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... written by a journalist named Meunier de Querlon. What the young queen did say, as she saw the French coast sink below the horizon, was: "Adieu, chere France! je ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... these pedestrians did not loiter. They went their ways with great haste and definiteness, withal there was a curious indecision in their movements, as though they expected the buildings to topple over on them or the sidewalks to sink under their feet or fly up in the air. A few gamins, however, were around, in their eyes a suppressed eagerness in anticipation of wonderful and exciting things ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... since I thought of thee. My loving mother, even the rough, rude spirit of a muleteer can see in the unseen the beauty and benevolence of such devotion as thine. The words of this dusky son of the road, coming as through the trumpet of revelation to rebuke me, sink deep in my heart and draw tears from mine eyes. For art thou not ever praying for thy grievous son, and for his salvation? How many beads each night dost thou tell, how many hours dost thou prostrate ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... galloping homeward. It is Felice, old Felice, riderless, splashed with mud, wild-eyed, sore with fatigue! Felice, Felice, what horrors hast thou not seen! If thou couldst speak, if that tongue of thine could be loosed, what would it say of those who, forgetful of their souls, sink lower than the soulless brutes! Better it is thou canst not speak; the anguish in thine eyes, the despair in thy honest heart, the fear, the awful fear in thy mother ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... injustice and contumely, young gentlemen of talents and virtue would be deterred from entering into the profession; and the stage would soon become as bad as it is falsely described to be by fanatics—a sink of vice and corruption: but the wisdom and liberality of the British nation, after the example of old Rome, having, on the contrary, given to the gentlemen of the stage their merited rank in society, and raised ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... here that Caius Manlius fell. Sergius was but a few feet from him when he saw the youth sway gently, and, bowing his head, sink down. He had made an effort to push to his side, and then the front of the enemy seemed to receive some new impetus and surged forward over the spot. What mattered it? He had seen the red spear point peeping out between his ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... for success, the proper nourishment of the brain is an essential part of self-development. The brain is substantially the great artist that creates our ideals in life. And yet we forget sometimes that it is the master of our destiny; and allow it to sink into that dull apathy so fatal to our hopes and aims. It would almost seem, indeed, as if a kind of fatality clung to some men in the way in which they neglect this supreme faculty of their being. You possess the power to use your brain as you choose; ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... footman or imposing personage made his appearance; nor did any one seem to be on the look-out for my insignificant self. My spirits began to sink almost to zero, which point they reached anon in the descending scale, when, as soon as everybody else who had come by the train had bustled out of the station, an old and broken-down looking porter, in a shabby velveteen jacket, standing on the other side ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... sunrise each day, weather permitting, the little scattered fleet of boats is far out on the Bay of Naples; for the surface collecting, which furnishes a large share of the best material, can be done only at dawn, as the greater part of the creatures thus secured sink into the retirement of the depths during the day, coming to the surface to feed only at night. You are not likely to see the collecting party start out, therefore, but if you choose you may see them return about ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... reach the breeding grounds that they sought, and the eggs are laid. The eggs of most sea-fish just drift on the surface of the ocean, at the mercy of their enemies, and washing here and there as the current sends them. The Herring's eggs sink to the bottom and, being rather ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... also stayed behind and parted from him. He pondered about this sensation, which filled him completely, as he was slowly walking along. He pondered deeply, like diving into a deep water he let himself sink down to the ground of the sensation, down to the place where the causes lie, because to identify the causes, so it seemed to him, is the very essence of thinking, and by this alone sensations turn into realizations and ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... with little more than the breadth of the drive between it and the house, she saw the necessity of escape, though she did not perceive half the dire necessity for haste. Every few moments, a great gush would dash out twelve or fifteen yards over the gravel and sink again, carrying many feet of the bank with it, and widening by so ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... the English meant to poison them, refuse to sell them powder and lead, and then, when they were helpless, fall upon and destroy them. At Montreal, they were told that the English called them their negroes; and, at Albany, that if they made peace with Onontio, they would sink into "perpetual infamy and slavery." Still, in spite of their perplexity, they persisted in asserting their independence of each of the rival powers, and played the one against the other, in order to strengthen their position with ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... excuses, Ratia consigned the two guests to share the same bedroom and dressing-room. The number of gentlemen visitors had necessitated close packing, and Cilly, she said, had come to sleep in her room. Another hope had failed! But at the moment when the door was shut, Phoebe could only sink into a chair, untie her bonnet, and fan herself. Such oppressive good-nature was more fatiguing than a ten miles' walk, or than the toughest lesson in ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had wondrous charms, and frantically survey us all, then cry aloud, 'Where is my Lord Philander!——Oh, bring me my Philander, Brilliard: Oh, Antonet, where have you hid the treasure of my soul?' Then, weeping floods of tears, would sink all fainting in our arms. Anon with trembling words and sighs she'd cry——'But oh, my dear Philander is no more, you have surrendered him to France——Yes, yes, you have given him up, and ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... was—and still is— insensible, and I am afraid he must have been violently dashed against some of the wreckage, so I lost no time in making him fast to the first loose rope's end I could find. But I say, if the schooner's bottom is stove, as you say, I suppose she'll sink in ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... fight the world with was his brain; and only by incessant strenuousness in its exercise had he achieved the moderate prominence declared in yesterday's ceremony. By birth, by station, he was of no account; if he chose to sink, no influential voice would deplore his falling off or remind him of what he owed to himself. Chilvers, now—what a wide-spreading outcry, what calling upon gods and men, would be excited by any defection of that brilliant youth! ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... sentence. I am free. At first the horrible humiliation of my treatment, of my surroundings, of the depths I had to sink to, burned into me. Then the thought of you sustained me. Your gentle voice: your beauty: your pity: your unbounded faith in me strengthened my soul. All the degradation fell from me. They were but ignoble means to a noble ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... of his speech, the colour rising to the old man's cheek and forehead, whence it did not sink, but lay steadily, a heavy, purple blotch, attracted Agatha's notice—certainly more than Mr. ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... fastening an inquest upon the "Society of December 10," and of exposing Bonaparte beyond redemption before France and his true figure, as the head of the slum-proletariat of Paris, it allows the collision to sink to a point where the only issue between itself and the Minister of the Interior is. Who has jurisdiction over the appointment and dismissal of a Police Commissioner? Thus we see the party of Order, during this whole period, compelled ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... former. Ordinarily, I sleep from seven to eight hours; but when I am writing, but five,—simply because I cannot sleep any longer at such times. The consequence of this mode of life is that at the end of a long work I sink at once like a spent horse, and have not energy enough to perform the ordinary duties of life. I feel my health giving way under it, but really I do not care. I am ambitious to be ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... resistance of a circuit to high-frequency currents is different from that for low voltage direct or alternating currents, as the former do not sink into the conductor to nearly so great an extent; in fact, they stick practically to the surface of it, and hence their flow is opposed to a very much greater extent. The resistance of a circuit to high frequency ...
— The Radio Amateur's Hand Book • A. Frederick Collins
... helped him into the car, saw him sink back with her muff still supporting his injured arm, whispered a low "Good-bye!" and turned ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... Illinoisian, "and I remember one time I grew awful weak in the legs when I heard the bullets whistle around me and saw the enemy in front of me. How my legs carried me forward I cannot now tell, for I thought every minute that I should sink to the ground. I am opposed to having soldiers shot for not facing danger when it is not known that their legs would carry them into danger! Well, judge, you see the papers crowded in there? You call them cases of ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... seen in the cloud." This may respect God, or the world, that is, the seeing of the bow in the cloud; if it respect God, then it tells us he in judgment will remember mercy; if it respect the world, then it admonisheth us not to despond, or sink in despair under the greatest judgment of God, for the bow, the token of his covenant, is seen in the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... least, and constitutes a sliding scale which always operates against him. The revenues of the country are subject to similar fluctuations. Instead of approaching a steady standard, as would be the case under a system of specific duties, they sink and rise with the sinking and rising prices of articles in foreign countries. It would not be difficult for Congress to arrange a system of specific duties which would afford additional stability both to our revenue and our manufactures and without injury ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... latter for the maximum rate. But this is a fallacy. The interest of the two is identical; and for these obvious reasons, that if wages be too high, the capitalist must cease to produce and to employ; and if too low, the working population must sink to the position of unskilled labourers at home, and eventually bring about that very state of society from which emigration is sought as an escape. In supposing their interests to be antagonistical, the one party reasons as badly as the other; but, somehow, there ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... we are as good as dead, or worse. Fight and sink him, dear captain. What shall I do? What shall I do? If I had only minded the dream I had the ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... struggled to rise to his feet, only to sink back exhausted with great beads of sweat standing out on his brow. At last, abandoning the attempt, he began to wriggle back towards the stern of the canoe. His progress was slow and painful, and even in the short distance to be covered, he had often to lay quiet ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... also returned to England, after two years of absence, great misfortunes overwhelmed him. He lost successively his mother, dear friends, and other loved ones. Not to sink beneath these accumulated blows, and mistrusting his own strength, he called in to aid him the society of ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... often found it easier to sink to rest in a field than to leave it. For weeks at a time they were snowed up, sufficiently to prevent any one from Thrums going near them, though not sufficiently to keep the pallid mummers indoors. That would in many cases have meant starvation. ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the afternoon now came crowding upon his recollection. The night grew darker and darker; the stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally hid them from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and dismal. He was, moreover, approaching the very place where many of the scenes of the ghost stories had been laid. In the ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... arms our knightly weapons as we now wear them, and our place of combat this field or dingle, called the Bloody Sykes, the time being instant, and the combatants, like true knights, foregoing each advantage on either side." [Footnote: The ominous name of Bloodmire-sink or Syke, marks a narrow hollow to the north-west of Douglas Castle, from which it is distant about the third of a mile. Mr. Haddow states, that according to local tradition, the name was given in consequence of Sir James Douglas having at this spot intercepted ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... a feeble lunge of his sword, and let the point sink in the ground, as a palsied cripple supports his frame, swayed, and called to Angelo to come on, and try another stroke, another—one more! He fell in a lump: his look of amazement was surmounted ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... with a noise forever part. But see the happy, happy pair, Of genuine love and truth sincere; With mutual fondness while they burn, Still to each other kindly turn; And as the vital sparks decay, Together gently sink away; Till life's fierce trials being past, Their mingled ashes ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... no promise of the great future with its commercial grandeur, and everything was insecure and unsatisfactory, especially in rainy weather, which began in November and continued with more or less interruption until April. The new comer, not cautious to secure a sure footing would sometimes sink deep in the soft mud or even disappear in the spongy earth. With the ships too came not only the gold-seekers from many lands, but rats also as if they had a right and title to the rising city. These swarmed along ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... bed with a heavy heart, and it was long before the golden visions that disturbed his brain permitted him to sink into repose. The same visions, however, extended into his sleeping thoughts, and assumed a more definite form. He dreamed that he had discovered an immense treasure in the center of his garden. At every stroke of the spade he laid bare a golden ingot; ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... literary, virtuous or poor parentage, they will turn out retired scholars or men of mark; though they may by some accident be born in a destitute and poverty-stricken home, they cannot possibly, in fact, ever sink so low as to become runners or menials, or contentedly brook to be of the common herd or to be driven and curbed like a horse in harness. They will become, for a certainty, either actors of note or courtesans of notoriety; as instanced in former years by Hsue Yu, T'ao Ch'ien, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... point—until you see the bubbles beginning to rise to the top. The gas is then turned down or the kettle is placed on the back of the range and held at this near-boiling point for thirty minutes, after which it is taken to the sink and cold water is turned into the water in the kettle, until the bottle of milk is thoroughly cooled. It is now ready to be made up into the modified food ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... mind that devised it? We leave the motor and go to look into the dug-outs which line the road, out of which the dazed and dying Germans flung themselves at the approach of our men after the bombardment, and then Captain F. guides us a little further to a huge mine crater, and we sink into the mud which surrounds it, while my eyes look out over what once was Ovillers, northward towards Thiepval, and the slopes behind which runs the valley of the Ancre; up and over this torn and naked land, where the new armies of Great Britain, through ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... her cheerfulness, Mrs. Chester was a little weary after her guests departed, and leaned against the mantel-piece, longing to sink into the rocking-chair which the old man ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... The greater the storm and higher the waves, the louder rang the warning bell, until it was cut off and sunk by wicked Ralph the Rover. One fine day, as the story goes, when the bell was ringing gently, the pirate put out to the rock, saying, "I'll sink that bell and plague the Abbot of Aberbrothok." So he cut the rope, and down went the bell "with a gurgling sound; the bubbles rose and burst around," etc. Then "Ralph the Rover sailed away; he scoured the seas for many a day; and now, grown rich with plundered store, he steers ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... call spirits from the vasty deep, and make you see and hear and feel them? How paralyze your strength with a look, heal your wound with a touch, or cause your bullet to rebound harmless from my unprotected flesh? How shall I walk on the air, sink through the earth, pass through stone walls, or walk, dry-shod, on the floor of the ocean? How shall I visit the other side of the moon, jump through the ring of Saturn, and gather sunflowers in Sirius? There are persons now living who profess to do no less remarkable feats, and to regard ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... host! Immediately the conversation will turn upon him, and they will mention that I am living with him; furthermore, they will relate that he has a little pug-nosed daughter, that they are going to exchange me with her. I should sink beneath the earth for very shame before my cousin Melanie! And surely, one has only to fear something and it will indeed come to pass. Grandmother was thoughtless enough to discover immediately what I wished to conceal, with ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... spoiled, and she wanted to cry. A low buzz of whispers, broken by titters, went round the table, and through it all Miss Inches' voice sounded solemn and distinct, as she slowly read one passage after another, pausing between each to let the meaning sink properly into the ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... ran off, and the old lady retired to her parlor to sink into her easy-chair, as much excited by this little feat as if she had led a forlorn hope to ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... this the glorious produce, this the fruit, Which Nature hoped for from so rich a root? Were there but two, (search all the world around) Were there but two such nobles to be found, The very name would sink into a term Of scorn, and man would rather be a worm Than be a lord: but Nature, full of grace, Nor meaning birth and titles to be base, Made only one, and having made him, swore, In mercy to mankind, to make no more: 410 Nor stopp'd she there, but, like a generous friend, The ills which ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... disposal. Had he moved up with the whole of his army from Cairo, he might have destroyed the English immediately after their landing. Instead of doing so, he allowed weak isolated detachments of the French to sink before superior numbers. The English had already gained confidence of victory when Menou advanced in some force in order to give battle in front of Alexandria. The decisive engagement took place on the 21st of March. ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... the dead men just without, the frozen desolation of the island, the mighty world of waters in which it lay. No! you can think of no isolation comparable to this; and I tremble as I review it, for under the thought of the enormous loneliness of that time my spirit must ever sink and ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... times waking with a start, thinking he had heard something. For a few minutes he would listen intently, feverishly. But when nothing reached his ears but the little night sounds he had become accustomed to, he would sink back into the lethargy that weighed ...
— A Choice of Miracles • James A. Cox
... he doesn't want them to leave off buying them, because he wants them himself. Don't tell the Woods this. Don't tell Mother Jem and I cry, or else she'll be miserable. I don't so much mind the beatings (Lorraine says you get hard in time), nor the washing at the sink—nor the duff puddings—but it is such a beastly hole, and he is such an old brute, and I feel so dreadful I can't tell you. Give my love to Mrs. Wood and to Mr. Wood, and to Carlo and to Mary Anne, and to your dear dear ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... inactive, for the sun was already beginning to sink below the western horizon, lighting up Saint Alban's Head, abreast of which we were now speeding along, with a bright glare that displayed every detail of its steep escarpment and the rocky foreshore at its base; the glorious orb of day presently ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... heroism of endurance, the blameless purity, the contempt of guilty fame and of honors destructive to the human race, which, had they assumed the proud name of philosophy, would have been blazoned in his brightest words, because they own religion as their principle—sink into narrow asceticism. The glories of Christianity, in short, touch on no chord in the heart of the writer; his imagination remains unkindled; his words, though they maintain their stately and measured march, have become cool, argumentative, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... has attended our efforts to His blessing, and believing that He has given us length of days, and strengthened our weakness, and poured consolation into our hearts when ready to sink in despair, in answer to persevering and importunate prayer, we come to direct our readers to this source of wisdom and aid,—to urge upon them to engage often in this first duty and highest privilege. Let us go forth, dear friends, to the work we have to do ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... began to learn the violin at the age of three, in which he was a year or two ahead of the average virtuoso, and he made great progress. By and by he heard Spohr, and after that his diligence increased, for he practised, during seven months, not less than fourteen hours a day. Even Paganini used to sink exhausted after ten hours' practice. In 1820, we are told, he went to Paris and studied under Baillot, Kreutzer, and Lafont, receiving from each two lessons a week for several successive winters. With such an imposing array of talent at his service much might be expected of Mr. Oury, and he actually ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... on board. His additional weight brought the canoe almost flush with the water. They were, however, certainly better off in her than in the water; but at any moment, with the slightest increase of wind, she might fill and sink beneath them, and they would again be left to struggle for their lives. Ned was afraid of moving, and urged his companions to ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... settle down to a serious contemplation of your surroundings and of the outlook before you; absorb as much as you can of the atmosphere of the place, let it sink into you. For this purpose a guide-book is not only useless, it is a let and a hindrance. After all, what does a guide-book tell you? Either it recites dry facts in an utterly soulless voice, or else, if it make any ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... but they comes up again as soon as you sails over 'em. They lose the number of their mess, and their mess-mates sticks the spoons in the rack; but no good—no good, old Ringrope; they ar'n't dead yet. I tell ye, now, ten best—bower-anchors wouldn't sink this 'ere top-man. He'll be soon coming in the wake of the thirty-nine spooks what spooks me every night in my hammock—jist afore the mid-watch is called. Small thanks I gets for my pains; and every one on 'em looks so 'proachful-like, with a sail-maker's needle through his nose. I've been ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... can, what it would save you if you could do away with your pantry, kitchen table, and cupboard and get all the articles needed in the preparation of a meal in one complete well-ordered piece of furniture that could be placed between the range and sink, so you could reach almost from one to the other. Think of the steps it would ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... heard. And, to strengthen this false luxurious confidence in the noiseless roads, it happened also that the night was one of peculiar solemnity and peace. For my own part, though slightly alive to the possibilities of peril, I had so far yielded to the influence of the mighty calm as to sink into a profound reverie. The month was August; in the middle of which lay my own birthday—a festival to every thoughtful man suggesting solemn and often sigh-born [Footnote: "Sigh-born":—I owe the suggestion of this word ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... Viridis, and then Atra; and we two stood up with our useless swords brandished and would have leapt over into the deep, but that Arthur arose also and took hold of an arm of each of us and stayed us, and said: Nay, then, if ye go, take me with you, and let all the Quest sink down into the deep, and let our lovelings pine in captivity, and Birdalone lose all her friends in one swoop, and we be known hereafter as the fools ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... and wonder, as though some one had suddenly knocked at the door. Anna Sergueyevna, "the lady with the toy dog" took what had happened somehow seriously, with a particular gravity, as though thinking that this was her downfall and very strange and improper. Her features seemed to sink and wither, and on either side of her face her long hair hung mournfully down; she sat crestfallen and musing, exactly like a woman taken in sin ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... were placed two trees tied together. These beams were then connected with cross sticks. To prevent this structure from being carried away by the current, two large trees, fastened together, were fixed to both banks, their roots being tied with ropes to the trees growing there; they were allowed to sink in the water, so that the current could not bear away the forks whose ends sloped down the stream, and the current itself kept in their places those whose roots slanted up the stream. Here another of the party ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... dull. He did not know what was real and what part of a dream. He had no recollection of any of the events immediately preceding this sudden and extraordinary journey, and after a brief period of bewilderment would sink back into the black abyss of unconsciousness from which he had been roused ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... serve us, that he who happened to carry any of our company over a river, seemed transported at his good fortune. When we came to the boats which were to carry us on board our ships, such numbers pressed in to accompany us, that they might see our ships, that our boats were ready to sink under the load. We accordingly carried as many of them to the ships as our boats could possibly accommodate, and vast numbers followed us by swimming, insomuch that we were somewhat alarmed at their numbers, though naked and unarmed, more than a thousand of them being on board at once, admiring ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... mortal man till Dante rose. Or it may be the Chorus was composed—as in the comedies of Aristophanes, the greatest humourist the world has ever seen—of birds, or of frogs, or even of clouds. It may rise to the level of Don Quixote, or sink to that of Sancho Panza; for it is always the incarnation of such wisdom, heavenly or earthly, as the poet wishes the people to bring to bear ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... sunshine of expiring Day In Summer's twilight weeps itself away, Who hath not felt the softness of the hour Sink on the heart, as dew along the flower? With a pure feeling which absorbs and awes While Nature makes that melancholy pause— Her breathing moment on the bridge where Time Of light and darkness forms an arch sublime— Who hath ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... was assisted by the officers and company of the above frigate to secure his vessel and hand the sails, which he could not have done without assistance; and that he had been reduced to the necessity, some time before he arrived, to sink the other vessel which was in company with him, for the purpose of manning one out of the remaining part of the two ships companies; without which, he never could have reached Batavia with either: for when he arrived there, he had only four men out of the two crews, ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter |
