"Receding" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... over her! Far, far above her head the long, dusty green fronds projected from the mast-like trunk. The sun, a ball of fiery brass, burned directly in the zenith, so that the shadow of the foliage lay like a carpet about her feet. That which she had mistaken for the ever-receding eyes of Mrs. Sin, wondering with a delightful vagueness why they seemed constantly to change color, proved to be a pair of brilliantly plumaged parrakeets perched upon a ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... the carriage to be drawn close up to the outer gate, and got out himself to summon the warders. The noise of his rap alarmed some twenty or thirty ragged boys, who left off sailing their mimic sloops and frigates in the little pools of salt water left by the receding tide, and hastily crowded round the vehicle to see what luckless being was to be delivered to the prison-house out of 'Glossin's braw new carriage.' The door of the courtyard, after the heavy clanking of many ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... British officer at the very start, unless Lippencott had been given up within a limited time. As it was, after delay was once permitted, it is hard to see how he could have acted otherwise than he did, but Washington was not in the habit of receding from a fixed purpose, and being obliged to do so in this case troubled him, for he knew that he did well to be angry. But the frankness of the avowal to Vergennes is a good example of his entire honesty and ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... space, Sightless as a sin-quenched star, Thou shalt pursue thy wandering race, Receding into regions far— On thee the eyes of mortal men Shall never, never light again; Memory alone may steal a glance Like some wild glimpse in sleep we're taking. Of a long perish'd countenance We have forgotten when awaking— Sad, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 348, December 27, 1828 • Various
... tears in Ernestine's eyes as she stood waving a pocket-handkerchief after the receding train. Milly was at the rail of the observation platform, leaning on the brass sign and waving both hands to her old friends, Chicago, her past. Little Virginia at her side waved an inch or two of white also, while the smiling ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... window of but four pieces of glass, and was not curtained; he chose it because the larger window near it was. It showed him the room, and the bills upon the wall respecting the drowned people starting out and receding by turns. But he glanced slightly at them, though he looked long and steadily at her. A deep rich piece of colour, with the brown flush of her cheek and the shining lustre of her hair, though sad and solitary, weeping by the rising and the ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... rocks, mantled with the flaunting grape-vine, and crowned with groves, which threw a broad shade on the waves beneath; and anon they were borne away into the mid-channel and wafted along with a rapidity that very much discomposed the sage Van Kortlandt, who, as he saw the land swiftly receding on either side, began exceedingly to doubt that terra firma ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... In receding from the center of a typhoon the barometer will rise and the wind and sea subside. It should be remarked that in some cases a vessel may, if the storm be traveling slowly, sail from the dangerous semicircle across the front of the storm, and thus out of its influence. ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... scarcely manifested the slightest surprise at the appearance of Minnie upon the pavement with his hat and shoes and overcoat. "Very good of you to bring my things," he said, and remained lost in contemplation of the receding figure of the Anarchist. ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... again to call my attention to a thick wooden bar, with which I might fasten it inside if I chose; and to tell me not to alarm myself when I heard the bell overhead toll for matins, at half-past five in the morning. I listened to his receding footsteps, and then turned eagerly to the food, which I ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... instant a sea rolling in washed the rider from its back. He struck out boldly, making a desperate effort for life. Jacob and the boy pulled with all their might towards him, but before they could reach him a sea had dashed him against the cliff. By a mighty effort he got clear of it, when a receding wave carried him towards them. Before the boat reached him, however, he had ceased to struggle, and was sinking for the last time when Adam caught him by the collar, and with Jacob's assistance hauled him into the boat. Jacob had at once to resume his oar, for they were so near the cliff that the ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... physiognomy an expression in the highest degree repulsive. Deceit, low cunning, and greed of gain, were legibly written upon this unprepossessing countenance; whose wild character was completed by a profusion of coarse dark hair, that hung or rather stuck out in black elf-locks around the receding forehead and tawny sunken cheeks. The dress of this man was in unison with his aspect. He wore a greasy velveteen jacket, loose trousers of the same stuff, and his feet were shod with abarcas—a kind of sandal in common use in some parts of Navarre ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... dry lips parted for a shriek that the dryer throat had at first no power to utter. In such wild longing pangs it seemed her heart would burst as it beat. The low land, the great gunboats, all were receding, and she was washing out to sea, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... of an orderly series of impressions on our senses, we find it hard to put ourselves in the place of the savage, to whom the same impressions appear in the guise of spirits or the handiwork of spirits. For ages the army of spirits, once so near, has been receding farther and farther from us, banished by the magic wand of science from hearth and home, from ruined cell and ivied tower, from haunted glade and lonely mere, from the riven murky cloud that belches forth the lightning, and from those fairer clouds that ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... seated himself beside the fence, and resumed his occupation. When the last scrap of food was devoured, he arose, and, taking up a rough stick that served as a cane, he followed the receding ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... established, what signifies Spirit or Matter? Why trouble about the march of the worlds in one direction or in another, since the Being who guides them is shown to be an absurdity? Why continue to ask whether man is approaching heaven or receding from it, whether creation is rising towards Spirit or descending towards Matter, if the questioned universe gives no reply? What signifies theogonies and their armies, theologies and their dogmas, since whichever side of the problem is man's choice, his God exists not? ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... such expressions of tenderness towards her people, as ought to have appeared fulsome after the late instances of rigor which she had employed, and from which nothing but necessity had made her depart. Thus was this critical affair happily terminated; and Elizabeth, by prudently receding, in time, from part of her prerogative, maintained her dignity, and preserved ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... observer would have seen the door of his house open, and a slender female form bend forth, and look earnestly into the darkness. A moment or two, she stood thus, and then stepped forth quickly, and leaning upon the iron railing of the door steps, fixed eagerly her eyes upon the slowly receding ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... by a fog that shut down on the roofs and chimneys like a tent-cloth, white and opaque. Now and then a yellowish wave rolled across it from eastward, and the cloth would be shaken. When this happened, the street was always filled with gloom, and the receding figure of the woman lost in ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I don't know. We have been carried out to sea by a receding wave. The bank gave way. Oh, what a foolish girl you are! Swim! Swim with all your might! We shall have to fight hard. We may not be able to save ourselves as it is. Swim ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... reaches of this greatest of rivers were once the floor of the Yellow Sea, the upper provinces of Hupeh, Hunan, Kiangsi being the region of prehistoric forests clothing the coasts, which once looked down upon the slowly-receding waste of waters, and which to-day contain all the coal and iron. Hitherto every one has always believed that the Yangtsze Valley was par excellence the British sphere in China; and every one has always thought that that belief was enough. ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... one of the old CINQUE PORTS (q. v.) in Kent, on the Stour, and once on the sea, but now, by the receding of the sea, 2 m. distant; 12 m. E. of Canterbury; an interesting place of many historical associations; has a splendid golf course, which ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... parting words, coolly added as he listened to his receding footsteps and locked the grate upon himself, he descended the steps, and lighting the fire below the little copper, prepared, without any assistance, for his daily occupation; which was to retail at the area-head above pennyworths of broth and soup, and savoury ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... him, in person or by proxy, at least once a month. He was a punctual man—as a collector of what was due him. Seeing that he was intently engaged, I paused and looked at him. A man of huge frame, with enormous hands and feet, massive head, receding forehead, and heavy cerebral development, full sensual lips, large nose, and peculiar eyes that seemed at the same time to look through you and to shrink from your gaze—he was a man at whom a stranger would stop ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... the quiet figure riding slowly to and fro on the crest above them; they had heard the stern command, "Wait till they come within fifty yards and then give them the bayonet," and they had followed him far in that victorious rush into the receding ranks of their ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... gazing upon the receding roof of the great cavern, the heavy walls left like buttresses to hold up the overlying mountain ridge, and the tiny figures dimly swarming on the ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... sphere revolving, Brings another New Year's Day; Orb of light, 'mid lengthened shadows, Glance one soft and lingering ray, As we muse on Days receding fast away. ...
— The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, January, 1835 • Various
... Bloomsbury, on account of a lady who sat by. The combatants fought so furiously as to kill each other, after which their footsteps, imprinted on the ground in the vengeful struggle, were reported "to remain, with the indentations produced by their advancing and receding; nor would any grass or vegetation grow afterwards over these forty footsteps." The most commonly received version of the story is, that two brothers were in love with the same lady, who would not declare a preference for either, but coolly sat upon a bank to witness the ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... head smartly with his knuckles, and passed on, the smile still wrinkling his pale eyes and the forehead above them from which the hair was steadily receding towards the top of ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... a row, and lit our pipes. In a few moments, the blaze was burning high, and our bodies had ceased shivering. Fantastically the firelight revealed the knobs and crevices, the ledges and the arching walls. Their shadows leaped, following the flames, receding and advancing like playful beasts. Far above us was a single tiny opening through which the smoke was sucked as through a chimney. The glow ruddied the men's features. Outside was thick darkness, and the swish and rush and roar of rising waters. ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... point Dr. Price said: "Let it be granted, though probably far from true, that the majority of the kingdom favor the present measures. No good argument could be drawn from thence against receding."] ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... replied Roquefort in his patois. "I'll show you how to do it"; and, receding a step, he took aim with his carbine at his victim, whose back was partly towards him. A report was heard, and the marshal fell dead on the spot, the bullet which entered at the shoulder going right through his body and striking ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... approached the spring, and, suing for reconciliation, dropped the ring into the charmed element. As though he feared some extraordinary result from the act, he covered his eyes with his hands, and could with difficulty summon courage to remove them. When he did so, he perceived the fog receding by degrees from the confines of the moor, and the graceful form of Auriola standing before him at a little distance. As at their first meeting, her countenance was averted. She waved the earthen pitcher as was her wont, and bathed the ground on which she went ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... his footsteps and laughter receding. Presently the bottom of a ladder appeared through the ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... special interest in medicine is that of Montpellier. With it are connected three teachers who have left great names in our story—Arnold of Villanova, Henri de Mondeville and Guy de Chauliac. The city was very favorably situated not far from the Spanish border, and the receding tide of the Arab invasion in the eighth century had left a strong Arabic influence in that province. The date of the origin of the university is uncertain, but there were teachers of medicine there in the twelfth century, though it was not until 1289 that it was formally ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... this semi-artificial port as well as circumstances will allow. Such is, more or less, the history of them all. Havre, however, is in some measure an exception. It stands on a plain, that I should think had once been a marsh. The cliffs are near it, seaward, and towards the interior there are fine receding hills, leaving a sufficient site, notwithstanding, for a town ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... view The watery waste, the prospect wild and new; The now receding waters gave them space, On either side, the growing shores to trace And then returning, they contract the scene, Till small and smaller grows ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... appeared to take precedence; a tall, high-featured man, with a stoop and a receding chin. This was Lord Hopton, one of the most respectable of Charles's followers; an honourable, stupid, middle-aged nobleman, who could never marshal his own thoughts and who, necessarily, spoke without ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... panted, receding. "I didn't mean that. We will only trouble Howards End for this one night. I ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... thinking over how much the short story really told, her eyes far away on the elusive, ever-receding blue curtain that was down ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... the swiftly receding mass: the fleet of the Llotta diving headlong, drawn inexorably into the rapacious embrace of the vile creature of the heavens. An instant the awful whiteness of the thing closed in greedily about the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... Wells! How little we realized what sinister forces were playing about her that pleasant evening as we smoked and jested and sipped our glasses, gazing from time to time up the broad vista of Fifth Avenue with its lines of receding lights. ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... last ray, as they ever love to do. Whaups rose off the sand, and, following the gleam upon the braes, ascended from slope to slope, and the plover followed too, dipping his feet in the golden tide receding. On little fir-patches mounted numerous blackcock of sheeny feather, and the owls began to ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... not, nor wake me, Lest grosser thoughts o'ertake me; From earth receding faintly with her dreary din and jars— What viewless arms caress me? What whispered voices bless me, With welcomes dropping dew-like from the weird and ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... listened for the mules. Far away in the fog I heard a dull splashing, receding as I listened. After a while all sound died away, and a slow horror stole over me—a horror that froze the little net-work of veins in every limb. A step to the right and the water rose to my knees; a step to the left and the cold, thin circle of the flood chilled my breast. Suddenly ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... Ponderous, and fixed by its own massy weight. But elbows still were wanting; these, some say, An alderman of Cripplegate contrived, And some ascribe the invention to a priest Burly and big, and studious of his ease. But rude at first, and not with easy slope Receding wide, they pressed against the ribs, And bruised the side, and elevated high Taught the raised shoulders to invade the ears. Long time elapsed or e'er our rugged sires Complained, though incommodiously pent in, And ill at ease behind. The ladies first Gan murmur, ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... crumbling aqueducts. You look back at the City so often from some grassy hill-top—hugely compact within its walls, with St. Peter's overtopping all things and yet seeming small, and the vast girdle of marsh and meadow receding on all sides to the mountains and the sea—that you come to remember it at last as hardly more than a respectable parenthesis in a great sweep of generalisation. Within the walls, on the other hand, you think of your intended ride ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... crouch abandoned, while the caravan in which all his earthly hopes are centred goes inexorably upon its way. The blue sky flushes to deep purple before him; night falls; all colour is swallowed up in darkness, until the jingling camel-bells receding up the pass cross the dividing ridge, and for him the last silence is begun. Such then was the end of youthful ambition: for food a mouthful of ashes instead of the very marrow of joy; for home not the ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... such a reality of re-presentment, that I became in doubt which of them stood there before me, or whose that bright hair was; and while I stood gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, and still receding till nothing at last but two mournful features were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely impressed upon me the effects of speech; "We are not of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... spent with Ishmael and the Parson, and the next day a grey uncertain morning of blown clouds found Ishmael and Killigrew both seated in the train while she waved her handkerchief at them from a receding platform. And if that handkerchief were to be wet with tears that were not for her brother nor yet for Killigrew except in so far as he had, with his gay tongue and sudden secret kisses, awakened hopes in her that she was beginning to see, by his very nature, ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... heart of the city and its very atmosphere is saturated with Eastern customs. It is much more sanitary but not as picturesque as it was before the fire." I flushed as I saw his amusement, and quickly called his attention to the receding shores where the encircling green hills had thrown out long banners of yellow mustard and blue lupins. To the right was Mt. Tamalpais, a sturdy sentinel looking out to the ocean, its summit pressed against the sky's blue canopy and its base lost in a network of purple forests. In front of ...
— The Lure of San Francisco - A Romance Amid Old Landmarks • Elizabeth Gray Potter and Mabel Thayer Gray
... of the Phantom Ship and Flying Dutchman are in their thoughts, and on their lips, as they stand straining their eyes after the still receding vessel; for beyond doubt she is yet moving on with ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... Prussia. The relics discovered consist of the brain cap, two femori, two humeri, and other fragments. The fragment of the skull attracted wide attention by its bestial aspect, it presenting a low, narrow and receding forehead, and an enormous thickness of the bony ridges over the eyes, like that seen in the gorilla. This skull, which was associated with remains of the cave-bear, hyena, and rhinoceros, is, with ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... on the bill in the Swedish Parliament a university professor said in a tone of eloquent finality: "The woman suffrage movement has reached and passed its climax; the suffrage wave is now rapidly receding." With patronizing air, more droll than he could know, the gentleman added: "We have permitted this movement to come thus far but we shall allow it to go no farther." Thus another fly resting upon the proverbial ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... the otherwise almost impassable barrier without realizing its latent terrors. Even the open water in the center chanced to be deserted at the time by its frightful denizens which the drought and the receding waters had driven southward toward the mouth of Pal-ul-don's largest river which carries the waters out of ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... down to the king's palace and wait before it, and surely I will follow ye, and ye shall learn wherefore ye have incurred this punishment from the gods." Then the crowd rolled murmuring back, as a receding sea; and when it was gone from the place, Morven went alone to the house of Darvan, which was next his own. And Darvan was greatly terrified; for he was of a great age, and had no children, neither friends, and he feared that he could not ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... each new Dompteur came in to the animals. We sat down at first in front of the tigers' cage, the Baronne next to me this time. The creatures went through astonishing tricks, and looked such lazy great beautiful cats. The Dompteur was a handsome man, just the type they always are, with a wide receding forehead and flashing eyes. They positively blazed at the brutes if they did not obey him instantly. I wonder why all "tamers" have this shape of head? I asked the Vicomte, but he did not know. The bears came next, horrid cunning white things, and turning ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... traveller passed on till the dell opened, and the banks, receding from the brook, left a little green vale, exhibiting a croft, or small field, on which some corn was growing, and a cottage, whose walls were not above five feet high, and whose thatched roof, green with moisture, age, houseleek, ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... fantastic, unreal world of pale silver mist, through which everything loomed phantom-like. Captain Josiah Crawford's black schooner sailing down the channel, laden with potatoes for Bluenose ports, was a spectral ship bound for a far uncharted land, ever receding, never to be reached. The calls of unseen gulls overhead were the cries of the souls of doomed seamen. The little curls of foam that blew across the sand were elfin things stealing up from the sea-caves. The big, round-shouldered sand-dunes were the sleeping giants of some old northern tale. ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... my lingering footsteps slow retire, Some Spirit of the Air has waked thy string! 'Tis now a seraph bold, with touch of fire, 'Tis now the brush of Fairy's frolic wing. Receding now, the dying numbers ring Fainter and fainter down the rugged dell; And now the mountain breezes scarcely bring A wandering witch-note of the distant spell— And now, 'tis silent all!—Enchantress, fare ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... some time in silence, broken only by White's tribute to the softness, the cleanliness, and the comfort of the bed which was receding farther and farther into the distance. Under Meagle's guidance they turned oft at last to the right, and, after a walk of a quarter of a mile, saw the gates ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... somewhere in the city came sounds like the distant beating of drums, and beyond, far beyond, a vague muttering, now growing, swelling, rumbling in the distance like the pounding of surf upon the rocks, now like the surf again, receding, growling, menacing. The cold had become intense, a bitter piercing cold which strained and snapped at joist and beam and turned the slush of yesterday to flint. From the street below every sound broke sharp and metallic—the clatter of sabots, the rattle of shutters or the rare sound of a human ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... unloosed the cable. The vessel swung with the tide from its moorings, the jib and mainsail filled with the breeze, and glided away. The weeping crowd upon its deck saw Ruth standing upon the wharf, her countenance serene, pure, and peaceful, with tears upon her face, gazing at the receding ship. Those around her beheld her steady herself against the post which had held the cable, standing there till the Queen Charlotte was but a white speck dotting the landscape in the lower harbor, then walking with faltering steps to her ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... assimilate his last quarter of cakes, wiggle into his coat, and pay his check at the desk at the same moment. The next, he is down the block in pursuit of a receding trolley. ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... therefore be accomplished by the moon; but this can only be done by an enlargement of its orbit. Thus there are two great consequences of the tides in the earth-moon system—the days are getting longer, the moon is receding further. ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball
... is up; anchors are weighed; and the vessel is soon riding out from the harbor towards mid-ocean. Although the air is cold, the deck is crowded with persons, among whom is Frederick Charlston, viewing the receding objects, and at length taking their farewell view of the dimly distant shores of their ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... chance," answered the young inventor, and he spoke truly, for a moment later, as the big propellers took hold of the air, the Falcon went up with a rush, and was far beyond the reach of the men. In a rage the spy shook his fist at the fast receding craft, and one of the policemen drew ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton
... Donald could come to the rescue, tossed him out of the window. The train was dashing round a curve at thirty miles an hour, and when Donald stretched out his neck to find out whether Gum was killed, it was with small hope of ever seeing him more. For two minutes the miner gazed at the receding distance, then, without uttering a word, turned round and felled the conductor to ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... yet hardly man. Their bodies were covered with stiff, coarse, gray hair which lengthened into a mane on the head and neck. Their foreheads were low and receding, an impression which was heightened by the enormously developed brow ridges, although the cranial capacity of the creatures was not small, as was evidenced by enormous bulges at the back of their heads. They walked on two ...
— B. C. 30,000 • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... of the head for us both, and an earnest, friendly glance at the young man, Miss Haldin left us covering our heads and looking after her straight, supple figure receding rapidly. Her walk was not that hybrid and uncertain gliding affected by some women, but a frank, strong, healthy movement forward. Rapidly she increased the distance—disappeared with suddenness at last. I discovered only then that Mr. Razumov, after ramming his hat well over his brow, was looking ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... of the path to which she was helplessly hastening, could restrain his generous impulses no longer; and, quickly throwing off his hat and coat, he leaped overboard, dashed headlong into the current, and struck boldly down it to overtake the receding canoe. ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... daughter walked away the shyness of the young men returned upon them in a heavy backwash. They were so whelmed by it that they did not even speak to one another. But both glanced with cautious stealth at the receding backs, the doctor in front, his daughter walking daintily on the edge of grass by the roadside, holding her skirts away ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... by the peering eyes at the window. The man who faced him was of a different type, a rather small figure, with nothing commanding in his appearance; he had a shock of sandy hair, blue eyes, and a smoothly shaven mouth and chin somewhat receding from a finely chiseled nose. He was speaking earnestly, and in a tone of conviction. His voice was harsh, but his manner was suave, agreeable, ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... him, and put her arms around him, and with his mind's eye he saw the flap of the white dove's wing. She took him by the hand and led him to the window. The sun was shining, and a grand rainbow stood against the black curtain of the receding cataract. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... the yard, which was separated from the law courts by a wall fifteen feet high, with an opening let into the middle of the receding wall, closed by a massive oaken door, to admit prisoners without taking them round by the street. The jailer, we say, crossed the yard to a winding stairway in the left angle of the courtyard which led to the interior of ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... same reason. He could not carry supplies with him, and Longstreet was between him and the supplies still left in the country. Longstreet, in his retreat, would be moving towards his supplies, while our forces, following, would be receding from theirs. On the 2d of March, however, I learned of Sherman's success, which eased my mind very much. The next day, the 3d, ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... middle age with a brutal, heavy-jawed face and a low, receding forehead. His lips, a little apart, showed yellow, irregular teeth, of which two at the front of the lower jaw had been broken, and the scar of an old wound, running from the corner of his left eye down to the ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... alone in that spot, followed with his eyes the receding form of the mercenary, as the sun, now setting, shone slant upon his glittering casque, and said bitterly to himself—"Unfortunate city, fountain of all mighty memories—fallen queen of a thousand nations—how art thou decrowned and spoiled ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... from a stationary vessel containing carbide—this being essentially identical in all respects save the mechanical one with the "dip" or "dipping" generator shown in A^2, Fig. 1; (F^3) a supply of water is permitted to rise round, or to flow upon, a stationary mass of carbide without ever receding from the position it has once assumed—this being the "contact" generator; and (F^4) a supply of water is admitted to a subdivided charge of carbide in such proportion that each quantity admitted is in chemical excess of the carbide it attacks. ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... heard him going away, whistling "The Blue Bells of Scotland," singing snatches of Scotch songs, calling to me, his voice now receding, as the rocks intervened, then sounding louder as he came out on the face of the cliff. But in me hope surged at full tide. I entertained no more thoughts of last messages. I did not see how he could possibly do it, but he was John Muir, and I had seen his wonderful rock-work. So ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... supposed to represent an encounter and harid-to-hand fight, all the movements of advancing and retreating, thrusting and parrying are displayed. The combatants move around in circles, now approaching, now receding, always under the protection of the shield. They gaze savagely at each other, now over the shield, now at the side, constantly sticking out their tongues at each other much as a snake does. At times they place a heel in the ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... from Mississippi. We picked out a comparatively clean spot on the deck, near the bow; we lay down on our backs and relaxed our beings into infinite patience. We had been thus for perhaps an hour; I was looking up at a little white cloud that seemed receding, receding into the blue immensity behind it. Suddenly a noise like thunder roared in my ears. The little cloud gave a great leap back into its place; the roar dwindled into the voice of Miller, in plaintive, disturbed ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... the limousine started with a roar from its cylinders and disappeared down the driveway, the two men going with it. The absence of the lamps rendered the darkness around the solitary house rather uncanny. An intense stillness prevailed except for the diminishing rattle of the receding motor car. In the hall was a light and ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... circumstances (and what the world will always believe blunders) had prevented their reaping the fruits of those repeated victories, and the great object of the expedition—Richmond—had been daily receding and was now apparently out of reach. The brilliant flank movement which McClellan was executing, seemed to them to be a simple retreat which was to take the remains of the Army of the Potomac to the James River for the purpose of an immediate embarkation and abandonment of the campaign. ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... constellation Hercules. This has been generally verified by recent and more exact calculations, {5} which fix on a point in Hercules, near the star 143 of the 17th hour, according to Piozzi's catalogue, as that towards which our sun is proceeding. It is, therefore, receding from the inner edge of the ring. Motions of this kind, through such vast regions of space, must be long in producing any change sensible to the inhabitants of our planet, and it is not easy to grasp their general character; but grounds have nevertheless been found for supposing ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... to have excused himself, had he known whom he was to meet at this dinner—Miss Hauton—the dangerous fair one, whom he had resolved to avoid. But he was in the room with her, and beyond all power of receding, before he knew his peril. The young lady looked more beautiful than ever, and more melancholy. One of the Miss Falconers took an opportunity of telling him, in confidence, the cause of her poor friend's dejection. "Her uncle, Lord Oldborough, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... beach, wringing her hands. Fancy flew after; but, when she reached the shore, there was nothing to be seen but the scattered pebbles, shells, and weeds that made the mock mermaid, floating away on a receding wave. ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... upon the receding mass of ice, while the moon was slowly working her way through a heavy bank of clouds. The mate stood by me with the glass; and when the full light fell upon the water with a brilliancy only known in our northern latitudes, I put the glass to my ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... it were with high cupolas of crystal, and divided into long aisles by columns of glittering spar, in some parts spread into wide horizontal chambers, in others terminated by the dark mouths of deep and steep abysses receding into the interior ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... had little at first to do, except to keep themselves afloat. All those who anxiously watched them, knew that the trial would come as they neared the beach, and got within the power of the under suck of the receding waves. At first they merely accompanied the cask, and supporting themselves by it, ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... he must address them in their own peculiar Platt. The lawyer pleads in the language of Schiller and Goethe; but when he examines his witnesses he has frequently to condescend to the vulgar tongue. That vulgar tongue is constantly receding from the towns; it is frightened away by railways, it is ashamed to show itself in parliament. But it is loved all the more by the people; it appeals to their hearts, and it comes back naturally to all who have ever talked it together in their youth. It is the same with the local patois of ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... associated with the Basque blood have wholly disappeared. This people is not receding—it holds its own, as it deserves to do; but as there are new fields which it has occupied within the present century upon the more western hills, so there are others to the east, and this valley among them, from whence it has disappeared. The Basque names ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... the dawn came. What there was to be of day followed swiftly, like the Arctic night. The shadows faded away, the shores loomed up and the illimitable sweep of the plain lifted itself into vision as if from out of a great sea of receding fog. In the quarter hour's phenomenon between the last of darkness and wide day Philip stood straining his eyes southward over the white path of the Coppermine. It was Celie, huddled close at his side, who turned her eyes first from the trail their enemies would follow. She faced the north, and ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... on the steering oar and gazing in silence at the gradually fading woods of his late home. The dog, as if it were aware that a great change was being effected in their destiny, lay also perfectly still—and apparently contemplative—at his master's feet; resting his chin on a log and gazing at the receding land. It was evident, however, that his thoughts were not absent or wandering, for, on the slightest motion made by his master, his dark eyes turned towards him, his ears slightly rose, and his tail gave the faintest possible indication ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... my hand to grip him, and he eluded me by a dexterous movement. I snatched again, and he turned from me and pushed open a door to escape. "Stop!" I said, and he laughed, receding. I leapt after ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... sp., which is the black wood of Madras; Sissoo, and Bheirs. Hizarnow is a large place, curiously occupying receding slopes of the base of a low range of hills, but it must be dreadfully hot. We passed several Kaburistans with pollarded, stunted, excavated Furas trees. One mile before Hizarnow, a curious hill of slate occurred, covered ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... razor. Tuft by tuft the soft brown beard fell down into the sand, and the little ants took it to line their nests with. Then the glass showed a face surrounded by a frilled cap, white as a woman's, with a little mouth, a very short upper lip, and a receding chin. ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... possibility of receding with honour, he, with becoming resolution, desired to urge things forward as fast as possible, and to strengthen in his mind the sense of the necessity of the sacrifice that he was bound to make. His passions were naturally impetuous, but he had by persevering efforts brought them under ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... in one of the lower proscenium boxes and quite clearly exposed to the gaze of the thousands who filled the theatre in winding rows, ascending and receding to the roof high above us. The garish decorations, the gay throng bedizened with jewels sparkling in the light and the hundreds of fair faces and bright eyes that were turned toward us presented a spectacle entirely new to Rayel. Shortly the curtain rose and the play began. Its first scene ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... a sun, appeared high in the air over the temple, illuminating it throughout; and a great song arose from the men in white, which went rolling round and round the building, now receding to the end, and now approaching, down the other side, the place where we stood. For some of the singers were regularly ceasing, and the next to them as regularly taking up the song, so that it crept onwards with gradations produced by changes which could not themselves ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... organism to a certain degree during the fever, it becomes necessary in due course to regulate the desire for food, which sometimes grows and asserts itself in a rapid and energetic manner, while the fever is receding. ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... echoing voices of the caon and rolls and rumbles along the great jagged fissure like an angry monster muttering his mighty wrath. Peal after peal follow each other in quick succession, the vigorous, newborn echoes of one peal seeming angrily to chase the receding voices of its predecessor from cliff to cliff, and from recess to projection, along its rocky, erratic course up the caon. Vivid flashes of forked lightning shoot athwart the heavy black cloud that seems to rest on either wall, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... She could see Milt Daggett only as a solemn young man in an inferior sweater, standing by the track in a melancholy autumnal light, waving to her as the train pulled out, disappearing in a dun obscurity, less significant than the station, the receding ties, or the porter who was, in places known only to his ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... Trenton that he found it impossible to get angrier than he had been when she first spoke. In fact, he found his anger receding rather than augmenting. It was something so entirely new to meet a lady who had such an utter disregard for the rules of politeness that obtain in any civilized society that Mr. Trenton felt he was having a unique and ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... next ten minutes her fresh, sweet, fascinating voice came to him where he stood in the yard; then he heard it growing fainter, more distant, receding; ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... made little change in the exterior of our block. It was situated at a point in the city from which the ebb tide of Fashion was slowly receding, and which the flood tide of Trade had not yet touched. There was not a new house on the block, or an old one materially altered. A little paint, and a diligent application of broom and Croton water, had kept the block quite fresh and jaunty. On the south side there were some slight external modifications, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... fading from the river now, the water was becoming like liquid silver, then, in a moment, like liquid steel. On the dahabeeyah, which began to look as if it were a long way off and were receding from her, shone a red and a blue light. Still the vehement voices of the brown fellahin at work by the shaduf rose unwearied along the Nile. During the last days Mrs. Armine's ears had grown accustomed to these voices, so accustomed to them that it was already becoming difficult ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... the other divisions of the army that still continued to press forward. When once the tide was thus turned, the Syracusans passed rapidly from the extreme of panic to the extreme of vengeful daring, and with all their forces they now fiercely assailed the embarrassed and receding Athenians. In vain did the officers of the latter strive to reform their line. Amid the din and the shouting of the fight, and the confusion inseparable upon a night engagement, especially one where many thousand combatants ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... accustomed place—so swiftly too that the monsters of the sea were swimming and running and that it was with difficulty they escaped with the sea. However, many fishes were left behind on the dry strand owing to the suddenness of the ebb. Declan, his crosier in his hand, pursued the receding tide and his disciples followed after him. Moreover the sea and the departing monsters made much din and commotion and when Declan arrived at the place where is now the margin of the sea a stripling whose name was Mainchin, frightened at the thunder of the waves and the cry of the ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... was about to ring when Mrs. Wylie herself, with stormy brow and snapping eyes, opened the door. "Go into the parlor," she jerked out from between her unpleasant-looking receding teeth. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... retrograde movement absolutely necessary. But Napoleon would not consent to this step, though he had at first pointed out Woronowo as a more secure position. In this war, still in his view rather political than military, he dreaded above all the appearance of receding. He ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... the Professor who uttered the word, at the same time receding a step or two, for the stranger's glance ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... while; Mrs. Delarayne gradually receding from the position of one on the verge of a dangerous malady, to that of a person merely threatened with a serious breakdown if her worries were not ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... leave of Mrs. Fitzgerald, Emily and her aunt settled a plan of correspondence; the deserted situation of this young woman having created great interest in the breasts of her new friends. General M'Carthy had returned to Spain without receding from his original proposal, and his niece was left to mourn her early departure from one of the ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... was looking into the fire with eyes that as yet saw only the ruins of a dream that had been so beautiful, the rapidly receding shadow of the man whom she had once made a ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... first complaint I had ever made to him in my life—the first time I had ever dared to enter his sanctum sanctorum; and I remained tongue-tied upon the threshold, without knowing how to begin. I thought he would have looked me down. I felt the blood receding from my face beneath his cold gaze, as ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... Ustenka. He saw in the dark street before him the gleam of the girl's white kerchief. The golden moon was descending towards the steppe. A silvery mist hung over the village. All was still; there were no lights anywhere and one heard only the receding footsteps of the young women. Olenin's heart beat fast. The fresh moist atmosphere cooled his burning face. He glanced at the sky and turned to look at the hut he had just come out of: the candle was already out. Then he again peered through the darkness ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... what I should most like the English to know of me." He was a dull talker. I supposed that philanthropists and state founders kept their best faculties for their higher pursuits. I imagined the low, receding forehead and the pink-nailed, fleshy hands to belong to a new Solon, a latter-day AEneas. I tried to work myself into the properly enthusiastic frame of mind. After all, it was a great work that he had undertaken. I was too much ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... The artisan's receding gait Has brushed the chips away, Where innocence shall recreate, Or like the flowers grow, and wait The ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... the stern of the fast-receding smack; Sunwich was getting dim in the distance and there was no other sail near. He began to realize that he was in for ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... whirling downward! All in vain did Pau-Puk-Keewis Struggle to regain his balance! Whirling round and round and downward, He beheld in turn the village And in turn the flock above him, Saw the village coming nearer, And the flock receding farther, Heard the voices growing louder, Heard the shouting and the laughter; Saw no more the flocks above him, Only saw the earth beneath him; Dead out of the empty heaven, Dead among the shouting people, With a heavy sound ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... week came and went oftener. The cleric in the long black frock was also daily there. And at last came that last sacrament in the gates of death, when the sinner is traversing those dread steps that never can be retraced; when the face is turned for ever from life, and we see a receding shape, and hear a voice already irrevocably in the land ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... visitors departed, she learned that the smaller man was blind; for his companion led him out of the room and out of the house. She stood awhile listening to the tap, tap, tap of the heavy stick receding along the street. What she did not hear, and could not have understood had she heard, since it was uttered in Spanish, was the cry of exultant hatred which came from the ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... my sack of grain, and a grunt when his purchase was set in his hands, each black-haired desert figure turned away, the bare feet moving silent, and the copper body, stark naked except the breech-clout, receding to dimness in the thorn-bush. But I lay incurious at this new vision of what our wide continent holds in fee under the single title United States, until breakfast came. This helped me, and I livened somewhat at finding the ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... as we were expecting, the sun climbed up into an unsullied sky, and, mounting by leaps and bounds, we watched the cloud floor receding beneath us. The effect was extremely beautiful. A description written to the Times the next morning, while the impression was still fresh, and from notes made at this period, ran thus:—"Away to an infinitely distant horizon stretched rolling billows of snowy whiteness, ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... places the rock wall rose sheer two thousand feet from the roaring tide. Inlets, gloomy with forested mountain walls where impetuous streams laden with the milky silt of countless glaciers tore their way through the rocks to the sea, could be seen receding inland through the fog. Then the foul weather settled over the sea again; and by the first {51} week of August, with baffling winds and choppy sea, the St. Paul was veering southwestward where Alaska ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... title, but not altogether satisfactory, because it is at first sight negative. This had been the reason of my dislike to the word "Protestant;" viz. it did not denote the profession of any particular religion at all, and was compatible with infidelity. A Via Media was but a receding from extremes,—therefore it needed to be drawn out into a definite shape and character: before it could have claims on our respect, it must first be shown to be one, intelligible, and consistent. This was the first condition of any reasonable ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... tired, thin, shabby girl you saw at La Trappe was certainly not I.... And long before that, before I knew you, there was another impersonal, half—awakened creature, who watched the world surging and receding around her, who grew tired even of violets and bonbons, tired of the companionship of the indifferent, hurt by the intimacy of the unfriendly; and I cannot believe that she was I.... ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers |
