"Ebb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was greater than it was, at that time, necessary for them to undergo. Salt, had they wanted it, might have been obtained with less trouble, being left by the sea upon the sand, and hardened by the sun during the ebb, in such quantities, that the chief traffick of their island is carried on ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... maidens' hearts, of the nature of an intermittent fever. The tide of Solway flows, but the more rapid his flow the swifter his ebb. The higher it brings the wrack up the beach, the deeper, six hours after, are laid bare the roots of the seaweed upon the shingle. Now Winsome Charteris, however her heart might conspire against her peace, was not at all the girl to be won before she was asked. Also there was that delicious ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... has the inroad of the barbarians given us so far? What has the rabble brought with it?" Rashevitch assumed a mysterious, frightened expression, and went on: "Never has literature and learning been at such low ebb among us as now. The men of to-day, my good sir, have neither ideas nor ideals, and all their sayings and doings are permeated by one spirit—to get all they can and to strip someone to his last thread. All these men of to-day who give themselves out as honest and progressive ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Presley's heart. Where were they now? Where had they slept last night? Where breakfasted this morning? Had there even been any breakfast this morning? Had there even been any bed last night? Lost, and forgotten in the plexus of the city's life, what had befallen them? Towards what fate was the ebb tide of ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... laughed at the thought of cornering wheat, and even now as Jadwin crossed Jackson Street, on his way to his broker's office on the lower floor of the Board of Trade Building, he noted the ebb and flow that issued from its doors, and remembered the huge river of wheat that rolled through this place from the farms of Iowa and ranches of Dakota to the mills and ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... Spiritual Ebb and Flow exhibited in English Poetry from Chaucer to Tennyson and Browning. II. The Idea of Personality and of Art, as an intermediate agency of Personality, as embodied in Browning's Poetry. (Read before the Browning Society of London in 1882.) ...
— The Writing of the Short Story • Lewis Worthington Smith
... on the river, happened to have more than Grant's men, and every man must have alike. The ringleader, unfortunately for himself, had lately fired at a dead lion, to astonish the Unyoro, and his chum had fired a salute, which was contrary to orders; for ammunition was at a low ebb, and I had done everything in my power to nurse it. Therefore, as a warning to the others, the guns of these two were confiscated, and a caution given that any gun in future let off, either by design ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... omission concerning her, and made her all light, color, canals, and palaces. One's conscience, more or less uncomfortably vigilant elsewhere, drowses here, and it is difficult to remember that fact is more virtuous than fiction. In other years, when there was life in the city, and this sad ebb of prosperity was full tide in her canals, there might have been some incentive to keep one's thoughts and words from lapsing into habits of luxurious dishonesty, some reason for telling the whole hard truth of things, some ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... The men now began to complain much of the scurvy, wherefore it was resolved to put them on shore for their recovery on the first opportunity. They made Sierra Leona on the 23d of August, and reached its southern side on the 25th, where they had five fathoms at the lowest ebb; having had for about fourteen leagues, while running into this harbour, from eight to sixteen fathoms. At this place they destroyed a negro town, because the inhabitants had killed one of their men with a poisoned arrow. Some ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... world. It led to a veritable furore in England for Greek Doric and Ionic columns, which were applied indiscriminately to every class of buildings, with utter disregard of propriety. The British taste was at this time at its lowest ebb, and failed to perceive the poverty of Greek architecture when deprived of its proper adornments of carving and sculpture, which were singularly lacking in the British examples. Nevertheless the Greek style in England had a long run of popular favor, ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... blowing dry, Wrinkled the face of deluge, as decayed; And the clear sun on his wide watery glass Gazed hot, and of the fresh wave largely drew, As after thirst; which made their flowing shrink From standing lake to tripping ebb, that stole With soft foot towards the deep; who now had stopt His sluces, as the Heaven his windows shut. The ark no more now floats, but seems on ground, Fast on the top of some high mountain ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... flood," he said to Adam. "She'd have steered handier if we'd gone in against the ebb; but there's a better chance of coming off if ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... approach to comfort, and as the years passed and reputation grew he found himself able to revisit his birthplace in security, and to take definite steps to re-establish the family fortunes, then at so low an ebb. ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... the Sugambri country, devastating vast stretches. He sailed along the Rhine to the ocean, conciliated the Frisii, and traversing the lake invaded Chaucis, where he ran in danger, as his boats were left high and dry at the ebb-tide of the ocean. He was saved at this time by the Frisii (who joined his expedition with infantry), and withdrew, for it was ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... and run straightly down the path of duty. But the compacts of life end with life. No man may bargain for the beyond; even the marriage service shrinks from it. And now that hope had gone and life was at its extremest ebb, why should they not take their joy before they passed to the land where, perchance, such things will be forgotten? So it seemed to them; if indeed they were any longer ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... down together; a perfect yet deepening peace was upon it. Cosmo scarcely left him, but watched and waited, with a cold spot at his heart, which kept growing bigger and bigger, as he saw his father slowly drifting out on the ebb-tide of this earthly life. Cosmo had now to go through that most painful experience of all—when the loved seem gradually withdrawing from human contact and human desires, their cares parting slowly farther and farther from the cares of those they leave—a gulf ever widening ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... weave a sombre web, And sighs reveal the heart distressed, Where joys that flowed, in murmurs ebb, And buoyant ...
— Hymns from the Morningland - Being Translations, Centos and Suggestions from the Service - Books of the Holy Eastern Church • Various
... my public function, There hurries on a duty of a private kind I must perform at once or not at all; Too long delayed already. My friends, my life is flowing fast away, I, that should be at full or on the turn, Am near my lowest ebb. This gnawing at my heart hath eaten through, And now my soul releasing body bondage ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... sentimental maids that the good who are weak defeat the wicked who are strong. We shattered many an assailant before the last stake was dared, but in the end they shattered my sword-arm, which left me helpless as a hull at ebb-tide. Then Godefroy, the craven rascal, must throw up his arms for surrender, which gave Le Borgne opening to bring down the butt of ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... Dorchester, which was too well secured for a sudden attack of cavalry; or he must cross the river at Ashley ferry, ten miles from town. He determined on the latter, and put his four troops of cavalry in motion. When he arrived at the ferry it was ebb of tide, the water was running out as from a millsluice; the banks on each side were so miry as scarcely to support a crab—the river was at least one hundred yards wide, and there was not a boat.—He however ordered Major Fraser to lead on the first troop into the river ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... carp. Nobody made any answer. He afterwards addressed his remarks about these carp to some builder's-men who did not keep up the conversation in the regular way; it was but a question of carp with them. Everything was at a low ebb, and the king went away some little time after. As soon as we dared look at one another out of his sight, our eyes meeting told all." There was no venturing beyond looks. Fenelon had said, with severe charity, "God ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... part of the city. The principal lines pass from Broadway into Madison, Fourth and Fifth avenues, and along their upper portions traverse the best quarter of the city. As the stages furnish the only conveyances on Broadway, they generally do well. The flow and ebb of the great tide down and up the island in the morning and evening crowd every vehicle, and during the remainder of the day, they manage by the exertions of the ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... pass from Danish hands, even if Ethelred of Wessex makes headway enough to be owned as overlord of England by them. Now therefore is there one place in all England where peace has come, and to that place I would go to end my days. Here in London the tide of war will ebb and flow ever. Let me go down with you to Reedham, my son, that I may die ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... Car of Progress stands still for a thousand years, else rolls slowly back toward brutishness, there being none of sufficient strength to advance the standards further up the rugged mountainside—nearer the Celestial City. Thus, ever in ebb and flow, gaining and losing, only to regain; nations rising and falling but to serve as stepping-stones whereon mount a nobler race, a grander people, the irrepressible conflict of the Godlike with the Beastlike ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... at the lowest ebb, two eloquent preachers, John Wesley and George Whitefield, started a movement which is still gathering force. Wesley did not ask his audience to listen to a sermon on the favorite bloodless abstractions of the eighteenth-century pulpit, ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... Tambaskelfer go, With mighty pomp, and pride, and show, Across the ebb-shore up the land,— Before, behind, an armed band. This bonde-leader thinks to rule, And fill himself the royal stool. A goodly earl I have known With fewer followers of his own. He who strikes fire from the shield, Einar, may some day make ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... dinner, but Cleggett's character was an unusual blend of delicacy and strength; he perceived subtly that Lady Agatha was of the nature to appreciate this compliment. At a moment when her fortunes were at a low ebb what could more cheer a woman and hearten her than such a mark of consideration? Already Cleggett found himself asking what would please ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... friendship of other Indian tribes. These public expences eat up all the fruits of the poor planter's industry. The law appropriating the profits of the Indian trade for the public protection had been repealed; the public credit was at so low an ebb, that no man would trust his money in the provincial treasury. None would risk their lives in defence of the colony without pay, and the province, oppressed with a load of debt, was utterly unable to furnish the necessary ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... rail above the beach that skirted the two inclines, going either way, up which the waggons had been a couple of hours ago scrambling over the shingle against time, to land one more load yet while the ebb allowed it. They could hear the yeo-yeo! of the sail-hoisters at work on the big mainsail abaft, and wondered how on earth she was going to be got clear with so little sea-way and the wind dead in shore. But they were reassured by the ancient mariner ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... it. Come now and ride my chariot and be completely happy. For it becomes not thee to have any regard for the miserable sons of Pritha who are living in the woods, whose energies have been paralysed, whose kingdom hath been snatched and whose fortunes are at the lowest ebb. A woman of sense like thee doth not attach herself to a husband that is poor. She should follow her lord when he is in prosperity but abandon him when in adversity. The sons of Pandu have for ever fallen away from their high ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... snoring unmelodiously, and not dreaming a thing; for when a cow-puncher has nothing in particular to do, he sleeps to atone for the weary hours when he must be very wide-awake. An avalanche descended upon his unwarned middle, and checked the rhythmic ebb and flow of sound. He squawked and came to life ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... clutch, grabbed hold of the cage before it sank, and dragged it and the screaming bird out of danger. The gridiron and skewers went down at once—luckily in four feet of water, whence they could be recovered at low-ebb. The cullender sank slowly and with dignity. The cat headed straight for shore, and, defying all attempts of Mr. Toy and Aunt Butson to head him off, slipped between them and dashed up the hill on a ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Arabs in remote settlements of Algeria. Even when these precautions are taken, the sound of whistling outside the kitchen door at nightfall will often indicate the presence of loafers on their evil quest. In the rural districts domestic morality is at a very low ebb also, and on the whole there is much to be done here by both reformer ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... the railroad spiral has brought him, to where distant fertile vales lie in the glimmering haze, thousands of feet below. And then the scene changes, and the dark rocky ribs and bleak plateau show that the summit is reached, ten thousand feet above the level of the ocean's ebb and flow. ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... of Back Bay, on the southern coast of our Province of Louisiana, the dense marsh grass grows far out into the water, trembling and throbbing with the ebb and ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... main until the refluent waves Ebb from the growing sands; then, on the tide Receding, launch their vessel; thus she floats With twin companions: over each uprose With quivering battlements a lofty tower. Octavius, guardian of Illyrian seas, Restrained his swifter keels, and left the rafts Free from attack, in hope of larger spoil ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... him writing on all manner of subjects. He asks his scientific friends to explain to him the mystery of a spring whose waters ebb and flow, of a lake which contained floating islands, and in one letter he tells a fascinating ghost story of quite the conventional type, about a haunted house, which drove any unwary tenant crazy, and the ghost of a murdered man which walked with clanking chains. Pliny was no cut and dried ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... to wash it out of existence. But sand-banks grow when the conditions favor; and weak as reason is, it has this unique advantage over its antagonists that its activity never lets up and that it presses always in one direction, while men's prejudices vary, their passions ebb and flow, and their excitements are intermittent. Our sand-bank, I absolutely believe, is bound to grow. Bit by bit it will get dyked and breakwatered. But sitting as we do in this warm room, with music and lights and smiling faces, it is easy to get too sanguine about our task; and ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... waves on wares shall cease to roll, And tides forget to flow; Ere thy true Henry's constant love, Or ebb, or change, ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol. I. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... unmistakably there was no touch of self-pity or impressiveness. He had just to die, and he devoted his swift energies to it, as he had done to living. I never saw him so splendid and noble as he was at that last awful moment. Life did not ebb away, but he seemed to fling it from him, so that it was not as the death of a weary man sinking to rest, but like the eager transit of a soldier to another part of ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... time his health was very bad—and it must be borne in mind that, throughout all this experience, his physical condition was one of ebb—and he was in considerable distress by reason of the negligence, the positive ill-treatment even, he received from his wife and step-children. His wife was vain, extravagant, unfeeling, and had a growing taste for private drinking; his step-daughter was mean and over-reaching; ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... as she knelt, the religious instinct regained possession of her. It was as if her soul had been flung adrift, had gone out with the ebb of the spiritual sea, and now rocked, poised, waiting for the turn ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... steamer approached, one of the half-drunk men staggered violently against the daughter above referred to, and thrust her into the river, which was running rapidly at the time, the tide being three-quarters ebb. The gentleman, who happened to have turned towards the mother at the moment, heard a scream and plunge. He looked quickly back and missed the young lady. Being a tall powerful man, he dashed the crowd aside, hurled the drunk man—no doubt inadvertently—into the river, ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... who set out from the innermost point to sail out through it into the open sea, would spend forty days upon the voyage, using oars; 16 and with respect to breadth, where the gulf is broadest it is half a day's sail across: and there is in it an ebb and flow of tide every day. Just such another gulf I suppose that Egypt was, and that the one ran in towards Ethiopia from the Northern Sea, and the other, the Arabian, of which I am about to speak, ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... Hasdrubal (the uncle of Hannibal) 243 B.C. The city is situated on a promontory running out into the sea, and possesses one of the finest harbours in the world, protected by an island as by a natural breakwater. But it had a weak side, and this had been betrayed by fishermen to Scipio. During ebb-tide the water of the shallow pool W. of the town fell so much that it was fordable and the bottom was firm. Of this Scipio took advantage. He first made a feint attack on the N. wall and then led 500 ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... his and their flagging hopes revived. But as dusk descended again upon the city, without any sign of the deliverer they awaited, those hopes began to ebb once more. ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... which expresses elevated thought and refinement of spirit, in whatever form it manifests itself, is at its lowest ebb among the Sakais and especially representative art, although it is curious to notice how much more they prefer (I speak of the male sex) this latter to that of sounds. Music may procure some moments of bliss to those who yield themselves ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... the month in which Presbyterianism was in fullest tide. After that month, and through the spring and early summer of 1646, there was a visible ebb. The cause may have been partly that continued triumph everywhere of the New Model Army which had brought the War obviously to its fag-end, and now, perhaps, suggested to Parliament and the Londoners the uncomfortable idea that the marching mass of Independency, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... proofs of fraud and dishonesty were entirely unimportant. Gambling had evidently been a passion with the valet, and peculation had followed, and Mark could have traced out the full tide before the reinstatement of Mrs. Egremont in her home, the gradual ebb during her reign, the diminished restraint under her daughter. The other servants had formerly been implicated, but, except a young groom and footman, Mark thought the present set quite free from the taint, and was glad to acquit Broadbent. But the last telegrams and the betting-book ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Homer," retorted Phidias. "I thought sculpture was getting down to a pretty low ebb when I had to fashion friezes out of marble; but marble is more precious than rubies ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... them too— Who loses, and who wins; who's in, who's out;— And take upon us the mystery of things, As if we were God's spies: and we'll wear out, In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones, That ebb and flow by ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... admirable account of the coral formations of the Pacific and Indian oceans, has propounded a theory as to the abundance of fresh water in the atolls and islands on coral reefs, furnished by wells which ebb and flow with the tides. Assuming it to be impossible to separate salt from sea water by filtration, he suggests that the porous coral rock being permeated by salt water, the rain which falls on the surface must sink to the level of the surrounding sea, "and must accumulate there, displacing ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... ghastly; and as she kept her large lucid eyes fixed upon the woman's face, the powers of life, that had been hitherto in such a tumult of delight within her, seemed slowly, and with a deadly and scarcely perceptible motion, to ebb out of her system. The revulsion was too dreadful; and with the appearance of one who was anxious to shrink or hide from something that was painful, she laid her head down on the humble ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... sir, their chiefs, so menacing at first, Became quite friendly at the last. They fear A battle, and will treat on any terms. The Prophet's tide of strength will ebb away, And leave his stranded ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... meetinghouse was occupied. Thereafter a tithing house was used and was expanded for the growing necessities of the school, which has been in continuous operation ever since, with the exception of two years following 1896, when the finances of the Stake were at low ebb. The academy was revived on assumption of Andrew Kimball to the Stake Presidency, under Principal Emil Maeser, he a son of one of Utah's most noted educators. Andrew C. Peterson has been in charge of the school most of the time since 1906. In 1909 was occupied a new building, erected ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... intersect. But the person (you or I, for the sake of argument) who seeks this treasure must start at full moon. Why? Obviously because the spring tides occur with a full moon, consequently the low ebb. We must expect, then, to find our treasure buried in a spot which is only uncovered at dead low water; and to this conclusion I am also helped by the last sentence, which says, 'Low water 1.5 hours.' It is then, I submit, Mr. Trenoweth, in some such place that we must ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... not anticipate success, and for that very reason, Marian, I speak openly and plainly as I have spoken now. In my heart and my conscience I can say it, Laura's hopes for the future are at their lowest ebb. I know that her fortune is gone—I know that the last chance of restoring her to her place in the world lies at the mercy of her worst enemy, of a man who is now absolutely unassailable, and who may remain unassailable to the end. With every worldly ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... ever before the sin and folly of such divisions. The forces of Christ were largely wasted and defeated through sectarian strife, and there was the bitterest feeling even between different branches of the same denomination. Infidelity was rampant in the land and Christianity was at a low ebb. However, the love of the Master was strong in many hearts, and these longed and prayed for better things. As by divine inspiration, a great union movement sprang up simultaneously in different parts of the country. ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... steamers came with an aggregate of more than two thousand passengers. Many of these, however, did not leave the steamer; they took passage either to their port of departure—San Francisco or Victoria—or to points on the Sound. The ebb tide had set in, and although many steamers came later and landed passengers, their return lists soon became large and the ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... side of the mountains. Another great cause of the inundations, which take place in this and the other rivers in the colony, is the small fall that is in them, and the consequent slowness of their currents. The current in the Hawkesbury, even when the tide is in full ebb, does not exceed two miles an hour. The water, therefore, which during the rains, rushes in torrents from the mountains cannot escape with sufficient rapidity; and from its immense accumulation, soon overtops the banks of the river, and covers the whole of ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... than the lockers below. If the wind is fair you won't have much of our company, because we shall hold on till we moor alongside the wharves of London; but if it's foul, or there is not enough of it to take us against tide, we have to anchor on the ebb, and then ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... low ebb an' not able to pick an' choose. So he gives me a starvin' man's job. If I'd been in easy circumstances an' able to say 'Yes' or 'No' at choice, I'd never have ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... long and slow. The frantic, nervous haste of town-clocks chorded better with the pulse of human life. Yet life in the veins of these people flowed slow and cool; their sorrows and joys were few and life-long. The enduring air suited this woman, Margret Howth. Her blood could never ebb or flow with sudden gusts of passion, like his own, throbbing, heating continually: one current, absorbing, deep, would carry its tide from one eternity to the other, one love or one hate. Whatever power was in the tide should be his, in its entirety. It was his right. Was ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... to 11 a.m., when it moderated; the tide being full at about noon. Got underweigh at 1 p.m., and stood to the south-west, under topsails, stemming a strong ebb tide to 3.30, when we came to anchor in five fathoms (sand and shells), about three miles from the western shore of the bay, Sloping Head bearing north by east five miles. The water of the bay is much discoloured, being of a deep reddish-brown. In passing down the shore we observed ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... and empale heretics. There are still many divinity professors who think it right to kill heretics and infidels. The society of the nineteenth century is still eaten up by the most rancorous bigotry, and morality is proportionably at a low ebb. Nevertheless, with all our present Desert hardships, we are an easy journeying caravan; the patience of no one is particularly tried, and there is no event to draw out the real passions of the soul. We are now five days from Ghat; to-morrow being the Ayed Kebir, we shall make but a ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... find a plea for its casuistries in the absence of a definite right to be measured by—it had been easy, after the first slip, to drop a little lower with each struggle. The woman—oh, the woman was—well, of the kind who prey on such men. Arthur, out there, at his lowest ebb, had drifted into living with her as a man drifts into drink or opium. He knew what she was—he knew where she had come from. But he had fallen ill, and she had nursed him—nursed him devotedly, of course. That was her chance, and she knew it. Before he was out ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... the laws of nature, whether we can trace them in the alternate ebb and flow of the ocean, in the measured path of comets, or in the mutual attractions of multiple stars, alike increases our sense of the calm of nature, while the chimera so long cherished by the human ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... what the river would not, and came and covered me over, and my soul had rest in the green water, and rejoiced and believed that it had the Burial of the Sea. But with the ebb the water fell again, and left me alone again with the callous mud among the forgotten things that drift no more, and with the sight of all those desolate houses, and with the knowledge among all of ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... warped out of the dock into the river, a steam-tug made fast to the tow-rope ahead, and another hooked herself on to the port side of the great ship to steady her, as she began to glide slowly with the tide, now just beginning to ebb, along through the hundreds of craft on ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... not to be drawn off by side events, however disastrous to local interests. The British force at Estcourt and at Mooi River were considered safe, and the enemy's advance in fact did not extend in any force beyond the latter. Very shortly after the affair at Willow Grange the tide began to ebb. The precise cause for this is still a matter of surmise. It may be that Joubert considered he had gathered in all that was needed to supply his positions around Ladysmith and behind the Tugela; it was reported at the time that 12,000 head of cattle were among the spoils. ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... audacity generally paid. Later on he carried it into politics, and with equal success. My readers may know that he came into power in 1848, when the affairs of the House of Austria were at their lowest ebb, Vienna in revolution, Hungary in rebellion, ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... absorbing work rose to something like excitement on February 20th, when there were indications, from the set of the tide, that an unusual feature of the coast was being approached. "The tide from the north-eastward, apparently the ebb, ran more than one mile an hour, which was the more remarkable from no set of the tide worthy to be noticed having hitherto been observed upon this coast." The ship had rounded Cape Catastrophe, and the land led ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... low ebb; but the abundant rains and the rich soil produce very large harvests of rice, the principal crop, and all the productions of the Torrid Zone thrive. The labor of Siam is done by Chinese coolies; for the native workers are hampered by a law which requires them to give one-fourth ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... eager voices shouted a reply. The enthusiasm spread from rank to rank. Foremost of those beside the water's edge stood Oliver and Bernard de Brocas; and when at last the ebb came, and the word was given to advance, they were amongst the first who dashed into the shallow water, whilst Gaston and his brother, though unable to press into the foremost rank, ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Two miles, on the starboard side, appeared Gilboa, stretching from north to west like an immense arm. Towards the south and east some coral showed itself, left by the ebb. We had run aground, and in one of those seas where the tides are middling—a sorry matter for the floating of the Nautilus. However, the vessel had not suffered, for her keel was solidly joined. But, if she could neither glide ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... said little. It was the husband who talked. His manner towards Aaron was almost caressive. And Aaron liked it. The woman was silent mostly, and seemed remote. And Aaron felt his life ebb towards her. He felt the marvellousness, the rich beauty of her arms and breast. And the thought of her gold-dusted smooth limbs beneath the table made him feel almost ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... such a crisis all a woman's rivals are against her. Mariette, Florine, Tullia would ask their friend to dinner, and gave her some help; but as they did not know the extent of her debts, they did not dare to sound the depths of that gulf. An interval of six years formed rather too long a gap in the ebb and flow of the Paris tide, between La Torpille and Madame du Val-Noble, for the woman "on foot" to speak to the woman in her carriage; but La Val-Noble knew that Esther was too generous not to remember sometimes that she had, as she said, fallen heir ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... a strange loss to understand this, and resolved to spend some time in the observing it, to see if nothing from the sets of the tide had occasioned it. But I was presently convinced how it was, viz., that the tide of ebb setting from the west, and joining with the current of waters from some great river on the shore, must be the occasion of this current; and that according as the wind blew more forcibly from the west, or from the north, this current came near, or went farther from ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... after eleven, to be exact; the month April; the day sunny, with a humming northerly wind; the tide drawing far out towards low-ebb, and the air so clear that the small figure standing on the edge of the waves ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... lines in which an old bard, doubtless seeing the Menai Bridge by means of second sight, says: 'I will pass to the land of Mona notwithstanding the waters of Menai, without waiting for the ebb'—and was feeling not a little proud of my erudition when the man in grey, after looking at me for a moment fixedly, asked me the name of the bard who ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... of business, there were ebb and flood tides in cattle. The opening of the trail through to the extreme Northwest gave the range live stock industry its greatest impetus. There have always been seasons of depression and advances, the cycles covering periods of ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... the ocean, the great tides ebb and flow. The waves which had once urged on the spirit of Ernest Maltravers to the rocks and shoals of active life had long since receded back upon the calm depths, and left the strand bare. With a melancholy ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book II • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... therefore necessary to haul over towards Quail Island, when the highest hummock on it bears South-West 1/2 West. The tides follow the direction of the channel, varying in velocity from one to two knots. The ebb in the ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... The ebb and flow of his fortunes were followed with intense interest in this country, and it is not too much to say that the many disasters which overtook his air-ships in their experimental stages were regarded ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... one of the group, a Spartan whose rank and services entitled him to more than ordinary familiarity with the chief, "it is not the ocean itself that we should dread, it is the contagion of those who, living on the element, seem to share in its ebb and flow. The Ionians are never three hours in ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... midnight and the ebb tide set in. The good wind was still blowing down the river. Two lanterns went aloft in the rigging of the Sutherland, and the signal for one of the great adventures of history was given. All the troops had gone into boats earlier in the evening, ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... nature, one of which is in respect of that nature's proper movement, while the other is in respect of the movement of the higher nature. Thus water by its proper movement moves towards the centre (of the earth), while according to the movement of the moon, it moves round the centre by ebb and flow. In like manner the planets have their proper movements from west to east, while in accordance with the movement of the first heaven, they have a movement from east to west. Now the created rational nature alone is immediately subordinate to God, since other ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... time past I have observed that the tide rises and falls twice every twenty-four hours, and that the ebb and flow produce a rather swift current through the submarine tunnel. It is pretty certain therefore that a floating object thrown into the lagoon when the top of the orifice is uncovered would be carried out by the receding tide. It is just possible that during the ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... of strong castles throughout France. He secured from his French Pope approval of the extermination of the entire order and the torture and execution of its chiefs. Whether the charges against them were true or not, their helplessness in the grip of the King shows clearly the low ebb to which knighthood had fallen, and the rising power of the monarchs. The day of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... all the teleological conceptions of final causes through which, at a given period of history, a final systematisation of the human race would take place. Such theories only mean placing oneself outside real history and life, which is a continual ebb and ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various
... its perfume, the timothy shaking out its little clouds of pollen as the sickle-bar strikes it, most of the song-birds still vocal, and the tide of summer standing poised at its full. Very soon it will begin to ebb, the stalks of the meadow grasses will become dry and harsh, the clover will fade, the girlish daisies will become coarse and matronly, the birds will sing fitfully or cease altogether, the pastures will turn brown, and the haymakers will find ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... had no mind to land, and after firing three warships (the Royal James, the Royal Oak, and the London), and capturing the Royal Charles, "they thought they had done enough, and made use of the ebb to carry them back again."[129:1] These events occupied the tenth to the fifteenth of June, and for the impression they produced on Marvell's mind we are not dependent upon his restrained letters to his constituents, but can turn to his longest rhymed satire, which ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... 'Tis labor's ebb; a hush of gentle joy, For man, and beast, and bird; The quavering songster ceases its employ; ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... deck did not come within the jurisdiction of the coroner. That official's cognisance of such matters extended only to high-water mark when the tide was at flood, or to low-water mark when it was at ebb. Beyond those limits, seawards, all acts of violence done in great ships, and resulting in mayhem or the death of a man, fell within the sole purview and jurisdiction of the Station Admiral, who on this occasion happened to be Sir Edward Hawke, commander of the White Squadron at Portsmouth. ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... of fifteen years, from 1850 to 1865, which has been under consideration in this chapter, was one of the greatest trial and discouragement to the Association. Its funds reached their lowest ebb, a missionary secretary could not be maintained, a layman performed the necessary office duties, and no considerable aggressive work along missionary lines was undertaken. Writing in a most hopeful spirit of ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... she generally does. I learned, at almost the last moment, that a lady of my acquaintance had taken passage in the same vessel. I interviewed her, and found her in the condition of the good people in novels who have seen better days; her exchequer was at low ebb, and, like myself, she had reasons which induced her to emigrate. I did not inquire into these, having no reason to doubt the statement, but I accompanied her on board the Golden Rose, bade her a fond farewell, and bequeathed to her my street apparel and a trifling sum ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... come to her, as there was nothing to be gained by waiting, she got up, and going into the hall, entered a dark coffee-room in which breakfast was served at its lowest ebb, black coffee, sugarless, and two pieces of ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... likely to rank him, on a line just short of the greatest of all time, is his direct appeal to will and conduct. "There is volition and self-government in every line of his poetry, and his best thoughts come from his steady resistance to the ebb and flow of ordinary desires and regrets. He contests the ground inch by inch with all despondent and indolent humours, and often, too, with movements of inconsiderate and wasteful joy" (R.H. Hutton). That would seem to be his true distinction ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... The flood, after sweeping south-westward along the great eastern beach, strikes off for the Seal Islands and the promontory, and then runs westward, past it, at the rate of two or three miles an hour: the ebb tide sets to the eastward. "Whenever it shall be decided," says Mr. Bass in his journal, "that the opening between this and Van Diemen's Land is a strait, this rapidity of tide, and the long south-west swell that seems to be continually rolling in upon the coast ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... character commenced during the Civil War. The colored race then presented itself to me in the character of numerous contrabands of war, and as a people who, individually, yearned for the light and life of liberty. Ages of slavery had reduced them to the lowest ebb of manhood. From that degree of degradation I have been an interested spectator of the marvelously rapid evolution of the down-trodden race. From the commencement of this evolution to the present time I have been more ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... interest in astronomy seemed, in Europe at least, to sink to a low ebb. When the Caliph Omar, in the middle of the seventh century, burnt the library of Alexandria, which had been the centre of intellectual progress, that centre migrated to Baghdad, and the Arabs became the leaders of science and philosophy. In astronomy they made careful ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... succors from time to time by sea. The Court is about to negotiate another loan, in which if it does not succeed, perhaps it must have recourse to another emission of paper. The treasury is at a low ebb. The Minister of Marine demanded lately ten millions of reals, and received but three. The credit of the paper has lately risen, it is not negotiated at one and a half per ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... shiver Expectant is bending the blades Of the marsh-grass in serial shimmers and shades,— And invisible wings, fast fleeting, fast fleeting, Are beating The dark overhead as my heart beats,—and steady and free Is the ebb-tide flowing from marsh to sea— (Run home, little streams, With your lapfuls of stars and dreams),— And a sailor unseen is hoisting a-peak, For list, down the inshore curve of the creek How merrily flutters the sail,— And lo, ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... the days sped by, did the priest's thought ebb and flow. As morn broke, and the gallant sun drove the cowardly shadows of night across the hills, his own courage rose, and he saw in Carmen the pure reflection of the Mind which was in Christ Jesus. As night fell, and darkness slunk back again and held the ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... agree with me?" said the director of the Deaf and Dumb Asylum—one who took the greatest possible interest in the working and the prosperity of that charity, the funds of which were rather at a low ebb at this time. "We cannot be supposed to be actuated by selfish motives; we are perfectly disinterested trustees for great public interests; but if property is left to these institutions, we would be wanting in our duty if we did ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... glanced within a rock's cleft breast, A lonely, safely-sheltered nest. There as successive seasons go, And tides alternate ebb and flow, Full many a wing is trained for flight In heaven's ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... then a rival of Cincinnati. It had six churches—several more than were absolutely needed. The Baptists were strong, the Presbyterians were strenuous, the Episcopalians were exclusive, while the Congregationalists were at ebb-tide through the rascality of a preacher who had recently decamped and thrown a blanket of disgrace over the whole denomination for ten miles up the creek. Thus were things when Henry Ward Beecher assumed his first ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... childish delight in tireless repetition. The days repeat themselves, the tides ebb and flow, the tree sways forth and back. This world is intent upon recurrences. Not the pendulum of a clock is more persistent of iteration than are all existing things; periodicity is the ultimate law and largest explanation of the universe—to do it over again ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... came to his own house and Roma opened the door to him, and he saw her, looking so ill, her cheeks so pale, her beautiful eyes so large and timid, and her whole face expressing such acute suffering, his anger began to ebb away, and he wanted to take her into his arms ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... I still, though conscience urged, no step advanced. When still he saw me fix'd and obstinate, Somewhat disturb'd he cried: 'Mark now, my son, From Beatrice thou art by this wall Divided.' As at Thisbe's name the eye Of Pyramus was open'd (when life ebb'd Fast from his veins) and took one parting glance, While vermeil dyed the mulberry; thus I turned To my sage guide, relenting, when I heard The name that springs for ever in my breast. He shook his forehead; and, 'How long,' he said, 'Linger we now'? ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... town itself there is nothing remarkable to be seen. On the sea-coast they shewed me the place where Moses led the children of Israel through the Red Sea. The sinking of the tide at its ebb is here so remarkable that whole islands are left bare, and large caravans are able to march through the sea, as the water only reaches to the girths of the camels, and the Arabs and Bedouins even walk through. As it happened ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to Fortune—But most of us catch our watered stock on the ebb. ...
— The Foolish Dictionary • Gideon Wurdz
... she know? For Gatty lived in a dreary time, when religion was at one of its lowest ebb-tides, and had sunk almost to the level of heathen morality. If Gatty had been required to give definitions of the greatest words in the language, and had really done it from the bottom of her heart, according to her ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... woman's apparel which comes under the head of European dress, woman's costume affected by cosmopolitan influences; costumes worn by that part of humanity which is in close intercommunication and reflecting the ebb and flow of currents—political, geographical and artistic. Then we have quite another field for study, that of national costumes, by which we mean costumes peculiar to some one nation and worn by its men and women century ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... had befallen Wednesday's letter, there was good hope of one Friday. And as Friday wore away, Faith did not know that she was counting the hours, and yet could at any time have answered any question as to the time of day. It was one of those calm days, within doors and without, which ebb away so noiselessly, that only the clock tells their progress. Faith's little clock—(Mr. Linden had amused himself with sending her one about as big as a good-sized watch on a stand)—ticked musically on the table, suggesting a good many things. Not merely the flight of time—not ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... the sense centers are most indelibly impressible, and to give relative rest to the hand during the years when its power of accuracy is abated and when all that is good is idealized furthest, and confidence in ability to produce is at its lowest ebb. ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... thither, with their olive and sword, are packed into prison: there may Romme lie, under lock and key, 'for fifty days;' and meditate his New Calendar, if he please. Cimmeria and Civil War! Never was Republic One and Indivisible at a lower ebb.— ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... if she resisted, they were equally destroyed, through the nervous disturbance and the intense depression which followed the winning of a liberty too dearly bought. The incessant rising and quelling of her impulse and her courage—like the ebb and flow of tides—represented a vast amount of force not merely wasted, but expended in producing a dangerous wear and tear upon the system. The process told upon her health, and was the beginning of the weakening and unbalancing ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... places, rock-oysters. Numerous wild-fowl also were seen, and several were shot. The boats rowed up a river at the head of the bay for four or five miles, and near it a deserted fort of considerable strength was visited. Several beds of oysters were also discovered, dry at half-ebb, and a boat being sent to fetch some, returned completely laden, so that the ship's company had a regular feast of them. Fish, also in abundance, were brought off by the natives. On the north side of the bay, a pah, small, but very strong and beautifully situated, was ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... bold design; it runs 1743 feet in a right line into the bay, where there is, at the lowest ebb, 17 feet of water. On this wharf are upwards of eighty large stores, containing merchandize to a great amount. I could never view these buildings without astonishment at the infatuation of the proprietors: they are, without a single exception, of ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... she had sunk deep into sleep, only her breast moving with the ebb and flow of her quiet breath, he crept nearer and drew a blanket over her, careful not to touch her. He looked at the unconscious face for a moment, then softly dropped the blanket and stole back to his place ready to turn at the first foot fall and ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... the moment Mr. Blake arrived. Induced by this promise, Mr. Blake set out for Plymouth; upon his arrival a trial was made in Cat-water, where Mr. Day lay, during the flow of tide, six hours, and six more during the tide of ebb; confined all the time in the room appropriated for his use. A day for the final determination was fixed; the vessel was towed to the place agreed upon; Mr. Day provided himself with whatever he thought necessary; he went into the vessel, ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... the earth, the soil its flesh, the ordered arrangement of rocks its bones, of which mountains are formed, the tufa its tendons; its blood the veins of water which surround its heart, which is the ocean; its breathing and increase and decrease of blood in the pulses the ebb and flood of the sea; and the heat of the spirit of the world is fire which pervades the earth, and the vital soul dwells in the fires which from various apertures of the earth issue in springs and ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... approached the land with caution, for we knew from experience that the tides in the vicinity of the South Sea Islands are very irregular, and seem to be much affected by the prevailing winds and currents. There is only one tide in the twenty-four hours. The flood-tide sets to the north, and the ebb to the south. It therefore behoved us to choose a safe anchorage, which, after consultation, we finally decided upon, selecting a spot sheltered from the prevailing wind, in deep water, close to a beach ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... the rifts between more impressively chasmal. The tremendous volume of life that flows through the narrow and winding channels past the dim cliffs and pinnacles, and the lower banks which the lesser buildings form, is such that the highest tide of Broadway or Fifth Avenue seems a scanty ebb beside it. The swelling and towering omnibuses, the huge trucks and wagons and carriages, the impetuous hansoms and the more sobered four-wheelers, the pony-carts, donkey-carts, handcarts, and bicycles which fearlessly find their way amid the ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... they proceed from the sun, which moves and whirls about the winds; and these falling with a violence upon the Atlantic, it is pressed and swells by them, by which means the sea flows; and their impression ceasing, the sea retracts, hence they ebb. Pytheas the Massilian, that the fulness of the moon gives the flow, the wane the ebb. Plato attributes it all to a certain balance of the sea, which by means of a mouth or orifice causes the tide; and by this means the seas do rise and flow alternately. Timaeus believes that those ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... History in the University of Upsala was, at this time, at a low ebb. It was like the Art Department in many of the American colleges: its existence largely confined to the school catalog. There were many weeks of biting poverty and neglect for Linnaeus, but he worked away in obscurity and silence and endured, saying ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... Joyce realised that she was both hungry and thirsty. Her lips were parched, her throat dry, nothing having passed them since early tea the previous afternoon, and she was at the lowest ebb of despondency and depression. Her surroundings helped to increase her misery, for the ground was a mixture of puddle and slush, and there seemed no chance of help anywhere. She seemed to have fallen into a deep crater, and but for a projection ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... reflected in the marsh waters: "Each winding creek in grave entrancement lies A rhapsody of morning-stars. The skies Shine scant with one forked galaxy, — The marsh brags ten: looped on his breast they lie."*7* Later, as the ebb-tide flows from marsh to sea, we are parenthetically treated to these two lines: "Run home, little streams, With your lapfuls of stars and dreams."*8* Finally, the heaven itself is thus pictured: "Now in each pettiest personal ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier |
