"Receding" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on a flat surface, and must learn to conceive designs in light and shade before they can conceive them in color, and must learn to treat subjects under positive color and in narrow groups, before they can treat them under atmospheric effect and in receding masses, and all these are mere necessities of practice, and have no more connection with any divisions of the human mind than the equally paramount necessities that men must gather stones before they build walls, or grind ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... mud stretched away, glistening red and brown in the sunlight. Beyond in the Ray lay a long line of bawleys, while a score or more nearer at hand lay heeled over on the mud as they had been left by the receding tide. ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... blonde type of man is fundamentally different in nature from the brunette type. Get out of your head any misconception that a man is foredoomed to practically certain failure in a particular career because he has a big nose, sloping brow, and receding chin; and that another man with a snub nose, bulging forehead, and protruding jaw is destined almost surely to succeed if he selects a certain vocation. No "mind man" with a normal, healthy body is ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... Collecting, projecting, Receding and speeding, And shocking and rocking, And darting and parting, And threading and spreading, And whizzing and hissing, And dripping and skipping, And hitting and splitting, And shining and twining, And rattling and battling, And ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... thus established, what signifies Spirit or Matter? Why trouble about the march of the worlds in one direction or in another, since the Being who guides them is shown to be an absurdity? Why continue to ask whether man is approaching heaven or receding from it, whether creation is rising towards Spirit or descending towards Matter, if the questioned universe gives no reply? What signifies theogonies and their armies, theologies and their dogmas, since whichever side of the problem is man's choice, his God exists not? Let us for a moment ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... the uncontrollable grief of a Siamang gibbon who had been taken on board of a homebound English packet, where his owner tempted him with all sorts of tidbits, in the vain hope of calming his sorrow. The gibbon kept his eye on the receding outline of his native mountains, and every now and then made a desperate attempt to break his fetters; but when the coast-line began to blend with the horizon the captive's behavior underwent a marked change. He ceased to tug at his chain, and, chattering with protruded lips, after the deprecatory ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... left alone in that spot, followed with his eyes the receding form of the mercenary, as the sun, now setting, shone slant upon his glittering casque, and said bitterly to himself—"Unfortunate city, fountain of all mighty memories—fallen queen of a thousand nations—how art thou decrowned and spoiled by thy recreant and apostate ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... each voice of it pursuing A golden separate dream, remote, persistent, Climbing to fire, receding to hoarse despair. What do you whisper, brother? What do you tell me? . . . We pass each other, are ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken
... The watery waste, the prospect wild and new; The now receding waters gave them space, On either side, the growing shores to trace And then returning, they contract the scene, Till small and smaller grows ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... of his vanishing property, as he stood, accompanied by a United States marshal, on a wharf at a port on the south shore of Lake Erie. On the stern of a small steamboat which was receding rapidly from the wharf, with her nose pointing toward Canada, there stood a group of familiar dark faces, and the look they cast backward was not one of longing for the fleshpots of Egypt. The colonel saw Grandison point him out to one of the crew of the vessel, who waved his hand derisively ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... three volleys of musketry, the archers were gradually driven back toward the centre of the square. In vain they spurred their horses against the crowd; it overwhelmed them with its swelling waves. Half an hour passed in this struggle, the guards still receding toward the pile, which they concealed as they pressed ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... anything like this one?"—ironically. "I dare say it isn't. But have your good time, grave monk; doubtless you are willing that the fiddlers shall be paid." And wrapping his toga about him majestically, he stalked away, leaving me staring dumfoundedly after his receding form. ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... on the shore, and that little figure kneeling by them with clasped hands, seemed to be growing dim and indistinct, close as they were, and as if they were receding. His arms felt like lead, and he could hardly make his strokes, while somehow Sir Henry now embarrassed him by being so close that he could not take hold, as it were, of the water. But still he strove on, with the foam ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... out, the little barefoot drummer with $6.50 hobbled across the muddy street, the proudest boy in all Oregon; but he was not so happy as were his five big brothers in the receding car. ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... more and more, beyond what it had done yet, and a pretty little girl with dark curls riotous from under her red tam-o'-shanter, ran down, and brought up against us violently with both hands, laughing heartily. We laughed too. Looking seawards, I saw receding the broad green hill, snow-capped, which had lifted us and let us down. The sea was ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... silence. Its gay company is gone. Its streets are too large for the population, and yet they swarm with beggars. I had often heard it compared in outline to a ship,—the sunrise astern and the prow pointing westward,—and as we drove away that day and I looked back to the receding town, it seemed to me like a grand hulk of some richly laden galleon, aground on the rock that holds it, alone, abandoned to its fate among the barren billows of the tumbling ridges, its crew tired out with struggling and apathetic in despair, ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... the chance," answered the young inventor, and he spoke truly, for a moment later, as the big propellers took hold of the air, the Falcon went up with a rush, and was far beyond the reach of the men. In a rage the spy shook his fist at the fast receding craft, and one of the policemen ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton
... distressing by reason of this visible affirmation of its illimitableness. It is terrifying in its magnificence! The limpidity of the air gives an extraordinary depth to the perspectives, and in the clear and far-receding distances the chains of mountains are interlaced and overlaid in regular forms which, from the beginning of the world, have been untouched by the hand of man, and with hard, dry contours which no vegetation has ever softened or changed. In the foreground they are of a reddish brown; then in their ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... ten minutes her fresh, sweet, fascinating voice came to him where he stood in the yard; then he heard it growing fainter, more distant, receding; ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... rise, but not beyond. For the notion of that God-man was receding fast to more and more awful abysmal heights, in the minds of a generation who were forgetting His love in His power, and practically losing sight of His humanity in their eager doctrinal assertion of His Divinity. ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... day saw Philip speeding on his road to the Great City, Thinking how the stars gazed downward just with Mildred's patient eyes; Dreams of work, and fame, and honour struggling with a tender pity, Till the loving Past receding saw the conquering ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... concave; and those in the royal palace were ornamented with the figures of captives, or emblems of dominion over Egypt and other countries. The back was light and strong, and consisted of a single set of upright and cross bars, or of a frame receding gradually and terminating at its summit in a graceful curve, supported from without by perpendicular bars; and over this was thrown a handsome pillow of colored cotton, painted leather, or gold and silver tissue, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... the way, and especially excelled in admirable likenesses from memory. Great admiration was excited by his mysterious 'camera obscura,' in which he showed at one time the stars and the moon rising over rocky hills, at another wide landscapes with mountains and gulfs receding into dim perspective, and with fleets advancing on the waters in shade or sunshine. And that which others created he welcomed joyfully, and held every human achievement which followed the laws of ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... cloth leaves the loom it is brushed; then it passes over to the inspection table in an upward receding direction, so that the eye of the operator can readily detect imperfections. The ends of two or more pieces as coming from the loom are sewed into a string for convenient handling ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... Serissa, Acaciae sp., which is the black wood of Madras; Sissoo, and Bheirs. Hizarnow is a large place, curiously occupying receding slopes of the base of a low range of hills, but it must be dreadfully hot. We passed several Kaburistans with pollarded, stunted, excavated Furas trees. One mile before Hizarnow, a curious hill of slate occurred, covered ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... channel perpetual muffled music, like a child singing in the twilight to reassure its half-fearful heart. Kate's face was softened and full of rich expression; her pink ribbons threw a delicate tinge of bloom upon the rounded cheek and pensive eyelid; the air was pure balm, and a cool breath from the receding showers of the distant thunderstorm just freshened the odors of wood and field. I began to feel suspiciously that sentimental, but through it all came persevering "week! week! week!" from the basket at my feet. Did I make ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... Jimmie Junior couldn't keep his feet still. He could never keep any part of him still, the little jack-in-the-box. Here he was now, tearing about the kitchen, pursuing the ever-receding tail of the newest addition to the family, a half-starved cur who had followed Jimmie in from the street, and had been fed into a semblance of reality. From this treasure a bare, round tail hung out behind in tantalizing fashion; Jimmie Junior, always imagining ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... be willing to enter into a contract with me to keep the cannery supplied with fish?" he asked, watching her closely. For the first time he saw her show signs of receding ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... only a thin pair of trousers and a shirt remained, I had no difficulty in keeping myself above water; but the knowledge that sharks abounded in those seas, and that any moment one of those horrid monsters might catch hold of my leg and haul me down, gave me very unpleasant sensations. I watched the receding vessel—moments seemed hours. There was no sign of her putting about. I at length was about to give way to despair, when my eye fell on an object floating between her and me. It was of some size—a grating I concluded—and I made out ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... him down, and placed her head on his aching, throbbing breast, While the sweeping rush of the prairie winds seemed to bring relief and rest, And her dim eye watched, without a shade of regret or passing pain, The receding waggon, soon a speck on ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... had subsided quickly in her characteristic manner. She sat absently nibbling the handle of the obliging pan, while staring after the receding figure, its girlish slenderness stiffened as if to warn away all friendliness. "She's stubborner than ever. I say, ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... hold these cattle," said Joel, watching the receding horsemen. "He's afraid a storm will catch us several miles out and cut us off from reaching the corral. Well, it will be ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... they had abandoned their horses, and were trying to reach the Samanka River on foot by way of the sea beach. They did not expect to do it in one tide but intended to take refuge on high rocks during the flood, and resume their journey as soon as the beach should be left bare by the receding water. There was no time for any more explanations. The tide was running in rapidly, and we must make twelve miles in a little over an hour, or lose our horses. We mounted the tired, wet Kamchadals ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... leaving the wharf, and Mrs. Douglas, Malcom, Margery, Barbara, and Bettina are clustered together on her deck, waving again and again their good-bys, and straining their eyes still to recognize the dear familiar form and face among the crowd that presses forward on the receding pier, we will take time for a full introduction of the chief ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... feet high. Cave earth, which is 5 feet thick above the bottom of a small stream coming from the interior, extends back to large rocks covering the floor; beyond these are rocks, wet clay, and gravel. The cave earth seems to run for some distance under the receding walls. A milk house has been constructed in it, so that ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... A moment more and he began to tell Joan what he was thinking—gave her the whole metaphysical history of the development in him of the idea of life in connection with the torrent and its origin ever receding, like a decoy-hope that entices us to the truth, until at length he saw in God the one only origin, the fountain of fountains, the Father of all lights—that is, of all things, and all ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... to see, and we looked upon them, our hearts filled with emotions that these scenes had never given rise to before. Our ruddy Canadian emblem, the maple leaf, gave its characteristic tinge to the receding shores—a colour to be seen often on the field of battle, but never in the foliage of ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... the month of March. The cold, too, was very bitter. Yet at the time I fancy I scarcely thought about it. Thus on we went, sometimes wading, sometimes swimming, and sometimes scrambling along the ledge which the receding water had left bare. Often we had to assist each other, and I believe none of us alone could have performed the task. Once Mr Cole was very nearly giving in, and twice Charley declared he could not go on, and must stay on the rock where we were resting till ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... a long sitting, the power to work seemed to desert me suddenly. My throat closed nervously, my mouth grew dry, the whole room seemed swimming round me, and the faultless, dazzling figure before me seemed receding into a darkening mist. I flung away my brush and rose suddenly. I felt I must move, walk about, and I started to pace the room then suddenly reeled, and saved myself ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... of the side door-ways are lined with isolated columns, receding in the manner of perspective; the ribbed mouldings between these columns, the interlaced and pendent foliage of the capitals, and the multiplied mouldings of which the arches above are composed, cannot be too ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips
... great Norman piers and arches and the gloom of the choir beyond. Through the noble circular arches, which support the central tower and the modern screen on the eastern side of it, we see the eastern wall of the choir, pierced above by three lancet windows and below by a wide circular arch receding in many orders. A central pillar divides this lower arch, two pointed arches springing from its capital and leaving a spandrel between them, which is covered with modern sculpture. In the far distance may be distinguished ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford, A Description - Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • A. Hugh Fisher
... afternoon of August ninth, 1862, needs only a passing notice in connection with this record. The battalion in which Corporal Glazier served acted as body-guard to General McDowell, and arrived on the field just as the wave of battle was receding. The following morning, on passing over the slopes of Cedar Mountain, where the guns of General Banks had made sad havoc on the previous day, a dead Confederate soldier, partially unburied, attracted the attention of the troopers. At that period of the war a sentiment ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... lifted him on its breast and drew him down again as if to wrap him with huge cold hands. An undertow of receding water pulled him to the rocks and he touched them with his hands. He reached the mouth of the cave, and felt the splash of the drops which fell from it. He moved very cautiously, fearing to strike suddenly on the sunken rocks. He felt ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... constellations of Orion and Ursa Major (familiarly known as the "Dipper") blazed with an intense brilliancy that seemed the very incarnation and concentration of electric vitality. Five of the stars in Ursa Major were then receding from our atmosphere at the rate of twenty thousand miles a second; the other two were approaching; and the phenomenon of these weeks was in the changing aspect of that constellation which the astronomers hold will require some two thousand years to complete. ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... that twisted with a giddy blankness, and found myself outside a bare windowless wall in Charin again, the night sky starred and cold. The acrid smell of the Ghost Wind was thinning in the streets, but I had to crouch in a cranny of the wall when a final rustling horde of Ya-men, the last of their receding tide, rustled down the street. I found my way to my lodging in a filthy chak hostel, and threw myself down on ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... ft., a new coast-line, with bays and estuaries indented in the valleys, would appear at the new sea-level. If the sea sank once more to its former level, the 100-ft. contour-line with all its irregularities would be represented by the beach mark made by the sea when 100 ft. higher. If instead of receding the sea rose continuously at the rate of 100 ft. per day, a series of levels 100 ft. above one another would be marked daily upon the land until at last the highest mountain peaks appeared as islands less than 100 ft. high. A record of this series of advances marked upon a flat ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... from the land of the olive conceal it; Under Pilatus's hill low by the river it lies; Italy, utter the word, and the olive and vine will allure not,— Wilderness, forest, and snow will not the passage impede; Italy, unto thy cities receding, the clue to recover, Hither, recovered the clue, shall not the ...
— Amours de Voyage • Arthur Hugh Clough
... interminable corridor, edged and framed by gathering shadows that were about to cover it. They stretched their hands out; they called to him; they moved their feet; for the first time this wonderful day, there was hurry in them. But the receding figure of the Tramp withdrew still further and further, until an inaccessible distance intervened. They heard him singing faintly "There is no hurry, Life has just begun...The world is young with laughter...We can fly..." but the words came sighing towards them ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... use of their want of success by presenting to his Majesty his irresoluteness, which made the Chancellor still impose upon him, that the King did not think the better of the Chancellor or the Treasurer for his receding at that time from prosecuting what he had so positively resolved to have done." He could only promise "to be firmer to his ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... mass poured down the beach, tugging at me in its retreat. With the last strength ebbing away from me with that receding current, I dragged the chain ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... yellow bow on either hand, fringed with bush and palms, receding to where the ultimate jaws of the bay stood black and thin against the sunrise. Once upon it, they could be seen by whoever should look from the town, and there was peremptory occasion for haste. Scott had counted on forcing the journey ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... Francisco. It lies in the heart of the city and its very atmosphere is saturated with Eastern customs. It is much more sanitary but not as picturesque as it was before the fire." I flushed as I saw his amusement, and quickly called his attention to the receding shores where the encircling green hills had thrown out long banners of yellow mustard and blue lupins. To the right was Mt. Tamalpais, a sturdy sentinel looking out to the ocean, its summit pressed ...
— The Lure of San Francisco - A Romance Amid Old Landmarks • Elizabeth Gray Potter and Mabel Thayer Gray
... that the deluge afterwards rose with its waters above the mountains, the movement of the sea must have been so sluggish in its rise against the currents of the rivers, that it could not have carried, floating upon it, things heavier than itself; and even if it had supported them, in its receding it would have left them strewn about, in various spots. But how are we to account for the corals which are found every day towards Monte Ferrato in Lombardy, with the holes of the worms in them, sticking to rocks left uncovered by the currents of rivers? These ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... Yes, it is truly a melancholy spectacle. Women with receding chins and shapeless noses go about in broad daylight saying "Do this!" and "Do that!" and all the men, even those of great wealth, obey implicitly their women to whom they refer sonorously either as "Mrs. So-and-so" or ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... the critics who edged their way down the stalls. Harding stood in the third row talking to a young man. He said, 'You mean the woman with the black hair piled into a point, and fastened with a steel circlet. A face of sheep-like sensuality. Red lips and a round receding chin. A large bosom, and two thin arms showing beneath the opera cloak, which she has not yet thrown from her shoulders. I do not know her—une laideur attirante. Many a man might be interested in her. But do you see the woman in the stage-box? You would not believe it, but she is sixty, ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... road, following it to the dawk bungalow of Doomree. On the way I found the Caesalpinia paniculuta, a magnificent climber, festooning the trues with its dark glossy foliage and gorgeous racemes of orange blossoms. Receding from the mountain, the country again became barren: at Doomree the hills were of crystalline rocks, chiefly quartz and gneiss; no palms or large trees of any kind appeared. The spear-grass abounded, and a detestable nuisance it ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... is like a small inlet running in to the land from the sea. Although apparently subject only to its own laws, it is really subject to the ebb and flow of the tides of the ocean. The great sea of life is swelling and receding, rising and falling, and we are responding to its vibrations and rhythm. In a normal condition we receive the vibration and rhythm of the great ocean of life, and respond to it, but at times the mouth of the inlet seems choked up with debris, and we fail ...
— The Hindu-Yogi Science Of Breath • Yogi Ramacharaka
... intends to make no further claim to it. The word is used more particularly with respect to property abandoned at sea (see WRECK), but it is also applied in other senses; for example, land gained from the sea by receding of the water is termed dereliction. Land gained gradually and slowly by dereliction belongs to the owner of the adjoining land, but in the case of sudden or considerable dereliction the land belongs to the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... will upon his brow, he received her image distinctly into his mind, even to the minutia of the dress and ornaments he knew she wore, and felt an absolutely savage exultation in his ability to retain it. Then came the sound of the closing of the hall door and the rattle of receding wheels, and somehow it was Nathalie and not his wife that he was holding so grimly in his thought, and with her, salient and vivid as before, the tormenting remembrance of his tenant, connected with the memory of George Feval. Springing to his feet, ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor
... as it jolted westward, climbed a pretty steady upgrade. The country, receding from the rough river valley, swelled more and more gently, as if it had been smoothed out by the wind. On one of the last of the rugged ridges, at the end of a branch road, stood a grim square house with ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... murder-shriek while you turn the page of your novel. But I cannot describe these things. In time the crushing sense of calamity loosened its grasp. Feeling lashed her pinions. Thought struggled to rise. Passion was still, stunned, floored. She had recoiled like a receding wave for a stronger onset. A hundred ghastly fears and fancies strutted a moment, pecking at the young girl's naked heart, like sandpipers on the weltering beach. Then, as with a great murmurous rush, came the meaning of her grief. The flood-gates ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... still alive regarded it for the most part with that dull stupidity that hunger, fatigue, heat and despair engender, there were still men who could perceive the meaning of these signs. Star and earth had been at their nearest, had swung about one another, and the star had passed. Already it was receding, swifter and swifter, in the last stage of its headlong journey ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... thy soul relentless closing To grief—the woman-shame no art can heal— To that small life beneath my heart reposing! Man, man, the wild beast for its young can feel! Proud flew the sails—receding from the land, I watched them waning from the wistful eye, Round the gay maids on Seine's voluptuous strand, Breathes the false incense of his ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... For manly sports beyond the castle walls, And I obey; you bid me turn a chamberer, To pick up gloves, and fans, and knitting-needles, And list to songs and tunes, and watch for smiles, And smile at pretty prattle, and look into The eyes of feminine, as though they were The stars receding early to our wish Upon the dawn of a world-winning battle— 410 What can a son or man do ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... uplifted his hand. "Listen," said he, "the battle is receding. They are driving our poor fellows southward, away from us. They are massed between them and us. It would only be playing into their hands, my boy. It's too late to help. Our ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... have toiled and wandered With weary feet and numb; Have doubted, sifted, pondered,— How else should knowledge come? Have seen too late for heeding, Our hopes go out in tears, Lost in the dim receding, Irrevocable years. ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... southern Alps with their towering snow-capped peaks and glaciers sparkling in the sun; the patches of black pine forest lying sombre and dark against the mountain sides, in contrast with the purple, blue, and gray of the receding gorges, changing, smiling, or frowning as clouds or sunshine passed over them. All this heightened by the extremely rare atmosphere of New Zealand, in which every detail stood out at even that distance clear and distinct, made up a picture which for beauty and grandeur can rarely be equalled ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... new coat, it produced on the first Sunday after its purchase an effect which I found at once arresting and sedately rich. My looking-glass was not more than six inches square, but, by propping it up on a chair, and receding from it gradually, I was able to obtain a very fair view of my trousers; while, by replacing it on the wall, and observing my reflection carefully from different angles, I was able to judge of most parts of the ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... the double danger of being seized as prisoners by the Turks, and of our galley raising anchor before we could return, made it seem like a fevered vision of the night—the wide plain, the girdling mountains, the ruined porticos and columns, either standing far aloof, as if receding from our hurried footsteps, or else jammed in confusedly among the dwellings of Christians degraded into servitude, or among the forts and turrets of their Moslem conquerors, who have their stronghold on ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... in Tom Drift to cry "I have sinned! I will return!" No, once loose from his moorings, he let himself float down the stream, watching the receding banks in mute despair, raising no shout for succour, venturing no ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... direction Tom pointed, waiting anxiously, in the hope of dragging the man out of the surf as it broke on the shore. Tom rushed in and seized him, as for an instant he was thrown on the beach, or the receding waves would have carried him back. The boys assisted Tom. They recognised the features of the captain, but the hue of death was on his face. His arms fell down as they placed him on ...
— The Voyage of the "Steadfast" - The Young Missionaries in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... went up again and spent the day in walking about the island, returning to the underground dwelling for the night. Thus I lived for a month, during which time I became aware that the sea was gradually receding day by day from the western side of the island, till by the end of the month, I found that the water was become low enough to afford a passage to the mainland. At this I rejoiced, making sure of delivery, and fording the little water that remained, made shift to ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... lesser arms. It was very hard to lie and listen, to imagine, to suspect, to dread. For hours the game went on, the reserves at the trenches hearing now distinctly and now faintly the tumult of the lines, now receding, now coming on. But the volume of the tumult, and its separation into a thousand distinct and terrifying sounds, became in the average ever an increasing and not a lessening thing. The cracker-popping ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... the marble pavement. She clasped with her white cold arms the knees of Apollo—Hold! the form totters!—it is too late!—it must fall! She rises to flee away, but the very floor is receding from her tread. And slowly, with a majesty even in destruction, the god bows himself, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... on the bill in the Swedish Parliament a university professor said in a tone of eloquent finality: "The woman suffrage movement has reached and passed its climax; the suffrage wave is now rapidly receding." With patronizing air, more droll than he could know, the gentleman added: "We have permitted this movement to come thus far but we shall allow it to go no farther." Thus another fly resting upon the proverbial wheel of progress commanded it to turn no more. This ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... minute, broodingly watching the neat receding back of Charles Wilbraham. How happy and how proud it looked, that serene and elegant back! How proud and how pleased Henry knew Charles Wilbraham to be, walking with the senior British delegate, whom every one admired, along the Quai du Mont Blanc! As proud and as happy as a prince. Henry knew ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... genial colours warm us? How the gay deceptions charm us? The objects here advancing nigh As with brighter tints they bloom—- There receding from the eye As suffus'd with deeper gloom; And, while here to bound the scene, Their tops half-blended with the skies, The misty mountains intervene, Or rocks in dim confusion rise; 130 There the wild ocean terminates the view; ...
— A Pindarick Ode on Painting - Addressed to Joshua Reynolds, Esq. • Thomas Morrison
... the river, the vale still continued to open on either hand, the hills receding from each bank of the stream from two to three miles. The land on the more elevated spots, and irregular low hills, was strong but of good soil, covered with grass: the flats which occurred alternately on both sides of the river ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... much on the outward circumstances that encumber him! It is so hard to work when work seems hopeless—so hard to trust where the basis of our faith is so far removed from sight! When large tracts of land went out of cultivation, was it not natural to think that agriculture was receding from the country, leaving the green hills once more to be brown and barren, as hills once green have become in other countries? And when men were falling in the highways, and women would sit with their babes in their arms, listless till death should come to them, was it not natural ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... Oakes first, and it seemed to me the moment I saw the collector's face that the outlook was not so depressing. He looked neither young nor incompetent. His jaw was neither receding nor too prominent. His neck sat on his shoulders with the air of full responsibility, unsought but not refused. And his eyes looked straight into those of each of us in turn with a frank challenge no ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... yacht sailed away in the afternoon. About the time when Mrs. Carnegie was hurriedly dressing to drive with her husband to Hampton over-night, to ensure not missing the mail-boat to Ryde in the morning, that gay and pleasant town was fast receding from Bessie's view. At dawn the island was out of sight, and when Mr. Carnegie, landing on the pier, sought a boat to carry him and his wife to the Foam, a boatman looked up at him and said, "The Foam, sir? You'll have much ado to overtake her. She's halfway to ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... when observed from the deck of a steamboat; for in this case it is the damp side of the tunnel that appears to be stationary, and the framework of the window through which the prospect is presented that seems to be receding; of course, the uniformity of the objects visible, and the faint light in which they are beheld, materially assist this ocular deception; but the hint thus thrown out may serve as a convenient peg on which passengers may hang a theory ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... hand; Mute is the music, voiceless are the strings, Save such faint discord as the wild wind flings In sad aeolian murmurs through the land. The tide of melody, whose billows grand Flowed o'er the world in clearest utterings, Now, in receding current, sobs and sings That song we never wholly understand. * * O, eyes where glorious prophecies belong, And gracious reverence to humbly bow, And kingly spirit, proud, and pure, and strong; O, pallid minstrel ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... impending rocks, mantled with the flaunting grape-vine, and crowned with groves, which threw a broad shade on the waves beneath; and anon they were borne away into the mid-channel and wafted along with a rapidity that very much discomposed the sage Van Kortlandt, who, as he saw the land swiftly receding on either side, began exceedingly to doubt that terra firma was giving ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... Gerald said, as he looked back upon the slowly receding town, "that I have managed to carry off my prize with so little difficulty. I had expected to meet with all sorts of dangers, and had I been the peaceful trader I looked, our journey could not be ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... years had made little change in the exterior of our block. It was situated at a point in the city from which the ebb tide of Fashion was slowly receding, and which the flood tide of Trade had not yet touched. There was not a new house on the block, or an old one materially altered. A little paint, and a diligent application of broom and Croton water, had ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... had descended as far as the tierra templada, the zona of the table lands and foot hills. The mountains were receding in their rear, but still towered, exhibiting yet impressively their formidable heads. Here they met signs of man. They saw the white houses of coffee plantations gleam across the clearings. They struck into a road where they met travellers and pack-mules. Cattle ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... number or to the matter of the body on which it acts. He supposes likewise, that it is rarer in the pores of bodies than in open spaces, and even rarer in small pores and dense bodies, than in large pores and rare bodies; and also that its density increases in receding from gross matter; so for instance as to be greater at the 1/100 of an inch from the surface of any body, than at its surface; and so on. To the action of this aether he ascribes the attractions of gravitation and cohoesion, the attraction ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... and of that deepest joy which dims the eyes with tears, even while it wreathes the lips with smiles. During it, Katherine knelt by Richard's side; and every eye was fixed upon him, for he was almost fainting with the fatigue of his emotions; and it was with fast-receding consciousness that he whispered rapturously at its ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... however, and especially the generation which is growing up, will obviously be very especially exposed to it; as much so, perhaps, as any generation in the history of the world. Within the last thirty years the great wave of spiritualistic or idealistic thought ... has been receding and decreasing; and another, which is in the main driven by materialistic forces, has been gradually rising behind, vast and threatening. It is but its crest that we at present see; it is but a certain vague shaking produced by it that we at present feel; but we shall probably ...
— Mind and Motion and Monism • George John Romanes
... isle. The lumber stood Ponderous, and fixed by its own massy weight. But elbows still were wanting; these, some say, An alderman of Cripplegate contrived, And some ascribe the invention to a priest Burly and big, and studious of his ease. But rude at first, and not with easy slope Receding wide, they pressed against the ribs, And bruised the side, and elevated high Taught the raised shoulders to invade the ears. Long time elapsed or e'er our rugged sires Complained, though incommodiously pent in, And ill at ease behind. The ladies first Gan murmur, as became the softer sex. Ingenious ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... higher speed, so that if it be desired to "gear up," and drive the propeller faster than the engine goes (and this, we believe, was the purpose of the inventor), the pin-wheel must be made the driver; which is the reverse of advantageous in respect to the relative amounts of approaching and receding action. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... callin' to me not to open the door; didn't Oi tell ye Oi wouldn't come near ye, and Oi won't. It's goin' down to the bharn Oi am, and ye needn't be for worritin', at all, at all," and receding footsteps proved ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... individuals perpetuated by generation, instead of election,—and reducing the question to mathematical simplicity of statement: species are lines of individuals coming down from the past and running on to the future,—lines receding, therefore, from our view in either direction. Within our limited view they appear to be parallel lines, as a general thing neither approaching to nor diverging from each other. The first hypothesis assumes that they were parallel from the unknown beginning and will be to the unknown end. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... behind the trees that crowned the ledge, in order to ascend the Maristien from the other side of the declivity, and Joel soon caught a glimpse of the fast-receding form of the brave girl at the turn in the path where the ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... been the original of those caricatures of our compatriots by which French comic artists have sought to avenge Waterloo. It was stiff, haughty, contemptuous. It had prominent front teeth, a high nose, a long upper lip, a receding jaw; it had dull, cold, stupid, selfish green eyes, like a pike's, that swerved neither to right nor left, but looked steadily over peoples' heads as it stalked along in its ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... impressions on our senses, we find it hard to put ourselves in the place of the savage, to whom the same impressions appear in the guise of spirits or the handiwork of spirits. For ages the army of spirits, once so near, has been receding farther and farther from us, banished by the magic wand of science from hearth and home, from ruined cell and ivied tower, from haunted glade and lonely mere, from the riven murky cloud that belches forth the lightning, and from those fairer clouds that pillow the silvery moon or fret ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... trimming cozily planted on a blue-grass knoll across the brook seemed to bid him be at rest. The large red barn just back of the house stood out in sharp contrast against the green-foliaged mountain. The gold-colored balls on the lightning rods glistened in the farewell rays of the receding sun. Mount Olivet Church reared her white walls modestly from the brow of the blue-grass knoll a quarter of a mile eastward. Deacon Gramps was, at the close of this peaceful summer day, indulging in a mental congratulation of himself ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison
... pinched growth of lentisk and briar spread in patches over the rock. By this time he thought to have reached his goal, but for two more days he fared on through the same scene, with the sky close over him and the green valleys of earth receding far below. Sometimes for hours he saw only the red glistering slopes tufted with thin bushes, and the hard blue heaven so close that it seemed his hand could touch it; then at a turn of the path the rocks rolled apart, the eye plunged down ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... slowly receding. The danger-mark had passed, although the signs of havoc it had caused, were yet passing on the breast of the river. A part of a kitchen went sailing by. The watchers saw the upper window of a half-submerged ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... Brodrick was a more thick-set, an older, graver-lined, and grizzled Hugh, a Hugh who had lost his sombre fixity of gaze. Dr. Henry Brodrick was a tall, attenuated John, with a slightly, ever so slightly receding chin. Mrs. Heron was Hugh again made feminine and slender. She had Hugh's features, refined and diminished. She had Hugh's eyes, filled with some tragic sorrow of her own. Her hair was white, every thread of it, though she could not have ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... treatment has succeeded in strengthening the energy of the resisting organism to a certain degree during the fever, it becomes necessary in due course to regulate the desire for food, which sometimes grows and asserts itself in a rapid and energetic manner, while the fever is receding. ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... And when the day's receding light Deserts the vale below, I trace its noiseless, upward flight Through darkening zones of foliage bright, Till all the world is lost in night Save pyramids ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... Like echoes of far-off autumnal bells. He starts up with a laugh, Binds up the last gaunt sheaf and turns away; Out of the dusk an inarticulate call Rings keen across the solemn Berkshire woods, And then the answer. Impotent farewells That eager voices lift Into the hush of the receding day; Full soon the silence surges in again, ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... no less,—nay, rather greater, since first we knew him. In other respects, very little alteration, except that his curling brown hair had grown thinner about the temples, and was receding a little from his forehead. But what cared he for that! He was not the last of ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... washed the rider from its back. He struck out boldly, making a desperate effort for life. Jacob and the boy pulled with all their might towards him, but before they could reach him a sea had dashed him against the cliff. By a mighty effort he got clear of it, when a receding wave carried him towards them. Before the boat reached him, however, he had ceased to struggle, and was sinking for the last time when Adam caught him by the collar, and with Jacob's assistance hauled him into the boat. Jacob ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... equal beauty descend to swell the Hanapepe with their clear, cool, tributaries, and there are "meetings of the waters" worthier of verse than those of Avoca. The walls are broken and highly fantastic, narrowing here, receding there, their strangely-arched recesses festooned with the feathery trichomanes, their clustering columns and broken buttresses suggesting some old-world minster, and their stately tiers of columnar basalt rising one above another in barren grey into the far-off ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... they soon began the ascent of a winding canyon. After two or three turns, to Darrell's surprise, every sign of human habitation vanished and only the rocky walls were visible, at first low and receding, but gradually growing higher and steeper. On they went, steadily ascending, till a turn suddenly brought the distant mountains into closer proximity, and Mr. Britton, pointing to a lofty, rugged range on ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... stones to which myriads of shell-fish were attached. The sight of these suggested the idea to him that on the opposite side there might be clams in the sand. He walked over there in search of them. Here the slope was so gradual that extensive flats were left uncovered by the receding tide. ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... the rifle of the boy lay, Fred picked it up, hastily reloaded it, and started after the herd. He broke into a loping trot such as an Indian shows when hurriedly following a trail. He kept his eyes on the fast receding animals, his interest being now centered on the moment when they should reach the wood on the ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... compressed at the sides and occiput; short and very slightly arched forehead; prominent, long, aquiline nose, with large nostrils; large mouth, but not thick lips; beautiful enduring teeth; short chin, but not receding; cheek-bones not prominent; eyes horizontal, and never large; eyebrows long; thick, straight, coarse, yet soft jet black hair; little or no beard; a long, broad, deep, highly-arched chest; small hands and feet; ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... pack to his liking, waved farewell to the Macabebe and moved toward the fringe of woods with a swinging stride. The soldier watched the receding figure with mingled admiration and awe. The Malay stood irresolute as the white man's head and shoulders passed from view under the low hanging branches, watched the pendulous khaki legs swing rhythmically into the shadows of the forest and out of vision, then cast ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... types will be, of course, still more striking, for the reasons given in the last paragraph. But while remarking upon the paucity of heavy plating as exhibited in the service French battleships, we would say one word for the angle at which it is placed. The receding sides of the great vessels of France give two very important attributes in their favor. In the first place, a much broader platform at the water line is afforded to secure steadiness of the ship and stable equilibrium, and the angle ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... Scoodrach, who had undressed and dived in off the shelf to swim out with a receding wave, rose to the surface and shook the water from his ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... not less wholesome, after all, than the heated atmosphere of the ball-room or caucus-chamber; or it may roll the wave of revolution over a kingdom, banishing the prince to wander an exile, perhaps a schoolmaster, in distant lands, to contend with poverty or duns, and then, on its receding tide, landing him once more safely on his throne. Frequent revolutions have, however, taught princes wisdom in this respect. Most of them now seem to be well provided for in foreign countries, beyond the reach of contingencies in their own, and if time ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... expense of bringing the valuable quartz itself, a much less amount in bulk, to the surface of the ground. The accumulating mass of the dead rock underfoot, will then be constantly raising the floor of the drift, and as constantly bringing the miners within convenient working-distance of the receding roof. In the case of "understoping," however, in which the blasts are made from the floor of the drift, it will be perceived that all the rock which is moved, of whatever kind, must equally be brought to the surface, which entails a much greater labor and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... breathing nostrils. The mouth and chin were hidden beneath a heavy moustache and abundant beard, which grew up to the ears, and had been of a mixed black-brown and auburn, and were now streaked with grey. The forehead was large, round, without protuberances, and very gently receding to where thin black curls, that had once been redundant, began to tumble down to the ears. The entire configuration of the head and face seemed to me singularly noble, and from the eyes upwards, full of beauty. He wore a pair of spectacles, and, in reading, a second pair over the ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... from the Austrians was the answer; then was heard the loud word of command from the officer, and the roll of the drum gradually receding in the distance until it was no longer audible. Every ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach |
