"Ascendant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... epenthetic and servile letters in both languages: their antiquity, both having been taught on the plain of Shinar 242 years after the deluge in the seminary instituted by Fenius Farsaigh, descendant of Noah, progenitor of Israel, and ascendant of Heber and Heremon, progenitors of Ireland: their archaeological, genealogical, hagiographical, exegetical, homiletic, toponomastic, historical and religious literatures comprising the works of rabbis and ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... and, with regard to pecuniary consideration, my engagement is not an advantageous one. —Madame Dorval, of whom I have taken the house, is a character very common in France, and over which I was little calculated to have the ascendant. Officiously polite in her manners, and inflexibly attentive to her interest, she seemingly acquiesces in every thing you propose. You would even fancy she was solicitous to serve you; yet, after a thousand gracious sentiments, and as many implied eulogiums on ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... the skies. Sirius held the ascendant, and under his influence even the radiant band of the Celestials began to droop, while the great ball-room of Olympus grew gradually more and more deserted. For nearly a week had Orpheus, the leader of the heavenly orchestra, played to ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... external authority. Nothing could be franker than the antagonism of the movement, from its inception, to the liberal spirit of the age. By inner logic Newman found himself at last in the Roman Church. Yet the Anglo-Catholic movement is to-day overwhelmingly in the ascendant in the English Church. The Broad Churchmen of the middle of the century have had few successors. It is the High Church which stands over against the great mass of the dissenting churches which, taken in the large, can hardly be said to be theologically more ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... moral nature is ascendant is not the subject, but the superior of circumstances. He is free; nay, more, he is a king; and though this sovereignty may have been won by many desperate battles, once on the throne, and holding the sceptre with a firm grasp, he has a royalty of which neither time nor accident ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... hour did Peter Davidson with his silent companion trudge over the monotonous plains—hope in the ascendant, and vigour, apparently, inexhaustible. The dogs, too, were good and strong. A brief halt now and then of a few minutes sufficed to freshen them for every new start. Night passed away, and daylight came in with its ghostly revelations of ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... Whig brethren; but, as soon as General Taylor was nominated, the policy of browbeating and threats was invoked. I had no taste for politics, and had determined to devote myself entirely to my profession. I was especially anxious to avoid any strife with the Whigs, who were overwhelmingly in the ascendant in Eastern Indiana, and in whose ranks were most of my clients and best friends. But the party leaders talked to me in the imperative mood. They saw my embarrassment, and seemed determined to coerce ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... the uneasiness I laboured under through fear that he, though innocent, might feel the effects of your anger, to which I knew he was left exposed. I suffered but little from the insolence of the wretch who had carried me off; for having secured the ascendant over him, I always put a stop to his disagreeable overtures, and was as little constrained as I am ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... a similar letter, but they had not dared to tell each other, and all three of them were on their guard and watched each other and dared not move or speak, and they just talked nonsense. If Lili Reinhart's natural carelessness took the ascendant for a moment, or if she began to laugh and talk wildly, suddenly a look from her husband or Christophe would stop her dead; the letter would cross her mind; she would stop in the middle of a familiar gesture and grow uneasy. Christophe and ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... would direct all aspirants for heraldic distinctions, as a matter of course, to their own doors. The Heralds, who really are Heralds, and who alone are real Heralds, may rely on the support of Public Opinion. If a fictitious Heraldry is not only prevalent, but in some sense actually in the ascendant, it is not because the counterfeit is preferred to the genuine, but because it is unconsciously mistaken for it. In very many instances, indeed, adetermination to obtain "Arms" is coupled with an ignorance of Heraldry so complete, as to ignore the existence of any such thing ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell
... Grecophils (who desire that these countries should have no mandate, but should act in a friendly spirit towards an independent Albania). Meanwhile the Italophils, nearly all of them on Italy's pay-roll, were, till a few months ago, in the ascendant, and their attitude towards the other party was relentless.] One Alush Ljocha, for example, said that he thought it would be well if Yugoslavia and Albania lived on friendly terms with one another. Because of this—the Government having adopted other ideas—his ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... in recognition of this principle, that up to the present time questions which may affect the honor of a nation have not been considered a fit subject for arbitration. As long as faith and aspiration and their kindred feelings are in the ascendant, conscience will tell the individual, as it will tell the nation, that certain things cannot and must not be abandoned, even at ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... several giraffes had been seen in the neighbourhood, and the hopes of the hunters were once more in the ascendant. All were in high spirits with the prospect that, within two or three days, they might be on their return to Graaf Reinet. To make more sure of success they paid a visit to the second mimosa grove, taking along ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... literature is a great morgue, wherein each seeks the dead who are near or dear to him." Into what morgue fell John Martin before his death? How account for the violent changes in popular taste? Martin suffered from too great early success. The star of Turner was in the ascendant. John Ruskin denied merit to the mezzotinter, and so it is to-day that if you go to our print-shops you will seldom find one of his big or little plates. He has gone out of fashion—fatal phrase!—and only in the cabinets ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... I fancy; but L600 a year might do better than purchase so many incumbrances. Depend upon it, the late lamented will remain in the ascendant till there ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... taste of novel readers. And then again there was the feeling of another great fault. Let there be the virtuous in a novel and let there be the vicious, the dignified and the undignified, the sublime and the ridiculous,—only let the virtuous, the dignified, and the sublime be in the ascendant. Edith Bellenden, and Lord Evandale, and Morton himself would be too stilted, were they not enlivened by Mause, and Cuddie, and Poundtext. But here, in this novel, the vicious and the absurd have been made to be of more importance than the good and the noble. Becky Sharp ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... you must be in high feather with the Colonel, or your lucky star is in the ascendant," said Captain Hastings to our young hero, a few days after his return from Calcutta, as they ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... more welcome to those for whose inspection he was writing. His version of the same events, when presented to members of the house of York, varies much from the original work, edited when a Lancastrian was in the ascendant.] ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... race, the creation and re-creation, the weaving and changing and handing down of fleshly elements. That a child should be born of its mother, that it should grow and clothe itself (we know not how) with humanity, and put on inherited looks, and turn its head with the manner of one ascendant, and offer its hand with the gesture of another, are wonders dulled for us by repetition. But in the singular unity of look, in the common features and common bearing, of all these painted generations on the walls of the residencia, the miracle started out and looked me in the face. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dans certains cas de penitence publique, le clerge imposoit pour satisfaction un pelerinage a Jerusalem, ou un temps fixe de croisade. Plusieurs fois meme les papes employerent tous les ressorts de leur politique et l'ascendant de leur autorite pour renouer chez les princes chretiens quelqu'une de ces ligues saintes, ou leur ambition avoit tant a gagner sans rien risquer ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... headed for the New Hebrides. Every hour our impatience was growing greater. In less than two days, all being well, we should be at our destination, and twenty-four hours after that, if our fortune proved in the ascendant, we ought to be on our way back with Phyllis in our possession once more. And what this would mean to me I can only leave you ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... history, your family, your education, and, under the most felicitous circumstances, would be proud and happy to call you brother. Now, then, decide to try again. Clara shall not refuse you; she does not wish to do so; on the contrary, she loves you; but some of her oddness was in the ascendant to-night, and so it happened as it did. At any rate I can no longer trifle with my own safety, and have no authority or means to prevent Don Carlos from exercising unlimited power over my sister's actions. Good-night, senor, you can strike the gong when you wish ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... hunted creatures at bay. Early the A. M. A. opened here its Mission School and Church. Difficulties, peculiar to the heterogeneous material thus gathered, have gradually been overcome, until now the gospel is in the ascendant as an assimilating force. The church and school under Rev. J. E. B. Jewett and his wife, of Pepperell, Mass., are in a high degree of prosperity. The New England Academy Principal seems especially adapted to these children of toil. The Association had the round of discussions, ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 38, No. 06, June, 1884 • Various
... her armed wrath hath kept aloof The breast which would have bled for her, the heart That beat, the mind that was temptation proof, The man who fought, toiled, travelled, and each part Of a true citizen fulfilled, and saw For his reward the Guelf's ascendant art 90 Pass his destruction even into a law. These things are not made for forgetfulness, Florence shall be forgotten first; too raw The wound, too deep the wrong, and the distress Of such endurance too prolonged to make My pardon greater, her injustice less, Though ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... an opportunity to retire from parliamentary life. He had expressed that intention several months before. He wrote to Holton, on May 13th, 1867, "My fixed determination is to see the Liberal party re-united and in the ascendant, and then make my bow as a politician. As a journalist and a citizen, I hope always to be found on the right side and heartily supporting my old friends. But I want to be free to write of men and things without control, beyond that which my conscientious convictions ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... considerable extent abashed and humbled before the bright rising sun of Islam. The Persian language, which the conquerors (68) of whatever denomination introduced with them to Hindustan, and which their descendants at the present day still retain, though not lords of the ascendant, speedily became widely extended in these regions, where it had previously been unknown. As the language of the court, it was of course studied and acquired by all those natives whose wealth, rank, and influence necessarily brought ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... and remarkable retentiveness of memory, she mastered her studies with surprising quickness, and distanced all her competitors. Had she been amiable, her young classmates would have been proud of the honors she acquired, for it is easy to yield the palm to one always in the ascendant, but she looked down with contempt on those of inferior attainments, and claimed as a right the homage they ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... peace-at-any-price fellow. Rather a nice chap, but brought up with his father's notions. As luck would have it, a match had been arranged between Nancarrow and a rival for the Admiral's daughter's affections, and the old man was present. You see, my star was in the ascendant. Of course I followed the match as an ignorant but ardent admirer of ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... incursions of barbarian tribes from the North and East, and later of Moors and Arabs from the South, familiarized the European peoples with the ideas of bloodshed and violence; gross and material conceptions of life were in the ascendant; and a romantic and aspiring Christianity gave place to a worldly ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... time sunk into profound ignorance and superstition. The ecclesiastics had acquired the greatest ascendant over the human mind: the people, who, being little restrained by honor, and less by law, abandoned themselves to the worst crimes and disorders, knew of no other expiation than the observances imposed on them by their spiritual pastors: and it was easy to represent the ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... exaggeration, and absurd as it is gross. I say nothing of the unseemly egotism of a dominant caste, thus parading its own merits, flaunting its plumes, strutting and crowing over the common folk—of this pharisaic spirit of the ascendant Protestant, standing close to the altar, reciting to God and the world the number of his resplendent virtues, and scornfully contrasting his excellent moral condition with the degraded Catholic—the vile publican and sinner, ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... away for a few days, Tom and Erica were amusing themselves by trying to live on the rather strange diet of the man who published his plan for living at the smallest possible cost. They were already beginning to be rather weary of porridge, pea soup and lentils. This evening pea soup was in the ascendant, and Erica, tired with a long afternoon's work, felt as if she could almost as soon ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... Orleans," did not see that the Republican party of the old school had been snuffed out by the same event. The new democracy, whose claims to rule were based, not on the policy of peace or restricted powers, but on the seductive glitter of military glory, was in the ascendant, and General Jackson was the favorite of the hour. New combinations became necessary, and Mr. Gallatin was requested to withdraw from the ticket, and make room for Mr. Clay, whose great western influence it was hoped ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... "Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia." Mr. Wallace says that a "considerable number of well-known naturalists either spoke approvingly of it, or advocated similar principles, and for a good many years it was decidedly in the ascendant...yet it quite died out in a few short years, its very existence is now a matter of history, and so rapid was its fall that...Swainson, perhaps, lived to be the last man who believed in it. Such is the course of a false theory. ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... aphelium of Mars, who is the generall significator of England, will be in Virgo, which is assuredly the ascendant of the English Monarchy, but Aries of the kingdom. When this absis, therefore, of Mars shall appear in Virgo, who shall expect less than a strange catastrophe of human affairs in the commonwealth, monarchy, and kingdom ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 368, May 2, 1829 • Various
... these caught sight of the approaching party they sprang to their arms, which of course lay handy, for in those regions, at the time we write of, the law of might was in the ascendant. The appearance and conduct of Unaco, however, deceived them, for that wily savage advanced towards them with an air of confidence and candour which went far to remove suspicion, and when, on drawing nearer, he threw down his knife and tomahawk, and held up his ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... operations, and was losing considerable sums at the game. He had against him his own fury, his adversary's coolness, and the blunderings of Paganetti, who was his man of straw. In any case his golden star was no longer in the ascendant. Paul de Gery knew this through Joyeuse, who was now a stock-broker's accountant and well up in the doings on the Bourse. What troubled him most, however, was the Nabob's singular agitation, his need of constant distraction ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... conjurers What cut-purses have left with them For the right owners to redeem; And what they dare not vent find out, 345 To gain themselves and th' art repute; Draw figures, schemes, and horoscopes, Of Newgate, Bridewell, brokers' shops, Of thieves ascendant in the cart; And find out all by rules of art; 350 Which way a serving-man, that's run With cloaths or money away, is gone: Who pick'd a fob at holding forth; And where a watch, for half the worth, May be redeem'd; ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... who was it seemed lamentable that he couldn't urge her; but to the Claude who might be there were higher things than the gratification of fastidious social tastes, and for the moment that Claude had some hope of the ascendant. It was that Claude who spoke when, after dinner, the men had rejoined ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... himself strong enough to enter upon his project of crushing the Druzes. His power in the mountains being in the ascendant, he ordered the Druze sheiks to assemble at Deir el-Kamr. They came armed, and, as they approached Deir el-Kamr, were required to send away their followers and lay aside their arms. They refused. A battle ensued, and the Maronites were defeated. The Patriarch then proclaimed a crusade ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... time when the country was overrun by the enemy. This parole was subsequently withdrawn by the conquerors, when they supposed the people to have been subdued, and desired their services as militia. But the British were in turn driven from the field. The Americans acquired the ascendant. The section of the country in which Hayne resided was overrun by a detachment of Marion, under Col. Harden, and Hayne availed himself of the occasion to take up arms for his country. He was a popular gentleman, and soon gathered a strong party of militia. His career ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... they first make, and afterward improve impressions in their favor. Those impressions are much oftener owing to little causes than to intrinsic merit; which is less volatile, and hath not so sudden an effect. Strong minds have undoubtedly an ascendant over weak ones, as Galigai Marachale d'Ancre very justly observed, when, to the disgrace and reproach of those times, she was executed for having governed Mary of Medicis by the arts of witchcraft and magic. But then ascendant ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... utter extirpation of Romanism and the limitation of the regal power. The Lords of the Congregation implored the aid of England, which Elizabeth was ready to grant, both from political and religious motives. The Protestant cause was in the ascendant, when the queen regent died, in 1560. The same year died Francis II., of France; and Mary, now a widow, resolved to return to her own kingdom. She landed at Leith, August, 1561, and was received with the grandest demonstration of joy. For a time, affairs were tolerably tranquil, Mary having ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... a change had come upon John Lansdowne. Only a few weeks ago, he was a careless youth, of keen and vigorous intellectual powers, satiated with books and tired of college walls, with the boy spirit in the ascendant within him. His eye was wide open and observant, and his ringing laugh was so merry, that it brought an involuntary smile upon any one who might chance to hear its rich peals. His talk was rapid, gay, and brilliant, with but the slightest ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... warmly contested by the two political parties in Kansas, and a greater vote was polled than at any previous election. A large majority of the members of the legislature elect belonged to that party which had previously refused to vote. The antislavery party were thus placed in the ascendant, and the political power of the State was in their own hands. Had Congress admitted Kansas into the Union under the Lecompton constitution, the legislature might at its very first session have submitted the question to a vote of the people whether they would or would not have a convention ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... master should not begrudge him his wages!" he said with a quiet chuckle, "though he has made one grave mistake to-night. But what extraordinary luck! Surely my star must be in the ascendant! Ah, Martin, my friend, one need not necessarily be an astrologer to foretell ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... in the second half of the Seventeenth Century, when the influence of French classicism was in the ascendant, this study is not concerned. In the period which has just been surveyed three points are noteworthy: the character of the English critics, the slowness with which the classical theories penetrated English thought, and the modifications which ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... inexhaustible richness of his lyric versatility, early brought Drachmann to the front and kept him there. Meanwhile prose imaginative literature was ably supported by Sophus Schandorph (1836-1901), who had been entirely out of sympathy with the idealists, and had taken no step while that school was in the ascendant. In 1876, in his fortieth year, he was encouraged by the change in taste to publish a volume of realistic stories, Country Life, and in 1878 a novel, Without a Centre. He has some relation with Guy de Maupassant as a close analyst of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... itself sooner for a faulty individuality than for that which is produced or amended according to a universal law of taste. Rhythm lay yet in the cradle, and no one knew of a method to shorten its childhood. Poetical prose came into the ascendant. Gessner and Klopstock excited many imitators: others, again, still demanded an intelligible metre, and translated this prose into rhythm. But even these gave nobody satisfaction, for they were obliged to omit and add; and the prose original always passed for the better of the two. But the more, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... depletion of Bragg by the detachment of Buckner, giving to Grant the very opportunity he desired. The good fortune of the National commander culminated at Missionary Ridge. Soldiers believe in good luck quite as much as in genius, and follow a leader whose star is in the ascendant with a confidence which is the guaranty of victory. Great opportunities, however, come to all. The difference between a great soldier and an inferior one is that the great man uses his opportunities to the full, and so fortune seems to be in league with him. When Grant ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... that no proceedings shall be taken against them. Anything can be done with money in Spain. There are many upright and honourable Spaniards, but very few of them take any part in public affairs, and would not associate with such men as those who are in the ascendant in all the provincial juntas, and even in the ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... the goal of my hopes appears in view! Lady Milford, the most fearful obstacle to our love, has this moment fled the land. My father sanctions my choice. Fate grows weary of persecuting us, and our propitious stars now blaze in the ascendant—I am come to fulfil my plighted troth, and to lead my bride ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... again getting very rickety, and many heads were busy with suggestions for patching it in one part or another. With Chatham in retreat and the king in the ascendant, it seemed that Townshend had the surest seat. But there is one risk against which even monarchs cannot insure their favorites, and that risk now fell out against Townshend. He died suddenly of a fever, in September, 1767. Lord North succeeded him, destined to do everything ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... BEHALF OF THE COMMON GOOD either against some state official or state regulation, or against the actions or inaction of another individual. This is the only sort of legal proceedings compatible with the broad beliefs of the new faith. . . . Every religion that becomes ascendant, in so far as it is not otherworldly, must necessarily set its stamp upon the methods and administration of the law. That this was not the case with Christianity is one of the many contributory aspects that lead one to the conviction ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... would, as usual, have reconciled the people of England to any means, however arbitrary, by which it had been attained. But the calamities, and, at last, the hopelessness of the conflict, inclined them to moralize upon its causes and character. The hour of Lord North's ascendant was now passing rapidly away, and Mr. Sheridan could not have joined the Opposition, at a conjuncture more favorable to the excitement of his powers, or more bright in the views which it opened upon ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... of the kingdom. The Duke of Guise and the Cardinal Lorraine were for a rupture, for they hoped to increase their family influence by war. Coligny had signed the treaty of Vaucelles, and wished to maintain it, but the influence of the Catholic party was in the ascendant. The result was to embroil the Catholic King against the Pope and against themselves. The queen was as favorably inclined as the mistress to listen to Caraffa, for Catherine de Medici was desirous that her cousin, Marshal Strozzi, should ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... later, at the Beach Club for luncheon; and, as the latter looked particularly fat, warm, and worried, Malcourt's perverse humour remained in the ascendant, and he tormented Portlaw until that badgered gentleman emitted ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... Nothing must be allowed to trouble Miss Graham of Bourhill. Her star should always be in the ascendant,' ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... temperature of the atmosphere, will tell on the most genial temper, relax the strongest intellect, and dim the brightest imagination; while other physical causes, quite as mysterious, can make reason reel and lunacy become ascendant. The very infirmities of old age; the constant toil required to satisfy our cravings for food and raiment; the wounds and bruises the body receives, and which agonise it, and the deformity which so often disfigures it, cramping ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... it, and I like it all the better for the marks of Totty's little feet, bless 'em!" and Christie cuddled the culprit with one hand while she revealed the damaged delicacy with the other, wondering inwardly what evil star was always in the ascendant ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... coleopterous about the flowers, that it might be questioned whether their buds and blossoms made up for these unpleasant animal combinations,—especially as the smell of whale-oil soap was very commonly in the ascendant over that of the roses. It had its patch of grass called "the lawn," and its glazed closet known as "the conservatory," according to that system of harmless fictions characteristic of the rural imagination and shown ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... disorder grew which paralysed the civil development of the country, made bankrupt the national treasury, and prostituted the people to becoming mere levies of insurgents, to be drawn upon by this or that revolutionary leader whose sinister star for the moment happened to be in the ascendant. Armed highwaymen infested the roads and inhabited the mountains, and travel was impossible without an escort. A terrible disregard of human life resulted, and became so strong a characteristic of the Mexicans as has even ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... found to have been mixed up with the plots to murder Elizabeth; and Elizabeth at last took courage and recognised James. Supplies of money ceased to come from abroad, and gradually the tide turned. The Protestant cause once more grew towards the ascendant. The great families one by one came round again; and, as the backward movement began, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew gave it a fresh and tremendous impulse. Even the avowed Catholics—the Hamiltons, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... not follow, however, that the people of Central Macedonia, even if Bulgarian churches are in the ascendant among them, are really connected by ties of blood and language with Bulgaria rather than with Servia. If history is invoked we shall have to admit that under Dushan this region was a part of the Serb empire ...
— The Balkan Wars: 1912-1913 - Third Edition • Jacob Gould Schurman
... accustomed to such scenes would easily have detected the signs of divided opinions and of agitating doubts among the chiefs, though nothing like contention or dispute had yet manifested itself. Peter's control was still in the ascendant, and he had neglected none of his usual means of securing influence. Perhaps he labored so much the harder, from the circumstance that he now found himself so situated, as to be compelled to undo much that ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... year (1667) "Paradise Lost" was published, and Milton's blank verse was the death of Dryden's theories. After a few years Dryden recanted his error. The "Essay of Dramatic Poesie" is interesting as a setting forth in 1667 of mistaken critical opinions which were at that time in the ascendant, but had not very long to live. Dryden always wrote good masculine prose, and all his critical essays are good reading as pieces of English. His "Essay of Dramatic Poesie" is good reading as illustrative of the weakness of our literature in the days of the influence of France after ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... to be found on the high seas; and he had been with Sir John Norreys and Sir Francis Drake in a bootless but not unprofitable expedition to Lisbon. On his return from the Portugal voyage his court fortunes underwent a change. Essex, who had long scorned "that knave Ralegh," was in the ascendant. Ralegh found the Queen, for some reason or another, and reasons were not hard to find, offended and dangerous. He bent before the storm. In the end of the summer of 1589, he was in Ireland, looking after his large seignories, his law-suits with the old proprietors, ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... the man is good for much more than I gave him credit for; a real desire for the improvement of the lower classes, and this reality of feeling is, I take it, the secret, joined to his great power of humour, of his ascendant popularity. ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... was established on his sofa in the little drawing-room, which his wife and daughters still strove so very hard to keep fresh and pretty. From this sofa, alas! especially now that winter was in the ascendant even at sheltered Southcliff, the invalid was but seldom able to move. For walking had become exceedingly painful and difficult, and so slow that even a little fresh air at the best part of the day could only ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... in possession of all the ground of the peninsula outside the "fort-proper" (Hindman). I found General McClernand on the Tigress, in high spirits. He said repeatedly: "Glorious! glorious! my star is ever in the ascendant!" He spoke complimentarily of the troops, but was extremely jealous of the navy. He said: "I'll make a splendid report;" "I had a man up a tree;" etc. I was very hungry and tired, and fear I did not appreciate the honors ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... for reforms; but it was clear that the king would never consent to reign except as an absolute monarch, and for this they were unprepared. The violent party among the Cavaliers now ruled supreme in the councils of Charles. For a short time the royal cause seemed in the ascendant. Leicester had been taken by storm, Taunton was besieged, Fairfax was surrounding Oxford, but was doing nothing against the town. On the 5th of June he was ordered to raise the siege, and to go to the Midland ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... speak of the numerous and violent attacks on his work, which were then in the ascendant. In the case of many of those pitiful botches one was, in fact, quite at a loss whether more to lament the want of understanding and judgment they showed or to give the greater vent to the indignation one could not but feel at the arrogance and presumption of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... long in my Chamber before Mrs. Jewkes came to me, and told me, my Master would not see me any more that Evening, that is, if he can help it; for, added she, I easily perceive the great Ascendant you have over him, and to confess the Truth, I don't doubt but you ...
— An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews • Conny Keyber
... money and creature comforts were alike matters of indifference to her, and as a rule she preferred the roving life of a hawker, as it brought her more into contact with her fellow creatures. Hawking was in the ascendant now, and she was hurrying out to replenish her basket at St. John's Market when a boy unceremoniously opened her door, and, thrusting a crumpled and dirty piece of paper into her hand, stood staring at ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... soon as the car was full she jolted us into the town through clouds of the thickest dust I ever have swallowed. I have had occasion to speak of the activity of women in France, - of the way they are always in the ascendant; and here was a signal example of their general utility. The young lady I have mentioned conveyed her whole company to the wretched little Hotel de France, where it is to be hoped that some of them found a lodging. For myself, I was informed that the place was crowded from cellar ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... will gain honour and renown, and come to fortune through a marriage. There are other things in your career that are uncertain, since I cannot tell at what date they are likely to occur and whether the planets that were favourable at your birth may again be in the ascendant; but, for as much as I have told you, ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... mine twenty-five louis if he could be adroit enough to run afoul of that confounded de Sigognac—who is the bane of my life—and drive over him, as if by accident. Decidedly the star of my destiny is not in the ascendant—this miserable little rustic lordling gets the better of me in everything. Isabelle, sweet Isabelle, adores HIM, and detests me—he has beaten my lackeys, and dared to wound ME. But there shall be an end of this sort of thing, and that ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... full half hour ere the Duke of Albany appeared—a period of time which Rothsay spent partly in moody silence, and partly in idle talk with MacLouis and the Brandanes, as the levity or irritability of his temper obtained the ascendant. ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... platform, could undo the result of such leadership. It was far from certain which ticket would receive the greater vote in November, but it was clear that union against disunion was the issue, and that men would vote according to their hopes and fears. The former were in the ascendant when the polls were opened, for Sherman had gained a decisive victory in his occupation of Atlanta, while Farragut had gained another at Mobile Bay. On the strength of these successes the Union ticket carried every State but Delaware, ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... other care to prevent intriguing than to keep the men effectually away. For though inclination, which we prettily call love, does sometimes move a little too visibly in the sex, and frailty often follows, yet I think verily custom, which we miscall modesty, has so far the ascendant over the sex that solicitation always goes ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... the world when a favourably disposed band of demons was in the ascendant he would certainly have merited an earlier and more embellished appearance in this written chronicle. So far, however, nothing but omens of an ill-destined obscurity had beset his career. For many years two ambitions alone had contained his mind, ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... swinging out of all concordance with spherical sweetness!—Hate that prefers falsehood to truth, malice to kindness, selfishness to generosity! O Sorrowful Star!—doomed so soon to perish!—turn, turn, even in thy last moments, back to the Divine Ascendant before it is ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... be developed. Wells or pits are dug at regular intervals, the exact depth and the character of the upper earth being noted. This often involves a large expenditure of money and labor, and many fortunes have been wasted, by parties whose lucky star was not in the ascendant, in their persistent yet unsuccessful ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... I say, because, in the conflict of forces, the influences that made for life have been in the ascendant. This conflict of forces has been a part of the process of our development. We have been ground out as between an upper and a nether millstone, but we have squeezed through, we have actually arrived, and are all the better for the grinding—all those who have ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... over long-protracted public service, over the weakness of age, and over life itself only when the ends of living had been fulfilled. These suns, as they rose slowly and steadily, amidst clouds and storms in their ascendant, so they have not rushed from their meridian to sink suddenly in the west. Like the mildness, the serenity, the continuing benignity of summer's day, they have gone down with slow-descending, grateful, ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... explanation is that vessels in olden days were named for animals, etc. They bore at the prow the carved effigy of the namesake, and if the Great Bear, for example, made several very happy voyages by setting out when a certain constellation was in the ascendant, that constellation might become known as the Great Bear's constellation. Certainly, there is nothing in its shape to justify the name. Very few of the constellations indeed are like the thing they are called after. Their names were usually given for some fanciful association with the ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... constitution. In proportion to the progress of reason and philosophy, which have made great advances in this kingdom [**kingfrom in original], superstition loses ground; ancient prejudices give way; a spirit of freedom takes the ascendant. All the learned laity of France, detest the hierarchy as a plan of despotism, founded on imposture and usurpation. The protestants, who are very numerous in the southern parts, abhor it with all the rancour of religious fanaticism. Many of the Commons, enriched by commerce and ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... son were both sober, or when the son was tipsy, or when the father was absolutely drunk—an accident which would occur occasionally, the spirit and pluck of the son was in the ascendant. He at such times was the more masterful of the two, and generally contrived, either by persuasion or bullying, to govern his governor. But when it did happen that Mollett pere was half drunk and ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... time passed from 1366 to 1371, when the Guelphs again regained the ascendant. There was in the family of the Buondelmonti a gentleman named Benchi, who, as an acknowledgment of his merit in a war against the Pisans, though one of the nobility, had been admitted among the people, and thus became eligible ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... alliance against the Ottoman brought her everything, and him nothing. Still, no foreigner ever dazzled her as he, who could so little impose himself on his age. "He will live unrivalled," she wrote in her enthusiasm; "his star is in the ascendant, he will leave all Europe behind!" A wandering star, alas! He will go before her to the grave, the great failure of his generation, in the bitterness of death dictating that saddest of epitaphs, "Here lies one who never fulfilled an aim." Impar congressus! ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... walls of the fortress we saw the sun go down; and then, with Starr in the ascendant again, we strolled through quiet streets, crossing bridges over canals spread with soft green carpets of moss. But we were not going to the hotel; and without a word about dinner, I asked if they would care to see a student's "diggings." I had ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... star was in the ascendant there can be little doubt. But fortune had far less to do with his success than skill and insight; and in two instances—the misconduct of his cavalry, and the surprise of the 12th Georgia—the blind goddess played him false. Not that he trusted ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... than diminished. In one of these there had once come a note inclosed to Zillah, condoling with her on her father's death. It was manly and sympathetic, and not at all stiff. Zillah had received it when her bitter feelings were in the ascendant, and did not think of answering it until Hilda urged on her the necessity of doing so. It is just possible that if Hilda had made use of different arguments she might have persuaded Zillah to send some sort of an answer, if only to please the Earl. The arguments, however, which she did use ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... has tottered in the wild anarchy of theories to which it has given rise. There is no worldly advantage that has been more austerely denounced by the divine writers than riches, and yet it is fast rising to be the god of the ascendant. To say nothing of an hereafter, society is getting to be corrupted by it to the core, and even respect for birth is yielding ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... relapse into helplessness again. They lack the vision that inspires every moment, discerns a sure way, and heightens the spirit to battle without ceasing, which is characteristic of the great years. They tacitly accept that theirs is a useless generation, that the enemy is in the ascendant, that they cannot unseat him, and their action, where any is made, is but to show their attitude, never to convince opponents that the battle is again beginning, that this is a bid for freedom, that history will be called on to record their fight and pay tribute to ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... force of my eloquence, which exceeded that of all orators contemporary with me; by the integrity of my life, my moderation, and my prudence; but, above all, by my artful management of the people, whose power I increased that I might render it the basis and support of my own, I gained such an ascendant over all my opponents that, having first procured the banishment of Cimon by ostracism, and then of Thucydides, another formidable antagonist set up by the nobles against my authority, I became the unrivalled chief, or rather the monarch, of the Athenian Republic, without ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... Indeed, Napoleon's threats to this hapless realm seemed for a time to portend its annihilation. The King, therefore, sent Scharnhorst first to St. Petersburg and then to Vienna with secret overtures for an alliance. They were virtually refused. Prudence was in the ascendant at both capitals; and, as will presently appear, the more sagacious Prussians soon came to see that a war, in which Napoleon could be enticed into the heart of Russia, might deal a mortal blow at his overgrown Empire. Certainly it was ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... 'tis true; your footman sometimes ... but you have always had the ascendant, I confess. When we were school-fellows, you made me carry your books, make your exercise, own your rogueries, and sometimes take a whipping for you. When we were fellow-'prentices, though I was your senior, you made me open the shop, clean my master's boots, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... of human eloquence.[98] In Chalmers' fulminating energy, the mechanical polemics of an appropriation clause in a parliamentary bill assume a passionate and living air. He had warned his northern flock, 'should the disaster ever befall us, of vulgar and upstart politicians becoming lords of the ascendant, and an infidel or demi-infidel government wielding the destinies of this mighty empire, and should they be willing at the shrines of their own wretched partizanship to make sacrifice of those great and hallowed ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... Howe's cheeks, while both father and mother spoke sharply to the girl for her boldness and impertinence. But in a moment the general's good-nature was once more in the ascendant, and he interfered to ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... positive and negative aspects which function side by side. One builds up. The other wears down. For centuries the building forces in western civilization were in the ascendant. Since the turn of the century a shift of forces has been under way. The wearing down forces presently are in the ascendant. Had it been less competitive and more cooperative and co-ordinated, western civilization ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... was in one of those angry knots which are half of the intellect, half of the will, and are much under the domination of one or other of the passions in the ascendant. She was resolved to go forward; she felt justified in going forward; but the divine afflatus of enthusiasm buoyed her no longer, and she required the support of all that accuracy of insight and that senseless ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... great surprize he beheld an infant, wrapt up in some coarse linen, in a sweet and profound sleep, between his sheets. He stood some time lost in astonishment at this sight; but, as good nature had always the ascendant in his mind, he soon began to be touched with sentiments of compassion for the little wretch before him. He then rang his bell, and ordered an elderly woman-servant to rise immediately, and come to him; and in the meantime was so eager in contemplating the ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... with defiant platitudes and truisms—for almost defiantly she took the commonplace, vulgarian point of view; yet after everything she would turn with her quiet, triumphant assurance to James Houghton, and start on some point of business, soft, assured, ascendant. The others shut ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... its domain. Every conquest by a republic reduced some village or center of civil life to the condition of serfdom. The voices of the inhabitants were no longer heard debating questions that affected their interests. They submitted to dictation from their masters, the enfranchised few in the ascendant commonwealth. Thus, as Guicciardini pointed out in his 'Considerations on the Discourses of Machiavelli,' the subjection of Italy by a dominant republic would have meant the extinction of numberless political communities and the sway of a close oligarchy from the Alps to the Ionian Sea.[1] ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... continental arrangement, intricate and entangled as all the elements were at the time. Napoleon never ceased to deplore the impossibility of coming to any reciprocal terms with England so long as Pitt's influence was in the ascendant, and he and a large public in France and in this country profoundly believed that Fox had not only the desire but the following, and all the diplomatic qualities to bring it about. Any close, impartial student of history, free from the popular prejudices which assailed Napoleon's origin and advent ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... are decidedly in the ascendant. The bridegroom is obliged to come to the village of the bride to live. Here he must perform certain services for his mother-in-law, such as keeping her always supplied with fire-wood. Above all things, he must always, when in her presence, sit with his legs bent under him, it being considered ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... did not seem to dawn on Helene. The thought that, despite all his indulgence, he should now allow his priestly character the ascendant and evince no concern but in spiritual matters, came on her with surprise, and even wounded her somewhat. With a careless gesture she exclaimed: "No, no; I would rather she wasn't worried. If there be a heaven, she will have no difficulty in ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... the year Eighteen Hundred Twenty; and at that time the stars of the Irish schoolmaster were in the ascendant. For a space of forty years—say from Eighteen Hundred Five to Eighteen Hundred Forty-five—eighty per cent of all graduates of Trinity College, Dublin, came straight to America and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... circulates, Life is life which generates, And many-seeming life is one,— Wilt thou transfix and make it none? Its onward force too starkly pent In figure, bone and lineament? Wilt thou, uncalled, interrogate, Talker! the unreplying Fate? Nor see the genius of the whole Ascendant in the private soul, Beckon it when to go and come, Self-announced its hour of doom? Fair the soul's recess and shrine, Magic-built to last a season; Masterpiece of love benign, Fairer that expansive reason Whose omen 'tis, and sign. Wilt ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... it would be a marvel still greater, that the half-emancipated Thetes and small proprietors, for whom he legislated—yet trembling under the rod of the Eupatrid archons, and utterly inexperienced in collective business—should have been found suddenly competent to fulfil these ascendant functions, such as the citizens of conquering Athens in the days of Pericles, full of the sentiment of force and actively identifying themselves with the dignity of their community, became gradually competent, and not ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... classics, whom they were endeavouring to imitate. But the love of the marvellous, the deeper sensibility, the higher reverence for womanhood, the characteristic spirit of sentiment and courtesy,—these were the heir-looms of nature, which still regained the ascendant, whenever the use of the living mother-language enabled the inspired poet to appear instead ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... passing through on their way to Washington, on the 19th of April, with the antecedent and attendant circumstances, roused to the highest degree the passions of all who sympathized with the secession movement, and the mob became for the time being the controlling force of that city. So largely in the ascendant was it and so confident were the disunionists in consequence that they, without warrant of law, assumed the responsibility of issuing a call for the Legislature of Maryland to convene in Baltimore. Governor Hicks, fearing that the Legislature would respond ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... (1662) was entitled The Coffee Scuffle, and professed to give a dialogue between "a learned knight and a pitifull pedagogue," and contained an amusing account of a house where the Puritan element was still in the ascendant. A numerous company is present, and each little group being occupied with its own subject, the general effect is that of another Babel. While one is engaged in quoting the classics, another confides to his neighbors ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... official quarter that a baronetcy was at his service if he felt disposed to accept it. The tears came into the stout old warrior's eyes at this sudden sunshine of royal favor, and Helen kissed old Wardlaw of her own accord; and the star of the Wardlaws rose into the ascendant, and for a time Robert Penfold seemed to ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... prize or two in which she could claim a share the Queen would not call him to a very strict account. Homeward-bound galleons or merchantmen were to be met with occasionally at the Azores. On leaving Lisbon Drake headed away to St. Michael's, and his lucky star was still in the ascendant. ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... Empire, with its swarm of hastily-enriched adventurers, had already done much to beautify and improve the city. Life was more than ever gay in this the chief home of pleasure-seekers. Luxury of the showiest kind everywhere in the ascendant; smart equipages and gaily-dressed crowds, the shop-fronts glittering with artistic treasures, everyone outwardly happy, and leading a careless, ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... half a dozen times before he reached the square; but that of telling the admiral under a pledge of secrecy was in the ascendant when the cab drew ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... stand any of this disgusting nonsense." Some sensation was created this year by a private fete which was given by a member of the aristocracy at Cremorne Gardens. It occasioned considerable talk at the time, and as Ritualism was then in the ascendant amongst certain female leaders of fashion, Leech gives us (in vol. xxxv.) a powerful picture, entitled Aristocratic Amusements, in which John Thomas asks his mistress (a magnificent specimen of the artist's handsome women) as he puts up the steps of her carriage, whither she would ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt |
