"Ball" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to stop the looting, which shows no signs of abating. Everybody is crazy now to get more loot. Every new man says that he only wants a few trifles, but as soon as he has a few he must, of course, have more, and thus the ball continues rolling ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... healthful as it is, fades before a single word of commendation from the new arbitress of your feeling. You have seen Miss Dalton! You have met her on that last evening of your cloistered life in all the elegance of ball-costume; your eye has feasted on her elegant figure, and upon her eye sparkling with the consciousness of beauty. You have talked with Miss Dalton about Byron, about Wordsworth, about Homer. You have quoted poetry to Miss Dalton; you have ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... the scarce-cold ashes of a tragedy, the girls had nevertheless permitted themselves a kindly, moderate mirth. Hilda had quoted from a conversation in it: "Well, I would rather sit quietly round this cheerful fire, and talk with dear mamma, than go to the grandest ball that ever was known!" and Janet had plumply commented: "What a dreadful lie!" And then they had both laughed openly, perhaps to relieve the spiritual tension caused by the day's task and the surroundings. After that, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... we might be doing a few holes before lunch? I'll take you on. Of course, you understand I'm a wretched player, but I've got one virtue: I never talk about my game and I never tell funny stories while my opponent is addressing the ball. I'm an old duffer at the game, but I've got more sense than ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... her chance. She slipped around behind Bruce, and with a leap that had often enabled her to outwit an opponent in playing basket ball, the plucky motor girl snatched the papers from the man's hand. Full and clean was her jump, and the smouldering papers came ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... returned for a ride; and when the party, that had gathered like a snow-ball, came in front of the cottage, Percy was holding both little sisters on the pony at once, Theodora still leaning on her eldest brother's arm, Johnnie gravely walking on the foot-path, studying his uncle, and Arthur, with the young Arthur pulling his whiskers all the time, was walking ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... outside San Lorenzo. We drove to the Buena Vista Hotel, and, to our surprise, upon the broad verandah we discovered Angela, in the last of her pretty dresses, and Thorpe. Angela explained matters. Jim and she were Thorpe's guests for the week. They were going to the races, to the ball, to all ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... important news to England, as well as to Scotland, she immediately despatched Sir James Melvil to carry intelligence of the happy event to Elizabeth. Melvil tells us, that this princess, the evening of his arrival in London, had given a ball to her court at Greenwich, and was displaying all that spirit and alacrity which usually attended her on these occasions: but when news arrived of the prince of Scotland's birth, all her joy was damped: she sunk into melancholy; she reclined her head upon her arm; and complained ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... he laughed like a madman, and then squeezing your letter into a ball, he began to throw it about, till reminding him that he must not forget to destroy ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... would only have to tell the truth in court. And look! Here's an important proof which almost by itself relieves M. de Boiscoran. Would he not have loaded his gun with a ball, if he should ever have really thought of murdering the count? But it was loaded with ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... note: with coastlines in the shape of a baseball bat and ball, the two volcanic islands are separated by a three-km-wide channel called The Narrows; on the southern tip of long, baseball bat-shaped Saint Kitts lies the Great Salt Pond; Nevis Peak sits in the center of its almost circular namesake island and its ball shape ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... enjoyment of even such limited liberty as was given them, hastened from the room and found their way into the courtyard. There were several other persons brought into the prison, for slight offences probably. Most of them were engaged in various games, some of ball or tennis, while others were content to walk up and down, to stretch their legs and to inhale such air, close and impure as it was, as they were allowed ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... predict, as they have been predicting, the day when solar radiation will cease, but their predictions will prove as worthless as the sighing of the summer wind, so far as reality is concerned. "It is an incomprehensible mystery to science," says Sir Robert Ball, in his "Story of the Heavens," "how the Sun has been able to maintain its heat with such regularity in the past, for there has been no appreciable change in the Earth's temperature for thousands of years." What it is to-day it was ten thousand years ago—yea, Sir ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... honour of the outlaw Robin Hood.[594] The satire ceases to be simply mocking; the singer's laughter no longer consoles him for abuses; he wants reforms; he chides and threatens. In his speech to the rebel peasants in 1381, the priest John Ball takes from a popular song the burden ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... reached the barracks, the two divisions of the enemy had taken up their respective positions, and were pouring in unceasing discharges of ball, which penetrated the pimento sticks and raked the building from end to end. The guard, the only men who had ammunition in their possession, returned the fire, and at this moment Lieutenant Smith arrived with ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... new rebel captain lay, who, having taken the alarm, had got up, and with two men and a boy had got fire-arms in their hands; and when the mate, with a crow, split open the door, the new captain and his men fired boldly among them, and wounded the mate with a musket-ball, which broke his arm, and wounded two more of the men, but killed nobody. The mate, calling for help, rushed, however, into the round-house, wounded as he was, and, with his pistol, shot the new captain through the head, the bullet entering at his mouth, and came out again behind one of his ears, ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... the unsympathizing gayety of their companions,—or perhaps the disappointment at not hearing a favorite clergyman preach,—(for I will not suppose the young ladies interested in this picture to be affected by any chagrin at the loss of an invitation to a ball, or the like worldliness,)—it seems to me the stress of such calamities might be represented, in a picture, by less appalling imagery. And I can assure my fair little lady friends,—if I still have any,—that whatever a young girl's ordinary troubles or annoyances may be, her true virtue is ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... of magnesia, mixed with carbonate of lime. In other places— for it is extremely variable in structure— it consists chiefly of carbonate of lime, and has concreted into globular and hemispherical masses, varying from the size of a marble to that of a cannon-ball, and radiating from the centre. Occasionally earthy and pulverulent beds pass into compact limestone or hard granular dolomite. Sometimes the limestone appears in a brecciated form, the fragments which are united together not consisting of foreign rocks but seemingly composed of the breaking-up ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... does not stop between Liverpool Street and Parkeston Quay, which it is timed to reach three minutes before ten. This gave me an hour and a half in which to change my apparel. The garments of the poor old professor I rolled up into a ball one by one and flung out through the open window, far into the marsh past which we were flying in a pitch dark night. Coat, trousers, and waistcoat rested in separate swamps at least ten miles apart. Gray whiskers and gray wig I tore into little pieces, and dropped the bits ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... some glowing details of many a grand ball and fete champetre that had taken place on the plantation, and hinted at the expensive life which "young missa" led while in the city, where she usually resided during most part of the winter. All this I could easily credit. From what had occurred on the boat, and other circumstances, ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... afternoon of visits among their acquaintances—how, because of a neighborhood complaint, there was to be a fake raid on Gussie's opium joint at midnight; that Mazie had caught a frightful fever; and that Nettie was dying in Governeur of the stab in the stomach her lover had given her at a ball three nights before; that the police had raised the tariff for sporting houses, and would collect seventy-five and a hundred a month protection money where the charge had been twenty-five and fifty—the plea ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... myself by galloping and whirling the balls round my head, by accident the free one struck a bush, and its revolving motion being thus destroyed, it immediately fell to the ground, and, like magic, caught one hind leg of my horse; the other ball was then jerked out of my hand, and the horse fairly secured. Luckily he was an old practised animal, and knew what it meant; otherwise he would probably have kicked till he had thrown himself down. The Gauchos roared with laughter; ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... to say that a model threw me down hard in the very middle of the Bimmington's ball-room. Max Schindler put on a show, and she put for the spot-light. She'd better stay put," he added grimly: "she'll never have another chance in ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... on the shores, the yachts, barges, pleasure and small boats, and the windows and gardens lined with spectators, were so delightful, that when I came home from that vivid show, I thought Strawberry looked as dull and solitary as a hermitage. At night there was a ball at the Castle, and illuminations, with the Duke's cypher, &c. in coloured lamps, as were the houses of his Royal Highness's tradesmen. I went again in the evening to the French ladies on the Green, where there was a bonfire; but, you may believe, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... but I cannot alter it; it is the sex and not any individual woman that attracts me. I enter a ball-room and I see one, one whom I have never seen before, and I say, 'It is she whom I have sought, I can love her.' I am always disappointed, but hope is born again in every fresh face. Women are so common when they have ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... what it is,' says he, 'to have the fine high ould blood in one's veins.' Begad he did; will you come up this evenin' about seven o'clock, now, like a good fellow, an' pass your opinion for me? Divil a dacent stitch I have, an' I want either it, or another, made up before the ball night."* ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... you said," replied Jimmy. "And Mr. Davidson's rich. He's got a house on our lake, this summer, and he lives in New York and has offices in Chicago, and travels a good deal. He has some sort of factory, too, and he's awful rich. I like him pretty well. He knows how all the ball clubs stand, both leagues, every day in the year. You ought to know him, because then you might get to know my Auntie Helena. If they got married, like as not, I could take you up to their house. I thought everybody knew Mr. Davidson, and ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... blind-man's-buff or at some other funny game: they laugh, leap, shout, race, and wrestle, but, unlike European children, never quarrel or fight. As for the little girls, they get by themselves, and either play at hand-ball, or form into circles to play at some round game, accompanied by song. Indescribably soft and sweet the chorus of those little ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... lady left me at the end of two months, because I refused to lend her money enough to buy a silk dress to go to a ball, saying, 'Then it is not worth my while to stay any longer.' I cannot imagine it possible that such a state of things can be desirable or beneficial to any of the parties concerned. I might occupy a hundred pages on the subject, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... in the frontispiece, copied by Mr. T. Hodge from an old painting in the Club at St. Andrews, is believed to represent the Baron Bradwardine addressing himself to his ball. ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... Wallace, presumably, believes in that correlation of phenomena which we call cause and effect as firmly as I do. But if he has ever been able to form the faintest notion how a cause gives rise to its effect, all I can say is that I envy him. Take the simplest case imaginable—suppose a ball in motion to impinge upon another ball at rest. I know very well, as a matter of fact, that the ball in motion will communicate some of its motion to the ball at rest, and that the motion of the two balls after collision is precisely ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... in Browning; And learn how to paddle and swim; And save other people from drowning; And play basket ball in the gym. ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... seemed to him that the swaying houses buffeted him about as a child might play with a ball. Sometimes they threw him against men, who cursed him and bruised his soft body with their fists. Sometimes they tripped him up and hurled him upon the stones of the pavement. Still he held on, till the Embankment broke before him with the sudden peace of ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... you quit this, the sooner all of us will be comfortable," he said casually. "Observe my size. See Mr. Tower, a college athlete, who will teach you ball, football, tennis, swimming in lakes and riding, all the things that make boys manly men; better stop sulking in a closet and show your manhood. With one finger either of us can lift you out and carry you down by force; and we will, but why not be ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... of as the cause, the posterior as the effect. But there is absolutely nothing in the former to define its relation to the latter, except that when the former is observed the latter, as far as we know, invariably follows. A ball hits another ball of equal size, both being free to move. There is nothing by which prior to experience we can determine what will happen next. It is just as conceivable that the moving ball should come back or should come to rest, as that the ball hitherto at rest should begin to move. A magnet ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter
... of the effects that the sloe-weevil builds a ventilating chimney to prevent the asphyxiation of her larva? that the Scarabaeus sacer contrives a filter at the smaller end of its pear-shaped ball, by means of which the grub is able to breathe? or that Arachne labyrintha "introduces in her silk-work a rampart of compressed earth to protect her eggs from the ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... talking! Now, see here!—if you stand any longer at that open door you'll get a chill! You go inside the house and imitate Charlie's example—look at him!" And he pointed to the tiny toy terrier snuggled up as usual in a ball of silky comfort on the warm hearth—"Small epicure! Come back to your chair, David, and sit by the ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... me one day, in discussing our future. "There is no place in the world for distinguished service by an American soldier. He can wear his uniform; he can study his tactics; he can be a warrior of the ball-room; but, after all, he is only ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... lid. Slowly, slowly came away a layer of silver paper. Where on earth they got—in Richmond in 1862—the gay box, the silver paper, passes comprehension. The staff thought it looked Parisian, and nursed the idea that it had once held a ball gown. Slowly, slowly, out ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... language is very limited, and their sympathies quite undeveloped. Nor are they prepared to take wing with you into the lofty realms of the imagination: the adventures of the playful kitten, of the birdling learning to fly, of the lost ball, of the faithful dog,—things which lie within their experience and belong to the sweet, familiar atmosphere of the household,—these ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... his will, he tried it. To his astonishment it was a success. The House of Commons, like Mr. Peter Magnus's friend, is easily amused. The exaggeration gave a cannon-ball's weight to his sound argument. The Government dropped the clause—it was only a trivial part of a wide-reaching measure—the President of the Board of Agriculture saying gracefully that in the miracle he hoped to bring about he had unfortunately forgotten ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... of hers proved contagious. Serge, who first had jested, asking her if she were going to a ball, glanced at himself, and likewise felt alarmed and ashamed, to a point that he also wound foliage ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... a whisper, "the ball has not gone far—I can touch it! Give me the case again," he said presently. He selected other instruments. "I have it!" exclaimed Esperance, and the ball was in ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... hypersensitiveness (hyperesthesia), so that the least touch causes great pain; in others, there is complete anesthesia—that is, absence of sensation—so that when you stick the patient with a needle she will not feel it. A very frequent symptom is a choking sensation, as if a ball came up the throat and stuck there (globus hystericus). Then there may be spasms, convulsions, retention of urine, paralysis, aphonia (loss of voice), blindness, and a lot more. There is hardly a functional or organic nervous disorder that ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... doing injustice to the hospitable settlers of Hickory Creek were I to pass by without notice an entertainment with which they honored our Chicago beaux about this time. The merry-making was to be a ball, and the five single gentlemen of Chicago were invited. Mr. Dole, who was a new-comer, declined; Lieutenant Foster was on duty, but he did what was still better than accepting the invitation, he loaned his beautiful horse to Medard ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... blowing out the icy pastry, gathered all his strength to hurl a ball back at Frank. But he "wound up," as baseball pitchers call that curving swinging of the arm just before the ball is thrown, with such vigor that he lost his balance. His feet went up into the air and he came down ker-plunk! but the snowball left ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... I can make out, they're a couple of half masks made out of black muslin, and just like a domino worn at a masquerade ball." Frank remarked, with positive conviction in his voice ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... haven't any pie, but how'd some bacon and eggs go?" As he stoked up his cannon-ball stove and sliced the bacon, Stillman continued to the children, who were shyly perched on the buffalo-robe cover of his bed, "Were you scared ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... What if, in spite of all, Ivor should tell Di how he loved her, and they should be engaged? At that thought, I tried to bring on a heart attack, and die; for at least it would chill their happiness if, when Lady Mountstuart's ball was over, I should be found lying white and dead, like Elaine on her barge. I was holding my breath, with my hand pressed over my heart to feel how it was beating, when the door opened suddenly, and ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... which swarmed about us in the torrid zone, refused to see us across the tropic, and the only aquatics we fell in with afterwards were clumsy whales and grampuses, and occasionally a shoal of white porpoises. Of birds there were plenty, especially albatrosses. The captain, being a good shot with a ball, brought down one of these, which measured seven feet between the tips of the wings. I have several times seen them twelve feet; and I heard a well-authenticated account of one measuring sixteen feet from tip to tip. On the 22nd of June we ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... their departure the Jacksons were guests of honor at a grand ball at the Academy. The upper floor was arranged for dancing and the lower for supper, and the entire building was aglow with flowers, colored lamps, and transparencies. As the evening wore on and the dances of polite society had their due turn, the General finally avowed that he and his bonny wife ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... of people," said Toni recklessly. "You know quite well you were ashamed of me when we first went out to dinner parties here, and I didn't know how to behave—and lately we have been invited nowhere—not even to the Golf Club Ball." ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... Sapor III. and his predecessor, Artaxerxes II., have little about them that is remarkable. Those of Artaxerxes bear a head which is surmounted with the usual inflated ball, and has the diadem, but is without a crown—a deficiency in which some see an indication that the prince thus represented was regent rather than monarch of Persia. [PLATE XIX. Fig. 2.] The legends upon the coins are, however, in the usual style of royal epigraphs, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... his library at Ashland, Mr. Clay, we believe, would, at any period of his public life, have assented to the doctrines of this passage. But at Washington he was a party leader and an orator. Having set the ball in motion, he could not stop it; nor does he appear to have felt the necessity of stopping it, until, in 1831, he was suddenly confronted by three Gorgons at once,—a coming Surplus, a President that vetoed internal improvements, and an ambitious Calhoun, resolved on using the ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... she carries. Break open the magazine, and get powder and ball up. We must lend the captain ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... woman can appreciate the following description of a costume seen at the inaugural ball of 1789: "It was a plain celestial blue satin gown, with a white satin petticoat. On the neck was worn a very large Italian gauze handkerchief, with border stripes of satin. The head-dress was a pouf of satin in the form of a globe, the creneaux or head-piece ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... little fellow! He is leading on either side a little girl and boy. The little girl is a blind idiot, the other youngster is also blind; yet he knows every child in the place by touch. He knew what a railway engine was. And the poor little girl got the biggest rubber ball in the pack, and for five hours she sat in a corner bouncing it against her ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... every gun, both great and small, was playing on it. I made several trips under it following the Colonel, who repeatedly rode up and down the stream, and I would have been fully satisfied to have allowed my mind even to wander back to the gaily lighted ball rooms and festivals left behind only ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... of the Fencibles gave a grand ball at Kilwangan, to which, as a matter of course, all the ladies of Castle Brady (and a pretty ugly coachful they were) were invited. I knew to what tortures the odious little flirt of a Nora would put me with her eternal coquetries with the officers, and refused ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Sister Margaret told Herbert Bowater that her sisters had been at a ball at the town-hall the week before. Then he saw she was Miss Strangeways, and asked if she ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a headstrong, high-tempered child to begin with; and havin' nobody to control her, she got to be the worst young one, I reckon, in the State o' Kentucky. I used to feel right sorry for her little brothers. They couldn't keep a top or a ball or marble or any plaything to save their lives. Annie would cry for 'em jest for pure meanness, and whatever it was that Annie cried for they had to give it up or git a whippin'. She'd break up their rabbit-traps and their bird-cages and the little ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... to wear his dress suit. He just hates it. That man hasn't a particle of vanity. He looks handsomer in his evening clothes than in anything else, and yet he doesn't see it. But tell me," and her pretty face became serious with a true feminine anxiety, "whatever will you wear? You've brought no ball fixings, have you?" ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... position in Irish literature, which I little dreamt I should ever occupy. I now mingled in the sports and pastimes of the people, until indulgence in them became the predominant passion of mv youth. Throwing the stone, wrestling, leaping, foot-ball, and every other description of athletic exercise filled up the measure of my early happiness. I attended every wake, dance, fair, and merry-making in the neighborhood, and became so celebrated for dancing hornpipes, jigs, and reels, that I was soon without a ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... this present controversy, so I do not desire to hold up the ball of contention, yet having appeared in it (neither alone, nor without a calling and opportunity offered), I hold it my duty to vindicate the truth of Christ, the solemn league and covenant, the ordinances of Parliament, the church of Scotland, and myself. ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... our outposts, and no man's life was worth a sou when once he fell into their hands. I could name a dozen officers of my own acquaintance who were cut off during that time, and the luckiest was he who received a ball from behind a rock through his head or his heart. There were some whose deaths were so terrible that no report of them was ever allowed to reach their relatives. So frequent were these tragedies, and so much did they impress the imagination of ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... with the horn, was farthest away from the point where he thought the moose would come out. So Billy began to call, very beautifully. The long echoes went bellowing over the hills. The afternoon was still and the setting sun shone through a light mist, like a ball of red gold. ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... at a brilliant ball in a private mansion, a select company of both sexes, representatives of the world of rank and fashion, were enjoying themselves to their hearts' content, while their chauffeurs watched and waited outside in the cold, dark streets, chewing the ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... of the opportunity to empty one glass after the other. He was a sot, a croney of Tabuenca's and likewise dedicated himself to the deception of the unwary with ball-and-number tricks. Manuel knew him from having seen him often on la Ribera de Curtidores. He used to ply his trade in the suburbs, playing at three cards. He would place three cards upon a little table; one of these he would show, then slowly he would change the position ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... forces; an incredible error, the allies having simply to unite their forces and to take up a firm position in order to draw Napoleon to any given spot. Wellington, moreover, never imagined that Napoleon was so near at hand, and was amusing himself at a ball at Brussels, when Blucher, who was stationed in and around Namur, was attacked on the 14th of June, 1815.[10] Napoleon afterward observed in his memoirs that he had attacked Blucher first because he well knew that Blucher would not be supported by the over-prudent ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... Weed; "our opponents at the ebb."[337] The nomination of Wright had greatly strengthened the Democratic ticket, but the nomination of Polk, backed by the Texas resolution, weighted the party as with a ball and chain. Edwin Croswell had characterised Van Buren's letter to Hammit as "a statesmanlike production," declaring that "every American reader, not entirely under the dominion of prejudice, will admit the force of his conclusions."[338] This was the view generally ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... the path of the blazing ball that has hurtled a million years, Where the uttermost light glows red by night in the clash of the angry spheres, Where never a tear-drop dims the eye, and sorrows are stifled young, And the Anglo-Indians snigger and sneer with the jest of a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 23, 1892 • Various
... forecastle or a block of wood which is used as a stool; the whole article looks perfectly solid, and the Custom-house officers are apt to pass it by. But our friend the coastguard had been used to the old-fashioned smugglers—desperate men who would let fly a ball on the very ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... this last note, the Marchesa gathered the whole mass of her morning's correspondence together, and uttering a few Italian words which need not be translated, rolled it into a ball and hurled the same to the farthest corner of the room. "How is it," she ejaculated, "that these English, who dominate the world abroad, cannot get their food properly cooked at home? I suppose it is because they, in their lofty way, look upon cookery as ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... May, 1861, he left New York, a private in Duryee's Zouaves (5th Regiment N. Y. V.), and on the 10th of June following, while fighting bravely by the side of York, Winthrop, and Greble, at Big Bethel, fell, badly wounded by a musket ball. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the rough hands as they pulled at the profusion of redness. "Don't, ye air tearin' it out by the roots, and it looks like—like the sun when it air goin' down in one ball of ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... probe from his case Doctor Dick, after swallowing a glass of brandy, coolly probed the wound, found the ball, and, aided by Loo Foo, the Chinee, under his direction, soon ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... order in this school. I shall lick the first boy who throws a spit-ball, or who does anything contrary to the rules of the school," said Mr. Thrasher, flourishing a raw hide, on the first morning. He read a long list of rules, numbered from one up to eighteen. Before he finished his rules, a little boy laughed, and caught a whipping. Before noon half a dozen were ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... being so entangled, and the river not being broad enough for the oars to be used. No sooner had the natives uttered the shout, than they leaped into the water armed with spears and clubs; but the moment they made their appearance round the tree, two muskets loaded with ball, and a fowling-piece with small shot, were fired over their heads, which had the desired effect, for they gave up their premeditated attack, and quickly disappeared among the bushes on the opposite side, where they remained screaming and vociferating loudly in angry threatening voices, ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... from his crouching position and commenced to reload his rifle. With great care he poured the powder into the palm of his hand, measuring the quantity with his eye—for it was an evidence of a hunter's skill to be able to get the proper quantity for the ball. Then he put the charge into the barrel. Placing a little greased linsey rag, about half an inch square, over the muzzle, he laid a small lead bullet on it, and with the ramrod began to push the ball ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... young bride at Harrowgate, Lady H——, they're all mad about her; the men swear she's the handsomest woman in England, and I swear I know one ten times as handsome. They've dared me to make good my word, and I've pledged myself to produce my beauty at the next ball, and to pit her against their belle for any money. Most votes carry it. I'm willing to double my bet since I've seen you again. Come, had not we best be off? Now don't refuse me and make speeches—you know that's all nonsense—I'll take ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... air, he handed them to the priests, who then stationed them, unlighted, before the Buddha images. Meantime, the temple resounded with the blended strains of three musicians, one of whom struck a metal ball, the other scraped a stringed instrument, and the third educed shrill notes ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... at Higgs, who looked over his shoulder. Taking off his battered helmet, he threw it at the beast, hitting her on the head. She growled, then seized the helmet, playing with it for a moment as a kitten does with a ball of wool, and next instant, finding it unsatisfying, uttered a short and savage roar, ran forward, and crouched to spring, lashing her tail. I could not fire, because a bullet that would hit her must first ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... his star, his wig, his countenance simpering under it: with a slate and a piece of chalk, I could at this very desk perform a recognisable likeness of him. And yet after reading of him in scores of volumes, hunting him through old magazines and newspapers, having him here at a ball, there at a public dinner, there at races, and so forth, you find you have nothing—nothing but a coat and wig, and a mask smiling below it—nothing but a great simulacrum. His sire and grandsires were men. One knew what they were ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... acquaint you, Sir, that I have glittered at the ball, and sparkled in the circle; that I have had the happiness to be the unknown favourite of an unknown lady at the masquerade, have been the delight of tables of the first fashion, and envy of my brother beaux; and to descend a little ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... a root that stuck up, grumbling to himself as he chewed it, or slapped it with his paw for not staying where he wanted it. Presently Mooney, the mischief, began tugging at Frizzle's ears, and got his own well boxed. They clenched for a tussle; then, locked in a tight, little grizzly yellow ball, they sprawled over and over on the grass, and, before they knew it, down a bank, and away out ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... as if it were a triumph to burn its thoughts away in bonfires. Is the work you compel others to do useful to yourself and to society? If you employ a seamstress to make four or five or six beautiful flounces for your ball dress, flounces which will only clothe yourself, and which you will wear at only one ball, you are employing your money selfishly. Do not confuse covetousness with benevolence, nor cheat yourself into thinking that all the finery you can wear is so much put into ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... reason was given for this change in his plan, and with a sigh of disappointment Maude turned to a letter from Nellie, received by the same mail. After dwelling at length upon the delightful time she was having in the city, Nellie spoke of a fancy ball to be given by her aunt during Christmas week. Mr. De Vere was to be "Ivanhoe," she said, and she to ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... could it be mistaken? You showed a black ball, for 'the lugger's in sight.' You'll not ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... their holy rites prepare To shrive from Man his weight of mortal sin, By daily abstinence and nightly prayer; But ere his sackcloth garb Repentance wear, Some days of joyaunce are decreed to all, To take of pleasaunce each his secret share, In motley robe to dance at masking ball, And join the mimic ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... a Southern port, the captain was willing to risk his share of the danger. "Very well," said Robert, "to-day I will please my master so well, that I will catch him at an unguarded moment, and will ask him for a pass to go to a ball to-night (slave-holders love to see their slaves fiddling and dancing of nights), and as I shall be leaving in a hurry, I will take a grab from the day's sale, and when Slater hears of me again, I will be in Canada." So after having attended to all his disagreeable duties, he made ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... in which building it once stood. It rests upon a platform of ornamental tiles bordered with stone, and looks well. Above it is a carved wooden canopy surmounted by a dove. The canopy is raised by a descending ball of equal weight. When the ball falls the pigeon rises. In ordinary life the ball rises when the pigeon falls; but this is not the case at St. Mary's, although it amounts to the same thing in the end, for after the pigeon has ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... which had been at the water and were now perched on a tree about 300 yards off. At the discharge of the gun a buffalo started out of a thicket, but did not seem inclined to go far; Brown returned, loaded his gun with ball, went after the buffalo and wounded him in the shoulder. When Charley came back to the camp, he, Brown and Mr. Roper pursued the buffalo on horseback, and after a long run, and some charges, succeeded in killing it. It was a young bull, about three years old, and in most excellent ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... the good teacher and the good preacher. He is not rare, but he is precious. He has qualities that almost escape analysis and therefore deserve more than a complimentary discussion. He must hold his book like a crystal ball in which he sees not only its proper essence in perfect clarity, but also his own mind mirrored. He must—... In other words, the good reviewer deserves an essay of his own. He is a genius in a minor art, which sometimes becomes major; a craftsman whose skill is often exceptional. I will ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... the Princess Lubomirska sent for me and said, 'To-day is the last of the year, and there will be to-night a grand festival, a masked ball; all the nobility will be there, and even the king and his sons; at least, I think so. I have selected a dress for you; you will go as a virgin ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... a well-formed, healthy Negrita damsel, with jet-black piercing eyes, and her hair in one perfect ball of close curls. The men are not of a handsome type; some of them have a hale, swarthy appearance, but many of them present a sickly, emaciated aspect. A Negrita matron past thirty is perhaps one of the ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... trying to be animated and intimate. I forgot my own tragedy and haw-hawed three times. She looked almost apologetic when she called us by our first names, especially when she used the diminutive. Polly Vane, who's got a head like a billiard ball and has to wear a wig for decency's sake, drew herself up twice and then relaxed with a sickly grin. . . . All the same I don't think Mary felt any more comfortable or liked it much better than the rest of us. Too much like reading your own ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... To the table in my cabin, Underneath the painted rafters, In this house renowned and ancient? Shall I now these boxes open, Boxes filled with wondrous stories? Shall I now the end unfasten Of this ball of ancient wisdom, These ancestral lays unravel? Let me sing an old-time legend, That shall echo forth the praises Of the beer that I have tasted, Of the sparkling beer of barley. Bring to me a foaming goblet Of the barley of my fathers, Lest my singing grow too ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... carriage, with want of money, he was a rich man; but Mrs. McQuinch found it hard to live like a lady on their income, and had worn many lines into her face by constantly and vainly wishing that she could afford to give a ball every season, to get a new carriage, and to appear at church with her daughters in new dresses oftener than twice a year. Her two eldest girls were plump and pleasant, good riders and hearty eaters; and she ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... will of their oppressors. For always formidable was the league 65 And partnership of free power with free will. The way of ancient ordinance, though it winds, Is yet no devious way. Straight forward goes The lightning's path, and straight the fearful path Of the cannon-ball. Direct it flies and rapid, 70 Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it reaches. My son! the road the human being travels, That on which blessing comes and goes, doth follow The river's course, the valley's playful windings, Curves round the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... felt certain that Hunter must be gone: he looked across the landing and could see Owen working in the front room. Philpot made a little ball of paper and threw it at him to attract his attention. Owen looked round and Philpot began to make signals: he pointed downwards with one hand and jerked the thumb of the other over his shoulder in the direction of the town, winking grotesquely the while. This Owen interpreted to be an inquiry as ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... terror of the plague, I used to put a fowling-piece on my boy Pagolino's shoulder, and he and I went out alone into the ruins; and oftentimes we came home laden with a cargo of the fattest pigeons. I did not care to charge my gun with more than a single ball; and thus it was by pure skill in the art that I filled such heavy bags. I had a fowling-piece which I had made myself; inside and out it was as bright as any mirror. I also used to make a very fine sort of powder, in doing which I discovered secret processes, beyond ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... face can I pray then! Yours were but little vanities, but I have sinned swingingly against my vow; yes, indeed, sister, I have been very wicked,—for I wished the ball might be kept perpetually in our cloister, and that half the handsome nuns in it might be turned to men, for ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... They gall the flank, they skirt the battling field, Cull out the distant foe in full horse speed, Couch the long tube and eye the silver bead, Turn as he turns, dismiss the whizzing lead, And lodge the death-ball in ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... I remember being frightened by sitting so high up on my father's shoulder, and then feeling so safe when I got into my mother's lap; and I remember Robin's curls, and his taking my woolly ball from me. I remember our black frocks coming in the hair-trunk with brass nails to the sea-side, where Margery and I were with our nurse, and her telling the landlady that our father and mother and brother were all laid in one grave. And I remember ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Petrie and Mrs. Major Price want to be 'patronesses,' I believe they call themselves, of an Assembly Ball, an' want to hold the ball at Lem Parraday's hotel. It's bad enough to have them dances; but to have 'em at a place where liquor is sold, is a sin and a shame! I wish Lem Parraday had lost the hotel entirely, before he got ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... biology, out of pure caution and conscientiousness, without sharing those prejudices; and many a speculative philosopher has been free from them who has been a vitalist in metaphysics. Schopenhauer, for instance, observed that the cannon-ball which, if self-conscious, would think it moved freely, would be quite right in thinking so. The "Will" was as evident to him in mechanism as in animal life. M. Bergson, in the more hidden reaches of his thought, seems to be a universal vitalist; apparently an elan vital must have existed ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... it this time," he answered. "The ship slipped in past the Point last night. Davies signaled her to stop, and then sent a ball over her; but she kept on. True, it was too dark to make out much; but if she were friendly, why did she not stop for castle duties? Moreover, they say she was of at least five hundred tons, and no ship of that size hath ever visited these waters. ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... aloft, and all other eyes followed it. The heaven was clear as the deep sea, a gorgeous blue. But as the words came from her, so a small mist was born in the sky, wheeling and circling like a ball, although the day was windless, and rapidly growing darker and more compact. So dense had it become, that presently it threw a shadow on part of the sacred circle and soothed it into twilight, though all ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... think Thackeray's Mrs. Perkins's Ball very good? I think the empty faces of the dance room were never better done. It seems to me wonderful that people can endure to look on such things: but I am forty, and got out of the habit now, and certainly shall not try to ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... Frederick, his passions divided between German philosophy and French poetry, poured out with equal copiousness disquisitions upon Free Will and la raison suffisante, odes sur la Flatterie, and epistles sur l'Humanite, while Voltaire kept the ball rolling with no less enormous philosophical replies, together with minute criticisms of His Royal Highness's mistakes in French metre and French orthography. Thus, though the interest of these early letters must have been intense to the young Prince, they have far too little personal ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... the excitement a fat, yellow marmot, which seemed suddenly to have lost his mind, galloped over the plain as fast as his short legs could carry him until he remembered that safety lay underground; then he popped into his burrow like a billiard ball into a pocket. With this strange assortment fleeing in front of the car we felt as though we had ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... was a house seventy-nine feet long, whose sides and ends sloped at an angle of thirty-four degrees and were covered with iron plating, six inches thick on the forward end and five inches thick on the other end and the sides. With the inclination given, a cannon ball striking would be likely to be turned upward by the iron surface, instead of penetrating. The sloping sides of the house were carried down beyond the point where they met those of the vessel, until two feet below the water. There they turned and struck in ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... I read that these innocent and happy beings, although evidently "creatures of order and subordination," and "very polite," were seen indulging in amusements which would not be deemed "within the bounds of strict propriety" on this degenerate ball. The story wound up rather abruptly by referring the reader to an extended work on the subject by Herschel, ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... could fear to lose this being, Which, like a snow-ball, in my coward hand, The more 'tis grasped, ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... immense beetles are at work in vast numbers, walking off with every species of dung, by forming it into balls as large as small apples, and rolling them away with their hind legs, while they walk backwards by means of the forelegs. Should a ball of dung roll into a deep rut, I have frequently seen another beetle come to the assistance of the proprietor of the ball, and quarrel for its possession after their joint labours have raised it ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... page, not as a pose, but because we're interested in things that happen on the field, and track, and links, and gridiron? Bless your heart, that baseball story was the worst story in the book, but it was written after a solid summer of watching our bush league team play ball in the little Wisconsin town that I used to ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... are taken from pots, water the pots some time in advance, and the ball of earth will fall out when the pot is inverted and tapped lightly. In taking up plants from the ground, it is advisable, also, to water them well some time before removing; the earth may then be held on the roots. ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... the glowing ball of white-hot iron is placed, and forced with a rotary motion through a spiral passage, the diameter of which is constantly diminishing. The effect of this operation is to squeeze all the slag and cinder out of the ball, and force the iron to assume the shape ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various |
