Look at the family of squirrels; here we have the finest
gradation from animals with their tails only slightly flattened, and from others, as Sir J.
The progress of the friendship between Catherine and Isabella was quick as its beginning had been warm, and they passed so rapidly through every
gradation of increasing tenderness that there was shortly no fresh proof of it to be given to their friends or themselves.
Surely I have now got down to the lowest
gradation in Arthur's affection, and discovered all the evils of his nature: if there be any further change, it must be for the better, as we become still more accustomed to each other; surely we shall find no lower depth than this.
She threw herself into my arms the very first day, and I almost owed her a grudge for having deprived me of that pleasure of
gradation, of carrying the defences, one by one, which is almost as great as that of entering the place.
In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold
gradation of social rank.
The most curious fact is the perfect
gradation in the size of the beaks in the different species of Geospiza, from one as large as that of a hawfinch to that of a chaffinch, and (if Mr.
"Every elevation of the type 'man,'" he writes in "Beyond Good and Evil", "has hitherto been the work of an aristocratic society--and so will it always be--a society believing in a long scale of
gradations of rank and differences of worth among human beings."
There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed
gradations, and at the last one pause: --through infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thoughtless faith, adolescence' doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood's pondering repose of If.
Butthat he should talk of encouragement, should consider her as aware of his views, accepting his attentions, meaning (in short), to marry him!should suppose himself her equal in connexion or mind!look down upon her friend, so well understanding the
gradations of rank below him, and be so blind to what rose above, as to fancy himself shewing no presumption in addressing her!
Yet soon after, it advanced nearer, and I could see the sides of it encompassed with several
gradations of galleries, and stairs, at certain intervals, to descend from one to the other.
Beyond that the tints darkened into fine
gradations of ultramarine, and faded into vague obscurity.
He had hardly touched the paper with the point of his twig when a low, wild peal of laughter broke out at a measureless distance away, and growing ever louder, seemed approaching ever nearer; a soulless, heartless, and unjoyous laugh, like that of the loon, solitary by the lakeside at midnight; a laugh which culminated in an unearthly shout close at hand, then died away by slow
gradations, as if the accursed being that uttered it had withdrawn over the verge of the world whence it had come.