Down

“ You stretch yourself, and endeavor to rise. Which is you, and which the board floor? You rather think this must be you that has just got up, because it aches so down the grain, and its knots or eyes—yes, they are eyes—are so full of sand. ”

“ Down—so as to be delivered from all ambition and emulation and envy. Down, and safe, thank God, from all pride, all high-mindedness, and all stout-heartedness. Down from the hard and cruel hills, and buried deep out of sight among those meadows where that herb grows which is called Heart’s-ease. Down, where the green pastures grow and the quiet waters flow. No, indeed; he that is down into this sweet bottom needs fear no fall. For there is nowhere here for a man to fall from. ”

“ Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere. There is one place where two breadths didn’t match, and the eyes go all up and down the line, one a little higher than the other. ”

“ On, on, on—on through the heat and the crowd and the dust—on, or they will be trampled down and lost—on, with throbbing brain and tottering limbs—on, till the heart grows sick, and the eyes grow blurred, and a gurgling groan tells those behind they may close up another space. ”

“ Strength, Beauty and the Golden Earth!
V
Of Downs beloved by Pan.
Beyond the rocks, below the trees,
The great downs lie; nought but the breeze
Is heard upon them. All day long
The shadows of the great clouds throng
Across their sides: a noiseless rout. ”

“ But if you were in the rapids above the falls, would you not permit a strong hand to lift you out? Why should you look down into the gulf? Why not look up to heaven? That is 'always there' just as truly. ”

“ Like the country, they were always going up or down,—sliding down the mountains, scrambling up the waterfalls, or playing Follow-the-Leader, hoppety-skip, skippety-hop, straight down the long row of peaks that made their home. ”

“ As in the ascent of the elevation, step by step, we can judge imperfectly of its height, until from the very summit we look down upon our place of starting, so with the wretched outcasts of society of whom we speak. ”

“ With it are gone suddenly the very quarters and cardinal points of life’s chart, there is no longer any right hand or any left, any north or south, any rising of the sun or any going down, any forward or backward direction in his path, any heaven above, or any hell below. ”

“ Twice or thrice, a door or niche broke the monotonous surface; and then it seemed a gap as wide as the whole church; and he felt on the brink of an abyss, and going to tumble headlong down, until he found the wall again.
Still up, up, up; and round and round; and up, up, up; higher, higher, higher up! ”

“ So, having turned down the gas, I came to the staircase-head and began to descend. A certain something, not too far from fear, prompted the idea of a hand reaching on to me from behind. I desired to turn and look. My will overcame my desire. I descended slowly, step after step, in an actor's way rather. ”

“ It is like looking down from the cliffs of Moher into the depths. Many go down into the depths and never come up. Only the trained diver can go down into those depths and explore them and come to the surface again. ”

“ If you went too high, you felt the rolling terribly, and people tramping up and down on the promenade under your window kept you awake the whole night; if you went too low, you felt the engine thump, thump, thump in your head the whole way over. ”

“ When it goes down we regain our human shapes. So we always have to look out for a resting-place near sunset, for should we happen to be flying up among the clouds when the sun goes down, we should be hurled to the depths below. ”

“ Whatever weight might lie at my heart, when I found myself high, high up above the ordinary region of life, resting on a mountain summit from which I looked down upon all that surrounded me other days ”

“ Again we scan the great peaks which in clear days come boldly down and stand at our very doors, but on hazy ones remove to a vast distance, keeping vaguely aloof day in and day out. Sometimes they are in the sulks, sometimes bold and forward. ”

“ Headlong he dashes through briar and brake, through flood and fall, over mountain, valley, moor, and river indiscriminately; up and down precipice is alike to him, provided he gratifies the malevolence that seems to inspire him. ”

“ Driving through such a country one is either going up, or going down, most of the time, and what might have been an easy pull up, and a slide down, resolved itself into a desperate struggle to get up, and a pull going down, on account of the mud. ”

“ But if in vain, down on the stubborn floor
Of Earth, and up to Heav'n's unopening Door,
You gaze To-day, while You are You—how then
To-morrow, You when shall be You no more? ”

“ Somehow, up here in the tops of the hills, where it’s close to the sky, He seems a heap friendlier and nearer than He does down on the plains. ’Most always I feel sorry for them poor fellers that live down there. ”

“ Together we looked downward over that barrier of green that we had cleft, traversed, and conquered. It lay behind us, malignant, sullen, brooding, and motionless, bathed by a sympathetic and helpless sun. ”

“ Why not relegate the word mother to the limbo of the “archaic,” as a term too old-fashioned and too elastic to be tolerated in this precise and refined age?
“In climbing one ascends.” Very well. It is true that one way of ascending is by climbing; and there are as many ways of descending, plus one, as there are of ascending. If one has reached an altitude by climbing and if he declines to tumble and if he wishes to descend by reversing his method of ascending, why should he not be permitted to climb down—and to say so if it please him? ”

“ It is easier to go down a hill than up, but the view is from the top. ”

“ Self-abandoned, relaxed, and effortless, I seemed to have laid me down in the dried-up bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in remote mountains, and felt the torrent come: to rise I had no will, to flee I had no strength. ”

“ When he had finished, the heavens opened, and a ladder was let down to the earth, up which he proceeded to climb. His friend followed close, and when the door of heaven was reached, he contrived, by hiding himself behind the skirts of the Prophet's dress, to enter with him unperceived. ”

“ Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height:
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang)
In height and cold, the splendour of the hills? ”

“ "One am I who descends Down with this living man from cliff to cliff, And I intend to show Hell unto him." ”

“ We try, but slip backwards almost as much as we rise. What is to be done? Are we to sit down at the foot of the cliff, and say, 'We cannot climb, let us be content with the luscious herbage and sheltered ease below?' Yes! ”

“ You may climb downwards with your back to the rocks and consequently facing the abyss beneath you, and getting a tolerable view of the difficulties ahead of you, and a notion where to place your hands and feet ”

“ He is all for diagonalising downward, or even going straight down, and finding an imaginary easier course skirting the edge of the forest. We, however, try to keep our level, but whether we wish it or no we slide downward at each uncertain step. ”

“ A ladder of our thoughts, where angels step,
But sleep ourselves at the foot: our high resolves
Look down upon our slumbering acts." ”

“ When I espied him, I took to my heels as fast as I could down a narrow unfrequented alley; ”

“ "Oh no, no," said the Fly, "to ask me is in vain;
For who goes up your winding stair can ne'er come down again." ”

“ The sense of having materially fallen off is destructive to the eagle-eye. Yes, he was tolerably content. We can go down-hill cheerfully, save at the points where it is sharply brought home to us that we are going down-hill. ”

“ The glory that pours down upon these hills, the vales they infold, the wild streams, the craggy mountain spurs, the soft, velvety clearings that turn their dimpled cheeks to be kissed by the sunshine, may all be seen and fully enjoyed from this spot. ”

“ A little later in the morning you may meet a few gyps and bedmakers coming round chance corners, or descending mysterious stairs; but if you go beyond inhabited precincts, down to the river-side, you are almost sure to be quite alone ”

“ but in all kinds of climbing, as Catalani said of singing, it is far more easy to get up than to come down. ”

“ We were already carried much farther down the mountain than we intended, and began to repent having come, and to think of our long climb up again, when we saw, a considerable way below us, close to the precipice, some objects moving, which, on descending farther, we discovered to be human beings. ”

“ Goes down with a great shout upon the hills,
And leaves a lonesome place against the sky. ”

“ And when, on the still cold nights, he pointed his nose at a star and howled long and wolflike, it was his ancestors, dead and dust, pointing nose at star and howling down through the centuries and through him. And his cadences were their cadences, the cadences which voiced their woe and what to them was the meaning of the stillness, and the cold, and dark. ”

“ You think sometimes you are near the top, and, when you get there, you find another top higher still, and then another, till you get quite tired of tops. And coming down is hard work too. The mountains are covered with great loose stones, so that by the time you are at the bottom you are glad enough of a resting-place. ”

“ Here, she felt, putting the spoon down, was the still space that lies about the heart of things, where one could move or rest; ”

“ Ever been kicked? Might have been. Frequently? No. Ever kicked downstairs? Decidedly not; once received a kick on the top of a staircase, and fell downstairs of his own accord. ”

“ Here, where the air is cool, pure, and soft, let us think of a hoarding round some old house which the labourers are pulling down, amid clouds of the white, blinding, parching dust of lime, on a sultry summer day. ”

“ It was of Shorty, swaying and sinking down limply in the snow, yelling his parting encouragement, one eye blackened and closed, knuckles bruised and broken, and one arm, ripped and fang-torn, gushing forth a steady stream of blood. ”

“ A march it was of military speed,
And Earth did change her images and forms
Before us, fast as clouds are changed in heaven.
Day after day, up early and down late,
From hill to vale we dropped, from vale to hill
Mounted—from province on to province swept,
Keen hunters in a chase of fourteen weeks,
Eager as birds of prey, or as a ship
Upon the stretch, when winds are blowing fair:
Sweet coverts did we cross of pastoral life,
Enticing valleys, greeted them and left
Too soon, while yet the very flash and gleam
Of salutation were not passed away. ”