"A level" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... But here, when they have crossed, is a level plain, elevated but a few feet above the surface of the river, extending nearly half a mile landwards, and then gradually ascending into thickly wooded hills, with Fort Duquesne beyond. The troops in front had crossed the plain ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church
... throughout the church; but the great blaze came, of course, from the twenty-one candles upon the altar. And towards this the moth slowly drifted, as if the candles sucked her nearer and nearer, up between the pillars of the nave, on a level with their capitals. Few of the congregation noticed her, for the sermon was a stirring one; only one or two children, perhaps, were interested—and the man I write of. He saw her pass over his head and float up into the chancel. He half-rose ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and integration of the eastern German economy continues to be a costly long-term process, with annual transfers from west to east amounting to roughly $70 billion. Germany's aging population, combined with high unemployment, has pushed social security outlays to a level exceeding contributions from workers. Structural rigidities in the labor market - including strict regulations on laying off workers and the setting of wages on a national basis - have made unemployment a chronic problem. Corporate restructuring and growing capital markets are ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... now am I repaid in part for many pains and sorrows and errors it has cost me. Though the natural expression of that enthusiasm be now repressed and restrained, and my spirits subdued by long illness, what but enthusiasm could elevate my mind to a level with the sublime objects round me, and excite me to pour out my whole heart in admiration as I do now! How deeply they have penetrated into my imagination!—Beautiful nature! If I could but infuse into you ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... majestic oak that cools us with its shadows, falls in a golden shower to the mossy basin at your feet, and leaping over the steep precipice, mingles in foam with the seething river below. We are turned toward the west, and as you raise your eyes to a level with the horizon, one of the most stupendous views of the Blue Mountains that ever caused man to stop in breathless awe, now presents itself to your astonished gaze. Mountain towers behind mountain, and peak behind peak ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... gloomy looking as fortresses. On my way I noticed that the windows had no glass, but were as large as doors, fortified within by iron bars like those of a prison, and additionally defended by heavy, wooden shutters generally painted green. The shops were on a level with the pavement, and their rich and rare collection of goods were all exposed to the view of the public. Awnings now and then extended overhead across the street. Now some darkies and Chinamen moved along bearing big burthens on their heads, and ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... us, and who can appreciate them in us." "The friend asks no return but that his friend will religiously accept and wear and not disgrace his apotheosis of him." "It is the merit and preservation of friendship that it takes place on a level higher than the actual characters of the parties would seem to warrant." This is to put friendship on a pedestal indeed; and yet the root of the matter is there; and the last sentence, in particular, is like a light in a dark place, and makes many mysteries ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the sides of some of the hills. It should also be noted that the wet bogs are not always in the lowest places. Frequently they are found on elevated grounds, and even high up in the mountains. Approaching a region of this kind, when the tufts are nearly on a level with the eye, the effect is very peculiar. It looks as if an army of grim old Norsemen, on their march through the wilderness, had suddenly sunk to their necks in the treacherous earth, and still stood in that position ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... the royal sport. This is a very good regulation for England, for what I know; but why should the Scottish institutions, which do not, and cannot interfere with the influence of the Bank of England, be put on a level with those of which such jealousy is, justly or unjustly, entertained? We receive no benefit from that immense establishment, which, like a great oak, overshadows England from Tweed to Cornwall. Why should our national plantations be cut down or cramped for the sake ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... our front, and galloping out of sight at the crack of our skirmishers' rifles, confirmed us in the belief; an army face to face with its enemy does not employ cavalry to watch its front. True, they might be a general and his staff. Crowning this rise we found a level field, a quarter of a mile in width; beyond it a gentle acclivity, covered with an undergrowth of young oaks, impervious to sight. We pushed on into the open, but the division halted at the edge. Having orders to conform to its movements, we ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... enumeration of elements of which, according to the apostle, the church there was composed. The most remarkable class found there, consisted of "THINGS WHICH ARE NOT"—mere nobodies, not admitted to the privileges of men, but degraded to a level with "goods and chattels;" of whom no account was made in such arrangements of society as subserved the improvement, and dignity, and happiness of MANKIND. How accurately the description applies to those who are ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... off until she lay with her fore-part in the water, which came some distance up her deck. The carpenter then slung himself over the stern, and nailed, first a piece of tarred canvas, and then a square of plank, over the hole. Then the stern tackle was eased off, and the Fan Fan floated on a level keel. Her crew went down to her again, and, in half an hour, pumped ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... there not something of rest, of calm, in the thought of gently and gradually fading away out of human remembrance? What line have we written that was on a level with our conceptions? What page of ours that does not betray some weakness we would fain have left unrecorded? To become a classic and share the life of a language is to be ever open to criticisms, to comparisons, to the caprices of successive generations, to be called into court and stand a trial ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... stiffly ranged figures in any other than strictly archaic work would seem affected. But what an undercurrent of refined sentiment, presumably not Asiatic, not "barbaric," lifting those who felt thus about death so early into the main stream of Greek humanity, and to a level of visible refinement in execution duly ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... Cunninghame, who fortunately proved to me an instructor as assiduous as he is able. He is in the midst of a country almost his own, for he has 10,000 Irish acres here. His domain, and the grounds about it, are very beautiful; not a level can be seen; every spot is tossed about in a variety of hill and dale. In the middle of the lawn is one of the greatest natural curiosities in the kingdom: an immense arbutus tree, unfortunately blown down, but yet vegetating. ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... other hand, the general on the defensive may in a level country concentrate a large part of his forces; for, if the enemy scatter to occupy all the roads by which the defensive army may retire, it will be easy for the latter to crush these isolated bodies; but in a very mountainous country, ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... were hardly half a dozen of them left; the rest were in their graves; and we went up there on the summit of that hill, a treasured place in my memory, the summit of Holiday's Hill, and looked out again over that magnificent panorama of the Mississippi River, sweeping along league after league, a level green paradise on one side, and retreating capes and promontories as far as you could see on the other, fading away in the soft, rich lights of the remote distance. I recognized then that I was seeing now the most enchanting river view the planet could furnish. I never knew it when ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... prevailed, throughout Christendom, the belief in papal infallibility, which notion subverted the doctrines of the Bible, and placed its truths, at least, on a level with the authority of the schoolmen. It favored the various usurpations of the popes, and strengthened the ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... seemed to have shaped itself for his mood. A curious, raw dampness had crept into the still air, and overhead was a level, sullen expanse of gray vapor. Locomotive smoke showed that the light breeze had shifted suddenly to the south, and there was an indefinable attitude of expectancy about, as if the big city with its varied expanse of buildings and vacant lots and snow-filled parks was waiting ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... from this tumult of construction, and on a level, high plot of lawn, was a pretty marquee tent. Here the guests were assembled, and thither ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... strong mirage, so that, when seen from a distance, they resembled immense glaciers terminating perpendicularly towards the sea. Coming farther south the clear weather gave us a good view of Vaygats Island. It appears, when seen from the sea off the west coast, to form a level grassy plain, but when we approached Yugor Schar, low ridges were seen to run along the east side of the island, which are probably the last ramifications of the north spur of Ural, known by the ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... blood like water, before he knew whether it would fertilize a land of freedom or of bondage!—how shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle the utterance of thy name! Our poor work may perish; but thine shall endure! This monument may molder away; the solid ground it rests upon may sink down to a level with the sea; but thy memory shall not fail! Wheresoever among men a heart shall be found that beats to the transports of patriotism and liberty, its aspirations shall be to claim kindred with ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... distinction, Mr. Parker, nor can it be acquired by effort. Vigour we may cultivate, and clearness we must; it is essential. On a level with these I should place propriety. Propriety teaches us to regulate our speech by the occasion; to be incisive at times and at times urbane; to adapt the 'how' to the 'when,' as I might put it. I do not think—I really do not think—that Christmas Eve is a happily chosen moment ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... he shouted through a speaking trumpet from his quarter-deck aft, which was on a level with our bridge, the vessel, a splendid cruiser of the first-class, towering over the comparatively puny dimensions of the poor, broken-down Star of the North. "Shall I send a boat aboard ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... are quite high enough," said Atlas, shaking his head. "But if you were to take your stand on the summit of that nearest one, your head would be pretty nearly on a level with mine. You seem to be a fellow of some strength. What if you should take my burden on your shoulders, while I do your errand ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... name by which we first knew him, had some experience as a gymnast. He drew himself up to a level with the transom, and then with considerable difficulty managed ...
— Mark Mason's Victory • Horatio Alger
... the great disparity of numbers, King Robert eagerly and anxiously examined his ground as to the best spot for awaiting the attack of the English. He fixed on a level green about half a mile square, guarded on two sides by a thick wood of trees, on the third and left by a deep running rivulet, and open on the fourth, encumbered only by short, thick bushes and little knots of thorn, which the king welcomed, ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... window. There was only one picture in the excellent light there, and that was the famous Rembrandt engraving. Littimer's eyes lighted up quite lovingly as they rested upon it. The Florentine frame was hung so low that Miss Lee could bring her face on a level with it. ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... in a hole under the roots of a large tree on some steep bank-side. I found one in a decayed stump of a large fir-tree, inside the rotten wood. It was placed on a level with the ground, and could not be seen till I had broken away part of the outside of the stump. It was composed of green moss and small dead leaves, a scanty and loosely formed nest, and not domed. It was lined with fine ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... heard a terrible noise on all sides, and when he looked about him he stood out-doors on a level plain. He saw neither hall nor burg. He went his way and came back to his kingdom, and told the tidings which he had seen and heard, and ever since those tidings have been handed down ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... letter to the Earl of Rochester. But the hardship was owing entirely to the poverty of the public purse; and, when the anonymous libeller affirms, that Dryden's pension was withdrawn, on account of his share in the Essay on Satire, he only shows that his veracity is on a level with his poverty[2]. The truth seems to be, that Dryden partook in some degree of the general ferment which the discovery of the Popish Plot had excited; and we may easily suppose him to have done so without any impeachment to his monarchial tenets, since North himself admits, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... "is to be the day after to-morrow on the Piegan Pass. Bill says there is a level spot at the top with rocks all about. That is the spot. The Ostermaiers and their party leave the automobiles at Many Glaciers and take horses to the pass. It will be worth coming clear to Montana to see Mrs. Ostermaier ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... immutability of species would be brought to its true value. The organic world appears to be in repose, because natural influences have reached an equilibrium. A marble may remain forever motionless upon a level table; but let the surface be a little inclined, and the marble will quickly run off. What should we say of him who, contemplating it in its state of rest, asserted that it was impossible for it ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... the ground. Their upper halves, judged as accurately as could be done by the eye, were folded once round with gold-beaters' skin, and this was painted thickly with Indian ink. They were exposed in an otherwise darkened room before a bright paraffin lamp, which stood on a level with the two pots containing the seedlings. They were first looked at after an interval of 5 h. 10 m., and five of the protected hypocotyls were found quite erect, the sixth being very slightly inclined to ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... Boulevard, and at the first performance of new pieces. Do you imagine he shunned me? Not a bit of it. He did not seem on these rare occasions to feel the least embarrassment. He gave me cordial shakes of the hand, or he bestowed on me one of those profound bows which brought his bald head on a level with his waistcoat-pockets. Then he published a novel in "Le Moniteur," after which he was decorated. Nothing was now heard from or of him for a long time. Not a line by Henry Murger appeared anywhere. I never heard that any piece by him was received, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... round the base of the hill till we were on the side remote from the tribe. Then he motioned me to remain in the gorge while he scrambled up the cliff to reconnoitre. I knew he received a surprise as soon as his head was on a level with the top of the bank; for he curled himself up behind a snow-pile and gave a low whistle for me. I was beside him with one bound. We were not twenty pole-lengths from the wigwam. There was ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... they came to a level stretch, and now the Indians put their ponies to a lively gallop, which Pink-eye, being surrounded by the other ponies, was forced to fall into to keep from getting run down by the riders behind him. Faster and faster ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... In a level voice she told him about her discovery of Edward Dunsack unconscious in his black wrap on the bed. "I thought he had died," she repeated almost monotonously; "he had such a yellow ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... accordingly, when the age of the early church fathers opens, about A.D. 170, a clearly recognized canon—sometimes described in two parts, the gospels and the apostles—which is placed on a level with that of the Old Testament as the inspired word of God, and cited in common with it as the Scriptures, the divine Scriptures, the Scriptures of the Lord, etc. Both canons are mentioned together as The entire Scriptures both prophetical and evangelical; The prophets, the gospel, and the ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... that Nationalism, under the laws of Sociology, is not the murder, but in fact and theory, the only condition of liberty, and the only way out from social suicide,—what then? Would it not have been better for THE ARENA to have been kept open, as if by the aforesaid Deity, with a level head and a stiff and silent ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... the man he had beaten. He held out his hand. "I try to be a man" he said—"to be too big to hate and put myself on a level with a brute. Won't ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... the possible objects of our cognition seems to us to be a level surface, with an apparent horizon—that which forms the limit of its extent, and which has been termed by us the idea of unconditioned totality. To reach this limit by empirical means is impossible, and all attempts to determine it a priori according to a principle, are alike in vain. But ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... to the coast, so that often the line of breakers is one or two miles away from the shore. These reefs are a solid mass of cleft coral stones constantly growing seaward. Their surface is more or less flat, about on a level with the water at low tide, so that it then lies nearly dry, and one can walk on the reefs, jumping over the wide crevices in which the sea roars and gurgles with the rise and fall of the breakers outside. These ever-growing ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... was associated abandoned the project altogether, and he believed justly. Since that time he had walked over the district, at some considerable inconvenience, and investigated the feasibility of opening a canal between the two seas, assuming them to be on a level, and supposing the canal to be supplied with water from the higher level of the Nile, but he had come to the conclusion that the thing was, he would say, absurd, were it not that other engineers, whose opinion he respected, had been to the spot since and declared it to be practicable. He coincided ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... took their repast in haste, and Athos led Raoul to the rocks which dominate the city, vast gray mountains, whence the view is infinite and embraces a liquid horizon which appears, so remote is it, on a level with the rocks themselves. The night was fine, as it always is in these happy climes. The moon, rising behind the rocks, unrolled a silver sheet on the cerulean carpet of the sea. In the roadsteads maneuvered silently the vessels which had ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... after it several others the most absurd, unreasonable, and humiliating to the sex. Such is the pride of man, that in some countries he has considered immortality as a distinction too glorious for women. Thus degrading the fair partners of his nature, he places them on a level ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... to her. She arose and going down three or four steps seated herself almost on a level ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... of great men by the firelight of his own house. We have the elevator, an invention for making the many as well off as the few, an approximate arrangement for giving first floors to everybody, and putting all men on a level at the same price—one more of a thousand instances of the extraordinary manner in which the mechanical arts have devoted themselves from first to last to the Constitution of the United States. While it cannot be said of many of these tools of existence ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... Atlantic to this spot, is nearly a level, now abruptly swells into hills, and rises as you advance westerly, till you reach the Allegany mountains, the great back bone of America, as the Indians call that chain of mountains. There is then a considerable descent; but ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... the squire, and that the old, well-loved house should be left for ever. It would be a great fall in a worldly point of view,—from the Allington Small House to an abode in some little street of Guestwick. At Allington they had been county people,—raised to a level with their own squire and other squires by the circumstance of their residence; but at Guestwick they would be small even among the people of the town. They would be on an equality with the Eameses, and much looked down upon by the Gruffens. They would ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... peculiarity of parrots that they have a passion for perching themselves in places where they will be on a level with the heads of the superior race whose utterances they imitate. The perch a parrot affects is almost always an altitude of about six feet, or the height of the tallest men. They feel their inferiority keenly if you leave them to hop about on the floor. It occurs to us that nothing could ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Polly, standing upon tiptoe, to bring her mouth on a level with the old lady's ear; "a cake, grandma, a ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... back upon my old life as an impression received in the dawn, and already it seems but a level highroad on a gray day. Marriage laws were made by old maids—any one can see that. And they have decreed that conjugal love, apart from passion, is elevating and a woman in yielding herself may evict ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... clean out of one's mind. It is, I submit, a way of taking logic in the flank. When you have realised to the marrow, that all the physical organs of man and all his physical structure are what they are through a series of adaptations and approximations, and that they are kept up to a level of practical efficiency only by the elimination of death, and that this is true also of his brain and of his instincts and of many of his mental predispositions, you are not going to take his thinking apparatus unquestioningly as being in any way mysteriously different and ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... who crosses the heath at night bend clown until his face comes on a level with the tufts of grass, and he will see a strange spectacle outline itself against the western sky. Owls with great, round wings skim over the ground, invisible to any one standing upright. Snakes glide about there, lithe, quick, with narrow heads uplifted on swanlike ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... will mean many things to many people. Chopin has never before maintained so artistically, so free from delirium, such a level of strong passion, mental power and exalted euphony. It is his largest canvas, and though there are no long-breathed periods such as in the B flat minor Scherzo, the phraseology is amply broad, without padding of paragraphs. The rapt interest is not relaxed until ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... mad fury of the hurricane was by this time over, but it still blew far too heavily to admit of any other course than running dead before it. The sea, which had hitherto been a level plane of fleecy white foam, now showed symptoms of rising, and the aspect of the sky was still such as to force upon the voyagers the conclusion that they were not yet by any means out of danger. What could be done, however, was done; and the entire crew were ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... through a winding valley to disappear around a projecting spur, and anywhere in the midst of it all might be standing Japanese cottages or villas with the water and the growing rice literally almost against the walls, as seen in Fig. 226, while a near-by high terrace might hold its water on a level with the chimney-tops. Can one wonder that the Japanese loves his country or that they are born and ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... feet the party reached what the natives called the dempo or edge of the volcano, whence they looked down into the sawah or ancient crater, which was a level space composed of brown soil surrounded by cliffs, and lying like the bottom of a cup 200 feet below them. It had a sulphurous odour, and was dotted here and there with clumps of heath and rhododendrons. ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... thinks Helbig—in common with almost all critics—"is one of the most recent lays of the Iliad." But in this recent lay (say of the eighth or seventh century) the poet describes the Thracians as on a level of civilisation with the Achaeans, and, indeed, as even more luxurious, wealthy, and refined in the matter of good horses, glorious armour, and splendid chariots. But, by the time of the Persian wars, says Helbig, the Thracians were regarded by the Greeks as rude barbarians, ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... few boats seen are of different structure from those to which we had been accustomed; they are flat, less wide, and much better fastened together, elevated at both ends; they are propelled as well as guided by the rudder, which is curved, so as to bring it within reach of the helmsman, who is on a level with the bottom of the boat. Very little cultivation: Tassin's Map of but little use, as few of the names are recognised ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... Parga lands, now become his property. His palace of Tepelen had been rebuilt at the public expense, and was larger and more magnificent than before; Janina was embellished with new buildings; elegant pavilions rose on the shores of the lake; in short, Ali's luxury was on a level with his vast riches. His sons and grandsons were provided for by important positions, and Ali himself was sovereign prince ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... who is not a great man with cleansed soul and possessed of accomplishments and friends can bear a heavy burthen. Take up this great weight (of governing the Vrishnis) and bear it on thy shoulders. All oxen can bear heavy burthens on a level road. The stronger ones only among them can bear such burthens on a difficult road. From disunion destruction will spring and overtake all the Bhojas and the Vrishnis. Thou, O Kesava, art the foremost one among them. Do thou act in such a manner that the Bhojas and the Vrishnis may ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... of Miletus, asked Periander, the tyrant of Corinth, one of the seven sages of Greece, for advice on the art of government. Periander made no reply but proceeded to bring a field of corn to a level by cutting off the tallest ears. "This is a policy not only expedient for tyrants or in practice confined to them, but equally necessary in oligarchies and democracies. Ostracism is a measure of the same kind, which acts by disabling and banishing ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... Psephinus, and the fortifications of the Palace of Herod, covered this portion of the wall—which was, moreover, to some extent protected by the Valley of Hinnom But between the top of the slope of that valley, and the foot of the walls, was a level space of ground sufficiently wide for the establishment of machines for breaching ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... domestics, he makes a charge on the insane wretches, and, with the aid of pistol and gun shots, disperses them. It was time, for the trench they had dug was already eight feet deep, and the water was nearly on a level with it: a half-hour later and the terrible rolling mass of waters would have poured out on the inhabitants of the gorge.—But such vigorous strokes, which are rare and hardly ever successful, are no defense against universal ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... fixed in a strong wooden frame. The ground is of grey green stone, in the middle of which is a human skull, made of white, grey, and black colors. In appearance the skull is quite natural. The eyes, nostrils, teeth, ears, and coronal are all well executed. Above the skull is a level of colored wood, the points being of brass; and from the top to the point, by a white thread, is suspended a plumb-line. Below the skull is a wheel of six spokes, and on the upper rim of the wheel there is a butterfly ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... walls in every direction. The air glowed with the violet light of the twelve great ultra-light projectors, like searchlights with three-foot lenses, which lined the wall. The floor beneath their feet was not a level steel platform, but seemed to be composed of many lenticular sections of dull ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... moon regained its bed to go to rest, before we had come forth from that needle's eye. But when we were free and open above, where the mountain backward withdraws,[2] I weary, and both uncertain of our way, we stopped upon a level more solitary than roads through deserts. The space from its edge, where it borders the void, to the foot of the high bank which rises only, a human body would measure in three lengths; and as far as my eye could stretch its wings, now on the left and now on the right side, such did ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri
... within the protection of the almond tree, and watch the sun sink slowly to a level with the masts of a bark that is bound for Java and the Bornean coasts. The black, dead lava of our island becomes molten for the time, and the flakes of salt left on the coral reef by the outgoing tide are filled with suggestions of the gold ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... a fairly well-formed race of medium height; they are decidedly inferior to the Benga or the Krus, but quite on a level with the Effiks. The women indeed are very comely: their colour is bronze and their skin the skin of the Bantu. Beards are not uncommon among the men, and these give their faces possibly more than anything else, a different look to the faces of the Effiks or the Duallas. Indeed ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... average child himself a blow is the most natural form of retribution, and that in which all other efforts at influence at last end. The fully grown man ought, certainly, not to be flogged, for this kind of punishment places him on a level with the child; or, where it is barbarously inflicted, reduces him to the level of the brute, and thus absolutely does degrade him. In English schools the rod is said to be often used; if a pupil of the first class, who is never flogged, is put back into the second, he becomes again subject ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... and Lion Rock opened out to view, while the red and green sides of the precipitous serpentine cliffs could now be distinguished, assuming various fantastic shapes: one shaped into a complete arch, another the form of a gigantic steeple, with several caves penetrating deep into the cliff, on a level with the narrow belt of ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... first few days, did not discourage him. He had a firm and profound belief in the correctness of the supposition that was guiding him. It was bold, perhaps, and extravagant; no matter: it was worthy of the adversary pursued. The supposition was on a level with the prodigious reality that bore the name of Lupin. With a man like that, of what good could it be to look elsewhere than in the domain of the enormous, ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... consisted of most of our Sydney acquaintance, and some natives from the south shore of Botany Bay, among whom was Gome-boak, already mentioned in Chapter XXVIII ["About the latter end of the month . . ."]. We repaired to the spot an hour before sun-set, and found them seated opposite each other on a level piece of ground between two hills. As a prelude to the business, we observed our friends, after having waited some time, stand up, and each man stooping down, take water in the hollow of his hand (the place just ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... he was on one occasion installed with a royal salute, and an address was presented, and in return he was expected to make a speech. His speech was as follows: "With the help of God, I will hold the balance level." The people were delighted, for a level balance was to them an unknown boon. And he held it level all through his long and glorious reign, which lasted, with small break, from February, 1874, ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... and force of the man were remarkable. The conciseness of his story, and his indifference to the tragedy of his birth, indicated a level mind under powerful control. And Father Adam knew he ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... that the house, like so many others in Bath, was built on the side of a hill, the front door being on a level with the street, whilst the lower back windows even commanded lovely views over the beautiful valley, the town, and the ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... hardly doubt to be young ones, spend a whole month in trying to build their nest, and give it up in the end as hopeless. I have watched three such cases this spring in a tree not twenty feet from my own window and on a level with my eye, so that I have been able to see what was going on at all hours of the day. In each case the nest was made well and rapidly up to a certain point, and then got top-heavy and tumbled over, so that little was left on the tree: it was reconstructed ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... the trick of "no can and can do." Placing a savoury, nose- tantalising bit of meat or cheese on the edge of the bunk on a level with Michael's nose, Daughtry would simply say, "No can." Nor would Michael touch the food till he received the welcome, "Can do." Daughtry, with the "no can" still in force, would leave the stateroom, and, though he remained away half an hour or ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... him to get something for me from the top drawer of the old "high-boy" in the dining-room. He was gone a long while, and at last, growing impatient, I followed. I found him standing on an old wooden-seated chair, screw-driver in hand. A drawer on a level with his head was open, and he had hanging over his arm a gaudy collection of ancient table-covers and embroidered scarfs, mostly in shades ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... pulverized charcoal, which Norman had directed Basil to prepare for the purpose; and to the bark at one end was fastened a stake or shaft. Nothing more remained but to fix this stake in the canoe, in an upright position near the bow, and in such a way that the bottom of the piece of bark would be upon a level with the seats, with its hollow side looking forward. It would thus form a screen, and prevent those in the canoe from being seen by any creature that ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... feelings in the spirit world. This is natural; for he who fired the hearts of the Pharisees with their malignant spirit, is the same one, as we have seen, who is working through the powers of darkness in the unseen world to-day. Any way to degrade Christ in the minds of men to a level with, or below, the mediums of our time, and make it appear that they can do as great wonders as he, seems to be the ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... the land is rolling and densely wooded, the horizon-line is flat and on a level with our feet. The sun rises from the prairie as he rises from the ocean, and his going down is the same: no far-off line of snowy mountains, no range of green hills nor forest-crest, intercepts his earliest and his latest rays. Over this wide stretch of level land the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... finding herself unexpectedly on a level with Blythe's face, put up her tiny hand ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... Tolstoy as a guide in social and moral matters; but it would also be a bad thing not to have Tolstoy, not to profit by the lofty side of his teachings. There are plenty of scientific men whose hard arrogance, whose cynical materialism, whose dogmatic intolerance, put them on a level with the bigoted mediaeval ecclesiasticism which they denounce. Yet our debt to scientific men is incalculable, and our civilization of to-day would have reft from it all that which most highly distinguishes ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... the spoil buckets were returned to the shafts loaded with sand and stone. The concrete materials were deposited in storage bins placed in the shafts, from which they were fed to the mixers located at the foot of the shaft about on a level with the crown of the tunnels. The concrete was transported to the forms in side-dump, steel, concrete cars, hauled by the ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • James H. Brace and Francis Mason
... other encounter, if it is only important enough; for every important decision by arms—that is, destruction of the enemy's forces—reacts upon all preceding it, because, like a liquid element, they tend to bring themselves to a level. ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... arrived on the Place de la Senechaussee, and mounting her car, found herself on a level with the platform of the guillotine, her memory flew back to England, to the lavish hospitality of Blakeney Manor, Marguerite's gentle voice, the pleasing grace of Sir Percy's manners, and she shuddered a little when that cruel glint of ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Tackleton; 'and the window's open. I don't see any marks—to be sure it's almost on a level with the garden: but I was afraid there might have been some—some ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... went very well with his frank, refined face, and twenty-three years. A dead-gold mustache, pointed at the ends and sweeping at a level right and left, like a swallow's wings, gave him something of a military air; there was a martial directness, too, in the glance of his clear gray eyes, undimmed as yet with looking too long on the world. There could not have been a better figure for the saddle than Lynde's—slightly ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... suppose that this occurred by accident, or in any way other than that they preferred to designate themselves "Democrats" rather than "American citizens." In this time of national peril I would have preferred to meet you upon a level one step higher than any party platform, because I am sure that from such more elevated position we could do better battle for the country we all love than we possibly can from those lower ones where, from the force of habit, the prejudices of the past, and selfish hopes of the future, we are ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... passions, which in the latter lie dormant. The rage of proud Haman knew no bounds against the poor Jew who would not do as he wished, and so he built a gallows for him. If the person opposing the will of another, be so far below him as to be on a level with chattels, and be actually held and used as an article of property; pride, scorn, lust of power, rage and revenge explode together upon the hapless victim. The idea of property having a will, and that too in opposition to the will ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... ankles and small feet, had upon my nervous system, and so it was now. As I gazed upon her handsome legs, ankles, and feet, I felt my prick swell and throb in a manner that could not fail to be perceptible to Mrs. B, especially as her head lay on a level with that part of my person as I stood ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... smooth and dry—one gentleman's house very pleasant among large coppice woods. After going perhaps three miles up this valley, we turned to the left into another, which seemed to be much more beautiful. It was a level valley, not—like that which we had passed—a wide sloping cleft between the hills, but having a quiet, slow-paced stream, which flowed through level green grounds tufted with trees intermingled with cottages. The tops of the hills were hidden ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... put in her hand, as she had passed through the fortress gates, a lance with a lantern muffled in Arab fashion, so that the light was unseen from before, while it streamed over herself, to enable her to guide her way if the moon should be veiled by clouds. With that single, starry gleam aslant on a level with her eyes, she rode through the ghastly twilight of the half-lit plains; now flooded with luster as the moon emerged, now engulfed in darkness as the stormy western winds drove the cirrhi over it. But neither darkness nor light differed ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... portions his sforzandos were not irrelevant explosions, but slight extra accents: he made microscopic distinctions between piano and pianissimo; he achieved the most difficult feat of keeping his band at a level forte through long passages without a symptom of breaking out into fortissimo. His players treated the stiffest passages in the "Dutchman" overture as if they were baby's play; and I detected hardly a wrong note either in that or in the Fifth symphony. In a word, nothing to compare ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... has also been struck by a bullet, and some of its leaves are gone. The tip of one wing is missing. The head of the eagle, originally proudly and defiantly erect, has been bent backward so that, instead of a level glance, it looks upward, and there is a deep dent in it, as from a blow. And right in the breast gapes a great ragged shot-hole, which pierces the heart of the proud emblem. The eagle has seen service. It has been in action. It bears its honorable wounds. ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... passing into an apartment about ten feet wide and twenty long, in one end of which was a stairway leading to an upper level and in the other an opening to a similar stairway leading downward. The chamber, though on a level with the ground, was brilliantly lighted by windows in its inner wall, the light coming from a circular court in the center of the tower. The walls of this court appeared to be faced with what resembled glazed, white tile ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... knots an hour, before the wind. At one moment she was in a deep valley, then her stern mounted high on a following wave, and she seemed as if she must slide down, head foremost. Higher and higher the wave rose, sending her forward with accelerated motion; then it passed along her, and she was on a level keel on its top, and seemed to stand almost still as the wave passed from ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... country, perhaps, than most others, from the mixed character of our associations. Of the two, I am really of opinion that the man of high intellect, who meets with one of moderate capacity, but of manners and social opinions on a level with his own, has more pleasure in the communication than with one of equal ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... by those on the housetops who, from their elevated position, were on a level with the Spaniards; and whose missiles, arrows, javelins, and stones thrown with great force from slings, galled the defenders greatly, and wounded great numbers ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... keep rank. The most perfect discipline in war in old times was found, not amongst the subjects of Eastern despots who were not free enough to learn to submit, but amongst the republics of Greece, where men were all on a level in the city, and fell into their places in the camp, because they loved liberty enough to know the worth of discipline, and so the slaves of Xerxes were scattered before the resistless onset of the phalanx of the free. The terrible legion which moved ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... because it was an ease, as I thought, to my mamma, and what my sister chose not; and yet, though time hangs heavy upon my hands, to be so put out of my course, that I have as little inclination as liberty to pursue any of my choice delights?—Are these steps necessary to reduce me to a level so low, as to make me a fit wife for this man?—Yet these are all he can have to trust to. And if his reliance is on these measures, I would have him to know, that he mistakes meekness and gentleness of disposition for servility and baseness ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... encampment, and again set out languidly on its journey to the westward. No sounds of joy were heard, for there was no longer hope to cheer. The indomitable energy of De Soto dragged along the reluctant footsteps of his troops. The first day they travelled about twelve miles, through a level and fertile country with many villages and farm houses to charm the eye. At night they encamped beyond the territory of Chickasaw, and consequently supposed that they would no longer be molested, by those ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... its own realm; and that of music was concerned with pleasing combinations of sound." In declaring that the sensation of hearing music was pleasant to him, and that to produce that sensation was the entire mission of music, the Bishop placed our art on a level with good things to eat and drink. Many colleges and universities of this land consider music as ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... seemed to be endowed with some new and supernatural strength in her jumping: for she bounded so high that her feet rose almost to a level with the top of the seat, and then, as she came down gently upon the floor of the cart, Beechnut released his hold upon her, and she walked to her chair and sat down. Beechnut then mounted to his place by the side of Phonny, and the whole ...
— Stuyvesant - A Franconia Story • Jacob Abbott
... Thomas went out accompanied by Dorcas and Tabitha, to meet the Chief Kosa and others and to discuss with them whether ultimately the mission-house should be rebuilt upon the old site or elsewhere, he found a great concourse of people, all or nearly all the tribe indeed, assembled on a level place where in the old days stood one of the great kraals designed to hold the king's cattle. Out of the crowd emerged Kosa, looking rather sillier than usual, and of him Thomas inquired why it was gathered. Was it to consult with ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... eyes and lips are incessantly in motion, we can twitch and wrinkle the cheeks and forehead, and muscles to move the ears are there, though most men have lost control of them. But the nose stands out like some bold promontory on a level coast, or like the Sphinx in the Egyptian desert, with an ancient history, no doubt, and a mystery perhaps, but without response to any appeal. And for this very reason it is an index, not to that which ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... pith so as to have something soft in which to stick the pins. After a pin has been stuck through the body of a dead butterfly between the wings, it is then pinned in the crack so that the back of the butterfly is on a level with the strips. Then the wings are drawn forward until they stand straight out from the body when they are pinned down by means of strips of paper and left to dry a few days until they become perfectly rigid. In this way a most beautiful collection can be made ...
— An Elementary Study of Insects • Leonard Haseman
... would suggest that the title "President" be changed to "Emperor", for the following reasons: First, it would not only do away with the impropriety of the chief magistrate of the nation assuming a name below that of some of his people, but it would place him on a level with the highest ruler of any nation on the face of the earth. I have often heard the remark that the President of the United States is no more than a common citizen, elected for four years, and that on the expiration of his term he reverts to his former humble status ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... and tender is the North. Heaven bless the rhymster who first penned those words. Spring is stealing hack to the prairie, and our world is a world of beauty. The sky to-day is windrowed with flat-bottomed cumulus-clouds, tier beyond tier above a level plane of light, marking off the infinite distance like receding mile-stones on a world turned over on its back. Occasionally the outstretched head of a wild duck, pumping north with a black throb of wings, melts away to a speck in the opaline air. Back ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... the answer given with the very essence of gentleness, but with a level glance into Nickols' eyes that was ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... joy at her appearance quickly died out of the hearts of some, who were ignorant of the powers of lifeboats and lifeboat men, when the little craft was seen at one moment tossed on the leaping foam till on a level with the ship's bulwarks, at the next moment far down in the swirling waters under the mizzen chains; now sheering off as if about to forsake them altogether; anon rushing at their sides with a violence that threatened ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... Booth; "but it is human nature depraved, stript of all its worth, and loveliness, and dignity, and degraded down to a level with the vilest brutes." ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... Italians on the left wing at Stino di Livenza, while Slav marching formations revolted at Udine. The Austro-Hungarian troops consequently had to retreat.... No one expects of the Italian army, as a whole, that it will be on a level with the best, but when the British officers who were with the Serbs on the Salonica front compare their reminiscences with those of the British officers on the Italian front, it is improbable that garlands will be strewn for ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... objects which they are able to carry in their beaks, but also that the walls are decorated with the most gaudy articles which the birds can find. There is one genus, in Papua, which even goes so far as to provide the theatre with a surrounding garden. A level piece of ground is selected as a site for the building. The latter is about two feet high, and constructed round the growing stalk of a shrub, which therefore serves as a central pillar to which the frame-work ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... clearly refers to a full river. Samatitthika, if this is the right reading, occurs in the same place as an epithet of a river, by the side of kakapeya, and I think it most likely that it means rising to a level with the tirthas, the fords or bathing-places. Mr. Rhys Davids informs me that the commentary explains the two words by samatittika ti samaharita, kakapeyya ti yatthatatthaki tire thitena ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... during the transition period would have made it impossible to find any basis of equal distribution that would hold good for a fortnight. The policy of the Government had, however, been to prepare the workers for equal sharing by establishing, as far as possible, a level wage for all kinds of public employees. This it was possible to do, owing to the cheapening of all sorts of commodities by the abolition of profits, ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... from which the light shone, he listened. He heard children's voices; a woman's voice; at intervals the voice of a man, gruff and surly; various household sounds also. It was evidently the supper-hour. Cautiously raising himself till his eyes were on a level with the lowest panes in ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... to it, or that the legislature may alter the Constitution by an ordinary act. Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The Constitution is either a superior, paramount law unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and, like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it.... Certainly all those who have framed written constitutions contemplate them as forming ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... with you,' answered the Queen. That cruel moment when I witnessed the humiliating state to which royalty had been reduced by the constituents, when they placed the President of their Assembly upon a level with the King; gave a plebeian, exercising his functions pro tempore, prerogatives in the face of the nation to trample down hereditary monarchy and legislative authority—that cruel moment discovered the fatal truth. In the anguish of my heart, I told His Majesty that he had outlived ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 6 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... be more a fool, and write again: For all the former fustian stuff he wrote Was dead-born doggerel, or is quite forgot: His man of Uz, stript of his Hebrew robe, Is just the proverb, and as poor as Job. One would have thought he could no longer jog; But Arthur was a level, Job's a bog. There, though he crept, yet still he kept in sight; But here, he founders in, and sinks down right, Had he prepared us, and been dull by rule, 30 Tobit had first been turn'd to ridicule: ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... marched into this terrible death-trap, and not a man of all of them ever came back. Nor was it Phorenice's policy that they should do so. In her lust for this final conquest, she was minded to pour out troops till she had filled up the passes with the slain, so that at last she might march on to a level fight over the bridge of their poor bodies. It was no part of Phorenice's mood ever to count the cost. She set down the object which was to be gained, and it was her policy that the people of Atlantis were there to gain ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... fish, and last week he married a wife who owns a house an' farm up the road. So long as he had to earn his own livin' he kept sober long enough to run the stage, but since he's gone and married, he says thar's no call fur him to keep a level head—so he don't keep it. Yes, ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... leave the main road, which runs forward to the crest of the Pirpadi Pass, and after crossing a level stretch of rock, set one's steps upon the pathway which, flanked on one side by the lofty rock-bastions of the hill and on the other by the rolling slopes, leads upwards to the First Gate. At your feet lies the deserted and ruined village of Bhatkala, ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... amphitheater new objects of wonder presented themselves. On a level spot in the center was a company of odd-looking personages playing at ninepins. They were dressed in a quaint, outlandish fashion; some wore short doublets, others jerkins, with long knives in their belts, and most of them had enormous breeches, of similar ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... by the two routes, down the Styx or over it, uniting, descend the Lethe about a quarter of a mile, the ceiling for the entire distance being very high—certainly not less than fifty feet. On landing, you enter a level and lofty hall, called the Great Walk, which stretches to the banks of the Echo, a distance of three or four hundred yards. The Echo is truly a river: it is wide and deep enough, at all times, to float the largest steamer. At the point of embarkation, the ...
— Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 - By a Visiter • Alexander Clark Bullitt
... separation commonly caused by death. By hard work in co-operating with nature's methods of evolution and by a serious and sustained effort to live the highest and most helpful life of which one is capable, it is possible in time to attain a level of consciousness where one has personal knowledge that the dead still live. But in the very work of rising to that level, the concentration previously enforced by the limitation of the physical senses will ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... head by way of reply, she followed him out of the room and down-stairs to an apartment on a level with the hall, where the murdered man had been carried. On the threshold he stopped, looking at ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford |
