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Leveling   Listen
noun
Leveling  n.  
1.
The act or operation of making level.
2.
(Surveying) The art or operation of using a leveling instrument for finding a horizontal line, for ascertaining the differences of level between different points of the earth's surface included in a survey, for establishing grades, etc., as in finding the descent of a river, or locating a line of railroad.
Leveling instrument. See Surveyor's level, under Level, n.
Leveling staff, a graduated rod or staff used in connection with a leveling instrument for measuring differences of level between points.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Leveling" Quotes from Famous Books



... her interest to employ otherwise her lands, her capital, and her labor. And why does not the fertility of one department paralyze the agriculture of a neighboring and less favored one? Because the phenomena of political economy have a suppleness, an elasticity, and, so to speak, a self-leveling power, which seems to escape the attention of the school of protectionists. They accuse us of being theorists, but it is themselves who are theorists to a supreme degree, if being theoretic consists in building up systems upon the experience ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... relic of mediaeval defence, was, about seventy years ago, removed, its material being used in the leveling and enlargement of the Parade Ground, or, as it is called, the "Champ-de-Mars." Its demolition might be regretted were it not that in an age of progress even sentiment must give way before advance. The grand Hotel Viger, although built to ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway

... off the water and plugged the duct between with the fleece. Then he set to and dug another hole higher up with a channel leading into the emptied pit of Ashmedia, by means of which the pit was filled with the wine he had brought. After leveling the ground so as not to rouse suspicion, he withdrew to a tree close by, so as to watch the result and wait his opportunity. After a while Ashmedai came, and examined the seal, when, seeing it all right, he raised ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... ever been the mildest and most benevolent of rulers; the proscription of a nobility that had ever lived in the kindliest relations with its tenantry; and on the ruins of old aristocratic and municipal institutions that had long guarded and sustained popular freedom, a coarse, leveling tyranny, sometimes democratic, sometimes imperial, established; in the church the oppression of the priesthood, a heartless religious indifferentism, undignified even by attempts at philosophic speculation, propagated and encouraged; ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... rates at which the railroads had previously carried a large portion of corresponding freight. The revenues of the road were not even curtailed by this law; on the contrary, by equalizing rates, i. e., by leveling up the rates given to favored places and favored individuals and leveling down the exorbitant rates exacted from the public at non-competitive points, the railroad companies were enabled to effect an increase ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee

... This leveling is an important matter since the development of a colony is to some extent proportionate to the supply of medium available for its nutrition. Thus in a "smear" on sloped tube culture, the colonies at the upper part of the medium are stunted and small ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... would have killed Joseph Brecht if at the last moment the latter had not drawn his revolver. After all is said and done, gentlemen, can a woman love but once? Joseph Brecht fired. In that infinitesimal moment between the leveling of the gun and the firing of the shot Marie Beauvais found answer to that question. Who was it she loved? She sprang to her husband's breast, sheltering him with the body that had been disloyal to its soul, and she died there—with a bullet through ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood

... Democracy in Athens.—The Ecclesia, or Public Assembly, of Athens is something more than the chief governmental organ in the state. It is the great leveling engine which makes Athens a true democracy, despite the great differences in wealth between her inhabitants, and the marked social pretensions of "the noble and the good"—the educated classes. At this time Athens is profoundly wedded to her democratic constitution. Founded by Solon ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... poverty. Unemployment officially was 23.8% in 2004, but unofficial estimates place it closer to 40%. HIV/AIDS infection rates are the second highest in the world and threaten Botswana's impressive economic gains. An expected leveling off in diamond mining production ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... streets were thronged with the motley population disgorged by the various mills and workshops. Richard felt that every eye was upon him; he was conscious of something wild in his aspect that must needs attract the attention of the passers-by. At each step he half expected the leveling of some accusing finger. The pitiless sunshine seemed to single him out and stream upon him like a calcium light. It was intolerable. He must get away from this jostling crowd, this babel of voices. What should he do, where should he go? To return ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... affair the Englishman drew two arguments from under his coat, and leveling one of them at the head of the padre, suggested to him the propriety of not interposing any obstacle to the return of himself and wife to their home. This was a poser; an act of open impiety; a Kentucky argument. But there was no remedy. The Inquisition was not now in authority; ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... the great leveling force of the truth. Whatever the difference between her and Stewart, or whatever the imagined difference set up by false standards of class and culture, the truth was that here on this wild mountain-side she was only a woman and he was simply a man. It was a man that she needed, ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... turn, and those sons also will have sons and grandsons. With all this posterity my line will not die out; while on the other hand the mountains will receive no increment or addition. Why then should I despair of leveling them to the ground at last?"—The Wise Old Man of the River-bend had ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... It may be supposd that he had as good Right to carry a Stick, even a Bludgeon, as the Soldier who shot him had, to be armd with Musquet & ball; & if he at any time lifted up his Weapon of Defence, it was surely not more than a Soldiers leveling his Gun at the Multitude chargd with Death - If he had killed a Soldier, he might have been hangd for it, & as a traitor too, for to attack a Soldier upon his post, was declared Treason; But the Soldier shot Attucks & killed him, & he was convicted of Man Slaughter! ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams

... downstairs, and out of the house in such a hurry that I imprudently struck my face against the doorpost. Fire flew out of my eyes, but it did not prevent my intention; I soon came within shot, when, leveling my piece, I observed to my sorrow, that even the flint had sprung from the cock by the violence of the shock I had just received. There was no time to be lost. I presently remembered the effect it had on my eyes, therefore opened the pan, leveled my piece against the wild fowls, and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... to tell you a story, M'seur," continued Croisset, leveling his reddened eyes to the engineer's. "It will not be long, and I pray the Virgin to make you understand it as we people of the North understand it. It ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood

... deadly, and Italy worse . . . vulgarity and commonness everywhere. What an absolutely dreary outlook wherever one turns one's eyes! There is no corner of the modern world that is not vulgar and common. Democracy has done its horrible leveling down with a ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... his age, unusually active and remarkably direct mentally, therefore little adjustment was needed as he entered that usually leveling community—boy-school-life. He was generous and good- hearted to a lovable degree and with such qualities and advantages he early became, and remained, leader in his crowd. After his father died, the boy, not unnaturally, placed him—the only one whose ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll

... so-called astringent effect of the milieu upon the individuals who are incapable of rising out of their environment, of stepping out of it. In society that bacillus for which one has found the name "suggestion" appears certainly as a leveling element, and, accordingly, whether the individual stands higher or lower than his environment, whether he becomes worse or better under its influence, he always loses or gains something from the contact with others. This is the basis ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... floor, were finished on the same day of the raising. A third day was commonly spent by a few carpenters in leveling off the floor, making a clapboard door and a table. This last was made of a split slab, and supported by four round legs set in auger-holes. Some three-legged stools were made in the same manner. Some pins stuck in the logs at the back of the house, supported some clapboards which served ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley

... down the mountain until the wireless tower was left several hundred yards behind and they were buried deep in the pine forest. Then John stepped suddenly into the road not twenty yards before the Alsatian and leveling his ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler

... line of leveling was carried by one of the parties of Major Graham's division, by means of two spirit levels checking one another, from tide water at Calais, in Maine, to the monument at the source of the St. Croix, and thence along the true meridian line to its intersection ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... below did not need to be told that something unusual was happening. The changing course of the ship, the unusual activity on the bridge, the leveling of the glasses to the port side and to the stern by the different groups, were sufficient warnings of the presence ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward

... a moment with a loud imprecation, and then, leveling a revolver, fired. Vincent felt a moment's pain in the cheek, but before he could level his rifle his companion fired, and Pearson fell forward dead. A minute later the sheriff and his party ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty

... not obeyed, for Hamilton and Ellen were already beyond reach when the order was given; but the second one led to the discharge of two guns without effect, and the leveling of a third by Ramsey, with a coolness and steadiness of nerve and aim which gave assurance of success. His finger was on the trigger, when Durant himself threw up the muzzle of the rifle, and sent the ball whizzing through the air, some ten feet above ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison

... to rally her scattered faculties. The dreamlike quality of the scene at once dissolved. Utter and bewildering surprise is never an emotion that can long endure; its very quality makes for brevity. Already some leveling, cool sense within her had begun to accept the fact ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall

... the inky shadows. Suddenly from the densest fold of the cloud the flash leaped out, quivering again and again down to the edge of the prairie; and at the same instant came the sharp burst and the long rolling peal of the thunder. A cool wind, filled with the smell of rain, just then overtook us, leveling the tall grass by the ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... greater tenderness of the plant, but because of greater porosity of the loosened soil which enables the cold to strike to a greater depth. These two objections to fall planting can be overcome largely by mounding up the earth so as practically to cover the vines, leveling the mound in early spring; but this extra work more than offsets the labor saving ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick

... brilliant defeat of Custer, by Sitting Bull and his braves, was their last grand rally against the resistless march of the sons of the Saxons and the Celts. The plow-shares of a superior race are fast leveling the sacred mounds of their dead. But yesterday, the shores of our lakes, and our rivers, were dotted with their tepees. Their light canoes glided over our waters, and their hunters chased the deer and the buffalo on the sites of our cities. To-day, they are not. Let us ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon

... lawnmowers was heard over the "Tigers' Home Grounds." When the many hollows and hummocks in the uneven turf came to light, the youthful construction boss ordered that shovels be brought, and another day passed in transporting dirt and leveling the obstructions off. Pail after pail of water was carried from the dairy buildings to wet down and harden the new, loose earth, and it was Saturday morning before the distances between the various bases and the pitcher's box ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely

... "A plesiosaurian!" exclaimed Omega, leveling his glasses at the beast. "No—how can that be?" he added in bewilderment. "Those monsters were supposed to be extinct ages ago. And they had a smooth skin, while this thing has scales, like those of a brontosaurus, which was really a land animal. This must be a cross ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow

... axes, and in a very few moments every soldier was equipped with tools, which they began to use with unanimous energy and willingness during the greater part of the day. And it was truly wonderful to see those brave soldiers working untiringly, chopping heavy trees, digging and filling deep ravines, leveling stout barricades, all working diligently for that one aim which was to ...
— The Battle of Bayan and Other Battles • James Edgar Allen

... Jim, as the Mexican started to draw, and himself leveling a revolver which they had captured in the castle. It is true it had but one cartridge in it, but that was enough with Jim at ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt

... walls of houses, wherever the deadly fire had caught them. The street was littered with Belgian bodies. There stood Rossiter grinding away on his handle, snickering green-clad Belgians lying strewn on the cobbles, a half dozen of them tense and set behind the barricade, leveling rifles at the piles of fish. Every one was laughing, and all of them intent on working ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason

... earth yawned under the feet of America, and in that very region whence had come forth a glorious band of orators, statesmen and soldiers to plead the cause and fight the battles of Independence—lo! the volcanic fires of rebellion burst forth upon the heads of the faithful, and the militia were leveling the guns of the Revolution, against the breasts of their brethren. "What, gracious God! is man?" Washington exclaimed: "It was but the other day that we were shedding our blood to obtain the constitutions under ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various

... scarcely make out the group at the farther end of the gallery, as he stepped out; but he could hear the resounding crashes against the door into the north hall, each one of which seemed to be the last that even that massive frame could hold out against. Leveling his pistol at the group; he took aim, and fired; snatched another from his pocket, and fired a second time. Again, by good luck, the defender's shots had told. There was a thud on the gallery floor, and the besiegers scurried to cover beyond the courtyard fence. Tom dashed ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold

... spattering the gravel under the big hoofs of the gray. Close at his heels rode two officers in Confederate gray uniforms, and a motley crowd of riders closed up the road behind. In an instant the guide and I were surrounded, the whole cavalcade leveling their guns at the thicket and calling on our companions, who could be plainly heard crashing through the bushes, to halt. The dress of but few of our captors could be seen, nearly all being covered with rubber talmas; but their mounts, including mules as well as horses, ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... said Farnsworth apathetically turning to a small loop-hole and leveling a field glass through it. "We might make a rush from the gates and stampede them," he presently added. Then he uttered ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... brown-skinned, quick-swimming creatures. Sealmen, they were—men who, like the seals, had gone back to the sea. Months ago, Second Torpooner Chanley Beddoes had killed one of them. They were intelligent; they could remember; they were capable of hate and fear; they would be desirous of leveling the debt! ...
— Under Arctic Ice • H.G. Winter

... England were less religious than social. When Henry VIII put the confiscated lands of abbey and noble into the hands of scions of the people, Harrington thought that he had destroyed the ancient balance of power in the constitution, and, while leveling feudalism and the church, had raised up unto the throne ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... season, but there were some timber cutters at work in the woods near-by, and a greasy man-cook stood in the doorway of the long log cabin where the gang put up throughout the winter, while conducting their operations of leveling the forest, or, at least, robbing it of all the spruce for the pulp mill ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen

... the yoke of Popery in religion; for you is reserved the honor of leveling the popery of politics. They opened the Bible to all, and maintained the capacity of every man to judge for himself in religion. Are we sufficient for the comprehension of the sublimest spiritual truths, and unequal ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... all the-!" began Mr. Damon, but another of the footpads leveling his weapon at the eccentric ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton

... us the names of some of them; how many there were whose names were not recorded, of course, we cannot now tell. Andover sent Tites Coburn, Alexander Ames, and Barzilai Low; Plymouth sent Cato Howe, and Peter Salem immortalized his name by leveling the piece in that battle which laid low Major Pitcairn. It is fair to presume that other towns, like Andover, sent in the ranks of their volunteers colored Americans. In the town of Raynham, within forty miles of Boston, there is now a settlement of colored people who have been ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... which I have in mind, a drizzling rain comes softly, though steadily, down. A number of soldiers, hardly distinguishable from the mud in which they are working, are busy leveling off the ground around a flagpole which stands in the center of the cemetery. Presently they stop 15 work and stand listening to the drumbeats which can be heard faintly in the distance. The little group gathers ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... presented so few obstacles to the movement of armies that they could march over the country in any direction almost as well as on the roads, the creeks and rivers being everywhere fordable, with little or no difficulty beyond that of leveling ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... suppose I ought to thank you for sapping everything from me, my will-power, my strength, my real talents, all the faith in love and beauty that was once in me, which you have systematically driven out with your infernal leveling process? Where shall I ever find a trace of all that again? I might seek for a hundred years and not strike that path again! I might have become an artist, at life or art itself, who cares! And you have made ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... all intents and purposes as good as anything that has been, is, or can be taught in the nine universities of the land, and to deprive it of its rights is a most cruel innovation and usurpation, tending to destroy all just subordination in the world, making all universities superfluous, leveling vice-chancellors, doctors, and proctors, masters, bachelors, and scholars, to the mean and contemptible state of butchers and tallow-chandlers, bricklayers and chimney-sweepers, who, if it were not for these learned mysteries, ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... to intercept a band of robbers who had infested the roadways of this neighborhood, and who had rendered the highways impassable because of their depredations. Near Tarrytown, three of this party confronted a passing traveler, and leveling their muskets at him, ordered him to halt. They were obeyed on the instant, and because of the suspicious manner of the stranger, a complete search of him was made. The set of papers was found in their hiding place, and he was placed under arrest, and sent to North Castle. There the ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... thoroughly-manured land, the crop will be small: it is from this fact that the idea has gained currency. They are generally planted too thick on rich land. Peas planted six inches deep will produce nearly twice as much as those covered but an inch. Plowing in peas and leveling the surface is one of the best methods of planting. To get an early crop in a cold climate, they may be forced in hotbeds, or planted in a warm exposure, very early, and protected by covering, when the weather is cold. At the South, it is best to plant so as to secure a considerable growth ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden

... years there is a leveling of the permanent pinchers, the pinchers usually being leveled at six and both pairs of intermediates partially leveled and the corner ...
— Determining the Age of Cattle by the Teeth • George W. Pope

... cassock. Necessity commanded. Prejudice obeyed as it ever obeys in that vast land of untrameled freedom. So Father Holland was cared for in the Protestant home with a tenderness which Mr. Sutherland would have repudiated. For my part, I have always thanked God for that leveling influence of the west. It pulls the fools from high places and awards ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... beautiful wing of the great palace. This edifice, known to contemporaries as the great new palace, comprised a spacious Chapel and Hall of Justice; and in August 9, 1344, contracts were made for cutting away and leveling the rock above the present Rue Peyrolerie, whereon, by October 21, 1351, the masons had raised their ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... advanced steadily, leveling their guns. They fired, intense, almost invisible beams stabbing ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay

... sweeping winds had made its smooth hearthstone clean as if fire had never been there. Its floor was covered with large flags, a little broken: these, in prospect of the coming entertainment, a few workmen were leveling, patching, replacing. For the tables were to be set here, and here there was to be dancing after ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... excavated, the labor of transporting the fresh and water-soaked material is greatly reduced. The drying-frames are built up into houses as fast as they are filled from the machine. They can be set up anywhere without difficulty, require no leveling of the ground, and, once filled, no labor in turning or stacking the peats is necessary; while the latter are insured against damage from rain. These advantages, Gysser claims, ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson

... Leveling the ground, pulling down old buildings, and distributing light and air through her wide streets, Paris is slowly and continuously pursuing her transformation. At this moment it is an entire district, and not one of the least curious ones, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various

... when he had gorged himself, leveling many critical shafts at those who hold every-day things in contempt, esteeming nothing except what ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... degrees, the tube of the gauge being supported by a semicircular piece of thick pasteboard fitted with two corks into the top of the cylinder. This seemingly awkward proceeding has in no case been attended with the slightest accident, and owing to the presence of the four leveling-screws, the pump when righted returns, as shown by the telescope of the cathetometer, almost exactly to its original place. In the inclined position the exhaustion of the vacuum bulb is accomplished along with that of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... attached used for a liquid level, was sighted from a camera tripod. A measuring tape attached to the tripod showed the distance of the rifle above the surface of the water. A surveyor's tape measured the distance between the tripod and the leveling rod, which also had an attached tape to show the distance of the point sighted above ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... birds now sent forth their notes of praise! The leaves of the forest clapped their hands for joy, and the branches waved with praise! Every head of wheat was now bowed in sweet submission. O, what a leveling of all nations of the earth was this baptism. I had been prejudiced against the Irish people, as I never had seen one of that nation until they came to our town, Lockport (as it was then called), by hundreds, to work on the Erie canal, that ran through a part of father's ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... on some act of his own to be done or forborne; the means of intimidation may act through the senses, or may appeal only to the intellect or the sensibilities. The sudden rush of an armed madman may frighten; the quiet leveling of a highwayman's pistol intimidates. A savage beast is intimidated by the keeper's whip. Employers may intimidate their employees from voting contrary to their will by threat of discharge; a mother may be intimidated through fear for her child. To browbeat or cow is ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... few might at first have acted as you dreamed they did," she replied. "Perhaps they would not at once have liked the idea of economic equality, fearing that it might mean a leveling down for them, and not understanding that it would presently mean a leveling up of all together to a vastly higher plane of life and happiness, of material welfare and moral dignity than the most fortunate had ever enjoyed. But even if the ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... with the forefinger of one hand; insert the cutting to about half its depth with the other, rap the bottom of the pot smartly against the bench to settle the earth, and then press it down firmly with the thumbs, leveling it as the pot is placed to one side in an empty flat. (The jarring down of the soil should precede the firming with the thumbs, as this will compact the soil more evenly within the pot.) This should leave the soil a little below the rim of the pot, making a space ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell

... and the sooner the better, say I. Although I am no man of war, and love looking after my falcons or giving food to my dogs far more than exchanging hard blows, yet would I gladly don the buff and steel coat to aid in leveling the keep of that robber and tyrant, ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... the spade, the harrow is to the plow. For general purposes the Acme is an excellent harrow. It is adjustable, and for ground at all mellow will be the only one necessary; set it, for the first time over, to cut in deep; and then, set for leveling, it will leave the soil in such excellent condition that a light hand- raking (or, for large areas, the Meeker smoothing-harrow) will prepare it for the finest of seeds, such as onions and carrots. The teeth of the Acme are so designed that ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell

... about over the surface of the earth, delving it or cultivating it or leveling it, without thinking that it has not always been as we now find it, that the mountains were not always mountains, nor the valleys always valleys, nor the plains always plains, nor the sand always sand, nor the clay always clay. ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... you are, Corbett!" said the sergeant, jumping up and leveling a paralo-ray gun at him. "You're ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell

... Pope may be termed the special feature of the last age of feudalism which preceded the Renaissance. It was thus that the necessary conditions and external circumstances were prepared. The organization of the five great nations, and the leveling of political and spiritual interests under political and spiritual despots, formed the prelude to that drama of liberty of which the Renaissance was the first act, the Reformation the second, the Revolution the third, and which we nations ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... with God" is always ready for the Master's call. His loins are girded about and his lights burning. He "lies down with the Kings of the earth," and that leveling process which is thus intimated and begun in death he feels is the order of a higher plane of life to come, when all the abuses and incongruities of human government will be swept away, and the light of omniscient wisdom will shine on all alike. There ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... for a moment with a loud imprecation, and then leveling a revolver, fired. Vincent felt a moment's pain in the cheek, but before he could level his rifle his companion fired, and Pearson fell forward dead. A minute later the sheriff and ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty

... boys had borrowed a roller from Mr. Percy, and by dint of much work had succeeded in leveling the field and pressing down the uneven spots. Although it was a fair place for playing, and, as the small field directly back of the Hall could not be utilized, this was of very good service. Unlike the Davenport grounds there was no stand, ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various

... working class, in the sense in which I have developed it, as a controlling principle of society, utters no cry which separates and makes hostile to another the classes of society. He utters, rather, a cry of reconciliation, a cry which includes all society, a cry for the leveling of all hostilities among the social strata, a cry of accord, in which all should join who do not wish privilege and the oppression of the people by privileged classes, a cry of love, which, ever since it spoke for ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... saddle-horn like an old man and stared at the trail and at the forefeet of Barney coming down pluck, pluck with leisurely regularity in the dust. Just so was Charming Billy Boyle trampling down the dreams that had been so sweet in the dreaming, and leveling ruthlessly the very foundations of the fair castle he had builded in the air for Dill and himself—and one other, with the fairest, highest, most secret chambers for that Other. And as he rode, the face of him was worn and the blue eyes of him sombre and dull; and his mouth, that had lost ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower

... out of his mouth, every one of the drove of eight thousand were on their feet like a flash of lightning; every one of them exactly at the same instant. With a rush like a whirlwind leveling a forest, they were ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... the latter, leveling his pistol at something that moved among the bushes. "Stand ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope

... was easier, leveling occasionally, frequently swelling to gentle ridges, and at last winding up a steep trail that was not difficult to keep in spite of the fast falling night. And at length Jarvo, rounding a huge hummock where converging ridges ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... qualified to do the same thing with a kitchen stove, or that the method he had acquired as office boy, copying letters in the letterpress, would have stood him in good stead if he suddenly had been called upon to make up his own bed. What he did realize was that the leveling process which goes hand in hand with the mingling of sexes in a workday world was setting in. And he resented it. He wanted to coddle illusion ... he had no wish for a world practical to the point ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... humorist. So he accepted the bid: "All right, this gentleman bids two bits. Two bits I am bid—two bits. Twenty-five cents. Who'll make it twenty-five dollars? Two bits—who says twenty-five dollars? Ah, did you say twenty-five dollars?" he snapped, leveling an accusing and threatening fore-finger at the man nearest him, who squirmed restlessly and glanced at the stranger. "Did you say ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... sturdily, but it seemed to cling, to have a sticky pervasiveness. Try as he might he couldn't brush it off his mind. Nevertheless, it was on the very heels of this embittering experience that life plucked him up from his slough. One of the leveling public catastrophes came to Dickie's aid—not that he knew he was a dumb prayer for aid. He knew only that every day was harder to face than the last, that every night the stars up there through Sheila's skylight seemed to glimmer more dully with ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt

... and humanist alike have with him. Neither of them sanctions this perversion of thought and feeling which either projects the impressionistic self so absurdly and perilously into the natural order, or else minimizes man's imaginative and intellectual power, leveling him down to the amoral instinct of the brute. "How much more," said Jesus, "is a man better than a sheep!" One of the greatest of English humanists was Matthew Arnold. You remember his sonnet, entitled, alas! "To a ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch

... was given the task of leveling and distributing the earth rolled into the road by the grader—a labor which in the interests of fitting a muzzle on his big mongrel dog he deserted whenever the machine moved away from him. No dog would have seemed less deserving of a muzzle, for he was a friendly ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick

... is so impartial. To deify a man and his cat by the same process is not much of a distinction to the former; and of what advantage is it to be made a god, if he does not thereby obtain some distinction? This leveling apotheosis is generally confined to the German Pantheists; their more ambitious American brethren ascribe the contented humility which accepts it to the continual influence of the fumes of tobacco ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... labor market. Private investment is critical to the modernization of the agricultural, energy, and export sectors, particularly because Damascus is saddled with a heavy foreign debt. Oil production is leveling off, and the efforts of the nonoil sector to penetrate international markets have fallen short. Syria's inadequate infrastructure, outmoded technological base, and weak educational system hamper competition with neighbors such as Jordan and Israel. The ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... required subject after 1867) and geography, notions of the physical sciences and of natural history applicable to the ordinary purposes of life, elementary instruction in agriculture, trade, and hygiene; and surveying, leveling, linear drawing, singing, ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... blazed Garretse, losing a fraction of his hard-held selfmastery. "And the case shall go through every court in the land, since you persist in this idiotic denial of a proven fact. I warn you, I shall—Look there!" he broke off, furiously, leveling a shakily vehement forefinger at Lad. "Watch him! He's prowling around, even now, in search of more things ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune

... Fort St. Michael. The only fortification in 1530 was the Fort of St. Angelo, with a few guns and very weak walls. The intention of the Knights, even from the beginning, was to make the main peninsula, Mount Sceberras, the seat of their "Convent"; but as that would mean the leveling of the whole promontory, a task of enormous expense and difficulty, and as immediate defence was necessary, they decided to occupy the Peninsula of St. Angelo for the present. Wedged between St. Angelo and the mainland there ...
— Knights of Malta, 1523-1798 • R. Cohen

... ground; but when he would essay to fetch the final fling, the nimble savage, let his legs be ever so high in the air and wide apart, was always sure to bring the very foot down to the very place to stay his fall, though as quickly to jerk it up again, to shun the leveling sweep of those enormous black feet, so persistently making at his ankles. The combat had waged for many seconds without any decided advantage gained on either side, when, chancing to glance over Black Thunder's shoulder, Burl spied a new danger threatening him from quite ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... assistance of the French six years earlier, might have conquered the colonies to the Atlantic seaboard before the British regulars could have come to their assistance. The tribes swept westward into Pennsylvania, burning, murdering, and leveling every habitation to the ground with a thoroughness beyond anything attempted under the French alliance. The settlers and farmers fled eastward to the towns to live in cellars, camps, and sheds as best ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher

... perfectly smoothly along without jolts or jerks, and sometimes on the contrary, the plateau would reel and roll like a ship in a storm, coasting past abysses in which fragments of the mountain were falling, tearing up trees by the roots, and leveling, as if with the keen edge of an immense scythe, every ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... loser all the game. This sudden generosity took them off balance. It let in a merciful light upon the cruel criticism which they had been leveling at him in private. The pale man, with the blond eyelashes and the faded blue eyes, who had been dexterously stacking the cards all through the game, decided at that moment that he would not only stop cheating, but he would even lose some of his ill-gotten gains ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... will surrender to a nigger," said a Confederate officer, when a colored soldier chased and caught him. "Berry sorry, massa," said the negro, leveling his rifle; "must kill you den; hain't time to go back and git a white ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... station. "Five fathoms and a flat bottom," was the unvaried announcement after each operation. Not only, therefore, was it evident that the submerged chain between Cape Bon and Cape Furina no longer existed, but it was equally clear that the convulsion had caused a general leveling of the sea-bottom, and that the soil, degenerated, as it has been said, into a metallic dust of unrecognized composition, bore no trace of the sponges, sea-anemones, star-fish, sea-nettles, hydrophytes, and shells with which the submarine ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne

... torrents of rain, the frightful sight of incessant lightning, and a slow quaking of the earth accompanied the furious wind. The tearing up of trees, the lifting of roofs, smashing of windows, and leveling of everything added terror-striking noises to the scene. The tempest raged with the same fury in the capital till after one o'clock in the morning. In other parts of the island it began about the same hour, but without any serious effect till later. In Aguada, where I was at ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk

... as everything seemed to be moving so ideally that the first great calamity fell upon Clark & Sons. One morning a telegram came from Sandy saying that a big fire had swept the ranch, leveling to the ground house, barns, and sheep-pens. The blaze had come about through no one's carelessness. Lightning had struck the central barn, and before aid could be summoned the entire place had ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett

... mystery, more food for reflection. Only a powerful motive or a self-leveling love could have made a woman of Diane Sampson's pride ask such a question. Whatever her reason, I determined to assure her, once and forever, what I knew to be true. Accordingly, I told her in unforgettable words, with ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey

... indicate. It is useless to quarrel with Nature, who has nowhere in the universe given us an example of the absolute, unqualified, dead-level equality which some pseudo-reformers have vainly endeavored to institute among men. Such leveling is neither possible nor desirable. Harmony is born of difference, ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells

... explored, but it will remain to trace the limits of the valley of the Rimouski, which will form a deep indenture in the boundary line. This line having been explored, a party was formed, after the assemblage of the several divisions at Temiscouata, for the purpose of leveling it with the barometer; but the expedition was frustrated by a heavy snowstorm, which set in on the 12th October. This, the most important part of the whole northern line, therefore remains for future investigation. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson

... Dalton demanded. They were standing near him, one on either hand, both leveling their guns at his head. Macdonald could see the one at the back door of his little two-roomed bungalow through the hole that he ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... sincere—aim at a restoration of religion. They would lift it up to the highest place, and make it the sovereign law of Rome. In this attempt, they are unconsciously digging away her very foundations; they are leveling her proud walls with the earth. Suppose Rome were made what Fronto would have her? Every Roman were then another Fronto—or another Aurelian. Were that a world to live in? or to endure? These, lady, are the enemies of Rome, Aurelian and Fronto. The only hope for Rome ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... there!" cried the magistrate, leveling a pudgy finger at Blount. "This here co't is already cognizant of certain facts bearing on that p'int. The boy was left with Bob Yancy mainly because nobody else would take him. Them's the facts. Now ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... precious years we waste Leveling what we raised in haste; Doing what must be undone, Ere content or love be won! First across the gulf we cast Kite-borne threads till lines are passed, And habit builds the bridge ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... has built up the United States and is now building up Canada. Other great race movements have been a tearing down of high places, the upward scramble of one class on the {xiv} backs of the deposed class. Instead of leveling down, Canada's ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... you spoke the truth," he said, returning the pistol to his belt, and again leveling the shot-gun. "Now, Mr. Thomson Tuttle, you've been a gentleman so far, and as long as you keep up that play you'll be all right. You won't be hurt if you don't make any breaks. Take down your hands and we'll go into camp and ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly

... from which their ascents of the neighboring summits would be made. Here, on the great median moraine, stood a huge boulder of micaceous schist. Its upper surface projected so as to form a roof, and by closing it in on one side with a stone wall, leveling the floor by a judicious arrangement of flat slabs, and rigging a blanket in front to serve as a curtain across the entrance, the whole was presently transformed into a rude hut, where six persons could find sleeping-room. ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... and visible man, apparently possessed of none, is often baffling! But ingenuity is equal to the maze. Inner research soon exposes a unity in all human minds-the stalwart kinship of selfish motive. In one sense at least, the brotherhood of man stands revealed. An aghast humility follows this leveling discovery. It ripens into compassion for one's fellows, blind to the healing potencies of the ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... a will, spanking the snow down with the shovels, leveling uneven places and forming a clear, hard track from the top of the Knoll to the brook. On the edge of the bank we piled up an inclined plane, wetting down the snow and building a mound perhaps five feet high. From this elevation, Mr. ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears

... stress of my poems from beginning to end to bear upon American individuality and assist it—not only because that is a great lesson in Nature, amid all her generalising laws, but as counterpoise to the leveling tendencies of Democracy—and for other reasons. Defiant of ostensible literary and other conventions, I avowedly chant 'the great pride of man in himself,' and permit it to be more or less a motif of nearly all my verse. I think this ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... a moment had burned through the roof. The Metropolitan opera company from New York had just opened its season there and all the expensive scenery and costumes were soon reduced to ashes. From the opera house the fire leaped from building to building, leveling them almost to ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum

... what are known as "bent chisels"; they are used principally for leveling the ground (or background), and are therefore also called "grounders." These tools are made with various curves or bends in their length, but for our present uses one with a bend like that shown ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack

... object in its track will fail to feel its power for long distances; in other instances it will seem to act like a cannon-ball that plows up the earth on striking, then rises and strikes again, leaving the space between untouched. Sometimes it will go through a forest leveling the trees as though a gang of axemen had plied their tools on lines laid out by surveyors, nothing outside the track being touched; but again in similar windfalls there will be found occasional ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... In leveling the site, and gently sloping the sides of the ground for good drainage purposes, I had gathered together two large baskets of human bones. I said to a Chief in Tannese, "How do these bones ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton

... which Colonel Curtis doubted. The work was not to commence until the spring, when I was to be given a trial. I worked hard that winter, for hard work, I thought, was the way to fortune. I studied the mode of leveling. I saw a man on the Hocking canal operate his instrument, take the rear sight from the level of the water in the canal, then by a succession of levels backwards and forwards carry his level to the objective point. Then the man ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... hard times and talked of war, still the town kept a thriving aspect. Men were at work leveling Beacon Hill. Boylston Street was being made something better than a lane, and Common Street was improved. Uncle Winthrop said next thing he supposed they would begin to improve him and order him to take up his house and walk. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas

... spices are to be used, measure them carefully. Mix the leavening agent, the salt, the sugar, and the other dry ingredients with the flour by sifting them together once or twice. Measure the butter or other fat by packing it in the spoon and then leveling it with a knife. Be particular in measuring the liquid, using neither more nor less than is called for. Regarding this ingredient, it should always be remembered that when a cupful is required, a half-pint cup full to the brim is meant and that any ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... was, Ulysses fitted an arrow to the string and drew back, leveling his eye to every ring. Then with a mighty pull, he drew back the bow and gave the arrow wing. Straight it left the string, and straight it passed through every ring and struck the gate behind, piercing even the solid wood through ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... or scarcely a morsel of the enormous loaf which occupied a corner of the table. Whilst he was eating so voraciously, he started at the slightest noise; if a gust of wind suddenly closed the door, he sprang up and leveling his rifle, seemed determined to repel intrusion; having recovered from his alarm, he again sat down, and went on with his repast. "Now," said he, speaking with his mouth full, "I must tax your kindness to the utmost. I am wounded in the thigh, ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... means that no man carries within himself any privilege which puts him above the universal law. It means an equality in principle, and that does not invalidate the legitimacy of the differences due to work, to talent, and to moral sense. The leveling only affects the rights of the citizen; and not the man as a whole. You do not create the living being; you do not fashion the living clay, as God did in the Bible; you make regulations. Individual worth, on which some pretend to rely, is relative and unstable, and no one is a ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... the little spheres in which they act, are as productive as large ones; but there are also some which are struggling hopelessly against large rivals in the general market and are destined erelong to give up the contest. In other words, the centralizing and leveling effects of competition are approximated but never ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark

... his men out of their igloo, gave orders to everybody to pack and hitch up immediately, and, while this was being done, leveled a path across the crack to the big floe at the west of us. This was done with a pickax, leveling the ice down into the crack, so as to make a continuous surface over which the sledges could pass. As soon as the loads were across and we were safe on the floe, we all went to the edge of the lead and stood ready to assist Bartlett's men in rushing their sledges across the moment ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... it was, though a peaceful, a stirring and an eventful time. English manufacturers, not content with leveling mountains of American cotton bales, converting them into textile fabrics and clothing the world therewith, were reaching deep and deeper into the bowels of the earth, and pulling up sterner stuff to spin into gigantic threads with ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood

... the South Central District continued steadily with no delay through lack of help, and when the canal was finished and the water ready, the men who had built it turned to making the ditches on their own claims, leveling their land for irrigation, preparing for the first crops and making what other improvements they could. Meanwhile the new townsite was laid out on the ground already occupied by the headquarters camp and the camp itself became the town ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright

... presence. His attitude as a speaker, his gestures, the way in which his pent up thoughts seemed almost to strangle him before he could utter them, his smile showing the white rows of teeth, his fist clenched as if to strike an invisible adversary, the sudden dropping of his voice, and leveling of his forefinger as he became almost conversational in tone, and seemed to address special individuals in the crowd before him, the strokes of sarcasm, stern and cutting, and the swift flashes of humor which set the great multitude in a roar, became in that summer and autumn familiar to millions ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson

... of these Algonkian strata, the Laurentian rocks (the granite) upon which they rest were subject to a long period of "planation,"—as the grinding down and leveling of rock surfaces is termed. After this planation was complete, a subsidence occurred; the whole area became the bed of an inland sea, and upon the planed-down granite, the debris that formed the Algonkian strata ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James

... oceanic currents of our day and land, the individual is more and more lost sight of,—merged, swamped, effaced. See him in Whitman rising above it all. See it all shot through and through with his quality and obedient to his will. See the all-leveling tendency of democracy, the effacing and sterilizing power of a mechanical and industrial age, set at naught or reversed by a single towering personality. See America, its people, their doings, their types, their good and evil traits, all bodied forth in one composite character, ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs

... sort of people and always will. Courtesy is an obligation on the part of a gentleman and a Christian. I'd as soon be rude to my tailor as eat with my knife. But a man must respect his own rank or others won't respect it, especially in these nasty, radical, leveling times. You must stand by your class. There's a vulgar proverb about the bird that fouls its own nest, you know. Well, I never did that. I've always stood by my own class. Helped my poor brother Archibald—you can't remember him—weren't born ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... respected for their honesty and reliability. Of the graduates, some are in responsible positions in this state, while others are pursuing courses of study in higher institutions at the North, or have already entered upon professional work. The great work of such a school is in its "leveling up." Who shall measure this? When a boy on retiring at night folds and carefully lays away the sheets and pillow slips from his bed, to "keep them clean," or when he thinks, on entering the dining-room, that he has "reached heaven," ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 54, No. 2, April, 1900 • Various



Words linked to "Leveling" :   grading, devastation, equation, construction, deed, equalization, razing, balancing, reconciliation



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