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Descending   Listen
adjective
Descending  adj.  Of or pertaining to descent; moving downwards.
Descending constellations or Descending signs (Astron.), those through which the planets descent toward the south.
Descending node (Astron.), that point in a planet's orbit where it intersects the ecliptic in passing southward.
Descending series (Math.), a series in which each term is numerically smaller than the preceding one; also, a series arranged according to descending powers of a quantity.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Descending" Quotes from Famous Books



... of the fathers, and again return to the earth when they have fully enjoyed the fruit of their works, 'having dwelt there yavat sampatam, they return by the same way' (Ch. Up. V, 10, 5). The question here arises whether the descending soul carries a certain remainder (anusaya) of its works or not.—It does not, since it has enjoyed the fruit of all its works. For by 'anusaya' we have to understand that part of the karman which remains over and above the part retributively enjoyed; but when the fruit ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... open-mouthed around the great car. Then there was a little shout. From above their heads came the sound of a great explosion—red flames were leaping up from that black barn to the sky. The two men looked at one another. They rushed to the hill and met the youth descending. ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... an ordinary of two bands forming an angle descending to the extremities of the shield; representing the two rafters of a house, meeting ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... bridge of Serrieres it was evident that another demonstration in our honour was imminent. On the bridge a small but energetic crowd was assembled, and we could see a bouquet pendent from a cord descending toward the point where our boat was expected to pass. The projectors of that floral tribute cheered us finely as we came dashing toward them; and up in our bows was great excitement—which suddenly was intensified into anguish as we perceived that our admirers had made a ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier

... this first reservoir, in proportion as it is dissolved and carried off by the air, by means of the supplementary reservoir E, connected by a brass tube fifteen or eighteen inches long, and shut by a stop-cock. This length of the connecting tube is to enable the descending ether to overcome the resistance occasioned by the pressure of the air from ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier

... in the comedy which it was his present humour to enact. Then, shaking the worthy and thoroughly-deceived old seaman heartily by the hand, he touched his hat, with an air half-haughty, half-condescending to his inferiors. He was in the act of descending into the boat, when the chaplain was seen to whisper something, with great earnestness, in the ear of his Captain. The Commander hastened to recall his departing guest, desiring him, with startling gravity to lend him his private attention for another moment Suffering himself ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... minute in which to establish the fruitlessness of spurs, whip and blasphemy in this emergency, and then, descending to his own legs, he climbed over the fence into the road and ran as fast as boots and tops would let him towards the point whence the cry of the hounds was coming, ever more and more faintly. In a moment or two he returned, ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... extension of Ethiopian north-south trending highlands, descending on the east to a coastal desert plain, on the northwest to hilly terrain and on the ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... the office and into a hansom. He put his pipe out in anticipation. In seven minutes he was at the gates, just in time—heaven be thanked!—to meet her abstractedly descending the steps. His heart gave a great leap of joy. He studied the pensive little countenance for an instant before it became aware of him; its sadness shot a pang of reproach through him. Then a great light, as of wonder and joy, came into the dark eyes, and ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... the path was not. It would have been easier to have made the round trip from Saint-Raphael. But we should not have the full realization of the wild beauty of the Esterel nor that joyful feeling of reaching astra per aspera. The way down to Saint-Raphael, after descending to Le Malpey, less than an hour from the summit, is by ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons

... shall be, to Bruennhilde, for ever, everything! In equally fine and joyous ravings Siegfried's voice has been pouring forth alongside of hers; reaching at last an identical sentiment and the same note, the two rush together like flashing mountain torrents, and are lost to us behind the descending curtain. ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... the pitch required. If the scale is sung down, using the same vowel sound for the whole scale, the comparison will be appreciated; the pupil will not be conscious of any change in the vocal organ or experience any difficulty in descending the scale. Faithful advocates of the theory of many registers say: "Whenever in doubt about the production of a tone, sing down to it from some tone above it, never upward from a tone below," for they find that singing down "blends the registers." This we believe is ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown

... his hoe, and, looking up at the sun, wondered whether, as in the Biblical story, it had not been stationary for several hours. He was sure it was never so long in descending to the horizon. ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... coconuts at all, but black earthen pots. If your visit should chance to be made early in the morning, or late in the afternoon, the mystery will soon be revealed. You will see a dusky, sinewy figure, not of a monkey, but of a man, ascending and descending those trees with marvellous celerity and ease, grasping the trunks with his hands and fitting his naked feet into slight notches cut in them. The distance between the notches is so great that his knee goes up to his chin at each step, but he is as supple as he is sinewy and feels no ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... Krishna and Arjuna, descended filled with pride, from the upper skies, desirous of striking those heroes with their thunderlike wings, beaks and claws. Innumerable Nagas also, with faces emitting fire descending from high, approached Arjuna, vomiting the most virulent poison all the while. Beholding them approach, Arjuna cut them into pieces by means of arrows steeped in the fire of his own wrath. Then those birds and snakes, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... vermiform appendix is an inch lower down. At its upper part it meets the transpyloric line at the lower margin of the ribs, usually the ninth, and here the gallbladder is situated. The left mid-Poupart line corresponds in its upper three-quarters to the inner edge of the descending colon. The right subcostal margin corresponds to the lower limit of the liver, while the right nipple is about half an inch above the upper limit of this ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... recollected as the largest sheet of artificial water in the kingdom, with the exception of that at Blenheim. Near the high Southampton road it forms the above cascade, descending into a glen romantically shaded with plantations of birch, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 533, Saturday, February 11, 1832. • Various

... playing all sorts of games and tricks, but soon the descending sun warned them that it was time to start for home, and after a "last dive" they donned their garments and began rowing back around the point. They kept a watch for the motor boat, but saw nothing of it, nor did there appear to ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster

... the hill slopes glowing like bars of hot iron, violet-colored fire running up the tall trees, tracing the furrows of the bark in quick quivering rills, and lighting magnificent torches on dry shattered tops, and ever and anon, with a tremendous roar and burst of light, young trees clad in low-descending feathery branches vanishing in one flame two ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various

... of knighthood, and the sword, With diamond-studded belt:— And all was hushed In silent prayer, when from the lofty choir, Unseen, the pealing organ spoke, and loud From hundred voices burst the choral strain! Then, 'mid the tide of song, the coffin sank With the descending floor beneath, forever Down to the world below:—but, wide outspread Above the yawning grave, the pall upheld The gauds of earthly state, nor with the corpse To darkness fell; yet on the seraph wings Of harmony, the enfranchised spirit soared To heaven and mercy's throne: ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... feet in time to meet the shock, and they fell together with a crash, the madman on top. As he blindly threw out his arms in self protection he grasped Bildad's wrist, arresting the course of the descending knife. Before the fiend could snatch the knife with the other hand he twisted the brawny wrist till the bone cracked. The knife dropped from the nerveless fingers, and Bildad shrieked with rage and agony. Guy tried to ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon

... wild scenery which appeared immediately below our feet. There the eye penetrates into vast ravines two or three hundred feet in depth that are clothed with trees and lie on either side of the narrow pathway descending to the river over eight successive ridges of hills. At one spot termed the Cockscomb the traveller stands insulated as it were on a small slip where a false step might precipitate him into the glen. From this place Mr. Back took an interesting and accurate sketch to allow time ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin

... the Advent season, there was a short service after the confirmation class. The people sing "Lo, He comes with clouds descending" to the tune in the Hymnal Companion so heartily. Coming out from the service we found the men gazing intently towards the west. They saw what they said was a whaler; we could just see something. It seems to be coming in, so they ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow

... beheld with delight the cates which she had provided descending with such alacrity into the persons of her honoured guests, and had little occasion to exercise, with respect to any of the company saving Claverhouse himself, the compulsory urgency of pressing to eat, to which, as to the peine forte et ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... few days Ridley spoke to Grisell, and assured her that mischief would ensue if the silly wench were not checked in her habit of loitering and chattering whenever she could escape from her lady's presence in the solar, which Grisell used as her bower, only descending to the ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge

... crowd Wilfred was standing when he first caught sight of Lahoma among those descending to the jostling platform. He had not known how she would look, and certainly she was much changed from the girl of fifteen, but he made his way to her side without ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis

... numbers in the thick bark of pines, in partly rotten limbs of oak trees, telegraph poles, and fence posts. A writer in the "Auk" says of its habits: "It is essentially a bird of the pines, only occasionally descending to the cotton woods of low valleys. The oaks, which are scattered through the lower pine zone, supply a large share of its food. Its habit of hoarding food is well known, and these stores are the source of unending ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [April, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... letters' at the head of the column of the morning paper, bearing the announcement of the surrender of General Lee and his whole army. It was pretty big news to take in, and contain myself. Passing into the hotel parlors, I noticed that Broadway was gaily decorated with flags (though the rain was descending in torrents), and there read in the Herald the official documents from General Grant, upon which I could hardly refrain from shouting three cheers! I believe I did give one! While waiting for breakfast I ventured, ...
— The Flag Replaced on Sumter - A Personal Narrative • William A. Spicer

... Professor Wilson—for Lord Eglinton; until the last remnant of reserve gave way, and a torrent of people swept forward to obtain, if possible, a pressure of their hands that were gladly and gratefully held forth. Descending from the Platform, we entered the meadow-ground beyond, where the multitude were now assembled. One of the bands struck up the beautiful air—"Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon;" and immediately the People, as if actuated by one common impulse, took up the strain, and a loftier swell of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... proceed now to examine the points of pictorial interest in greater detail; and in order to do so more conveniently, I shall adopt the order, in description, which Nature seems to have adopted in formation; beginning with the mysterious hardness of the central crystallines, and descending to the softer and lower rocks which we see in some degree modified by the slight forces still in operation. We will therefore examine: 1. the pictorial phenomena of the central peaks; 2. those of the summits of the lower mountains round them, to which we shall find it convenient ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin

... sea and land descending, Brings the night its peace profound: Let our vesper hymn be blending With the holy calm around. Soon as dies the sunset glory, Stars of heaven shine out above, Telling still the ancient story— ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... take hours of insult) and he would undo what he had done and like his corrector better. A man, with all the grime and paltriness of mankind, but a saint and hero all the more for that. The place as regards scenery is grand, gloomy, and bleak. Mighty mountain walls descending sheer along the whole face of the island into a sea unusually deep; the front of the mountain ivied and furred with clinging forest, one viridescent cliff: about half-way from east to west, the low, ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... at once, but the men above flashed a light into the basement room, and soon steps were heard descending the stairs. Dyke felt over his person to discover that Mother Scarlet had been prudent enough to deprive ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton

... of dawn—the angelic glory of the morning-star—had looked in through the rude window of the shed where Tom was lying; and, as if descending on that star-beam, came the solemn words, "I am the root and offspring of David, and the bright and morning star." The mysterious warnings and intimations of Cassy, so far from discouraging his soul, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... had understood it. The goal of her ardent longing had thus been reached, and here was the entrance to it. Down into the depths below Paris? She had not thought of such a thing; but now she heard it said, and saw the strangers descending, and went after them. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... and, snatching the mysterious vessel with her left hand, she hid it under her apron, while with her right she gave the poor fellow such a slap on the cheek, as to bring to my mind the tail of the whale descending on the boat at Bermuda. "You great fool," said ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... rock or frozen ice and snow. Soon I fell asleep again and suddenly saw in a dream a very clear vision. Out on the plain, blanketed deep with snow, was moving a line of riders. They were our pack horses, our Kalmuck and the funny pied horse with the Roman nose. I saw us descending from this snowy plateau into a fold in the mountains. Here some larch trees were growing, close to which gurgled a small, open brook. Afterwards I noticed a fire burning among the trees and ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski

... flock, and immediately resigned. Scarcely had he done so when he was invited to Glaston, and received with open arms. There he would heal his wounds, and spend the rest of his days in peace. "He caught a slip or two" in descending, but soon began to find the valley of humiliation that wholesome place which all true pilgrims have ever declared it. Comparative retirement, some sense of lost labor, some suspicion of the worth of the ends for which he had spent his strength, a waking desire after the God ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... either by overloading her reservoirs or by descending obliquely by means of her inclined planes, the Nautilus successively attained the depth of three, four, five, seven, nine, and ten thousand yards, and the definite result of this experience was that the sea preserved an average temperature of four degrees and a half ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

... right. Look! there they go now. Is that the gentleman you mean? Descending at this minute, with the folds of a great cloak ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... door, which Armitage held open. It closed behind them, and their steps were heard descending. The Duchess ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington

... Cross was set up in all its awful power; suffering received its perfect consecration, and took its ruling place in the economy of man's redemption. Jesus, in descending from the Cross, bestowed that Cross upon His children, to be their treasure until the end of the world. Crucifixion with Him, and through Him, as their Head, became their portion and their glory. Every soul that was so buried ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton

... command must be obeyed, and it was by no means an agreeable one; but Alfred Barton had courage enough for any emergency not yet arrived. So he began to talk and joke very comfortably about his possible marriage, until Ann, descending to the kitchen in her solemn black gown, ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... not think why we should be wanted. It was the darkness of mid-evening when we left the Planetara for Halsey's office. It was not a long trip. We went direct in the upper monorail, descending into the subterranean city at ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various

... petrified the heart and the fancy; and a petty round of ceremonies, feasts, and social parties dissipates energy and distracts the powers of those who are not under the influence of the Church. The decadence of art has kept pace with the growing corruption of religion. Descending from the purer spiritual conceptions of former times to grosser and more superstitious ideas, it has given outward expression to these in baser forms. Even St. Peter's, though extravagantly praised by so many ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... there alternate with plantings of dark sombre firs, in their mediocre youth. At length we near the southern boundary of the landscape,—an undulating moory ridge, partially planted; and see where a deep gap in the outline opens a way to the upland districts of the province, a lively hill-stream descending towards the east through the bed which it has scooped out for itself in a soft red conglomerate. The section we have come to explore lies along its course: it has been the grand excavator in the densely occupied burial-ground over which it flows; but its labors have produced but ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... of the animals are by no means shown in this position. The screech owl, or Moan bird (as in Dresden 10a) appears most frequently in this way. The king vulture (Dresden 8a), the dog (Dresden 7a), and the parrot (Dresden 40b) come next in descending importance. The animals represented as copulating (as in Dresden 13c) might also be considered as mythological animals as well as the full drawings of the jaguar (Dresden 8a) and the other animals when they occur alone in the regular vignette of the tonalamatl. The four priests ...
— Animal Figures in the Maya Codices • Alfred M. Tozzer and Glover M. Allen

... rocky pass that the Castle of Gebel-Aroun guarded, overlooking a winding ravine between the spurs of the hills, descending into the fertile plain of Esdraelon from the heights of Galilee Hills, noted in many an Israelite battle, and now held by ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge

... number of punt-shaped putts on carriages, and also waggons, such as took the new-mined coal from putt to pit-mouth; and raying out from this open standing, several avenues, some ascending as guggs, some descending as dipples, and the dead here all arranged in groups, the heads of this group pointing up this gugg, of that group toward that twin-way, of that other down that dipple, and the central space, where weighing was done, almost empty: and the darksome silence of this deep place, ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

... Drohabich, on the railway line running from Cracow to Lemberg, is a town of six thousand inhabitants, called Borislau, which is entirely supported by the ozokerite industry. It lies at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains. About the year 1862, a shaft was sunk for petroleum at that place. After descending about one hundred and eighty feet, the miners found all the cracks in the clay or rock filled with a brown substance, resembling beeswax. At first, the layers were not thicker than writing paper; but they grew ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various

... THE OPENINGS IN RELATION TO SECONDARY ALTERATION.—The profound alteration of the upper section of ore-deposits by oxidation due to the action of descending surface waters, and their associated chemical agencies, has been generally recognized for a great many years. Only recently, however, has it been appreciated that this secondary alteration extends into the sulphide zone as well. The bearing of the secondary alteration, both in the oxidized ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover

... three days, chiefly in order to tend the numerous wounded, for whose necessities, eight of the most competent persons were singled out to act as surgeons. On the fourth day they resumed their march, descending into the plain. But experience had now satisfied them that it was imprudent to continue in march under the attack of cavalry, so that when Tissaphernes appeared and began to harass them, they halted at the first village, and when thus in station, easily repelled him. As the ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote

... my work now, and play like you afterwards;" for at that moment the thread again became tight, and Eric, refreshed with his rest, and hearty for his journey, stepped out bravely. He saw, at some distance, and beyond an open glade in the forest, a rapid river towards which he was descending. When near the river, he perceived something struggling in the water, and then heard a loud cry or scream for help, as if from one drowning. He was almost tempted to run off to his assistance without his thread, but he felt thankful ...
— The Gold Thread - A Story for the Young • Norman MacLeod

... been built by some Indians for defensive purposes. This was only a wretched bulwark, but the Frenchmen were in a state of exalted enthusiasm, and proceeded to strengthen it. Only two or three days after their arrival, they heard that the Iroquois were descending the river. The first attacks of the Iroquois were repulsed, and then they sent out scouts to bring up a large force of five hundred warriors who were at the mouth of the Richelieu. In the meantime they continued harassing the inmates of the fort, who were suffering for food and {151} ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot

... flushing and brushing and gushing, And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping, And curling and whirling and purling and twirling, And thumping and plumping and bumping and jumping, And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing; And so never ending, but always descending, Sounds and motions forever and ever are blending, All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar,— And this way the water comes down ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... hopelessly subverted, depended on the ability of the Government to open the Mississippi and deliver a fatal blow upon the resources of the Confederate power. The original plan was to reduce the formidable fortifications by descending this river, aided by the gun-boat fleet, then in ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... woods behind, and very near the farmhouse, before noon, where he usually sang at intervals till eight o'clock in the evening. I studied his song carefully. It consisted of but one clause, composed of a single emphasized note followed by two triplets on a descending scale. But while retaining the relative position of these few notes he varied the effect almost infinitely, by changing both the key and the pitch constantly, with such skill that I was astonished to discover ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller

... believing that with the power of the idol alone, they should be able to withstand all calamities. "The day and the hour are, however, hastening on, when the image shall be shaken from its pedestal by the tempest of Jehovah's descending vengeance, its altars overturned, and the worshipers terribly convinced that without the favour of the Almighty God there is no wisdom in man! But," continued this impassioned orator, "from the woes and the crimes of Europe let us turn aside ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt

... as well go a little higher, he mounted the spiral instead of descending, the dry elm twigs brought in by the jackdaws which made the untenanted corners their home crackling again ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn

... careful, very careful in descending," cautioned the ranchman. "The ground is wet and the rocks are slippery, and if you once start to fall, there's no knowing where you ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster

... sooner given these directions than the near approach of their enemies rendered profound silence necessary. The Iroquois in the river were slowly descending the stream; keeping of necessity near the bushes which overhung the water, while the rustling of leaves and the snapping of twigs soon gave fearful evidence that another party was moving along the bank, at an equally graduated pace; and directly abreast ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... appalling power, and it is difficult to overrate the mental anguish it must sometimes have produced. Timid and desponding natures unable to convince themselves that they had undergone a supernatural change, gentle and affectionate natures who believed that those who were dearest to them were descending into everlasting fire, must have often experienced pangs compared with which the torments of the martyr were insignificant. The confident assertions of the Methodist preacher and the ghastly images ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... of the broken bodies in the vein. It is very common to see three successive series of those operations; and all this may be perceived in a small fragment of stone, which a man of science may examine in his closet, often better than descending to the mine, where all the examples are found on ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton

... could not, as they had so loftily resolved, pretend to ignore the situation. But they kept silent and still. Once or twice the girls glanced curiously in their direction. But in the main they ignored them. Descending in big, slow, cautious, sliding curves, they circled ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore

... set the planes for descending and the Golden Eagle settled down—after a few minutes rapid falling—fairly in the center of the clearing. It was almost a fairylike spot. On every side it was hedged in by the densest jungle vegetation, the solid walls being broken here and ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... Sage felt in the pockets. There was nothing there. A minute later he left the room, followed by the others. Descending the stairs, he passed along the hall and out on to the short drive, accompanied by Mr. ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins

... viewed the subject at a great distance; who were uninformed and uninterested about it. It bears the characters of such an account upon the face of it, because it describes effects, namely the appearance in the world of a new religion, and the conversion of great multitudes to it, without descending, in the smallest degree, to the detail of the transaction upon which it was founded, the interior of the institution, the evidence or arguments offered by those who drew over others to it. Yet still here is no contradiction of our story; no other or different ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley

... supposed to be the bank he had left, without having lost time in building a raft, yet he knew if he missed his way he would not be able to gain the camp by sunset, for he saw by the long falling shadows that the sun was rapidly descending. ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle

... that New Orleans gives a stranger is its unlikeness to Northern cities. It is built on ground that slopes downward from the Mississippi. As one leaves the river and walks toward the center of the city, he finds himself descending. New Orleans is a hundred miles from the mouth of the Mississippi and only six miles from Lake Pontchartrain, which is an arm of the sea. The river at the city is ten feet above Lake Pontchartrain, so that New ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox

... prefixed to his works (an obsolete mode of recommendation, which Pope condescended to practise), were his own composition, and to which he had affixed the names of some dead or some unknown writers. They published lists of all whom Pope had attacked; placing at the head, "God Almighty; the King;" descending to the "lords and gentlemen."[199] A few suspected his skill in Greek; but every hound yelped in the halloo against his Homer.[200] Yet the more extraordinary circumstance was, their hardy disputes with Pope respecting ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... the Grocers'! nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such glimpses! It was not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea, and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were so plentiful ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... because of the former connection of M. Lassus with Mesdames de France, and of M. Jeanroy with the House of Lorraine, which gave a peculiar weight to their signatures. Gomin received them in the council-room, and detained them until the National Guard, descending from the second floor, entered to sign the minutes prepared by Darlot. This done, Lasne, Darlot, and Bouquet went up again with the surgeons, and introduced them into the apartment of Louis XVII., whom they at first ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... as these old traditions recurred to me; although, at the same time, my moral courage was perfectly unimpaired, so that, notwithstanding this involuntary apprehension, I felt a degree of novelty and curiosity in descending the valley: "If it appear," said I, "I shall at least satisfy myself as to the truth of apparitions." My dress consisted of a long, dark surtout, the collar of which, as the night was keen, I had turned up about my ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... was fast coming on; only a gleam of purple light rested on the top of the eastern hills, but was gradually fading away, though the sky to the westward still preserved a little pale golden light by the help of the descending ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of descending, of following the demure steps of the American to the lower places, ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens

... region, and he who passes from the lower to the middle imagines that he is going up and is already in the upper world; and if he were taken back again would think, and truly think, that he was descending. All this arises out of his ignorance of the true upper, middle, and lower regions. And a like confusion happens with pleasure and pain, and with many other things. The man who compares grey with black, calls grey white; and the ...
— The Republic • Plato

... and forest, with cultivated fields very infrequently interspersed; the moors of Cowley, the woods of Shotover and Bagley; and farther still, the forests of Nuneham, inhabited even then by the Harcourts, who still hold the ancestral demesne. Descending, he made his way to Greyfriars, as the Franciscan house was called, encountering many groups who were already wending their way to lecture room, or, like Martin, returning to break their fast after morning chapel, which then meant early ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... she said, descending from the pulpit and coming close to him to explain more vividly. 'You do it like this. Did you ever play a game of forfeits called "When is it? where is it? ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... all was the sunlight. It fell right on the mass of descending water; and in the rays the fall glittered and flashed with all the colours of the rainbow, and the flying spray was like powdered jewels. It caught the drops hanging on the ferns that fringed the water, and turned them into twinkling diamonds. The whole fall seemed to be alive in ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce

... about two in the morning, the worthy Mrs. Robins was awakened by a stentorian voice in the street below demanding to know "Was ist das Deutsche Vaterland?"—a somewhat vexed question which the owner of the said voice was propounding to the solitary lamp-post of Kennedy Place. On descending the landlady discovered that the author of this disturbance was a fashionably dressed gentleman, who, upon closer inspection, proved to her great surprise to be none other than the usually demure part proprietor ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... had finished his dream of Trana, and as he turned himself round for a fresh doze he heard the steps descending the ladder. His first impulse was to draw the blanket over his head and his legs under him, and to shout; but recollecting that the door was locked and the window carefully bolted, he allowed his head slowly to crop ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner

... covered with a profusion of forget-me-nots and gay pansies; some mez-ereon and a few dwarfed junipers—earthward-creeping—nearly reach the summit. When I passed here on a former trip, on the 6th of June, this peak was shrouded in snow. There are some patches of snow even now, one of them descending in glacier fashion down the slope on the other side; they call it "eternal," but I question whether it will survive the heats of autumn. Beyond a brace of red-legged partridges, I saw no birds whatever. ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... run. One of them thought he could get me in spite of this, and followed me. A little apart from the rest, I offered battle, and soon I had him. I did not let him go; he had no more ammunition left. In descending, he swayed heavily from side to side. As he said later, this was involuntary; I had crippled his machine. He came down northeast of Th. The aviator jumped out of his burning machine and beat about ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke

... a thick mist spread over the sky, without descending to the level of the sea. The night was to be much darker than would have been thought ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne

... this country—or perhaps in the world—and on a very spacious pleasure ground or park they would present truly magnificent aspects. Colonel Sykes alludes to a Banyan at the village of Nikow in Poonah with 68 stems descending from and supporting the branches. This tree is said to be capable of affording shelter to 20,000 men. It is a tree of this sort which ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... until it was a gale, and it began to rain. Gently at first the drops came down, until at length there was a torrent of water descending from the overhead clouds. But those in the Falcon ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton

... The sun was rapidly descending in the west. The tall pines and spruce threw their shadows over the fortification. The roar of the cannon, the sighing of the shot, the groans of the wounded, the dark shades of approaching evening, all conspired to render the scene one of intense gloom. They longed for the approaching night to ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various

... Lord Rotherby, descending from that interview with his mother, espied Hortensia crossing the hall below. Forgetting his dignity, he quickened his movements, and took the remainder of the stairs two at a stride. But, then, ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini

... darkest dwelling with a splendour of which it had never ventured to dream. His constant presence, imperious and inevitable, diffuses and maintains a religion and ideas which it had never known before, hallows everything around it, makes the eyes look higher, prevents the spirit from descending, purifies the air that is breathed and the speech that is held and the thoughts that are mustered there, and, little by little, ennobles and uplifts the whole people on a scale of unexampled vastness." Surely, in beautiful words such as these, Maeterlinck but ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King

... burning heart was perhaps softened. She understood the song well: "Sadness, cold, and dampness, wrapped in the mantle of Night descend from the sky," as the folk song puts it. It seemed that they were also descending upon her heart. "The withered flower which during the day has paraded its dress, desirous of applause and full of vanity, at nightfall repenting, makes an effort to raise its faded petals to the sky, and begs for a little shade in which to hide itself, so ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal

... Florida. From the Atlantic coast of southern Georgia, I proposed to cross the peninsula of Florida by way of the St. Mary's River, to Okefenokee Swamp; thence, by portage, to the Suwanee River, and by descending that stream (the boundary line of a geographical division — eastern and middle Florida), to reach the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, which was to be the terminal point of my canoe journey. Charts, maps and ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop

... fastidious, and would have been thankful for even a more unpromising house of entertainment than this one. It was all shut up for the night, with not a sign of life to be seen, so the tyrant applied himself diligently to pounding on the door with his big fists, until the sound of footsteps within, descending the stairs, showed that he had succeeded in rousing somebody. A ray of light shone through the cracks in the rickety old door, then it was cautiously opened just a little, and an aged, withered crone, striving to protect the flame of her flaring candle from the wind ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... a division (the 35th) known as the Bantams. They were all volunteers, having been rejected by the ordinary recruiting-officer on account of their diminutive stature, which was on an average five feet high, descending to four feet six. Most of them came from Lancashire, Cheshire, Durham, and Glasgow, being the dwarfed children of industrial England and its mid-Victorian cruelties. Others were from London, banded together in a battalion of the Middlesex Regiment. They gave a shock to our French friends ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... impatiently, and descending the stairs with his usual firm and heavy tread, got into the coach. Arthur Gride followed. After looking doubtfully at Ralph when the man asked where he was to drive, and finding that he remained silent, and expressed no wish upon the subject, Arthur mentioned his own ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... The descending sun at that moment threw his last beams in through the uppermost window. Christ, and the blessed around him, were strongly lighted up; while the lower part, where the dead arose, and the demons thrust their boat laden with the damned from the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... voice, which made him a pleasant speaker and afterward a successful public reader. He very naturally excelled in conversation at table and in getting up little comic almanacs, satirizing the boys, but always in good-humor, never descending to anything bitter or vulgar. Indeed, in all his fun, he showed ever a certain purity and nobility ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... something commonplace—yes—of make-believe came. These feelings were fought against for association's sake, and because of gratitude for bygone pleasures—but the former beauty and nobility were not there, and in their place stood irritating intervals of descending fourths and fifths. Those once transcendent progressions, luxuriant suggestions of Debussy chords of the 9th, 11th, etc., were becoming slimy. An unearned exultation—a sentimentality deadening something within ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... morning Praying comes to Ganges' waters, Bends her o'er the glassy surface— Sudden, in the waves reflected, Flying swiftly far above her, From the highest heavens descending, She discerns the beauteous form Of a youth divine, created By the God's primeval wisdom In ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... frequently arising from the same causes, the presence or absence of water, are very remarkable. In Major Mitchell's journal, at the date of April 10th, may be found the following observations: "We had passed through valleys, on first descending from the mountains, where the yellow oat-grass resembled a ripe crop of grain. But this resemblance to the emblem of plenty, made the desolation of these hopeless solitudes only the more apparent, abandoned, as they then were, alike by man, ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... to help him to search for Mary among the rocks. Looking back, she could see Oily Dave coming along at a shuffling pace behind her, and with an imperious wave of the hand to hurry his movements she sped onward now at a quicker pace, because the ground was descending, and the hill behind her broke the force of the wind. At the bottom of the hill there were two tracks, both of which led round among the gulches or tideholes, only by different ways and to different points, and it was ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant

... Descending at a foot's pace, the chill of emptiness and of oncoming twilight seemed to close like icy fingers on Roy's heart; though the death of Amber was as nothing to the death of Chitor—the warrior-queen, ravished and violently slain by Akbar's legions. Amber had, as it were, died peacefully ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... Not until 1895 was there question of his appointment to the chair of zoology in Erlangen. In 1898 he published a Manual of Zoology based on principles radically opposed to the doctrine of Descent. This manual irritated Haeckel so much that he issued one of his well-known articles, Ascending and Descending Zoology, in which, after his usual manner, he casts suspicion on Fleischmann of having received his appointment to the chair at Erlangen by becoming an anti-Darwinian in accordance with a desire expressed at the diet of Bavaria. I am not aware that Haeckel ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert

... could have been preserved in the Thermopylae—if the heart has been hard, that a softer one would have been surely defeated and we disadvantaged. Well could we afford to abide in the twilight-land when such struggle was going forward in our behalf, when the sunshine was descending upon such seedtime of the ages—to whose ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... joy better than that. Love throws open wider doors,—lifts a great veil from a measureless vista: all the rest of life is transformed into one shining distance; every present moment is but a round in a ladder whose top disappears in the skies, from which angels are perpetually descending to ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson

... or village in a green glade of welcome verdure; and you may there witness the extreme simplicity of the hardy mountaineers. Still higher up on the hills, and on the vast pasture grounds that reach up to their summits, along the gently descending plateaux, occurs the birch, luxuriating in the cold exposure of its habitation as though it were in Siberia instead of France: and ever and anon, whether high up or low down the sides of the hills, you will find the box and the juniper ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... after throwing itself over a small pitch of five feet, forms a beautiful cascade of twenty-six feet five inches; this does not, however, fall immediately or perpendicularly, being stopped by a part of the rock, which projects at about one-third of the distance. After descending this fall, and passing the cottonwood island on which the eagle has fixed her nest, the river goes on for five hundred and thirty-two poles over rapids and little falls, the estimated descent of which is thirteen and one-half feet, till it is joined by a large fountain boiling up underneath ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks

... around the back part of the neck and a surcingle around the body. Place the rope truss on the animal so that the ovoid ring will surround the vulva, the two ascending ropes on the right and left of the tail and the two descending ones down inside the thighs on the right and left of the udder. These descending ropes are carried forward on the sides of the body and tied to the surcingle and to the neck collar. The ascending ropes proceed forward on the middle of the back, twisting over each other, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... wife and children lived. It was in vain that the monks attempted to check his resolution to reach his family. They at last gave him two guides, each of whom was accompanied by a dog, one of which was the remarkable creature whose service had been so valuable. Descending from the convent, they were overwhelmed by two avalanches or heaps of falling snow, and the same destruction awaited the family of the poor courier, who were travelling up the mountain in the hope of obtaining some news ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... loose, quickly moving clouds, and every now and then a gust of rain swept down from the mountains. The path followed a brook, descending in long, steep steps from the hillside; water perfectly clear, bubbling along the yellow stones between the grassy banks and making now and then a little leap into a lower basin; along the stream great screens of reeds, sere, pale, ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee

... distant bit of the Wenatchee showing beyond the mouth, but as he came back along the ridge, he saw she had turned her shoulder on the crouching mountain. At his far "Hello!" she waved her hand to him and rose to start across the bench to meet him. He was descending a broken stairway below two granite pillars that topped a semi-circular bluff and, springing from a knob to avoid a dry runnel, he shaped his way diagonally to abridge the distance. He moved with incredible swiftness, swinging by his hands to drop from ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... the door-handle roused Clarice. She saw that the room was empty, and, drawing a breath of relief, started out of her chair. Standing thus she heard Drake's footsteps descending the stairs, and after a pause the slamming of the hall-door. Then she went to the fireplace and knelt down close to it, warming her hands at ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason

... on the Chinese shore are perpendicular, and continue so for several miles. At their base there is a strong current, where we met a raft descending nearly five miles an hour. In going against the stream our pilots did not seek the edge of the river like their brethren of the Mississippi, but faced the current in the center. Possibly they thought a middle course the safest, and remembered the fate of the celebrated youth who took a short ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... that again the glimmering sky. There were no clouds, no outlines to break the huge, smooth, dusky dome beneath the centre of which this house-roof seemed poised. Across the parapet, as he glanced to the right before descending the steps, stretched Esdraelon, sad-coloured and sombre, into the metallic distance. It was all as unreal as some fantastic picture by one who had never looked upon clear sunlight. The silence was complete ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson

... fairly uniform conditions. Let us take the latest official figures (which are usually for 1913) and attempt to measure the civilisation of European countries on this basis. Beginning with the lowest birth-rate, and therefore in gradually descending rank of superiority, we find that the European countries stand in the following order: France, Belgium, Ireland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Scotland, Denmark, Holland, the German Empire, ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... rested three days, the two brothers continued their travels. As the mountain on that side was composed of several shelves of extensive flat, they were five days in descending before they came into the plain. They then discovered a large city, at which they rejoiced: "Brother," said Amgiad to Assad, "are not you of my opinion that you should stay in some place out of the city, where I may find you again, while I ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... dodge. One of the riflemen below received the impact of the descending weapon squarely on top of his head and he keeled over, falling ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock

... the glaciere itself is elliptical in shape, 43 feet broad at the base, and the cave increases in size as it extends farther into the rock, the floor descending gently till a horizontal esplanade of ice is reached. This esplanade was 66 feet by 30 at the time of Pictet's visit, deeper in the middle than at the sides, and mounting the rock at the farther side of the cave; there was a small stalagmite at one side, but that would seem ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne

... up the Ottawa River a distance of nearly four hundred miles. Thence through a series of narrow streams and minor lakes, they entered Lake Nipissing. Descending the rapid flood of French River, through cheerless solitudes eighty miles in extent, they entered Georgian Bay. Crossing this vast sheet of water over an expanse of fifty miles, they saw the apparently boundless ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott

... we saw a great number of people descending the hill, which is over the beach, in a kind of procession, each man carrying a sugar-cane or two on his shoulders, and bread-fruit, taro, and plantains in his hand. They were preceded by two drummers; who, when they came to the water-side, sat down by a ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... a conservative power that prevented him from descending to the low type of character and the lax principles of the country, yet never made any other than the most quiet assertion of superiority. It was impossible indeed for him to hold business connections with the rough settlers without ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage

... well is to be cleaned out, the decomposition of organic matter in the bottom of the well will have, in all probability, caused the formation of this same carbon dioxid gas, and it is not uncommon for a man descending into such a well to be overcome by the gas, which, in some cases, even causes death. For this reason, it is common to lower into a well, before it is entered by a man, a candle or lantern, on the probability that if ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden

... back again—"whether they would like to contemplate a day when the sun of the British Empire, that Empire which, after all, has upheld the cause of religion with faithfulness and persistence for so long, shall be seen at last descending, to rise no more, in an engulfing ocean ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley

... descending, however, to the business of Interpretation, there is clearly one preliminary question to be settled: namely, the principle on which Interpretation is to be conducted. And this is all that can be discussed to-day. To seek for that principle in the contradictory pages of solitary theorists, ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... communicates by a stream with the Rhine; but there are none in the Lake of Geneva, because the Rhone makes a subterraneous fall below Geneva; and though small eels can pass by moss or mount rocks, they cannot penetrate limestone rocks, or move against a rapid descending current of water, passing, as it were, through a pipe. Again: no eels mount the Danube from the Black Sea; and there are none found in the great extent of lakes, swamps, and rivers communicating with the Danube—though some of these lakes and morasses are wonderfully fitted for them, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various



Words linked to "Descending" :   descending node, descendant, dropping, descending colon, down, declivitous, drizzling, downward, downward-sloping, raining, downward-arching, falling, descending aorta, ascending



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