"Downhill" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my thoughts. No ulterior object has ever been present to me in this pursuit. My ambition is fully gratified by the satisfactory completion of my task, and I am now happy to go on jog-trot at Botany till the end of my days—downhill, in one sense, all the way. I shall never have such another object to work for, nor shall I feel the want of it...As it is, the craving of thirty years is satisfied, and I now look back on life in a way ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... frantically beating, he felt that he now hated Odette, he would gladly have crushed those eyes which, a moment ago, he had loved so dearly, have torn the blood into those lifeless cheeks. He continued to climb with Mme. Verdurin, that is to say that each step took him farther from Odette, who was going downhill, and in the other direction. A second passed and it was many hours since she had left him. The painter remarked to Swann that Napoleon III had eclipsed himself immediately after Odette. "They had obviously arranged ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... highest point of our right flank, began riding downhill to where the roll of musketry was heard but where on account of the smoke nothing could be seen. The nearer they got to the hollow the less they could see but the more they felt the nearness of the actual battlefield. They began to meet wounded men. One with ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... schoolroom, With knees well bent, Fingers a-flicking, They dancing went. Up sides and over, And round and round, They crossed click-clacking The Parish bound; By Tupman's meadow They did their mile, Tee-to-tum On a three-barred stile. Then straight through Whipham, Downhill to Week, Footing it lightsome, But not too quick, Up fields to Watchet, And on through Wye, Till seven fine churches They'd seen skip by— Seven fine churches, And five old mills, Farms in the valley, And sheep on the hills; Old Man's Acre And Dead Man's Pool All left ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... heart shortens the longest road, and Joan, whose return journey from the holy well was for the most part downhill, soon found herself back again in Penzance. The fire of devotion still actuated her movements, and she walked fearlessly, doubting nothing, to the post-office. There would be a letter to-day; she knew it; she felt it in her consciousness, as a certainty. And when she asked for ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... traveling downhill all this time, but at this point we crossed the road and the ground began to rise. I was in that painful condition which occurs when one has lost one's first wind and has not yet got one's second. I was hotter than I had ever been ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... canals moves from the pole down to the equator as the season advances. This it does then irrespective of gravity. No natural force propels it, and the inference is forthright and inevitable that it is artificially helped to its end. There seems to be no escape from this deduction. Water only flows downhill, and there is no such thing as downhill on a surface already in fluid equilibrium. A few canals might presumably be so situated that their flow could, by inequality of terrane, lie equatorward, but not all....Now it is not in particular but by general consent that the canal-system ...
— Is Mars Habitable? • Alfred Russel Wallace
... have time to get out of his way, and it never occurred to him to get out of mine, and so I went Bang! right into him. And it broke Mattie Moore's wheel, and upset me quite a little. But that mule never budged! Jerry—er Harmer,—Mr. Harmer, you know,—said he believed an earthquake could coast downhill on to that mule without seriously inconveniencing him. I was hurt a little, and couldn't get up. And so he jumped over the fence,—No, Connie, not the mule, of course! Mr. Harmer! He jumped over the fence, and put his coat on the ground, and made a pillow for me with the shirts and towels in his ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... on a very high and steep slope, Nikanor carefully held the horses in to the middle of the descent, but in the middle the horses suddenly bolted and dashed downhill at a fearful rate; he raised his elbows and shouted in a wild, frantic voice such as I had never heard from ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... at one time to the stables, now removed. Not far off is the bamboo garden, in a flourishing condition, with large clumps of feathery bamboos bravely enduring our rough climate; in another part is a succession of terraces, through which a stream runs downhill through a number of basins linked by a circling channel; the basins are covered with water-lilies, and the whole is laid out in imitation of a Japanese garden. Alpine plants are specially tended in another part, and masses of rhododendrons ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... climbing like some mountain railway, it reaches at last the short tunnel on the summit level, and then dashes out into the blinding blaze of a new sunshine. The other goes merrily enough, at first, downhill, but at last it comes to the edge of the abyss, and there it stops, but the traveller does not. He goes over; and nobody can see the darkness into ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... clear day, and not many miles before reaching our destination we looked back upon the downhill route traversed which, so far as one could see, might have been a dead level. At a distance of nearly twenty miles Gafsa was plainly visible—white buildings piercing a dusky line of palms—an hour's walk, ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... and then flushed. The moon-jeep crunched and clanked loudly over the trail that led downhill. There was no sound outside, of course. There was no air. But the noise inside the moon-vehicle was notable. The steam-motor, in particular, made a ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... who got home first. They agreed to this, and set off together at a great rate; but as soon as they were out of sight behind the hedge I buckled my satchel to my shoulders and started running to warn Marah. It was all downhill to the brook, and I knew that I should find Marah there,—for he had said that he was coming earlier than usual that afternoon to finish off a model boat which we were to sail after tea. I ran as I had never run before—I thought my heart would thump itself to pieces; ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... more below me than above me. Night is coming to me over the dark woods. The foam on the rocks below is like a milk-white robe. As I walk the first miles downhill I begin to hear the sound of the waves. The sea is beginning to roar, and the wind rushing up to me tells me that the lines of the sea are its stormy waves ridden forward to the ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... there was a splendid service of express trains running from London to Worcester without a stop, and coming downhill into the Vale, through the tunnel and towards Evesham, the speed approximated to a mile a minute. I was talking to one of my men, a hedger, working near the line which bounded a portion of my land, when one of the express trains came dashing along and passed us with a roar in a few seconds. "My ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... was about 40 yards in breadth and 8 feet deep. It is self-evident that a person following up the course of a stream will always ascend at a greater or less inclination. Mr. Gill therefore, was much astonished when walking up the bed of this ancient river, to find himself suddenly going downhill. He imagined that the downward slope had a fall of about 40 or 50 feet perpendicular. We here have unequivocal evidence that a ridge had been uplifted right across the old bed of a stream. From the moment ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... you'll show us why the water doesn't run downhill in our bean patch, as it ought ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... giving details, over several years; they were much like these first ones. I soon learned, however, that life in the Methodist Church was all uphill or downhill at a smart spiritual canter. In these days it is nearly as easy to be a Methodist as it is ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... drive. Breed too was thrown, but the deer was turned again and running with less than half his former speed, one hind leg powerless. Peg was angling across to turn him still another time but Breed overhauled him first and slashed at the other leg, and as the deer rolled downhill the three-legged coyote dodged the churning hoofs and fastened on ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... a trail with a long, downhill gradient," replied Jacky, with a rueful little smile. "Say, aunt," she went on, springing suddenly to her feet and confronting the old lady's mildly-astonished gaze, "isn't there anything we can ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... His practical experiments began when, at the age of thirteen, he and his brother Gustav made wings consisting of wooden framework covered with linen, which Otto attached to his arms, and then ran downhill flapping them. In consequence of possible derision on the part of other boys, Otto confined these experiments for the most part to moonlit nights, and gained from them some idea of the resistance offered ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... of Indian police, who among their other functions usually assumed the direction of a buffalo hunt. No man turned to the right hand or to the left. We rode at a swift canter straight forward, uphill and downhill, and through the stiff, obstinate growth of the endless wild-sage bushes. For an hour and a half the same red shoulders, the same long black hair rose and fell with the motion of the horses before me. Very little was said, though once I observed an old man severely reproving Raymond for having ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... the door open gently and looked aloft. The night, before so starry, was now clouded over. The troopers—I could hear their horses' hoofs above the whoops and yells of their chorusing—were winding downhill by a sunken way within ten yards of me. A gravel path lay between me and the hedge overlooking it. This I saw by the faint upcast rays of the lanterns they had lit for guidance. I tip-toed across to the hedge, and, peering ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... however, a fine afternoon for our drive back, a quick downhill journey along the edge of a tremendous precipice, clothed with beech-trees and brushwood. A most beautiful road it is, and the two little lakes looked lovely in the sunshine, encircled by gold-green swards and ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... within certain degrees of latitude and longitude, an uphill and a downhill, made by the convexity of the globe, we, perhaps, may have reached the meridian of the great voyage, and may have begun to feel the inclination which will set us forward more swiftly to the end. The power of the great consummation will be waxing stronger and stronger. Men are looking to the ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... brushwood-pile," said his companion; and all his trouble was at an end. He took a pony, because he understood that this was the Thirty-Mile Ride and he must ride swiftly, and raced through the clattering tunnels and round the curves, always downhill, till he heard the sea to his left, and saw it raging under a full moon, against sandy cliffs. It was heavy going, but he recognised the nature of the country, the dark-purple downs inland, and the bents that ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... part of the hillside until hunger drove him back to camp. And, as it sometimes happens that what a man fails to come upon when he seeks with method and intent he stumbles upon by accident, so now Hollister, coming heedlessly downhill, found the corner stake he was seeking. With his belt-axe he blazed a trail from this point to the flat below, so that he ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... downhill wid dis load ob fence posts," was the answer. "Ef I didn't it would be right on to de heels ob Boomerang, an' wheneber he feels anyt'ing on his heels he does act wuss dan a ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... to the dam. No professional lumberman better understands how to transport lumber to a desired place than beavers. They realise the value of water transportation and thoroughly appreciate that trees can only be removed downhill. From tame beavers we have learned that they remove smaller limbs by seizing them with their teeth, throwing the loose end over their shoulder, and then dragging them to ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... you've made a thousand pounds you can swim along a bit, but the first hundred, I shall never forget it! Afterwards it is just the same; the proportions are changed, that is all. The first twenty thousand is very uphill work, the second is on the flat, the third is going downhill—it brings itself along." ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... humorous remark at his expense—"just like I'll jump you, stranger, if you don't keep your trap closed. I say who can read those secrets, who can harness those forces? The man who can has got the world by the tail and a downhill pull. Now then, for the plot of my story, and it will pay you to do a week of listening in the next five minutes. Awhile ago an eminent scientist, unknown to me or to my partner, Mr. Stoner, came into our office, which is at your backs, one flight up, second door to the right, and showed us an ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... minister's daughter, and I don't remember ever havin' been deserted by my sweetheart when I was young and trusting. If I was to draw a picture of my life it would look like one of those charts that the weather bureau gets out—one of those high and low barometer things, all uphill and downhill like a chain of ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... a thousand times in as many feet last night," Scotty commented. "It's easy by day, but don't try it by night." He led the way through clear spaces between the thorny patches, always going downhill. ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... 'rickshaw came down in a hurry, and in the 'rickshaw sat the living, breathing image of the girl who had made him so happily unhappy. Hannasyde leaned against the railings and gasped. He wanted to run downhill after the 'rickshaw, but that was impossible; so he went forward with most of his blood in his temples. It was impossible, for many reasons, that the woman in the 'rickshaw could be the girl he ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... altars, or like huge gas-jets suddenly turned on. Adam saw one log lying endwise downhill, one side of which was crumbling into coals of fierce and tremulous heat, while from the other side still sprung unsinged a delicate tuft ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... to Rayburn—and as we now knew the way, and as almost the whole of it was downhill, our return was accomplished rapidly—some of the joyous strength that we had gained seemed to be imparted to him. He opened his eyes as we stooped over him, and there seemed to be more life in them than there had ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... Uncle Toby. "Don't be afraid. I didn't change into first speed quickly enough and stalled, or stopped my engine. I'll start up again in a minute. But I guess I'd better put some stones under the wheels, to block them so they won't slide downhill as I start up again ...
— The Curlytops and Their Playmates - or Jolly Times Through the Holidays • Howard R. Garis
... Cuckoo! Pan is near: Joy runs trembling back to fear. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! All my blood Knocks through the heart whose every thud Chokes me, blinds me, drains my madness. As one half-drowned, I feel life's gladness Ooze from each pore. Towards the sun Downhill I reel that fain would run. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Thornless seem Briars that part as in a dream. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Hazel-boughs Hurt not though ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... the same day I had an interview with the ex-Khedive Ismail, who had gone downhill. He always had a certain difficulty in collecting his ideas and putting them into words, but on this occasion it went farther than I had previously known. He wished to impress on me the necessity for defending Egypt against the Mahdi at some given point ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... this, when, nearly at the top, I was thrown up the hill of the stairs as if it had suddenly become downhill. My feet flew from stair to stair to escape falling, and I flew, or fell, apparently upward, until, at the top, I hung on for dear life while the stern of the Elsinore flung skyward ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... law. I'm a free man now and any political work I do is going to be along the lines of the simple, childish ideas I brought home from college with me. I had begun to feel that all this political idealism was sheer rubbish, but I put the brakes on before I got too far downhill. If a few of us who have run with the machine and know the tricks will turn and help the bewildered idealists, we can make idealism effective. Most of the people don't want a handful of crooks to govern them, but there's a kind of cheap cynicism ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... healthy, happy man is hampered and thwarted in a great work by annoyances and disasters, he behaves like an Arab horse on a heavy march. At first it moves at a brisk trot, uphill and downhill, and it goes faster and faster as its strength begins to flag. And when at last it is thoroughly out of breath and ready to drop, it breaks into ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... least, was our conclusion, from the absence of any subsequent motion or movement on board, the deck being as steady now as any platform on dry land, although rather downhill on one side, from the vessel heeling as she ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... A & P," Jerry decided. And went so fast in that direction that the bag holding the potatoes fell out of the cart and broke and Jerry lost two of them down a sewer. After that he went more slowly, though he found it hard to make the heavy cart go downhill slowly. It made his arms ache holding ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... enough to bear his own cross," said Jungel, seizing his long crutches. Only "Dancing Gundel" lingered in Miltenberg through sympathy in the fate of the companion who had reached the height of fame, while she, the former "Phyllis," had gone swiftly downhill. It was a Christian duty, she said to the blind boy who begged their bread, not to let Kuni, who had once held so lofty a position, take the last journey without a suitable escort. When she heard that her former ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... answered Grandpa Ford. "We'll be there before you know it. It's downhill, and the horses are anxious to get to their ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope
... vain before me? knew I not What stench arises from some purple gears? And how the sceptres witness whence they got Their briar-wood, crackling through the atmosphere's Foul smoke, by princely perjuries, kept hot? Forgive me, ghosts of patriots,—Brutus, thou, Who trailest downhill into life again Thy blood-weighed cloak, to indict me with thy slow Reproachful eyes!—for being taught in vain That, while the illegitimate Caesars show Of meaner stature than the first full strain (Confessed ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... unconvincing narrative." And the sighing of the bullets gave young Bradshaw exactly what he wanted—the assurance that he was not the victim of a practical joke. He threw his weight forward and, lifting his feet, coasted downhill at forty miles an hour into the main street of Blakeney. Ten minutes later, when the car followed, a mob of men so completely blocked the water-front that Ford was forced to stop. His head-lights illuminated hundreds of faces, anxious, sceptical, eager. A ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... his attainments he had preserved unspoiled a certain natural modesty, which led him to attribute his advancement to accident or fate. He once told me that he owed all his success in life to the fact that, as a country boy in Ohio, while driving his father's cart downhill at daybreak, he fell asleep and was jolted off his seat, breaking his leg. During the weeks of enforced seclusion that followed he taught himself to read, and developed a studious turn of mind, which, his leg having been permanently weakened by the accident, led him to seek a situation in a lawyer's ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... and sister were amused as well as saddened by his imitative account of the farmer's last speech, but they meant to study the subject on their first Sunday. They had learnt already that Uphill Priors was a daughter church to Downhill Priors, and had only one service on a Sunday, alternate mornings and evenings. The vicar was the head of a house at Oxford, and only came to the parsonage in the summer. The services were provided for by a curate, living at Downhill, with the assistance of the master of a private school, to ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... through the centre of the wheel, so that long ends extended about a yard on each side. If any straw remained, it was made up into torches at the top of tall sticks. At a given signal the wheel was lighted, and sent rolling downhill. If this fire-wheel went out before it reached the bottom of the hill, a very poor harvest was promised. If it kept lighted all the way down, and continued blazing for a long time, the harvest would be exceptionally ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... horses or hounds. And very soon it did try the pace of them, for they had not gone above a mile before there was very considerable tailing with both. To be sure, they had never been very well together, but still the line lengthened instead of contracting. Horses that could hardly be held downhill, and that applied themselves to the turf, on landing, as if they could never have enough of it, now began to bear upon the rein and hang back to those behind; while the hounds came straggling along like a flock of wild geese, with full half a mile between the leader and the last. However, they all ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... Thought of what that Judgment may be, nor what the World at large may think of it. His Pleasure is not in Praise but Production; the last makes him now and then a little feverish; the other, or its want, never. Just at last, 'twas hard Work to us both; he was like a Wheel running downhill, that must get to the End before it stopped. Mother scolded him, and made him promise he would leave off for a Week or so; at least, she says he did, and he says he did not, and asks her whether, if the Grass had promised not to grow ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... How good it did seem to have real mud, after the long winter of snow! And it was nice to hear the brooks everywhere, making that dear little noise and to see them flashing every-which-way in the sun, as they tumbled along downhill. And it was nice to smell that smell . . . what was that sort of smell that made you know the sugaring-off had begun? You couldn't smell the hot boiling sap all the way from the mountain-sides, but what you did smell made you think of the little bark-covered sap-houses up ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... over the trail we made," remarked Ted. "It wound around and then climbth the hill. We could thee about where the cabin lay, and I made a bee line downhill for the thame." ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... which belongs to it, the first which does not belong to it, when in practice and in its grasp the commune and department cease to be private companies in order to become administrative compartments.—According to the opportunity and the temptation, it glides downhill, now toward the surrender of its duty, and now toward the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... deformed foot lent a suggestion of pathos to his make-up. All this, with his social position, his pseudo-heroic poetry, and his dissipated life,—over which he contrived to throw a veil of romantic secrecy,—made him a magnet of attraction to many thoughtless young men and foolish women, who made the downhill path both easy and rapid to one whose inclinations led him in that direction. Naturally he was generous, and easily led by affection. He is, therefore, largely a victim of his own weakness and ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... look! if you ain't a sight to see!" and he shouted with laughter as he surveyed Charlie, to whom the pillow had imparted the appearance of a London alderman. "If you don't look like Squire Baker now, I'll give it up. You are as big as old Daddy Downhill. You are a ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... tree in a hedgerow, or follow a cart along a country road. You turn to the city, and see children, dwarfed by distance into pigmies, at play about suburban doorsteps; you have a glimpse upon a thoroughfare where people are densely moving; you note ridge after ridge of chimney-stacks running downhill one behind another, and church spires rising bravely from the sea of roofs. At one of the innumerable windows you watch a figure moving; on one of the multitude of roofs you watch clambering chimney-sweeps. The wind takes a run and scatters the smoke; bells ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... Israel! Brethren, let us go down. We will descend. The way to our precious Canaan lies obviously downhill. An end of uplift. Downhill to the land of milk and honey. The blood will soon be flowing faster than either, but we can't help that. We can't help it if Canaan has blood in its veins, instead of pure milk ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... shots came from so close to one flank of the Imperial Light Horse that Boers must have been lying there almost under the feet of our men, if they did not actually join the ranks for a time to escape detection. But a sound greeted their ears at that moment, and knowing what it meant, they scampered downhill without waiting to hear more. It was a ringing British cheer followed by strident commands to "Fix bayonets and give the devils cold steel." Begun by Major Karri Davis, the order ran along from Imperial Light Horse to Carbineers, who had not a bayonet amongst ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... It lies, then, in the very nature of our existence to take the form of constant motion, and to offer no possibility of our ever attaining the rest for which we are always striving. We are like a man running downhill, who cannot keep on his legs unless he runs on, and will inevitably fall if he stops; or, again, like a pole balanced on the tip of one's finger; or like a planet, which would fall into its sun the moment it ceased to hurry forward on its way. Unrest is ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer
... down in ten minutes," I promised him; and I went to pull on my Pontiacs and heavy half boots over them and started downhill through the sandy snow. It was bitterly cold; it had been a cold winter. The bay—I could see it from my window—was frozen over for a dozen miles east and west and thirty north and south; and that had not happened in close to a score of years. Men were freighting across ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... furtheh to go, li'l' hawss," he chatted on. "Downhill all the way soon an' then a drink to wash out yore mouth an' the best feed in Caroca fo' the ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... bad stretch; now it'll be downhill an' green fields all th' way." Nye nodded at the narrow opening between two hills lying ahead. "Glad to get this band in on all four legs ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... reassuring kiss upon her. They sat on the bowlder for a few minutes, then scrambled downhill to the jack-pine flat, and built their evening fire. And for the first time in many days Roaring Bill whistled and lightly burst into snatches of song in the deep, bellowing voice that had given him his name back in the Cariboo country. His humor was infectious. Hazel felt the gods of high ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... materials, dirty paint-pots and plant, they all set out together for the yard, to put all the things away before going to the office for their money. Sawkins took the handle of the cart, Slyme and Crass walked at one side and Owen and Bert at the other. There was no need to push, for the road was downhill most of the way; so much so that they had all to help to hold back the cart, which travelled so rapidly that Bert found it difficult to keep pace with the others and frequently broke into a trot to recover lost ground, and Crass—being ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... and organ-builder, who was willing to employ me to collect bad debts in the country. He put me on an old horse which had one very bad fault. He was afflicted with what the Western people called the 'swaleys,' and could not go downhill. I frequently had to dismount and back him down, as the only way of getting along. The road often lay through forests and clearings, in mire, and among the roots of the beeches, with which my poor beast was constantly struggling. I would sometimes emerge from a dark wood, five ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... colourless, transparent, but gaseous. As soon as Maskull had satisfied his thirst he felt himself different. His surroundings were so real to him in their vividness and colour, so unreal in their phantom-like mystery, that he scrambled downhill like one ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... he hasn't grown old and thin in four days, Jack. He's been going downhill for months. Too much work. Too much worry also, I think—out there around the Rock every morning at daylight, every evening till dark. It hasn't been a good season ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... steadily things had gone downhill with me for a long time, till, in the end, I was so curiously bared of every conceivable thing. I had not even a comb left, not even a book to read, when things grew all too sad with me. All through the summer, up in the churchyards or parks, where I used ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... downhill with brakes on and steam shut off, he put his head out of the window and one by one saw the old familiar landmarks in the dusk. They stared at him like dead faces in a dream. Queer, sharp feelings, half poignant, half sweet, stirred ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... nevertheless, and I knew that somewhere close at hand was surely some home of monks who would take me in with all kindness. And presently the track led me nearer to the sound of the sea, and at last bent sharply to the right and began to go downhill, while the sound of the bell grew plainer above the roar of nearer breakers yet. I felt that I was passing down such a gorge as that up which I had come from the boat, but far narrower, for I had not gone far before ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... of progress, during which the road seemed better, and they appeared to get along some distance before there was another jerk up and another jerk down, and then a series of jumps as if they were going downhill; and then the cart gave a big ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... remembered that high, thin voice, and his promise. And the harness business was slithering downhill with dreadful rapidity, as the automobile business began its amazing climb. Jo tried to stop it. But he was not that kind of business man. It never occurred to him to jump out of the down-going vehicle and catch the up-going one. He stayed on, vainly applying brakes that ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... cough suddenly increased, and he began to go downhill so rapidly as to cause much uneasiness to his friends. General Keith urged him to go up to a little place on the side of the mountains which had been quite a ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... in an atmosphere of fried oil and roasted chestnuts and baked pine-cones; and presently turn left into a still narrower street, with tailors and boot-makers and smiths all at work in the open air; and pass through the Piazzetta Mondragone, and turn again to the left, but this time downhill; then lose yourself amid filthy little alleys, where the scent of oil and chestnuts and pine-cones is stronger than ever; then emerge on a little terrace where there is a noble view of the bay and of Capri; then turn abruptly between walls overhung with fig-trees and orange-trees and lemon-trees,—and ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... they reached the rocky place where they knew they must leave the victim bride, and her father dared not meet her eyes as he turned his head to go. Yet Psyche watched the procession wending its way downhill. No more tears had she to shed, and it seemed to her that what she saw was not a wedding throng, but an assembly of broken-hearted people who went back to their homes with heavy feet after burying one that they ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... is flat, but the path runs downhill. Consequently we soon find ourselves tramping along below the ground-level, with a stout parapet of clay on either side of us. Overhead there is nothing—nothing but the blue sky, with the larks singing, quite regardless of ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... bad, Stevens," Girdlestone said, stopping and jerking his head in the direction of the house. "She is going downhill. I am afraid that she can't last long. If any one asks you about her, you can say that she was despaired of. I am just sending off a telegram to a doctor in London, so that she ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... she continued, 'by the help of Brooks, who knew his master's ways, I have pottered on, to my own wonderment; but Brooks is past work, my downhill-time is coming, high farming has outrun us both, and I know that we are not doing as Humfrey would wish by his inheritance. Now I believe that nothing could be of greater use to me, the people, or the place, than that you should be in charge. We ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mother a ride on it, and she's too heavy— especially going downhill. She thought we were holding it, but it got away. We yelled to her to put on the brake, but she didn't, and it went bang into ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... egoism and competition and struggle for existence; to the law that "might is right,"—tends from the very nature of the case towards decay and disintegration. The movement of material progress is in some sense a downhill movement. No doubt it evokes much seeming virtue, such as is necessary to secure the end; but the motive force is one with regard to which man is passive rather than active, a slave rather than a master, as a miser is in respect ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... it," I answered. "I wanted to see you particularly. They told me that you were rolling downhill so fast that if some one did not put a fulcrum under you, you'd be at the bottom in no time at all. I'm going to be the lever by which you are to be ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... royal," said the wife of Mr. Cheeseman, "though a going-downhill kind of royalty, perhaps, and yet he might be glad, Mrs. Shanks, to come where the butter has the milk spots, and none is in the ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... led downhill from the cleared space. Trix set off down it, swinging her hat airily by the brim the while. Presently the sense of uncanniness abated somewhat; the elfin in her went out to meet ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... and walked swiftly away. She went downhill with more haste than dignity, turned to her right, and struck out through the ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... young, that my hair is already half gray, that my strength is fading, now I'm starting again at the beginning and as a child! Again, he had to smile. Yes, his fate had been strange! Things were going downhill with him, and now he was again facing the world void and naked and stupid. But he could not feed sad about this, no, he even felt a great urge to laugh, to laugh about himself, to laugh about this strange, ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... a flood will sweep over a bend instead of following it. Still, Jack and the sorrel had the start, and nearly all the way it was a downhill road. ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... and putting his feet down unsteadily, Mr. Trimm left the clearing, heading as well as he could tell eastward, away from the railroad. After a mile or two he came to a dusty wood road winding downhill. ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... marriage. Helen isn't exactly pretty, but she's extremely attractive. Her figure is perfect, and she's the most stylish thing in the world. I am very happy today as I think that I have lanceed her in the best New York can offer. It has not been all downhill work. Her father's name entitled her to it; but he hated society, so he was more of a drawback than anything else. I couldn't boast of any social position in Buffalo, and it's extraordinary how well that was known here. However, the fact of my being of a good, sterling, unpretentious family did ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... Miles," added my companion, after promising to join the party in a few moments. "This arrangement about the schooner leaves us both captains, and prevents anything like your downhill work, which is always unpleasant business. Captain Marble and Captain Wallingford sound well; and I hope they may long sail in company. But natur' or art never meant me ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... waistcoat, the mud on his boots, and again as she watched Grace make this summary, love and protection for that unhappy man filled her heart. For unhappy he was! She saw at once that he had had a long slide downhill since his last visit to her. He was frightened—frightened immediately now of Grace and the room and the physical world—but frightened also behind these things at some spectre all his own. Grace sat down and tried to recover herself. She began to talk in her society voice. ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... and in some sort connects very diverse topics, is that of considering this principle of selection. Of the principle itself, he remarks that it is neither a theory nor an hypothesis, but the expression of a necessary fact; that to deny it is very much like denying that round stones will roll downhill faster and farther than flat ones; and that the question of the present day in natural history is not whether there be natural selection, or even whether forms are derived from other forms, but to comprehend how, in what ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... the street for nearly two miles as it climbed over Nob Hill. It was almost deserted; a cable-car now and then crawled up and down its length, and at times a delivery wagon rattled across it; but that was about all. On the opposite sidewalk two boys and a girl were coasting downhill on their roller-skates and their brake-wagons. The cable in its slot kept up an incessant burr and clack. The whole view was rather forlorn, and Vandover turned his back on it, ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... far, he could trust her. She trusted, poor child! Two years later he married up on his higher plane—your plane—and laughingly offered a second best place to her. It was the only bargain she could make then! The rest was an easy downhill grade. ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... reformer, until discouraged, and I remember a classmate of mine saying, "Why, man, can't you let anything alone?" I said, "I let everything alone that you can show me is not itself moving in the wrong direction, but I am not going to let those things alone that I see are going downhill"; and I borrowed this illustration from an ingenious writer. He says, "If you have a post that is painted white and want to keep it white, you cannot let it alone; and if anybody says to you, 'Why don't you let that post alone,' you will ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... of phantom men and girls sliding downhill on their derrieres and ending in a heap at the bottom. A nice change from traveling under their own power. Their maximum speed while swift and incomprehensible to mortals, seemed relatively slow to one of Hell's old timers. Only Nick and his ...
— Satan and the Comrades • Ralph Bennitt
... it was Diana's, and that she would have wished it to be used. It was too early for a taxi to be got, even by telephoning, but the porter caught a stray rickshaw that chanced to be passing, and April had her first experience of flying downhill behind a muscular black man with feathers in his hair and bangles on his feet. Before she reached the station her veil and hair were in streamers, and her scalp was almost torn from her head, but the serpent jaune which had gnawed her vitals all night had ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... and service will be entrusted to a particular player. This permits all sorts of complicated imitations of reality that are impossible to our parlour and playroom Little Wars. We can consider transport, supply, ammunition, and the moral effect of cavalry impact, and of uphill and downhill movements. We can also bring in the spade and entrenchment, and give scope to the Royal Engineers. But before I write anything of Colonel Sykes' suggestions about these, let me say a word or two ...
— Little Wars; a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books • H. G. Wells
... because the hearer's preconceived opinion outweighs the credit of the reporter and makes his veracity to be called in question. For instance it is natural for a stone to roll down hill, it is unnatural for it to roll up hill: but a stone moving uphill is as much the object of sense as a stone moving downhill; and all men in their senses are as capable of seeing and judging and reporting the fact in one case, as in the other. Should a man then tell you, that he saw a stone go uphill of its own accord, you might question his ...
— The Trial of the Witnessses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ • Thomas Sherlock
... unsprung track left its mark on hard stone as easily as it did in soft earth. The wonder was that the tracks had not quite worn themselves out as yet, though all the rivets were badly strained and the tankette sounded like a barrel of stones tumbling downhill. ...
— The Barbarians • John Sentry
... world, uninhabited, without tree or gate or hedge. Her eyes were heavy with lack of sleep, smarting with the bite of the north wind, which neither ceased nor eased until, towards ten o'clock, the carriage began to lumber downhill towards Two Bridges, under the lee of Crockern Tor. Beyond came a heavy piece of collar work, the horses dropping to a walk as they heaved through the drifts towards a depression between two tors closing the view ahead. Dorothea's ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... London; at night the streets were infested with brutal ruffians, and, as late as Queen Anne's time, by bands of "fine gentlemen" not less brutal, who amused themselves by overturning sedan chairs, rolling women downhill in barrels, and compelling men to dance jigs, under the stimulus of repeated pricks from a circle of sword points, until the victims fell fainting from exhaustion. Duels were frequent, on the slightest provocation. ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... the facts which I have herein hastily set downhill dispel any apprehension as to the successful cultivation of the soil in the northern part of the territory. It has a health-giving climate which before long, I predict, will nourish as patriotic a race of men as gave immortality to the noble plains ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... after one long, sharp look at the oncoming horseman, pulled in quietly to the side of the road. And Ruth did the same. She was too well trained in the things of the hills not to know that if there was trouble, then it was no time to be weakening horses' knees in mad and useless dashes downhill. ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... that point sloped rather steeply and, without thinking twice about it, he took the downhill direction, never doubting it would bring him somewhere. As soon as he started walking, his temper became gloomy and morose—he was shaken, tired, dirty, and languid with hunger; moreover, he realised that the walk was not going to be a short one. Be that as it may, he determined ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... four-ball game then; Leslie and Etty against Elinor and Dakie Thayne. But Elinor declared—laughing, all the same, in her imperturbably good-natured way—that not only Etty's pokes were against her, but that Dakie would not croquet Leslie's ball downhill. Nothing ever really put Elinor Hadden out, the girls said of her, except when her hair wouldn't go up; and then it was funny to see her. It was a sunbeam in a snarl, or a snow flurry out of a blue sky. This in parenthesis, however; it was quite true, as she alleged, that Dakie Thayne ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... Ziethen's Horse, who are rightmost of the Prussians: and are bare to the right,—ground offering no bush, no brook there (though Ziethen, foreseeing such defect, has a clump of infantry near by to mend it),—reel back under this first shock, coming downhill upon them; and would have fared badly, had not the clump of infantry instantly opened fire on the Nadasti visitors, and poured it in such floods upon them, that they, in their turn, had to reel back. Back they, well out of range;—and leave Ziethen free ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... a pretty hard time this next 100 miles I expect. If it was difficult to drag downhill over this belt, it will probably be a good deal more difficult to drag up. Luckily the cracks are fairly distinct, though we only see our cairns when less than a mile away; 45 miles to the next depot and 6 days' food in hand—then pick up 7 days' food (T. -22 ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... and still downhill through openings among batches of great forest trees. The new leaves were just coming out in pinks and russets, so that the effect at a little distance was almost precisely that of our autumn foliage in its duller ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... the girls realized that it was getting too dark even to distinguish the path at all. They stumbled blindly on through the heather, conscious only that they were going downhill, but whether they were really retracing their steps or not, it was impossible to tell. Spot, whose spirits had failed him, followed at their heels. Faster and faster fell the darkness; the girls linked ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... little while And feed upon some nourishing employ But otherwise shake their wise heads and smile— Protesting that one man can no more move the mass For good or ill Than could the ancients kindle the sun By tying torches to a wheel and rolling it downhill. But not the wet circumference of the seas Can quench the living light in even these, These who forget, Eating the fruits of earth, That nothing ever has been done To spur the spirit of mankind, Which has not come to pass Forth from the heart and mind Of some one ...
— The New World • Witter Bynner
... serious vocation. They tell him he has a special disposition for mission work, too. So Laughing Anne's boy will lead a saintly life in China somewhere; he may even become a martyr; but poor Davidson is left out in the cold. He will have to go downhill without a single human affection near him because ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... rushed through long tunnels. The line is one which taxed the ingenuity of engineers to the utmost in its construction, and is one succession of light bridges spanning deep chasms, tunnels, and long gradients. Luckily for us, we were travelling in the downhill direction, else our journey had been impossible. If the brave "Dare-to-dies" were too hurried to leave the line mined, they had taken time to destroy it in some places, and once a broken-down engine blocked our path. The fleeing soldiers had found the engine-driver ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... slid gently downhill Hannah tried with all her strength to stop it. She had a shrewd latent business sense and this she vainly tried to instil in her husband. The children, stirring in their sleep in the bedroom adjoining that of their parents, would ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... him go with you," said Anthea, "you'll soon see what I mean! How would you like to suddenly see a poor little helpless baby spinning along downhill beside you with its feet up on a bicycle it had lost ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... landsman can tell that the solid ocean is atilt, and that the ship is working herself up a long unseen slope; and sometimes the captain says, when neither full steam nor fair wind justifies the length of a day's run, that the ship is sagging downhill; but how these ups and downs come about has not yet ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... sleigh was all white now with scattered fruit blossoms, and one of Waitstill's earliest remembrances was of going downhill with Patty toddling at her side; of Uncle Bart's lifting them into the sleigh and permitting them to sit there and eat the ripe red apples that had fallen from the tree. Uncle Bart's son, Cephas (Patty's secret adorer), was a painter by trade, and kept his pots ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... are severe and long continued, is just the reverse in the far South. There our snow is rain, and the upturned furrows are washed down into a smooth, sticky mass by the winter storms. On steep hillsides, much of the soil would ooze away with every rain, or slide downhill en masse. In the South, therefore, unless a clay soil is to be planted at once, it must not be disturbed in the fall, and it is well if it can be protected by stubble or litter, which shields it from the direct contact of the rain ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... parts of Georgia and the Carolinas, once among the richest specimens of soil and cultivation in the world; and even the more recently colonized Alabama, as he shows, is rapidly following in the same downhill track. To slavery, therefore, it is a matter of life and death to find fresh fields for the employment of slave labor. Confine it to the present States, and the owners of slave property will either be speedily ruined, or will have to find ...
— The Contest in America • John Stuart Mill
... Close, a large green space surrounded by the houses of dignitaries, from a quiet road lined with elms, which skirted the wall of the Deanery garden and after several twists and turns among the shadows of great Gothic walls found its way downhill into the narrow streets of the small city. One of the houses in the Close had been handed over to the Theological College, the Principal of which usually occupied a Canon's stall in the Cathedral. Here were the lecture-rooms, and here lived Canon Havelock the Principal, Mr. Drakeford ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... little save hunger to fear so long as they were in the open country. They marched on, breaking into a trot whenever their course led downhill, during the whole of the day on which their retreat began. Each man still had a small supply of meat left, and portions of this they ate raw as they proceeded. At dusk the foremost of the Balotsi were some ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... the same thing to say that the refinement of a household is measured by the amount of water it uses. The poorer a family, the greater struggle it is to keep up the appearance of cleanliness, and no surer sign of rapid progress on a downhill road can be found than neglect of those practices which tend toward personal neatness. As the life of the farmer, then, becomes easier, as his condition becomes more prosperous, and as his family make more requirements, so, inevitably, is there in the farmhouse ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... they sped as though downhill, and the driver's spirits rose with the exhilarating speed. The snow groaned ceaselessly under the prow of the pulk, and the frosty creaking under the hoofs of the flying Ren was like the gritting of mighty teeth. Then came the level stretch from Nystuen's hill ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... went downhill and still downhill through openings among batches of great forest trees. The new leaves were just coming out in pinks and russets, so that the effect at a little distance was almost precisely that of our autumn foliage in its duller phases. So familiar were made some of the low rounded ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... roads in every kind of coach that had been on the road previous to the construction of the railways across the Pyrenees. One particular coach I travelled in was practically a box on four wheels, with a very narrow seat running on each side, and very low in the roof. Going downhill the horses—such as they were—went as fast as they could, and every time we struck a hole in the road down went the box, up we banged our heads against the roof, and then we collapsed quietly on to the floor, ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... 1st October, we continued our journey to Kusatsu. The road was uphill for a distance of 550 metres, downhill for nearly as far, then up again, and ran often without any protecting fence past deep abysses, or over high bridges of the most dangerous construction. It was, therefore, impossible for any wheeled vehicle to traverse ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... to Calmenare in the Duke's presence; and I would have pressed a gold piece into his hand for "opening my prison door," but he would not have it. Afterwards, while we followed the grey car on the downhill road to Madrid, Pilar told the whole story with dramatic effect ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson |
