"Narrowing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... north, south, and west. Each niche is formed by a pair of uprights with a block laid across the top. The west niche is occupied by a horizontal table or slab (e) supported at its centre by a stone pillar 39 inches in height, of circular section narrowing in the centre (visible through the doorway in Pl. II, Fig. I). The southern niche contains an ordinary trilithon table (f): the northern niche is damaged, but apparently held a table ...
— Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders • T. Eric Peet
... bordered by the lofty forest-trees, with their bases matted together by canes. When occasionally a long reach of this avenue could be beheld, it presented a curious scene of uniformity: the white line of logs, narrowing in perspective, became hidden by the gloomy forest, or terminated in a zigzag which ascended ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... one and all, freed themselves by slow degrees from ecclesiastical control, till little or nothing has been left for the Church to regulate but her own rites and ceremonies, the morals (in a narrow and ever-narrowing sense of the word), and the faith (in the theological sense of ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... patronage. All Burns's instincts would naturally have been on the side of those who wished to resist patronage and "cowe the lairds" had not this, his natural tendency, been counteracted by a stronger bias drawing him in an opposite direction.' This is a narrowing—if not even a positive misconception—of the case with a vengeance. The question was not of patronage at all, but of moral and religious freedom; while the democracy of those ministers was a terribly ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... This narrowing of the meaning of the word on the part of ethical writers is, perhaps, natural. The hedonistic moralists made pleasure and pain the only ultimate reasonable stimulants to action. Many moralists opposed them (see, later, Chapters XXIV and XXV). So pleasure ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... rapidly as he followed up the crevasse, which showed no sign of narrowing. The snow was thick, the bitter wind increasing, and a plunge into icy water might prove disastrous. It was obvious that he must extricate his companion as soon as possible, but the means of accomplishing it was not clear. Crestwick was somewhere on the wrong side of the ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... The channel was narrowing now. Scotty looked back and drew his hand across his throat in the old signal to "cut." Rick instantly killed ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... your part later. You'll, of course, call on us," said Mr. Leslie. He fixed his narrowing eyes on Blake. "H'm. So you're Tom ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... fast. If you don't get away and polish up you'll never do a thing worth while. You'll be another what's-his-name—Ase Tidditt; that's what you'll be. I can see it coming on. You're ossifying; you're narrowing; you're—" ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... people formed a sort of state within a state, preserving their national life in the foreign environment. They possessed as much political independence as the Palestinian community when under Roman rule; and enjoyed all the advantages without any of the narrowing influences, physical or intellectual, of a ghetto. They were able to remain an independent body, and foster a Jewish spirit, a Jewish view of life, a Jewish culture, while at the same time they assimilated the different ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... before them. Perhaps it was by contrast with the monotony of the forest that the scene below them seemed to them all to be the most beautiful that had ever gladdened the eyes of men. Imagine a valley about five miles in length, narrowing at each end, and opening out about the centre to a width of two miles, the sides of grass sloping up to a buttress of rock, and rippling along the whole length into folds, with little valleys in between—narrow at the ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... doll's head and make the top of the crown twice the diameter of the head. It is sewed in the same way as the circular mat. When the desired width of crown is obtained, begin the under side of the crown by narrowing off—that is, taking two stitches in the crown and sewing them into one stitch in the web. Continue until the desired opening for the head is obtained. Two rows of web will complete the headband. Finish ...
— Spool Knitting • Mary A. McCormack
... politician who insists upon mere purity of administration and upon the control and suppression of the unruly elements in the community, may be the easy result of a narrowing and selfish process. For the painful condition of endeavoring to minister to genuine social needs, through the political machinery, and at the same time to remodel that machinery so that it shall be adequate to ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... narrowing his eyes as he watched her, because he believed that she must involuntarily show her hand if he irritated her sufficiently. "You do not impress me as being one of the girls who make unsuccessful marriages. You ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... would hardly comprehend without going to see it. But certainly this noble lake, boasting innumerable beautiful islands, of every varying form and outline which fancy can frame,—its northern extremity narrowing until it is lost among dusky and retreating mountains,—while, gradually widening as it extends to the southward, it spreads its base around the indentures and promontories of a fair and fertile land, affords ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... inveighed against the custom of confining girls to their needle, and shutting them out from all political and civil employments; for by thus narrowing their minds they are rendered unfit to fulfil the peculiar duties which nature ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... ring-shield muscles, therefore, stretch the vocal ligaments and the shield-pyramid muscles relax them. The shield-pyramid muscles have an additional function—that of pressing together the vocal ligaments, under certain circumstances, thereby narrowing the opening between them. They have therefore been, in these later days, called the Sphincter[G] muscle of the glottis. They have also been called the Vocal Muscles, since they play so important a part in ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... about whom those who screamed had heard something unpleasant—oh, yes, yellow!—lanced down the narrowing aisle between radiator and fenders. He struck Felicity like a vicious tackler yet did not go down, but leaped again. As the cars crunched together they slithered through the crowd, across the walk, against a wall, ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... Marner had lived in this solitude, his guineas rising in the iron pot, and his life narrowing and hardening itself more and more into a mere pulsation of desire and satisfaction that had no relation to any other being. His life had reduced itself to the functions of weaving and hoarding, without any contemplation of an end towards which the ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... al-barbet.[4] There is a stringed instrument, as yet unidentified by name, of which there are at least four different representations in sculpture,[5] which combines the characteristics of both lyre and rebab, having the vaulted back and gradual narrowing to form a neck which are typical of the rebab and the stringing of the lyre. In outline it resembles a large lute with a wide neck, and the seven strings of the lyre of the best period, or sometimes nine, following the decadent ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... that dwellers in the chilly spiritual clime of Unitarianism can be cured of their faith in that icy creed by being subjected to the horrors of a polar winter. Far more clearly does the novel show the falling-off in his artistic conceptions and the narrowing process his opinions were undergoing. At the rate this latter was taking place it seems probable that had he lived to write another novel on a theme similar to this, his hero would have been compelled to abandon his belief in Presbyterianism, Congregationalism, Methodism, or some other ism ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... fact that the conversation had, up to this point, been narrowing her hesitation concerning the concert company's offer down to a decision that would absolutely satisfy her own judgment of Jesus' probable action. It had been the last thing in the world, however, that she had desired, to have her ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... same dull gray persistence, The tattered vapors of a vanished train, The narrowing rails that meet to pierce the distance, Or break the columns ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... had ripened in the intense and crowded life of turbulent republics were concentrated upon art and letters. The leisure and the security which the specialist demands were bought by renouncing the Utopian visions of the past. But the growth of technical dexterity was a poor compensation for the narrowing of interests; the individual was sacrificed to make the artist; and art, too, suffered by the divorce from practical affairs. If we are moved to impatience by the waste of life and energy involved in the turmoils of medieval Italy, we ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... in his daring eyes can rob of his youth. So Anna looks, and when she turns again to Charlie she finds him sending a glance rife with conquest—not his first—up to Victorine, who, without meeting it, replies—as she has done to each one before it—with a dreamy smile into vacancy, and a faint narrowing of her almond eyes. ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... order to understand its origin and development. It would be as trivial a disease were it not for the fact that those smaller and ultimate tubes, because of flabby walls and weak vessels, become congested, with resulting narrowing of the air-ways ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... a change in the face of the country, as to cause a great river which once flowed into the sea, to stop short in a desart of sand." "We know from all recent, as well as from some of the older modern travellers, that the sands of the desarts west of Egypt, are encroaching on, and narrowing the valley of the Nile of Egypt. We see the pyramids gradually diminishing in height, particularly on their western sides, and we read of towns and villages which have been buried in the desart, but which once stood in fertile soils, some of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various
... Mogul, when he Erewhile went forth from Agra or Lahore, Rajahs and Omrahs [C] in his train, intent 20 To drive their prey enclosed within a ring Wide as a province, but, the signal given, Before the point of the life-threatening spear Narrowing itself by moments—they, rash men, Had seen the anticipated quarry turned 25 Into avengers, from whose wrath they fled In terror. Disappointment and dismay Remained for all whose fancies had run wild With evil ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... at three miles the sand hills commenced, crossing our course at right angles. At 2 p.m. struck a large lagoon (salt) about two miles broad and five miles long, running north-east and south-west, narrowing at the ends; distance, fourteen miles; tried to cross it but found it too boggy; rounded it on the south-west point, where we discovered a spring; no surface water, but soft, and the same all round for about two acres square, covered with grass ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... to dedicate this book to you as the representative of a class which ought to be more numerous,—the class of large-minded persons who take a lively interest in arts which are not specially their own. No one who had not carefully observed the narrowing of men's minds by specialities could believe to what a degree it goes. Instead of being open, as yours has always been, to the influences of literature, in the largest sense, as well as to the influences of the graphic arts and music, the specialized mind shuts itself up in its own pursuit ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... inadequately. The incidents of another book, the last on my list, are of the warfare which goes on in times of peace, and which will go on as long as there are human passions, and mankind are divided into men and women, and saints and sinners. Of all the books on my list, "Let Not Man Put Asunder" is, narrowing the word to the recognition of the author's intellectual alertness and vividness, the cleverest. The story is of people who constantly talk so wonderfully well beyond the wont even of society people that the utmost ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... taught you to converse with common strangers and shake hands with them?" continued Mrs. Randolph, with narrowing lips. ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... ordinarily very sober, had taken plenty of wine. Boche's eyes were narrowing, those of Lorilleux were paling, and Poisson was developing expressions of stern severity on his soldierly face. All the men were as drunk as lords and the ladies had reached a certain point also, feeling so ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... view, an object that entailed a troublesome interview, and he turned his thoughts towards its possible issue. Information might be at hand in the safe keeping of his servant Shiraz, but he considered that he must argue his own conclusions apart from anything Shiraz had discovered. Narrowing his eyes and sitting forward on the edge of his bed, he thought out the whole progress of his scheme. Coryndon was an essentially quiet man, but as he thought he struck his hands together and came ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... many of them of volcanic origin, some intensely salt, others formed of hot mud. Among these is the Great Salt Lake, in the State of Utah. To the south of the Saint Lawrence also is Lake Champlain, 105 miles long, though extremely narrow,—being only 10 miles in its widest part, narrowing in some places to half a mile. Near it is the beautiful Lake Saint George, with several other small lakes; and lastly, in Florida, there is a chain of small lakes, terminating in Lake Okechodee—a circular sheet of water about thirty ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... started, her eyes narrowing. The flush deepened in her cheeks. It had been faint before and steady, ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... it is proper so to speak of a middle-aged, delicate-featured lady, delightfully gowned and coiffed and manicured. Mrs. Gower's grief waxed crescendo. Whereupon her husband, with no manifest change of expression beyond an unpleasant narrowing of his eyes, heaved his short, flesh-burdened body out of the chair ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... drew up in three lines on each side of the island of Psyttaleia and advanced into the straits. But the narrowing waters of the channel made it necessary to reduce the front and bear to the left. Consequently all formation was lost, and the Persian triremes poured into the narrows "in a stream,"—to quote the phrase of the tragedian AEschylus, ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... came. Yet, after all, if even in a brief span of life they had tasted god-given happiness, was their fate one to be pitied? Rather let us keep our tears for those who, in a colourless grey world, have seen the dull days go past laden with trifling duties, unnecessary cares and ever-narrowing ideals, and have reached old age and the grave—no narrower than their lives—without ever having known a fulness of happiness, such as the Olympians knew, or ever having dared to reach upwards and to hold ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... from the speaker's face, until he saw Hamlin, still firmly gripped by the sentry. His lips drew back revealing his teeth, his eyes narrowing. ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... The Seri of Tiburon Island have not the knife habit. They draw a knife towards the body instead of pushing it away.[230] Hence we see that the lack of a habit, or lack of opportunity to see a dexterity practiced, constitutes a narrowing of the mental horizon. ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... George, drawing her towards him; "that is it! Now my fate is all narrowing down to a point. To come so near, to be almost in sight, and then lose all. I should never live ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of the arteries or a general hardened infiltration of the brain. The tumors are small, yellowish, and cheesy in the center. They originate in the "Dura Mater" (covering) and spread to the brain structure proper. The disease of the arteries causes a thickening of these vessels, a narrowing of the blood channel in them, thus ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... get the gold! Eh, sir?" said Bridger, his eyes narrowing. "The tip the gal give ye ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... a black, murky, windy day, with frequent gusts of rain, and a thick fog circumscribed the horizon, narrowing the view to a few miles in each direction. Toward evening the fog rose like a gathered cloud to westward, leaving that part of the horizon cloudless, and shedding down a bright light upon the waters. Had the look-out on the Arrow been on the alert he might ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... are you doing with him?" demanded the fat man, rage suddenly narrowing his eyes again. "What kind of actions are these?" and he swung on the members of the train crew once more. "My dog is given to any Tom, Dick, and Harry that comes along, while I can't get at my own case of ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... valley, whilst, on looking across to the eastern valley, a much higher, but less distinctly marked one appeared on it. The road to the pass lay west-north-west up the north bank of the Yangma river, on the great terrace; for two miles it was nearly level along the gradually narrowing shelf, at times dipping into the steep gulleys formed by lateral torrents from the mountains; and as the terrace disappeared, or melted, as it were, into the rising floor of the valley, the path descended upon ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... formally courteous to her affianced husband, and should never slight him because he is pledged to her, nor unduly exalt him for the same reason. She should now remember that the broad world of her social interests is narrowing as they intensify, and she should not attempt in any way to break the bounds set for the engaged girl. She should not go alone with other young men to places of amusement or entertainment. She should maintain her dignity so carefully as an affianced wife, that her betrothed shall not have ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... laid down his gun. He had come to a shelving slope that descended like a funnel or the half of a broken crater, narrowing to a dark pit, in which the sea heaved gently, but with a sound as of a monster sobbing; but still above this sound rose the voice ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Must borrow his winds who there would come. Up and away for life! be fleet!— The frost-king ties my fumbling feet, Sings in my ears, my hands are stones, Curdles the blood to the marble bones, Tugs at the heart-strings, numbs the sense, And hems in life with narrowing fence. Well, in this broad bed lie and sleep,— The punctual stars will vigil keep,— Embalmed by purifying cold; The winds shall sing their dead-march old, The snow is no ignoble shroud, The moon thy mourner, and ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... great,—perhaps fourteen or fifteen inches,—but it caused the architect to correct it, in order to fit his front to the axis of the church, by throwing his entrance six or seven inches to the south, and narrowing to that extent the south door and south lancet. The effect was bad, even then, and went far to ruin the south window; but when, after the fire of 1194, the architect inserted his great rose, filling ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... Watt awakened to one of the saddest of all truths, that his friends were one by one rapidly passing away, the circle ever narrowing, the few whose places never could be filled becoming fewer, he in the centre left more and more alone. Nothing grieved Watt so much as this. In 1794 his partner, Roebuck, fell; in 1799, his inseparable friend, and supporter ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... with its constantly widening and narrowing perspectives, its jumble of old and modern houses, had never looked more cheerful as Jack drove rapidly westward. He crossed Kew Bridge, rattled on briskly, and finally entered Richmond, where he pulled up by the curb opposite to the station ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... had not felt called upon to do anything for her charge: she had simply stood aside and let her take the field. Lily had taken it, at first with the confidence of assured possessorship, then with gradually narrowing demands, till now she found herself actually struggling for a foothold on the broad space which had once seemed her own for the asking. How it happened she did not yet know. Sometimes she thought it was because Mrs. Peniston had been ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... once inhabited by the skipper and his mate. Here there were great findings in the way of rubbish. Old clothes, old boots, an old top-hat of that extraordinary pattern you may see in the streets of Pernambuco, immensely tall, and narrowing towards the brim. A telescope without a lens, a volume of Hoyt, a nautical almanac, a great bolt of striped flannel shirting, a box of fish hooks. And in one corner—glorious find!—a coil of what seemed to be ten yards ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... which I desire to address myself to-day, namely, those who call themselves more liberal than Christians—who look upon our religion as narrowing in its influence. Christianity is the broadest of creeds because it takes in everything that touches human life, here and hereafter. The Christian life is the most comprehensive life known; it is as deep as the heart; it is as wide as the world; and ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... special appliances are necessary, which, of course, must be easily operated from the deck. Wedge-shaped pieces with rails attached may be driven down by screws upon the sides of the vessel, thus having the effect of gradually narrowing the amplitude of the rocking motion until a condition of stability with reference to ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... young people, who had stepped into the bushes, could see perfectly as they passed quite near to them, with a creaking of new leather, a jangling of bits tossed proudly and white with foam as after a wild gallop, two superb horses bearing a human couple compelled to ride close together by the narrowing of the path; he supporting with one arm the flexible form moulded into a waist of dark cloth, she, with her hand on her companion's shoulder and her little head, in profile—hidden beneath the tulle of her half-fallen veil—resting ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... so-called digressions have always some cogent reason in them; they are his means of including in the panorama a scene essential to its completeness. The narrow type of history writing has been tried for some centuries; all that it seems able to accomplish is to go on narrowing itself until it cannot enjoy for recording or remembering. It is a refreshing experience to move in the broad open regions of history in which Herodotus trod. If it is impossible to combine accurate research with the ecstasy ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... an advocate; second, without reference to the effect upon the reader, directly to Phil. it is injurious, by fettering the freedom of his speculations, or, if leaving their freedom undisturbed, by narrowing their compass. ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... adjusted the glasses, very low down on her nose, for of course she can see much better over than through them, and unwinding a yard or two of the wool, tucked the ball professionally under her arm, and began slowly to penetrate the intricate mysteries of "narrowing the gore." She had just seated herself in the great rocking chair, when a very familiar sort of tap at the door caused her to look up. She thought to make a joke for Fitts, and feigned "Nanette" accordingly—she dropped her head on her shoulder, slowly ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... by Like thoughts in the Lion's brain. And the clouds lift on high Like the slow waves of his mane And the narrowing lids conceal The furnaces of his eyes. Their gold is gone out. They reveal Only two search-lights of steel Steadily sweeping ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... life of the nation and of the world. It ought to constitute a perpetual reminder of the position that he fills in the present economy, and is likely to fill in the future economy of human thought, for those whose growing absorption in the narrowing business of life tends to make them ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... through narrowing eyes—he had small eyes, very blue and very bright, in which there usually ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... long after this that Lowell began to feel that his work as a writer for the abolitionist cause was narrowing in its effect. For "red-hot" reform he had no liking. It seemed to him that the hope of his cause lay not so much in treating others harshly as in living according to the high principles that the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... The colour is a soft rose. These flowers spring from a dense mass of rich foliage; the leaves in summer and early autumn are of a pleasing apple-green colour, smooth, oblong, and nearly spoon-shaped from the narrowing of the lower part; the mid-rib is prominent and nearly white; the leaf has rolled edges, and is somewhat reflexed at the point. Let the reader closely examine the leaves of this species while in their green state, holding them up to ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... on a "machela" to prevent the half-resistance that leads to surrender. And now we hear he has had blackwater, and, recovering, has resumed his elusive journeys from one discouraged company to another all over the narrowing area of operations that alone is left to the Hun of his favourite colonial possessions. For to the fat shipping clerk of Tanga, whose soul lives only for beer and the leave that comes to reward two years of effort, the temptation to go sick ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... over her entire body, then, as he stepped back, his keen artist's gaze narrowing, there stole over her a delicate flush, faintly staining her from brow to ankle, transfiguring the pallour exquisitely, enchantingly. And her small head drooped ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... was to trace it upwards, narrowing at every ascending step, till the thin stream, thinner than fragile glass, did but merely slip over the stones. A little less and it could not have run at all, water could not stretch out to greater tenuity. It smoothed the brown growth on the stones, ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... through the valley of the Loajeri, after leaving its delta, a valley growing ever narrower, until it narrowed into a ravine choked by the now roaring, bellowing river, whose resistless rush seemed to affect the very air we breathed. It was getting oppressive, this narrowing ravine, and opportunely the road breasted a knoll, then a terrace, then a hill, and lastly a mountain, where we halted to encamp. As we prepared to select a camping-place, the Doctor silently pointed forward, and suddenly a dead silence ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... spillikins. But that style also had a quality that could be felt; it had a military edge to it, an acies; and there was a kind of swordsmanship about it. Thus all the circumstances led, not so much to the narrowing of Stevenson to the romance of the fighting spirit; but the narrowing of his influence to that romance. He had a great many other things to say; but this was what we were willing to hear: a reaction against the gross contempt for soldiering which had really given a certain Chinese deadness ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... bridge (fig. 23). The original design was for a stiffened suspension bridge, but after the fall of the Tay bridge in 1879 this was abandoned. The bridge, which was begun in 1882 and completed in 1889, is at the only narrowing of the Forth in a distance of 50 m., at a point where the channel, about a mile in width, is divided by the island of Inchgarvie. The length of the cantilever bridge is 5330 ft., made up thus: central tower on Inchgarvie ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... quite useless to try and ride straight up to a bustard, and this he knew. The only thing to do is to excite his curiosity and fix his attention by moving round and round him in an ever-narrowing circle. Putting his pony to a canter, John proceeded to do this with a heart beating with excitement. Round and round he went; the pauw had vanished now, he was squatting in the tuft of grass. The ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... been talking to this poor little girl as she tells me you have talked?" demanded young Thornton, narrowing his eyes. ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... you may not lose anything. Yet you are coming under a very fascinating influence. It is your personality I am afraid of. You are going to belong definitely to a profession which is at once the most catholic and the most narrowing in the world. I believe that you are strong enough to stand alone, to remain yourself. I pray that it may be so, and yet, there is just the shadow of the presentiment. ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... three of us some sharp scoldings, and some threats of punishment. Every morning two of us woke with a start and a shudder, saying, as the days flew along, "Only ten days left;" "only nine days left;" "only eight;" "only seven." Always it was narrowing. Always Nikolaus was gay and happy, and always puzzled because we were not. He wore his invention to the bone trying to invent ways to cheer us up, but it was only a hollow success; he could see that our jollity had no heart in it, and that the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... circumstances. The men—half curiously, half jestingly, but all good-humoredly—strolled along beside the cart, some in advance, some a little in the rear of the homely catafalque. But whether from the narrowing of the road or some present sense of decorum, as the cart passed on, the company fell to the rear in couples, keeping step, and otherwise assuming the external show of a formal procession. Jack Folinsbee, who had at the outset played a funeral march ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... located. It possesses a magnificent harbour, navigable for the largest vessels, and capable of containing the most numerous fleet. The great river at its base forms a commodious highway of communication with the very heart of the continent, while in consequence of the narrowing of the waters in its immediate vicinity, the citadel commands the passage. Quebec is thus the key of the great valley of the St. Lawrence, "the advanced guard," as the Abbe Ferland calls it in his History of Canada, of the vast French empire, which, according to the ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... of men; when legions toil To feed a Monarch, and begem a crown, They build before high heaven a narrowing wall And the great purpose of Creation spoil. Not on, and upward, is the trend, but down; The Race can rise but with the rise ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Virginia and North Carolina is forty miles across. It is covered with a dense growth of water-loving trees such as the cypress and black gum. The center of the swamp is occupied by Lake Drummond, a shallow lake seven miles in diameter, with banks of pure-peat, and still narrowing from the encroachment of ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... of the village, where the principal traffic is over rough country roads, would not be very great, but it would enable the road authorities of the township to realize the advantage of first-rate roads and the degree to which the narrowing of the roadway cheapens construction. As a result, there would soon be an extension of the improvement over the more important highways into the country; where a well-metalled width of twelve feet would accommodate nearly the whole traffic, and where the proper application ...
— Village Improvements and Farm Villages • George E. Waring
... Seminary absorbed funds of the Church which would be better employed in ministration to the settlers. At the same time, it was for him a not unpleasant exercise to support a policy which would have the incidental effect of narrowing the bishop's power. After some three years of controversy the king, as usual, stepped in to settle the matter. By an edict of May 1679 he ordained that the priests should live in their parishes and have the free disposition of the tithes which had ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... quarter, under the Corridor of the Game-Board, are still preserved some of the terra-cotta pipes which served as connections to the main drain. They are actually faucet-jointed pipes of quite modern type, each section 2-1/2 feet in length and 6 inches in diameter at the wide end, and narrowing to 4 inches at the smaller end. 'Jamming was carefully prevented by a stop-ridge that ran round the outside of each narrow end a few inches from the mouth, while the inside of the butt, or broader ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... is well known, on the cramp of the muscles of the veins, which contract and so cause a narrowing of their bore which hinders the flow of blood. But such cramps happen only in cases of considerable anger, fear, pain, trepidation, rage; in short, in cases of excitement that nobody ever has reason to simulate. ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... Indian deacon, who of old Dwelt, poor but blameless, where his narrowing Cape Stretches its shrunk arm out to all the winds And the relentless smiting of the waves, Awoke one morning from a pleasant dream Of a good angel dropping in his hand A fair, broad gold-piece, in ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... leaning far back in his chair, a hand on either hip, and with his eyes narrowing as he regarded Master Copeland. Had the Brabanter flinched, the King would probably have hanged him within the next ten minutes; finding his gaze unwavering, the King was pleased. Here was a novelty; most people blinked quite honestly under ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... and from the mouth of the Morona to Borja, at the head of steamer navigation, the current is three and three-fourths miles per hour. This is the usual and average current to be met with, but it increases or diminishes with the rise and fall of the river and, also, with the narrowing or broadening ...
— Life of Rear Admiral John Randolph Tucker • James Henry Rochelle
... general proposition, however, having been admitted, Mr Mill proceeds to reason as if men had no desires but those which can be gratified only by spoliation and oppression. It then becomes easy to deduce doctrines of vast importance from the original axiom. The only misfortune is, that by thus narrowing the meaning of the word desire the axiom becomes false, and all the doctrines consequent upon it ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was ready Jock whistled for his companion, and on looking out was surprised to find him gone; but from the narrowing walls of the gorge came the sound of his furious barking. Jock whistled again and again, but the dog did not come. Perfectly convinced that something was wrong, he seized his rifle and hurried off, expecting to find that Collie had cornered some wild animal, or that ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... crude, was moving; but, after all, almost any bright girl might have written it. She had been a fine scholar, no doubt, but any girl with a ready intelligence might have done as well. Whence came this inclination of all to rear the child upon a pedestal? Risley wondered, looking at her, narrowing his keen, light eyes under reflective brows, puffing at his cigar; then he admitted to himself that he was one with the crowd of Ellen's admirers. There was somehow about the girl that which gave the impression of an enormous reserve out of all proportion ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... disintegration of religious superstition, and the substitution in its stead of spiritual ideals closer to the facts of life, is one of these. All that was good in Puritanism has been retained by the modern spirit, while its narrowing and numbing features, its anti-human, self-mortifying, provincial side have passed or are passing in the regenerating sunlight of what one might call a spiritual paganism, which conceives of natural forces and natural ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... eh?" he said. "Well, you look it." He shook a finger at her. "Agatha has been writing to me rather often, lately," he added. There followed no answer and J. C. went on, narrowing his eyes at the girl. "She tells me that this fellow who calls himself 'Brand' Trevison has proven himself a—shall we say, persistent?—escort on your trips of inspection ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... The order, narrowing the column, allowed the squire and Janice to ride on and cross the bridge. On the other side of the stream a by-road joined the turnpike, and as Janice glanced along it, she gave a cry of surprise. "Look, dadda," she ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... according to Dante, are situate in the globe we inhabit, directly beneath Jerusalem, and consist of a succession of gulfs or circles, narrowing as they descend, and terminating in the centre; so that the general shape is that of a funnel. Commentators have differed as to their magnitude; but the latest calculation gives 315 miles for the diameter of the mouth or crater, and a quarter of a mile for ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... figures of three men but, owing to the dim light and the distance at which he stood, he could identify none of them with certainty. Mindful of the admonitions he had been loaded with, he tramped around the house in narrowing circles, pausing at times to look and listen. In like manner he circled the barn and stables, until he had made sure there was no ambush and that he was alone outside. He then went among the horses and, working with a flash-light, found Nan's pony, a bridle and, after an ineffectual ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... and I, who had fallen to the rear, rode leisurely northward athwart the open prairie on a clear trail, which twice crossed the shallow river, and, leaving the main valley, carried us up a narrowing vale on slightly rising ground. On either side and in front rose abrupt mountains some two thousand feet above the plain, and below the remarkable outline of Soda Butte marked the line of the Park boundary. Near by was a little corral where at some ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... Theme of Sudden Death." What I had beheld from my seat upon the mail,—the scenical strife of action and passion, of anguish and fear, as I had there witnessed them moving in ghostly silence; this duel between life and death narrowing itself to a point of such exquisite evanescence as the collision neared,—all these elements of the scene blended, under the law of association, with the previous and permanent features of distinction investing the mail itself, which features at that time lay—1st, in velocity ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... never-failing presence? There are those who feel within themselves the power of living fullest lives, of sounding every chord of the full diapason of passion and feeling, yet who have been so hemmed around, so shut in by adverse and narrowing circumstances, that never, no, not once in their half-century of years which stretch from childhood to old age, have they been free to breathe out, to speak aloud the heart that was in them. Ever the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... then frequently resorted, when their white officers were absent, they obtained from him the exact position of Sivajee's band, and learned the side from which the ascent must be made. That the Dacoit and his band were still upon the slopes of the Ghauts they knew, and were gradually narrowing their circle, but there were so many rocks and hiding places that the process of searching was a slow one, and the intelligence was so important that the news was off at once to the colonel, who gave orders for ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... the ministry. The ministerial lawyers differed on the grounds on which they relied, the Attorney-general, Thurlow, denying that the expression "this kingdom" in the Bill of Rights included the foreign dependencies of the crown[54] (a narrowing of its force which the Chancellor, Lord Bathurst, wholly repudiated), while the argument on which he himself insisted most strongly, that the existence of rebellion in America put end to all conditions which supposed ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... of beauty which limits its manifestation to one kind of experience is so far false and leads to mischievous acceptances and narrowing rejections. We mistake the pretty for the beautiful and so fail of the true value of beauty; we are blind to the significance which all nature and all life, in the lowest and commonest as in the highest and rarest, hold ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... was darkening to his sight; the world was narrowing around him. I glanced about me, and saw that the hay and straw were trampled over the floor, as if ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... time he gazed on, then let the parted bushes spring back, and, crossing over to the other side of the fort, surveyed the vaster emptiness of the great gulf. The Isabels stood out heavily upon the narrowing long band of red in the west, which gleamed low between their black shapes, and the Capataz thought of Decoud alone there with the treasure. That man was the only one who cared whether he fell into the hands of the Monterists or not, the Capataz reflected ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... enough for me to walk off the concentration of mind necessary for work. The idea of the pilgrimage was to get away from the endless and nameless circumstances of everyday existence, which by degrees build a wall about the mind so that it travels in a constantly narrowing circle. This tether of the faculties tends to make them accept present knowledge, and present things, as all that can be attained to. This is all— there is nothing more—is the iterated preaching of house-life. Remain; becontent; go round and ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... change his spots? I fear I shall die with my back against the wall, sir, and my boots on." "I haven't the slightest doubt of it. But be careful of giving too free and constant a play to your passions and your capacity for rancour, or your character will deteriorate. Tell me," he added abruptly, narrowing his eyes and fixing Hamilton with a prolonged scrutiny, "do you not feel ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... wood and meadow, and cornfield, and white houses gleaming, and a great wall of mountain, and far blue peaks in the north. And so at last I came to the place. The track went up a gentle slope, and widened out into an open space with a wall of thick undergrowth around it, and then, narrowing again, passed on into the distance and the faint blue mist of summer heat. And into this pleasant summer glade Rachel passed a girl, and left it, who shall say what? I ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... closed by pure coagulated blood. Perhaps there may have been a wound of the bladder, although no external haemorrhage has appeared, but the blood coagulating gradually in the bladder has occasioned an obstruction or narrowing of the urinary passage. Or possibly the blood from a renal haemorrhage has descended into the bladder and obstructs the urethra. Hence I say that the sound is useful in these cases where the urethra is obstructed by blood or gross humors. Examination should also be made as to whether ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson
... is my story," said Don Antonio, after a pause, and from narrowing eyes looked at the beauty who ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... and had laid his saddle-bags down by the side of the chair in which he had seated himself, his elbows on his knees, his hands held out to the flickering blaze in the deep chimney-place, his eyes significantly narrowing ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... irreducible confusion of bands, since the order in which they overlap becomes very complicated. Finally, when the rod comes to move very slowly, as in Fig. 9, the appearance suffers no further change, except for a gradual narrowing of all the bands, up to the moment when ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... corner of her territory remains to her, a wedge-shaped piece, ten miles or so in width at the coast, narrowing to nothing at a point less than thirty miles inland. And in that tragic fragment there remains hardly an undestroyed town. Her revenues are gone, being collected as an indemnity, for God knows what, by the Germans. King Albert himself has been injured. The ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... latitude if I join you. It is narrowing down a little too much when a creed contains but two articles, like yours, and ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... sex. Dick was seized with a great passion for examining this curious chain, and, after some preliminary questions, was rash enough to lean towards her and put out his hand toward the neck that lay in the golden coil. She threw her head back, her eyes narrowing and her forehead drawing down so that Dick thought her head actually flattened itself. He started involuntarily; for she looked so like the little girl who had struck him with those sharp flashing teeth, that the whole scene came back, and he felt the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... narrowing faster, Which he, approaching, round us seems to wind? A streaming trail of fire, if I see rightly, ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... vote, and abolish all interference with each man's private tastes, and the danger may still be as great as ever. The tendency to 'differentiation'—as we call it in modern phraseology—the social pulverisation, the lowering and narrowing of the individual's sphere of action and feeling to the pettiest details, depends upon processes underlying all political changes. It cannot, therefore, be cured by any nostrum of constitution-mongers, ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... the Constitution is that of having narrowed the right of suffrage; and it is in a great measure due to this narrowing the right, that the last elections have not generally been good. My former colleagues will, I presume, pardon my saying this to day, when they recollect my arguments against this defect, at the time the Constitution ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... unbelievable number of well-filled-out puffs, was chattering to the Colonel in a low voice, so that Judith could not understand, and breaking into French at intervals—Green River High School French, but she spoke it with an air, narrowing her blue-gray eyes after an alluring fashion she had and laughing her full-toned laugh. She was a full-blown, emphatic creature, though she had been married only three years, and was Lil Gaynor still ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... year 1887 Hope-Jones introduced his discovery that by leathering the lips of the Diapason pipes, narrowing their mouths, inverting their languids and increasing the thickness of the metal, the pipes could be voiced on 10, 20, or even 30-inch wind, without hardness of tone, forcing, or windiness being introduced. He ceased to ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... traversed a long gallery of pictures, and, turning to look back upon all that he has passed, sees a straight track narrowing away into the dimming distance, and only the last few life scenes standing out lustrous and clear, so the school-master, gazing down this long vista, beheld at the far end of it a little girl, whom he did not know, playing on the silvery ancestral ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... wide. In this broad and bold river, a ship of the line may ride in safety. Its southern banks are high, and, on the opposite shore, is Gloucester Point, a piece of land projecting deep into the river, and narrowing it, at that place, to the space of one mile. Both these posts were occupied by Lord Cornwallis. The communication between them was commanded by his batteries, and by some ships of war which ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... with light bloom; nodes enlarged, flattened internodes long; tendrils continuous, long, bifid or trifid. Leaves thick; upper surface dark green, glossy, smooth to rugose; lobes five; terminal lobe acute; petiolar sinus deep; lateral sinus wide, narrowing towards top, deep. Flowers open in ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... rules and proprieties, which, as I have endeavoured to show, must inevitably have a narrowing influence on Tragedy, has, in France, been applied to Comedy much more advantageously. For this mixed species of composition has, as already seen, an unpoetical side; and some degree of artificial constraint, if not altogether essential to Comedy, is certainly beneficial to it; for if ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... furnished. Our view is extremely pretty from it, and always cheerful; we rarely go out, yet always are pleased to return. We have our books, our prate, and our boy—how, with all this, can we, or ought we to suffer ourselves to complain of our narrowed and narrowing income? If we are still able to continue at Passy, endeared to me now beyond any other residence away from you all, by a friendship I have formed here with one of the sweetest women I have ever known, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... nodded Red Bill Summers, "and," he added, his keen eyes narrowing to slits he gazed straight ahead, "and thar, I reckon, is Jim Bell himself and ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... I said, one cannot wander far at school. A schoolmaster once advised his colleagues to take up some literary hobby—essay writing, articles for the press, etc.; for, said he, teaching is a narrowing profession. I wonder if any schoolmaster has ever imagined how narrowing it is for the boys? Have they never seen the look of abject boredom creep over the faces of even clever lads as the "lesson" ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... to the southerly shore of Anticosti the voyageurs almost circled the island until the constant and adverse winds which Cartier met in the gradually narrowing channel forced him to defer indefinitely his hope of finding a western passage, and he therefore headed his ships back to Belle Isle. It was now mid-August, and the season of autumnal storms was drawing near. Cartier had come to explore, to search for a westward route to the Indies, ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro |
