"Breakneck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I said fiercely, raising her head. "But not over any ghost-ridden breakneck wall. We're going this time through the big front door of this old castle, American fashion, and there'll be an automobile waiting outside and a parson at the other ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... breakneck speed. It seemed miles and miles to London; no matter how much of the winding road he covered, it unfolded again before his eyes, and ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... walk to the Moondaisy. Walk.... Scramble! Uncle Jake seemed to glide from rock to rock, but with two or three stone weight awkwardly perched on my shoulder, the wet running down my neck and an arm going numb, I slithered down the weed-covered slopes in a very breakneck fashion. I rather felt for the bladderheads who refuse to ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... the Tyri Fjord. There is no attempt here, nor indeed upon the most of the Norwegian roads we travelled, to mitigate, by well-arranged curves, the steepness of the hills. Straight down you go, no matter of how breakneck a character the declivity may be. There are no drags to the carrioles and country carts, and were not the native horses the toughest and surest-footed little animals in the world, this sort of travel would be trying to ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... to Moscow in six days, drawn by three horses at breakneck pace, from Moscow to Kazan through the endless forests, on to the Volga, Brown and Ledyard hastened. By the autumn they were across the Barbary Desert, three thousand miles from St. Petersburg. Here Brown remained, and Ledyard ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... among the rocks, as snug as conies, and as safe. He showed me over the farm, taking me through a tunnel which led from one field to the other, divided by an inaccessible spur of mountain. Mr. Schank said that he had lost many cows and bullocks, as well as sheep, from breakneck over the steep cliffs and precipices. One cow, he said, would sometimes hook another right over a precipice to destruction, and go on feeding unconcernedly. It seemed that the animals on the island farm, like mankind in the wide world, found it all ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... no time. His secretary, William Loeb, telephoned from North Creek, the end of the railroad, that he had had a locomotive there for hours with full steam up. So Roosevelt and the driver of his buckboard dashed on through the night, over the uncertain mountain road, dangerous even by daylight, at breakneck speed. Dawn was breaking when they came to North Creek. There, Loeb told him that President McKinley was dead. Then they steamed back to civilization as fast as possible, reached the main trunk line, and sped on to Buffalo without ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... brought in and lighted a small hand lamp. Mrs. Snow took it and led the way to the hall and the narrow, breakneck flight of stairs. Captain Zelotes laid a hand on his ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... roar in triumph. But there was nothing triumphant about the one which followed, so far as our work was concerned. We manoeuvred past it with much difficulty only to find ourselves upon two more bad ones. Bad as they were, they were nevertheless runable, and away we dashed with breakneck speed, certainly not less than twenty miles an hour, down both of them, to land on the left immediately at the beginning of a great and forbidding descent. These let-downs were difficult, often requiring all hands ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... Sisters. And at last Sister Hyacinthe was able to install herself with Elise Rouquet and Sophie Couteau in a large char-a-bancs, in which Ferrand and Sisters Saint-Francois and Claire des Anges were already seated. The drivers whipped up their spirited little horses, and the vehicles went off at a breakneck pace, amidst the shouts of those left behind, and ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... approach of the water was from the seventeen-year-old son of John Baker. He was on the road on horseback and noticed the water coming out of a cavity about five feet in diameter, and not waiting to see any more he put spurs to his horse and dashed for the town at breakneck speed. Some of the people of this place saw him coming at great speed, waving his hat, and knowing something was wrong at once gave the alarm, and grabbing their children started for the high parts. When he arrived almost at Railroad ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... and branches ahead. I drew up my knees and bent my body, and dodged and went down flat over the pommel like a wild-riding Indian. Target kept that straining run for a longer distance than I could judge. With the same breakneck speed he thundered on over logs and little washes, through the thick, bordering bushes, and around the sudden turns. His foam moistened my face and flecked my sleeves. The wind came stinging into my face, the heavy roar followed at ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... of that blow, while Margaret leaned over and tried to explain and beg pardon for her offense. The second fence was crossed with a clean-cut leap, and only once in the next field did the horse stumble, but quickly recovered and went on at the same breakneck gait. The next fence, gallantly vaulted over, brought them to the side road, half a mile up which stood the doctor's house. Margaret saw the futility of attempting a reconciliation until the goal was won. There, ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... in the later days of the Civil War when he was striding along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington at his usual breakneck pace. He was Major General Barlow, then, one of the great generals of the Union Army, but he was, first, last and always, a Brook Farmer, so I signaled to him with the same old call. He came to an abrupt halt, ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... face, he carried her at breakneck speed to the boat—pushed off, and rowed like Hercules for ...
— The Pirate's Pocket Book • Dion Clayton Calthrop
... young mare that the ranger rode strove to assert herself against him now and then, as she went at a breakneck speed along the sandy bridle-path through the woods. How was she to know that the white-wanded young willow by the way-side was not some spiritual manifestation as it suddenly materialized in a broken beam from a rift in the clouds? But as she reared and plunged she felt his heavy hand ...
— 'way Down In Lonesome Cove - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... improvident, temerarious; uncalculating^; heedless; careless &c (neglectful) 460; without ballast, heels over head, head over heels; giddy &c (inattentive) 458; wanton, reckless, wild, madcap; desperate, devil-may-care. hot-blooded, hotheaded, hotbrained^; headlong, headstrong; breakneck; foolhardy; harebrained; precipitate, impulsive. overconfident, overweening; venturesome, venturous; adventurous, Quixotic, fire eating, cavalier; janty^, jaunty, free and easy. off one's guard &c (inexpectant) 508 [Obs.]. Adv. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... went flying from the horse's hoofs as the sheriff tore down the trail toward Melissy. He cut off at an angle and dashed through cactus and over rain-washed gullies at breakneck speed, pounding up the stiff slope to the summit. He dragged his pony to a halt, and leaped off at the ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... folks—a very healthy, happy life; and all threw themselves into it so heartily, that it was impossible to help getting great good from it, for these summer weeks, if well spent, work miracles in tired bodies and souls. Frank took a fancy to the bicycle boy, and, being able to hire one of the breakneck articles, soon learned to ride it; and the two might be seen wildly working their long legs on certain smooth stretches of road, or getting up their muscle rowing about the bay till they were almost as brown and nautical in ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... place for the latter purpose, that I think of going out some night next week, in a fur cap and a pair of petticoat trousers, and running an empty tub, as a kind of archaeological pursuit. Let nobody with corns come to Pavilionstone, for there are breakneck flights of ragged steps, connecting the principal streets by back-ways, which will cripple that visitor in half an hour. These are the ways by which, when I run that tub, I shall escape. I shall make a Thermopylae of the corner of one of them, defend it with my cutlass against the coast-guard ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... curtains, then between the pedestals of the bureau, but Stingaree was nowhere in the room, and the bedroom door was still locked. It was a second look behind the curtains that revealed an open window and the scratch of a boot upon the white enamel. It was no breakneck drop ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... he answered, drying his eyes on his sleeve. "It's been betwixt and between the truth with her all my life. But if the time ever comes when I can serve ye—" He choked. "Ah!" he cried, "words are poor things! But ye'll see!" And with this he was gone at a breakneck run down the Swamp Hollow ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... Burton's fingers were in his pocket, and at the third his pencil was racing over the paper at breakneck speed. There was no pause then, no time for thought, no time for careful forming of words and letters. There was only the breakneck race between a bit of lead and an impassioned tongue; and when it was all over, there were only a well-nigh hopeless-looking ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... never leaves his hand. For the steel walls of his craft, the doors, and the companion-ladder all sweat oil, and at every touch the hands must be wiped dry. The doorways are narrow round holes. Through one of the holes aft the commander descends by a breakneck iron ladder into the black hole lit by electric glow-lamps. The air is heavy with the smell of oil, and to the unaccustomed longshoreman it is almost choking, though the hatches are off. The submarine man breathes this air as if it were the purest ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... hard but give no thanks. I found my girl descending on the road Of breakneck coquetry, and barred her way. Either she leaps the bar, or she must back. That means she marries you, or says ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the night at a breakneck pace which they never slackened until, when within a quarter of a mile or so of Penzoy Pound, where the army was encamped and slumbering by now, they caught sight of the musketeers' matches glowing in the dark ahead of them. An outpost barred their progress; but ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... how utterly useless it would be to question the man at my side, and he volunteered not a word. Presently the pace was increased until the horses were on a run through the streets; then suddenly we flew around a corner at breakneck speed and stopped so abruptly that I was thrown forward on my face in spite of the robes in which I was swaddled. At the same moment I heard a gate clang shut behind us and was ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... whole body tingled for a moment—and he felt like a man guilty of some mean crime and arraigned before all the world. Then he struck Tito with his switch, and began to gallop down the steep path at a breakneck pace, sticking his feet far out upon either side. He would forget. He would put away these thoughts that were tormenting him. He would enjoy this day of pleasure for which he had sacrificed so much, for which he had trampled down his ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... The breakneck path had descended almost to the sea, and we were already within sound of its reverberations, when a cliff hove up suddenly on the landward hand, very rugged and broken, streaked with white lichen, laddered with green lianas, and pierced with the apertures of half a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... thick spokes and ponderous hubs, and as no springs could survive the jolting of such a vehicle, the body of the cart is placed directly upon the huge axle. Then a couple of big mules are hitched up tandem and driven at breakneck speed. A runaway in an American farmer's wagon over a corduroy road but feebly suggests the miseries of travel in a Chinese cart. It may be good for a dyspeptic, but it is about the most uncomfortable conveyance that the ingenuity ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... piece of faith or impudence which fulfils itself. If some other animal were to induce the chamois to believe that it should at the least have feet with suckers to them, like a fly, before venturing in such breakneck places, or if by any means it could get to know how bad a foot it really has, there would soon be no more chamois. The chamois continues to exist through its absolute refusal to hear reason upon the matter. But the whole question is one ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... and the three horses bounded forward, over the fence of the Mexican's garden, and up the street at a breakneck gallop. They clattered across the acequia bridge and past Delarue's place, where Mead, eagerly sweeping the house with a sidewise glance, had a brief glimpse of a brightly lighted room. Instantly his memory went back, as it had ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... to laugh at such trifles, but at night time it was a different matter. To tear through the darkness at a breakneck pace at the mercy of three wild, unbroken horses required some nerve, especially when lying under the koshma as helpless as a sardine in a soldered tin. For the first few days overflows were a constant menace, especially at night when sleep under the apron was out of the ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... completely. This was due not so much to his distance in the rear as to the fact that the wagon, having struck a bend in the trail, had turned from view. But he did not know that. Sounding a baby outcry of fear, he scurried ahead at breakneck speed, frantic heels tossing up tiny spurts of dust, head stretched forward—and thus soon caught up. After that he remained close beside his mother until the wagon, rocking down the mouth of the canyon, swung out upon the broad mesa. Here the outfit could be seen for miles, and now ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... breakneck pace to make up for lost time. How good it was to sniff the fresh air, and to be free, and then to think of that hour put into solid work over the book-list! Why, he glowed all over with delight at ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... but that was under a misapprehension. I hadn't learned the customs of the country then. By the way, is it a local custom for hermits of science to climb breakneck precipices for golden- hearted orchids ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... tearing along at breakneck speed. When he was some twenty paces off, Jim swung round, ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... breakneck declivity of nearly three thousand feet by which we reach the banks of the Merced, we are six miles from the hotel, and every rod of the ride awakens wonder, awe, and a solemn joy. As we approach the hotel, and turn toward the opposite bank of the ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... brush and scrub trees, towered so high above them that the atmosphere was damp and the long strip of sky was like a pale-blue banner. The trail was well worn, and there was nothing to impede their progress. The mustangs responded to the lifted bridle and ran at breakneck speed. They emerged at the end of half an hour. It was an abrupt sally, and the great level plain before them seemed a blaze ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... Dantzig that Napoleon was no longer with the army—that he had made over the parody of command of the phantom army to Murat, King of Naples—that he had passed like an evil spirit unknown through Poland, Prussia, Germany, travelling twelve hundred miles night and day at breakneck speed, alone, racing to Paris to save ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... changing I shall know that I have fallen into the sere and withered leaf past redemption. And now that I have expiated myself—(probably to your more complete confusion!)—we'll have a short canter to blow away cobwebs. The road is rather less breakneck just here." ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... fig and apricot, a mulberry or two, and was interrupted in the perusal of my book by the clatter of galloping hoofs approaching along the road. I climbed on to the fence to see who it could be who was coming at such a breakneck pace. He pulled the rein opposite me, and I recognized a man from Dogtrap. He was in his shirt-sleeves; his horse was all in a lather, and its scarlet nostrils were wide open, and its ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... hours before she began to realize that the horse was no longer going at quite such a breakneck speed, or else she was growing accustomed to the motion and getting her breath, she could not quite be sure which. But little by little she perceived that the mad flying had settled into a long lope. The pony evidently had no intention of stopping and it was plain that ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... house a horseman came clattering down the road and all paused involuntarily to mark the new arrival. The rider was a handsome, slim young fellow, dressed as were the other cowboys present, and he came on at a breakneck speed that seemed only warranted by an errand of ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... the Doges, the 'Staircase of the Giants,' and on which Swann now set foot, saddened by the thought that Odette had never climbed it. Ah, with what joy would he, on the other hand, have raced up the dark, evil-smelling, breakneck flights to the little dressmaker's, in whose attic he would so gladly have paid the price of a weekly stage-box at the Opera for the right to spend the evening there when Odette came, and other days too, for the privilege of talking about her, of living among people whom ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... Transcaucasia being very limited, for a few only are stationed in each principal town, chiefly as an escort to the governor of the province, their duties are performed by Chapars, an irregular force, equally dashing horsemen, and trained in like manner from early youth in those singular exercises and breakneck evolutions for which the Cossacks of the Caucasus have become so famous. Setting their horses at full gallop, they will stand on the saddle and fire all around at an imaginary enemy; or throw the body completely over to ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... curve in the road at their usual breakneck speed, and Mollie stopped the car with a jolt that very nearly sent its occupants flying into ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... at not quite such breakneck speed, came out on the porch in time to see two slender, black-clad figures with vivid red and green caps scrambling down the side of the bluff that led ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... party—an office, however honourable, that is no sinecure since it obliges me to write rhymed eulogies or diatribes on Dolgelly, Tan-y-Bulch, Gyn-y-Coed, Llanrychwyn, and other Welsh hamlets whose names offer breakneck fences to ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... There was more breakneck riding, and they got a cart and some bedding and carried Ben to Anderson's, which was handiest, if not nearest, and there was more wild and ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... glitter of a little gold lace and his snow-white trousers proclaimed him to be that hero in embryo, a midshipman. Having looked about him for a few seconds, he began to descend the cliff at so seemingly breakneck a speed, that several of the ladies shrieked out to him to take care, and Mary Rymer turned somewhat pale and stood looking anxiously as the young sailor dropped from one point of rock to another, ...
— Adrift in a Boat • W.H.G. Kingston
... pass, as one waits for the passing of a train. Turning his eyes in the direction of the sound, which ascended with startling distinctness through the night air, he presently saw a gleam shoot above the hill; and now the great touring-car came on at breakneck pace, searching the dusty highway a hundred yards in advance with a clean pencil-shaft ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... all in it. The thing could not have happened save by the dishonesty and cynical disbelief of some priest, and indeed probably of more than one. And, upon the whole, it struck me as a second curious indication of the somewhat breakneck speed with which the threads of history are spinning themselves in these days ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... his horse on the muzzle with his whip, and galloped off at a breakneck pace. Tihon Ivanitch bowed to me twice, once for himself and once for his companion, and again set off at a trot into ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... seed de Ku Klux a comin', us would take an' run breakneck speed to de nearest wood. Dar we would stay till dey wuz plum out o' sight and you could not even hear de horses feet. Dem days wuz worse'n de war. Yes Lawd, dey wuz worse'n any war I is ebber ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... the Blue Motor is an audacious heroine who drove her mysterious car at breakneck speed. Her plea for assistance in an adventure promising more than a spice of danger could not of course be disregarded by any gallant fellow motorist. Mr. Paternoster's hero rose promptly to the occasion. Across France they tore and across ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... ground. Petted him, of course, like she does with every creature. In two days she had him so stuck after her that she—well, YOU know how he follows her everywhere, and sets on her shoulder often when she rides her breakneck rampages—all of which is the girl-twin to the front, you see—and he does what he pleases, and is up to all kinds of devilment, and is a perfect nuisance in the kitchen. Well, they all stand it, but they wouldn't if it was another ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... engine-house. Thence the hand-engines were dragged through the streets at a terrific rate of speed by hundreds of yelling men at the end of the ropes. The first engine at a fire obtained the place of honor; therefore every alarm was the signal for a breakneck race. Arrived at the scene of fire, the water-box of one engine was connected by hose with the reservoir of the next, and so water was relayed from engine to engine until it was thrown on the flames. The motive power of the pump was supplied by the crew of each engine. ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... came across nine English spies, who fled as soon as they saw us. We galloped after them, trying to cut them off from the main body, which was at a little distance away from us, and would no doubt have overtaken them, but, riding at a breakneck speed over a mountain ridge, we found ourselves suddenly confronted with a strong English mounted corps, apparently engaged in drilling. We were only 500 paces away from them, and we jumped off our horses, and opened fire. But there were only a dozen of us, and the enemy soon ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... English have done," said Clara, pointing down the sheer rock. "It will be a long time before you and I go down Breakneck Stairs again to see the pretty images in the church of ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... and his lightning-like decisions marked him apart from every other commander. His career in the Tennessee campaign was meteoric. Of his score and more of great conflicts, the most picturesque was his wonderful battle at Cedar Creek, to fight which he rode at breakneck speed "from Winchester twenty miles away" through the dust and debris of a broken army to the extreme front, rallying the scattered regiments and turning a defeat into a crushing victory, which recovered all that had been ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... breathless entrance of Inspector Dawfield put an end to Barrant's reflections. He explained that Sergeant Pengowan, in his anxiety to maintain the correctness of his official report, had taken him to various breakneck positions at the back of the house and along the cliffs in order to demonstrate the impossibility of anybody entering Robert Turold's rooms from outside. The sergeant was at that moment engaged in a room downstairs drawing up ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... propeller, and the motor took. I pulled back my manet, full gas, and off I went at what seemed to me then breakneck speed. Remembering instructions, I pushed forward on the lever which governs the elevating planes, and up went my tail so quickly and at such an angle that almost instinctively I cut off my contact. Down dropped my tail again, and I whirled round in a circle—my first cheval ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... construct and market an automobile specially designed for everyday wear and tear—business, professional, and family use; an automobile which will attain to a sufficient speed to satisfy the average person without acquiring any of those breakneck velocities which are so universally condemned; a machine which will be admired by man, woman, and child alike for its compactness, its simplicity, its safety, its all-around convenience, and—last but not least—its exceedingly reasonable price, which ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... outstripped them. She skated almost entirely with Stefan, only once with Gunther, who, since his strange look in the sleigh, a little troubled her. On that one occasion he tore round the clear ice at breakneck speed, halting her dramatically, by sheer weight, a few inches from the bank, where ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... machinery? It is now the exception which breaks the rule to take the air in the streets without being startled by the unseemly spectacles of go-ahead citizens straddled upon such revolutionary contrivances, threading their way with breakneck velocity under the very noses of omnibus and other horses, and ringing the shrill ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... over the wheel and peered through the thickening pall of smoke and dust, reluctant to ease off his breakneck speed but knowing that they had to find Hetty—if she were alive. Neither man had said a word since the wagon raced ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael
... as it may, such dramatic and literary tendencies have produced their effect, and the popular impression of the doctor is that of a man who spends his time between rushing at breakneck speed to save the lives of those who suddenly find themselves in articulo mortis and will perish unless he gets there within fifteen minutes, and dancing attendance upon a swarm of old hypochondriacs, neurotics, and ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... beauty, the acrobats whirling through space, James Robinson turning handsprings on his dapple-gray steed, and, last and most ravishing of all, little Willie Sells in pink tights on his three charging Shetland ponies, whose breakneck course in the picture followed one whichever way he turned. When these glories had been pasted upon the wall and had been discussed to the point of cynicism, the Court of Boyville reluctantly adjourned to get in the night wood and dream of a ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... braver of the two. Although it bored her dreadfully,—as she knew that there was no way out of it, she would go through with it, sit at the piano with a determined air, and gallop through her rondo at breakneck speed, stumbling over certain passages, make a hash of others, break off, turn her head, and say, with ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... At a breakneck pace, we stumbled over low bushes; we grazed big boulders; we rolled down the sides of steep ravines; but we kept him in sight all the time, dim and black against the starry sky; slowly, slowly—yes, yes!—we gained upon him. My pony led now. The mysterious white ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... dust had streamed round the curve of the road, and from the heart of it had emerged a high tandem tricycle flying along at a breakneck pace. In front sat Mrs. Westmacott clad in a heather tweed pea-jacket, a skirt which just{?} passed her knees and a pair of thick gaiters of the same material. She had a great bundle of red papers under her arm, while Charles, who sat behind her clad in Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, bore ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was christened Bernard, gave indications at a very early age of an eccentric and violent disposition. Precocious in growth and strength, wild as a young foal, headstrong and passionate, full of spiteful tricks and breakneck pranks, he was the terror of the family and the neighbours. In spite of his unamiable qualities, he was the pet of his father, who pardoned or laughed at all his mischief, and the consequence was, that he became an object of fear and hatred to his brothers and sisters. Our hatred, however, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... up from the road, but walked faster and faster, her heart beating at breakneck speed. It was a changed world that spun past her; fright, triumph, shame, delight, a gratified vanity swam over ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Cart." Tomlinson had some most entertaining experiences in trying to get mules to pull these "handcarts," but the mules usually found it more interesting to try and turn round to see what extraordinary things on wheels they were now being insulted by being asked to pull, or in going off at breakneck speeds to try and get rid of them. These carts were never popular, and never a success, and gradually, by being carefully "left" by the roadside or some other convenient spots, they were eventually ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... from the city they met two others of the conspirators, devoured with anxiety. Changing to the new coach, the party drove in at breakneck pace, and halted before the barracks of the Ismailofsky regiment, with which the conspirators ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... easier to return, as in the stillness of the night came from a distance the roar of the waterfall; the clouds in the western sky were scattered and, besides the moon, the zodiacal light shone strongly. The boy pricked the horse on the flanks with the broad Arabian stirrups and rode at almost breakneck speed, saying in his soul: "What are lions and panthers to me? I have quinine for my little one!" And from time to time he felt the jars with his hand, as if he wanted to assure himself that he actually possessed them and that it was not all a dream. Various thoughts and pictures ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... fast that at first we did not know what had passed us till the dogs came tumbling after at breakneck speed. They were such old hands at the game that they gave their quarry a bad time of it for awhile, turning and doubling on his tracks till we were almost as excited and bewildered as the poor coon. Little Mary Ware just stood and wrung her hands, and once when the ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... we walk, then we trot, and when with a leap the hounds start in full cry, we race. Regardless of five thousand feet of altitude, regardless of brush, rocks, and dizzy cliffs, we follow at a breakneck pace. I don't know where our breath comes from in these trials. We just have to run; in fact, we have planned to run on our hands when our legs play out. With pounding hearts we surge ahead. "Keep the dogs within hearing!" "It can't ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... point to another. Before long not a cab anywhere waited at its stand. Every one held an officer or two, if only an un-uniformed bank-officer or captain of police, and rattled up or down this street and that, taking corners at breakneck risks. That later the drays began to move was not so noticeable, for a dray was but a dray and they went off empty except for their drivers and sometimes a soldier with a musket and did not return. Moreover, as they went there began to be seen from the middle of almost any cross-street, ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... one's own prowess and one's horse's paces while careering madly in a widish circle round some given object—an open carriage with some great one in it, or a bridal pair—taking no note of obstacles, dashing over rocks and gulleys and down breakneck slopes, loading and firing off a gun at intervals, in full career. I had tried the feeling of it once at a friend's wedding, and had been far from happy, though my horse enjoyed the romp and often tried to start it afterwards when there was no occasion. Remembering ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... He was sure the stage would be driven in pursuit at breakneck speed, and from the breathing of his horse he feared it could not long endure the contest. To be sure, Red Kimball and his men had no lawful excuse to offer the stage-driver for an attempt to stop them; but three men who had once been desperate highwaymen ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... the mountain's rocky crest above, she heard excited cries. Once, on her breakneck descent, she looked up through the foliage of the pine; and she saw, far up against the sky, a white-masked face looking over the edge of ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... spoke, of sundry breakneck gallops and mahlstrom waltzes danced in gardens and saloons, the very existence whereof was ignored by or unknown to respectability; and then thought, "If I were safely planted on the other side of the world with her for my wife, it would cost me no more to cut all that kind of ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... ladies—a mile and a half out, and a ride back again. She covered between twenty and thirty miles in her little constitutionals, all about and about, between Kotgarh and Narkunda. This time she came back at full dusk, stepping down the breakneck descent into Kotgarh with something heavy in her arms. The Chaplain's wife was dozing in the drawing-room when Lispeth came in breathing hard and very exhausted with her burden. Lispeth put it down on ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... behind, with its graven head-mark, had borne to her heart a new fear that perhaps her mother, too, would soon sleep upon the hillside. She put the thought of her father away, and centered her efforts on reaching the station and the doctor. As she galloped at breakneck speed, the damp wind swept her face, cutting it sharply, and whipped out her horse's mane and tail till they fluttered on a ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... big strides now, and it was not long before, looking a good deal more amiable, he declared himself ready, and was in fact so ready that he raced with his brother down to the cliff— rather a breakneck proceeding, considering the steepness of the way; but they got down to the harbour in safety, and to Dick's delight he found that the lugger was not yet in, the progress by means of her sweeps having been very slow, and now for the first time he noticed ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... this aside, as I understand it, you are asserting that, having given you all this trouble to-day, and knowing that you were after me, I deliberately hopped into a cab fifteen minutes ago, came up Fifth Avenue at such breakneck speed that this officer thought it was a runaway, and finally jumped out and ran up-stairs here to fire a revolver three times, for no purpose whatsoever beyond bringing you gentlemen about ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... a queer voice that scared him. "Will I? Watch! I'm going over the cliff!" And before he could interfere she had turned and was riding breakneck for the end ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... moment's notice, she had been literally showered with hankies by the little First-Formers. However, Sally May was discovered on her feet about to make a speech. Sally May, usually so glib of tongue, moistened her lips several times, and then, holding out the bouquet, she delivered at breakneck speed the little speech which she had composed—and fortunately ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... a long, low whistle?—"The cars have run off the track at Breakneck Hollow. Back your engine and wait for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... Hundred and Forty-fifth Street. This was the first and most southerly of the three lines constructed on the Heights. Sauthier's map, the authority in the case, shows this line with a battery across the King's Bridge Road, just at the top of what is known as Breakneck Hill. It was on the slope of this hill that Knowlton and Henley were buried. Mr. Lossing puts his grave in one of the redoubts on the second line, afterwards included in Trinity Cemetery; but that line had not been thrown up when Knowlton died. (Silliman's letter of September ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... true. Strokes of the paddle were no longer necessary to propel the craft at the breakneck pace. It sped like an arrow—straight toward ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... good humour. He had voluntarily assumed the whole charge of our drivers during the day, had distinguished himself by most unwearied efforts in raising fallen horses, getting them over breakneck places, and cheering up the disconsolate Kamchadals, and he now wrung the water out of his shirt, and squeezed his wet hair absent-mindedly into a kettle of soup, with a countenance of such beaming serenity and a laugh of such hearty good-nature ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... larger scale many of the qualities that we may note in the American novelist Cooper, whose best stories are tales of adventure in the forest or on the sea. Like him, Scott shows lack of care in the construction of sentences. Few of the most cultured people of to-day could, however, write at Scott's breakneck speed and make as few slips. Scott has far more humor and variety ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... hunting as most of his wild kindred, so he did not take the precaution to get upon the windward side of his game. The ever-watchful mother scented danger long before he got within striking distance. Her white flag went up and she led her offspring at a breakneck pace from the place, but Black Bruin had marked them for his own and it was only a matter ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... house tumbling on the back of its neighbour, another having contrived to wedge itself between two of portlier bulk, a third coolly taking possession of some inviting frontage, shutting out its fellow's light, air, and sunshine; here, meeting the eye, breakneck alley, there aerial terrace, and on all sides architectural reminders of the Souvigny passed away, the Souvigny once so splendid and important, now reduced to nothingness, as is, politically speaking, the ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... accident. No firm arch, overspanning the Impassable with paved highway, could the Editor construct; only, as was said, some zigzag series of rafts floating tumultuously thereon. Alas, and the leaps from raft to raft were too often of a breakneck character; the darkness, the nature of the ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... forward. The movement caused him to ease his hand upon the reins. Instantly the horses sprang into a gallop. So intent was he that for the moment the change passed unnoticed. He seemed only to have eyes and thought for that distant hill-top. Then of a sudden he realized the dangerous breakneck speed, and turned his attention ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... of a breakneck ride through the Pentlands, I entered the dining-room at Stair very late one morning to find Huey MacGrath in a state of deepest gloom waiting to ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... Laserre, his jolly Creole friend from Louisiana, he slipped down to Bennie Haven's on a frolic—taking French leave, of course. The alarm was given of the approach of an instructor, and the two culprits bolted for the barracks at breakneck speed through pitch darkness. Scrambling madly through the woods, there was a sudden cry, a crash and silence. He had fallen sixty feet over a precipice to the banks of the Hudson. Young Laserre crawled carefully ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... begun that fearful descent, at once the despair and delight of engineers. The mountain fell away rapidly as the long, clumsy train raced down its flank at a breakneck pace. Pobloff shivered and clutched the arms of his seat. He saw nothing but deep blue sky and the tall top of an occasional tree. The racket was terrific, the heat depressing. She sat in her corner, ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... not three miles away. I was soon tearing along the road at breakneck speed. At an improvised field-hospital I met the doctor, who vainly tried to prepare me for the horrid spectacle I was ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... He whirled his pony in its tracks and sent it jogging down the back trail. A tenderfoot would have taken the gulch at breakneck speed. Most old-timers would have found a canter none too fast. But Jack Roberts held to a steady road gait. Not once did he look back—but every foot of the way till he had turned a bend in the canon there was an ache in the small of his back. ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... first article of our partnership, as I understood. Not a soul at Gethin has heard a whisper of Wheal Danes, or of your coming; they think I'm fast asleep at my own house, this instant. But it's been hard work lugging this cursed ladder up here in such a breakneck night as this, I can tell you, and I am glad enough to ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... cars now, many of them, streaming south at breakneck speed, full to overflowing with unsmiling men in working clothes, bristling with long-handled implements. But as they fled down the street to the factory they saw, waiting still, some twenty or more men in overalls drawn up, ready, ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... colonel closely. He had another purpose in making his breakneck ride. He didn't have a dollar in the Patapsco, and he knew the colonel had not; he, like himself, was too shrewd a man to be bitten twice by the same dog; but he had a large interest in Harry and would leave no stone unturned to bring ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... roadway in our descent. Such recklessness made me uneasy, when suddenly twelve horsemen rode headlong at us, and sought to stop the postilions. My six horses were new ones and very fresh; they galloped along at breakneck speed. Our pursuers fired at the coachman, but missed him, and the report of a pistol terrified the horses yet further. They redoubled their speed. We gave ourselves up for lost, as an accident of some sort seemed bound to ensue, when suddenly my carriage reached ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... this contracted channel was rendered unnavigable by a long bar of gravel and grass, over which an inch or so of water crawled sluggishly. The main channel—only half a dozen feet wide—headed abruptly to the right, and swept at breakneck speed in a perfect half circle under the outwardly projecting base of a steep and wooded hill. Here and there the bushes hung down to meet the madly tossing waves, ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... some of my money for his new scheme. He did not succeed with me, but he found other "angels." He was now quite in his element in the American atmosphere of breathless enterprise and breakneck speed. When the violence of the crisis had quieted down building operations were resumed on a more natural basis. Men like Volodsky, with hosts of carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers—all Russian or Galician Jews—continued to build up the Bronx, Washington Heights, ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... enthusiastic, ardent, devoted cavalry soldier, heart and soul, and overflowing now with joy at his mission, and the chances of distinction it offered the cavalry. A fine, fearless horseman, he galloped at a breakneck pace down the steep and rocky sides of the plateau, and quickly reached ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... I wanted him with me, and because I was anxious to hear what he had done at Scotland Yard. However, he did not come, so I wired him to the latter place, left a short note for him also at the hotel, to be kept till called for, and started off in a cab (when I dared delay no longer) at breakneck ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... dawn came, spreading to a bright autumn morning. The roads outside were dry and dusty. I meant, in a few hours, to make a breakneck dash out of Dresden, and to hide somewhere in the country. To attempt to escape by rail would be folly. But if either man was on the watch and invited himself to go for a run with ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... Ride on! "Tis a pace will kill! Like Smuggler BILL and Exciseman GILL, In the Ingoldsby Legends, you ride a race On a perilous path, at a breakneck pace, In a mingled spirit of hate and fear, Too hot to heed, and too deaf to hear; With a fierce red eye on each other cast, And a rate of going that cannot last, On a road that leads, as such roads lead all, To a crumbling cliff, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 5, 1892 • Various
... down the breakneck paths, the priests were illuminating the minarets with hundreds ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... away, however, without breakfast. Sara Lee heard his car going at its usual breakneck speed up the street, and went to the door. She would have called him back if she could, for his eyes haunted her. But ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... speed. While they were not afraid and had not lost a whit of their nerve, they realized that discretion was the better part of valor, and their feet continued to hit the ground at breakneck speed, until again came to their ears the first faint sounds of the pursuing motorcycles. Gradually the sounds became more distinct, this telling the boys that their pursuers were gaining rapidly, although the rough condition of the ground made ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... ethereal feasts of poets. He was king of the ring, and facile princeps in the Greek chorus. He could "talk horse" with any jockey in the land; yet who like him could utter tender poetry and deep philosophy? He had no rival in following the hounds, or scouring the country in breakneck races; and none so careered over every field of learning. He angled in brooks and books, and landed many a stout prize. He would pick up here and there a "fly in amber," and add it to his stores. He was the easy victor ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... for hours at a breakneck pace, and he was so exhausted that he could hardly lift his hand to fumble ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... next day, which would be the culmination of the carnival, and their chief day for dancing. The instant that we received this answer, Fernandez seized the lantern, which the clerk had left, and, grasping me by the arm, we started off at breakneck pace. As we almost rushed down the stony road, he looked furtively to right and left, and told me that there were, no doubt, persons in the neighborhood who had recognized him, and said that, more than once, in this very neighborhood, he had been stoned ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... rough and broken. And, worse still, Blizzard was tired. He had been on the go for many hours. There was a limit even to the creamy-white horse's superb strength. It seemed hopeless. Southeast they tore at breakneck speed. Blizzard seemed to sense what was required of him. He ran like mad, clamping down on the bit, his muscles rippling under his glossy hide—a hide that was already flecked ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... going down stream side on, about half-way between either bank, at the breakneck speed of a mile an hour. We had lost our boathook, and had nothing whatever to navigate our craft with. Worst of all, at the end of the long reach, coming to meet us, we could see another barge, towed by a horse, which could certainly never pass up ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... and then the body undulates along its entire length. Rooks are building—they fly and feed now in pairs; the rookery is alive with them. To the steeple the jackdaws have returned and fly round and round; now one holds his wings rigid and slides down at an angle of sixty degrees at a breakneck pace, as if about to dash himself in fragments ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... no racing down the road now at breakneck speed, like that time when in my hurry to meet dad I had come to grief some two months previously. Our cavalcade went on at a sober respectable pace, reaching the town in about an hour and a half from ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the most breakneck rider in the world; not from bravado, since for the most part he was alone when he performed his wild exploits, but from instinctive contempt for danger. One fine morning, clearing a hedge six feet ...
— The Little Russian Servant • Henri Greville
... and descried, galloping at the top of his speed, Black Bounce, and on his back was Phil Wentworth. Behind him at breakneck pace came six of the shearers—tall, brawny men, the very sight of ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... save him, yes! But three hours more, and that next express Would thunder by her, and she, alas! Must stand there still and let it pass. Duty was duty, and hers was clear; God seemed far off, and no friend near. But the truest friend and the swiftest horse Must ride that ride on a breakneck course; And with truest horse and swiftest friend, To the fast express was the winning end! And as if one pang was needed more, There stood in the doorway, Nell Latore— Nell Latore, with her mocking face, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the old wife trot," replied Touchwood; "no choice of mine, I assure you—Gad, Mr. Mowbray, I would rather have crossed Saint Gothard, than run the risk I have done to-night, rumbling through your breakneck roads in that d——d old wheelbarrow.—On my word, I believe I must be troublesome to your butler for a draught of something—I am as thirsty as a coal-heaver that is working by the piece. You have porter, I suppose, or ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Calumet halted Blackleg, and then he spurred him down the river trail. One mile, two, three, he rode at a breakneck pace, and then suddenly he was out of the timber and facing a plain that stretched into an interminable distance. The trail lay straight and clear; there was no sign of a horse and rider on it. Taggart had not come in this direction, though in this ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... not understand till long afterwards, when I had watched the fawns many times, how important is this latter suggestion. One who follows a frightened deer and sees or hears him go bounding off at breakneck pace over loose rocks and broken trees and tangled underbrush; rising swift on one side of a windfall without knowing what lies on the other side till he is already falling; driving like an arrow over ground where you must follow ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... seemed to Montague a breakneck pace through the city streets, dodging among trucks and carriages, grazing cars, whirling round corners, taking the wildest of chances. Oliver seemed always to know what the other fellow would do; but the thought that he might do something different kept his companion's heart pounding in a painful ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... the arrival of the Dominicans the Audiencia passed an ordinance requiring that the Bishop appoint ministers of one order to administer to the Chinese in their own language within thirty days. To meet the deadline the Augustinians began to study Chinese at breakneck speed, but when the Bishop came to Tondo to hear one of the friars, who was supposed to know the language, preach in it, there was some trouble as a result of which the Augustinian would not, or indeed could not, preach. Naturally, when it ...
— Doctrina Christiana • Anonymous
... the quirt fell with a swish on the flank of the girl's pony. He did not wait for a second hint, but started down the steep slope "on the jump." Before Ashton realized what was happening, his own horse was following at the same breakneck pace. ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... through the fence and get as far as the middle of the street, when Maud saw him, and was just in time to prevent him from being run over by a heavy wagon drawn by a pair of horses that were being driven at a breakneck pace past the house. Of course the fair Maud screamed, young women generally do at such times; but she saved George all the same. Her piercing shriek brought the stately Miss Sibley and her mother to the door of their house, ...
— The Haunted House - A True Ghost Story • Walter Hubbell
... boy, and, without waiting to know that I had heard him, he dashed off at breakneck speed, further into the bowels of the temple. As fast as he went, however, I was still beside him, urging him on ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... was no mischievous intent in Aaron's mind. He conducted Anna and Blanka to the verge of the gorge that separates the so-called Hidas Peak of the Szekler Stone from the Louis Peak. This ravine is a deep cutting, down which a steep, breakneck path leads directly to Toroczko, but is very seldom used. On the farther side of the gorge may be seen a cave in the rocks, popularly known as Csegez Cave. A rude stone rampart guards its mouth, and, as only a very narrow ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... she had been a rather fragile china doll instead of a girl nine years old and quite able to get up alone, and before she could sit down he was beside her. Logotheti jumped up beside the chauffeur and the machine ran up the drive at breakneck speed. Two minutes later they all got out more than a mile farther on, at the door of the big old house. Ida ran away to find Miss More; the two men entered together, ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... gone down the Scots lost heart. They would have trusted to no Gaelic oaths, for men got no quarter in the west, but when Brian shouted at them in English they listened to him right willingly. A score broke away and galloped breakneck for the south again, and perhaps fifty had gone down; the rest gathered about the wagons stared at Brian and Cathbarr in superstitious awe as the two lowered bloody ax and sword ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... Fleet Market, and traversing it, turned up a narrow street to the bottom of a long, steep flight of stone steps called Breakneck Stairs. These led to Green Arbor Court, and down them Goldsmith many a time risked his neck. When we entered the Court, I could not but smile to think in what out of the way corners Genius produces her bantlings. The Court I found to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... be three men amusing themselves with a little cudgel-play. But a second glance showed me that something much more like murder than cudgel-play was going on; and shortening my Irish blackthorn, I rushed at breakneck speed down the hollow. ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... that he sometimes narrowly escaped being a genius, and that he might have crossed the boundary line into genius-land, if he had confined his attention to one department of literature and had been willing to write at less breakneck speed, taking time and thought to prune, revise, and suppress more of his productions. Not a few, however, think that Lowell, in spite of his defects, has left the impress of genius on some of ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... was robbed of the appearance of peril by the darkness; but the danger never occurred to Ram, who had been up these cliff-paths too often for his pleasure to heed the breakneck nature of the rough sheep-track up and up the face of the cliff, leading to where it became a steep slope, which ran in and on some four hundred feet, forming one of the ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... and anticipating with the most lively satisfaction, was the Christmas ball which the ancient family of the Headlongs had been accustomed to give from time immemorial. Tradition attributed the honour of its foundation to Headlong Ap-Headlong Ap-Breakneck Ap-Headlong Ap-Cataract Ap-Pistyll Ap-Rhaidr[11.1] Ap-Headlong, who lived about the time of the Trojan war. Certain it is, at least, that a grand chorus was always sung after supper in honour of this illustrious ancestor of the squire. This ball was, indeed, an aera in the lives of all ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... couldn't keep me in Dexter after four o'clock this afternoon. Good-by." And Crosby climbed into the hansom and was driven away at breakneck speed toward ...
— The Day of the Dog • George Barr McCutcheon
... his skull, so they bundled him into an ambulance and carried him, cursing and screaming, to the nearest field hospital. The journey was made in double-quick time, over rough Belgian roads. To save his life, he must reach the hospital without delay, and if he was bounced to death jolting along at breakneck speed, it did not matter. That was understood. He was a deserter, and discipline must be maintained. Since he had failed in the job, his life must be saved, he must be nursed back to health, until he was well enough to be stood up against ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... in at once, followed by little Wasp, and in a moment found themselves travelling at a breakneck pace, neither of them knowing where on earth they ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... not readable. Later on, when clothes were scarce and pockets past mending, I often made the unpleasant discovery that caused the fool, on his journey from the land of Kokanje, to cry to the King: 'We have ridden at such a breakneck pace, see, everything has slipped through this little hole!' Now I am obliged to write down my adventures without any notes, so dates, numbers, and names of places will occasionally be missing. It stands to reason that I—being an exile in a strange country, in the ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... the shore. It was as Billy had said; everybody within sight was running, and at remarkable speed too; but whether or not it was the apparition of the boat that had startled them I could not tell, for about half of them seemed to be hastening at breakneck speed toward a part of the beach about half a mile ahead, where a group of some forty or fifty blacks had already gathered, close to the water's edge, and seemed to be engaged, in feverish haste, in collecting stones, or lumps ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... and followed his friend, who flew down the hill at breakneck speed, in a rapid but more sober manner. The old couple looked up with some astonishment at a well-dressed city man tearing down the hill towards them like a schoolboy, but their astonishment turned to warmest gratitude, that found vent in many thankful ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... colloquial tone, suitable to a knot of students gathered round his table, but not to a large audience—of running his words, especially technical terms, together—of pouring out new and unfamiliar matter at breakneck speed, were addressed to him—one by a "working man" of his Monday evening audience at Jermyn Street in 1855, the other, undated, by Mr. Jodrell, a frequenter of the Royal Institution, and afterwards founder of the Jodrell Lectureships at University ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... life that melancholy sombre night in the solitudes of the great mountains. His stentorian shouts and laughter were as bluff as if he were ten years old, and as boisterous as if he were drunk besides. Briscoe had perched him on the back of a horse, where he feigned to ride at breakneck speed, and his cries of "Gee!" "Dullup!" "G'long!" rang out imperiously in the sad, murky atmosphere and echoed back, shrilly sweet, from the great crags. The stable lantern showed him thus gallantly mounted, against the purple and brown shadows of the background, his white linen frock ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... a keener sense of proportion since the days when I had first climbed the breakneck ladder of Slater's Mews, and I now realised that the great mass of toiling humanity ignored our existence, and that the slow, patient work of the ages was hardly likely to be helped or hindered by our efforts. I did not depreciate the value ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... farther in quest of the fugitive horizon. The scrap of view that came within a closer range of vision spun past the car windows like a bit of stage mechanism, a gigantic panorama rotating to simulate a race at breakneck speed. But Miss Carmichael looked with unseeing eyes; the whirling prairie with its golden flecks of cactus bloom was but part of the universal strangeness, and the dull ache of homesickness ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... the depot at breakneck speed. It contained Mr. Gates, the landlord, and the young musician. Mr. Gates was lashing the horse, and evidently was exceedingly anxious to arrive at the depot ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... Gamechick, but the horse, stricken with panic, backed away and before Broussard could catch him, he whirled about wildly and galloped down the mountain road at breakneck speed. The sound of his iron hoofs pounding the icy road as he fled, driven by fear and anguish, cut the silence like a knife. The two men listened to the clear metallic sound borne upon the clear atmosphere by ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... right for you to talk about patience, Amy," retorted Mollie, throttling her engine and sliding at breakneck speed down a long hill without the thought of using a brake. A brake to Mollie meant something to be used at the last minute when she couldn't think of anything else to do. "You're an angel, but ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... down again; but, for a wonder, they saw nothing, except a cloud of dust mixed with tan-bark, and when that had cleared away they discovered the black mare and her rider, apparently on the best of terms, dashing up the track at a breakneck pace. ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... on the milder elements of the pack, those dogs that had been lured into wrong-doing, and were not viciously inclined. Three immediately fell back, and one of these even turned tail and started to run away at breakneck speed as though the sight of those cudgels inspired him with respect, on account of a recollection ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... least embarrassment, the letters of the lady. The curious thing about them was the moderation she exercised in the expression of her love, while at the same time her plans for meetings were of the most foolhardy, breakneck description. ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... now—now? And, jumping to her feet, the woman ran to the door and flung it open. Yes, yes, it was in answer to her prayer; for there, over the turf, she could see a horse speeding towards her. It was coming at breakneck speed. "Wallula! Wallula!" she turned and called. An echo seemed to repeat, "Lula, Lula!" At that echo Wallula leaped up, and sped past her mother with the fleetness of a fawn, calling as she did so, "I'm coming, coming!" In the next instant the wondering woman saw her child ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... of a certain long hill, which the humble mule had quietly walked down, the bull halted for meditation. His impatient and less romantic driver thoughtlessly gave the chain a rude jerk. In an instant he felt himself whirled down that hill at breakneck speed. Almost simultaneous with the start was the shock of the stop. Picking himself up, the driver found his cart securely fastened to a pine-tree, which was jammed between the wheel and the body of ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... and I jogged on, and the others followed. We had to get through a good many difficulties yet before we reached that point, but, compared with all the breakneck places we had already crossed, these were of a comparatively tame description. It was with a sigh of relief that we arrived at the plain that promised so well; its extent was not very great, but we were not very ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... saw it simultaneously: a space-suited figure, far out in the depths of interstellar space, caught up in a sudden flare of orange illumination. The strange figure seemed to whirl around, straighten up, and shoot at breakneck speed headlong for Jupiter. Behind it, and in a direct line with the winking flame in the Great Spot, another space denizen glowed luridly, startlingly, out of the blackness beyond, whirled, and shot down the ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner
... nohow; not but what I've often wished I could see my way to: but sez I to myself, ef he kin stan' it I kin, an' so I held out. But I tell you, boys, I'd rather drive the wust six-hoss team I ever got hold on down Breakneck Hill 'n the dark, than set there agin under thet woman's eyes, a blazin' one minnit, 'n fillin' with tears the next: 'n' I don't care what anybody sez; I'm a goin' to see her an' tell her that she needn't be afeard o' ever hevin to preach to me ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... distracted. Motherless calves dodged about in bewilderment. In and out of this confusion the cowboys rode, following the animals selected for separation, forcing them out with devious turnings and twistings, and then running them madly in a series of breakneck crescent dashes over flats and hummocks, through dust and brush, until they had joined the smaller herd of choice animals which were to remain on the ranch. It was swift, sweaty, exhausting work, the kind these Mexicans loved, for it was not ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... and beat and kicked the poor beast along the road as though the very fiends were after him. The horse rocked on his legs and breathed hard, but Porter had no consideration for that. The pale dawn revealed an empty road, along which he sped at breakneck pace, while beads of perspiration gathered on his forehead in his impatience at the seeming slowness of his progress. At last the road cut through a tangled bit of forest with a sharp bend at the ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... Jonathan, "I suppose I must be content. An ill-lined purse is a poor recompense for the risk I have run. However, come along. I needn't tell you to tread carefully. You know the danger of this breakneck road as well as I do. The light would betray us." So ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth |
