"Drown" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... changing off every few hours. What a rest that was! One who has never been nearly worn out and starved, down nearly to the point of death can never know what it is to rest in comfort. No one can tell. It was like a dream, a sweet, restful dream where troubles would drown themselves in sleep. How we felt the strength come back to us with that food and the long ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... m," she then said, and added, perhaps trying to drown the memory of her ludicrous error in politeness, "I hope another time I shall not cause you ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... seemed excited and a little flushed, and very distrait when she came back. Altogether, he felt as if Aunt Rebecca was slipping through his fingers, and would have liked to take that selfish old puppy, Dangerfield, by the neck and drown him out of hand in the river. But, notwithstanding the state of his temper, he knew it might be his only chance to shine pre-eminently at that moment in amiability, wit, grace, and gallantry, and, though it was up-hill ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... that he might not drown the other slender voice; but soon emotion carried him away and he sang with all his might, his gaze dreamy and remote. Telesphore drew near and looked at him with worshipping eyes. To these children ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... for Barbarians (for by this name they called all foreigners) to enter Egypt. The work was continued by Darius, the first of that name; but he also desisted from it, upon his being told, that as the Red-Sea lay higher than Egypt, it would drown the whole country. But it was at last finished under the Ptolemies, who, by the help of sluices, opened or shut the canal as there was occasion. It began not far from the Delta, near the town of Bubastus. It was a ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... and carried her half a mile up that shallow creek. Yet there she lay. A horrible thought seized him. Could she have been there last night when he had drawn the sailor ashore? And had he left four or five others to drown close by, in the darkness? No, the tide at that hour had scarcely passed half-flood. He ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Rou'tor Town On him I'd loved so true I cannot tell anew: But nought can quench, but nought can drown The evil wrought at Rou'tor Town On ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... is applied in a similar manner to individuals and nations. The man will fall, not of intention, but of accident. He will kill himself. The man will drown, and the boat will swim. The water will hold up the boat, but it will allow the man to sink. The Russians will conquer the Turks. If conquest depended solely on the will, the Turks would as soon conquer as the Russians. But I have not time to pursue this topic farther. You can follow out ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... said. 'A man's voice is not as important as his brains.' A learned gentleman from Petersburg! An atheist is an atheist, and that's all about it! Come, brother in misfortune, let us go and have a drop to drown our troubles!" ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... to lap—instead, He tumbled in, heels over head; And so heavy he was, as he went down He could not help but drown! ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... perishing around him had commissioned him, if he succeeded in saving himself, to tell the people of Athens how bravely they had fought for their fatherland, and how the generals had left them there to drown. ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... "They started to drown," the kid said, "and one of them got discouraged and lost his nerve and didn't try to swim any more ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... repeated the cry a dozen times. Then he fancied he heard a response directly ahead. The sloop was moved cautiously in the direction, and presently they saw Blumpo clinging to part of the shattered row-boat. "Sabe me! sabe me!" yelled the youth. "Don't let me drown, Jerry." ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... took a glass, and still our enthusiastic admiration of the Scottish tunes increased—our energies of execution redoubled, till ultimately it became not only a complete and well-contested race, but a trial of strength, to determine which should drown the other. The only feeling short of ecstasy that came across us in these enraptured moments were caused by hearing the laugh and joke going on with our friends, as if no such thrilling strains had been flowing. But if Tim's eye chanced to fall on them, it instantly retreated ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... spread out on their bed, and Fred and his instructor sat hour after hour absorbed in what to him was a new world of interest. He soon learned, could play for small stakes, and felt in himself the first glimmering of that fire which, when fully kindled, many waters cannot quench, nor floods drown! ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... upon us, all the lower sky went black. An advancing roar came upon our ears. And then a blinding wave of rain drove across the surface of the earth, wiping out the day, beating down with remorseless strength and volume as though it would smother and drown us twain in its deluge—us, the last two ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... villagers, hearing of the approach of the King's servants, thought of an expedient to turn away his Majesty's displeasure from them. When the messengers arrived at Gotham, they found some of the inhabitants engaged in endeavouring to drown an eel in a pool of water; some were employed in dragging carts upon a large barn to shade the wood from the sun; and others were engaged in hedging a cuckoo, which had perched itself upon an old bush. In short, they were all ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... rises there, Call'd Ida, joyous once with leaves and streams, Deserted now like a forbidden thing. It was the spot which Rhea, Saturn's spouse, Chose for the secret cradle of her son; And better to conceal him, drown'd in shouts His infant cries. Within the mount, upright An ancient form there stands and huge, that turns His shoulders towards Damiata, and at Rome As in his mirror looks. Of finest gold His head is shap'd, pure silver are the ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... breathed back Barry, and thrashed the water violently to drown the noises from shorewards that told of a great number of those inquisitive reptiles cruising to investigate the commotion in their river. It was impossible to keep the men long in ignorance of their danger, for as the boat crept into deeper water, their swimming made less noise, and ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... cat's in the well, Who put her in? little Johnny Green. Who pulled her out? great Johnny Stout. What a naughty boy was that, To drown poor pussy cat; Who never did him any harm, And killed the ...
— The Only True Mother Goose Melodies • Anonymous
... spring-cleaning of the soul, a turning-out and rearrangement of our mental furniture, a wide opening of closed windows, that the notes of the wild birds beyond our garden may come to us fully charged with wonder and freshness, and drown with their music the noise of the gramaphone within. Those who do this, discover that they have lived in a stuffy world, whilst their inheritance was a world of morning-glory; where every tit-mouse is a celestial messenger, and every thrusting bud ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... understood the true function of the magnificent orchestra that dominated the scene. It was the function of a brass band at a quack-dentist's booth in a fair,—to drown the cries of the victims of the ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... uplifted did not fall on the back of the captive. The sick man forgot his pains, the wanderer in the desert his hunger, the prisoner his chains. The storm ceased, and the wave of the sea, though ready to drown the ship, halted. And on the whole earth such rest settled down that the sun, just hiding on the horizon, thrust up ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... are; I don't think you could drown a half-breed. They have done their best to drown us, and as we have escaped I see no ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... into the presence of the millionaire and his son. The set look upon their faces, the ceremonious manner of their greeting, and the low buzzing of the phonograph, audible above the tinkle of a musical box ingeniously intended to drown it, confirmed his guess even before ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... does remember my drown'd father. 405 This is no mortal business, nor no sound That the earth owes:—I hear it ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... sympathize with man. Save as dumb fellow-prisoners through a wall; Answer ye rather to my call, Strong poets of a more unconscious day, When Nature spake nor sought nice reasons why, Too much for softer arts forgotten since That teach our forthright tongue to lisp and mince, 70 And drown in music the heart's bitter cry! Lead me some steps in your directer way, Teach me those words that strike a solid root Within the ears of men; Ye chiefly, virile both to think and feel, Deep-chested Chapman and firm-footed Ben, For he was masculine from head ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... the soldiers appeared upon the bank. "Ah! little people," one cried, "you swim, do you? Well, you will drown; and if you do not drown we know a ford, and we will catch you and kill you—yes! if we must run over the edge of the world after you we will catch you." And he hurled an assegai after us, which fell between us ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... very wise, "I s'pose they want to get out, and that's why they bite. Of course when fishes stay in the water much it makes 'em drown." ...
— Little Prudy • Sophie May
... people they sometimes tie up their eyes, and bind their hands, and make them walk along a plank stickin' over the ship's side, till they fall off the end of it into the sea, where they are left to drown." ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... pushed her in—that you wanted to drown dear little Fina? No!" cried Josephine in broken sentences through her tears. "She mistakes.—You must not say such dreadful things, my darling," to Fina. "Dear sister Leam would not hurt a hair of your head, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... were told to drown Saint Blaise in the neighboring lake. But he made the sign of the Cross as they cast him from the boat, and the water bore him up, so that he walked upon it as if it were a floor, just as Christ did once upon the sea of Galilee. When the soldiers tried to do the same, however, ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown
... city, or cause her to be eaten by dogs. If a woman of any of the other casts goes to a man, and entices him to have criminal correspondence with her, the magistrate shall cut off her ears, lips and nose, mount her upon an ass, and drown her, or throw her to the dogs. To the commission of adultery with a dancing girl, or prostitute, no punishment ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... again. In a very short time the water at that part was full of dead horses, Tlascalan men, Indian women, baggage, artillery, prisoners, and boxes (petacas) which, I suppose, supported the pontoon. On every side the most piteous cries were heard: 'Help me! I drown!' 'Rescue me! They are killing me!' Such vain demands were mingled with prayers to the Virgin Mary and to Saint James. Those that did get upon the bridge and on the causeway found hands of Mexicans ready to push them ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... like a naked new-born babe, Striding the blast, or Heaven's cherubim, horsed Upon the sightless couriers of the air, Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, That tears shall drown the wind." ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... drew him up out of the pit, kissed him, and said: "Blessed be God, who guarded thee for seven years in the pit. I acknowledge that He slayeth and reviveth, that thou art one of the wholly pious, that through thee God will destroy Egypt in time to come, lead His people out of the land, and drown Pharaoh and his whole army in ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... Oh, I have been so frightened—oh, we have all been so frightened. I thought perhaps they had taken you away to one of the places where the tops of the beds come down, or to that other place on the river, the Morgue, where they drown people, only I didn't say so, not to frighten poor grandmother worse. Oh, grandmother dear, ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... me come to the conclusion that the girl did not drown herself. It would be a most unlikely thing for Miss Randall to do. ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... one last use of his magic power, "And then," said he, "I'll break my staff and deeper than did ever plummet sound I'll drown my book." ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... I. "It'd turn her head. She'd go clean crazy. She'd plunge in up to her neck—and not being used to these waters, she'd make a show of herself, and probably drown, dragging me down ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... didn't you? I believe I've been asked to be kind to you. As a beginning you can clean out my study this afternoon. Be awfully careful how you dust the old china. If you break any don't come and tell me but just go and drown yourself somewhere; it will save you ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... It means that the Germans have got us," wailed Stacy Drown. "Oh, I knew we should be in this war sooner or later, but I didn't think I should be the first man to ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin
... my leg was broken, began to attend every dancing party she could hear of, although she had declined a great many previous to that. I asked her how she could be so giddy and so gay when I was suffering. She said she was doing it to drown her sorrow, but her little brother told me on the quiet that she was dancing while I was sick because she felt perfectly safe. A friend of mine says I have a pronounced and distinctly original manner of ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... were as 'sheep having no shepherd.' What kind of Christians must they be who think of Christ as 'a Saviour for me,' and take no care to set Him forth as 'a Saviour for you'? What should we think of men in a shipwreck who were content to get into the lifeboat, and let everybody else drown? What should we think of people in a famine feasting sumptuously on their private stores, whilst women were boiling their children for a meal and men fighting with dogs for garbage on the dunghills? 'He that withholdeth bread, the people shall curse him.' What of him who withholds the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... who was addressed, still handling the reim, began as follows: "To take the two prisoners to the Vaal, to force them into the water where there is no drift, at night, so that they drown: if they do ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... the water with a scythe or knife. In some parts these water-spirits are supposed to be the transformed souls of Pharaoh and his host, when they were drowned, and the number is always being increased by the souls of those who drown themselves. ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... the rough path we followed. The noise of the rushing torrent sounded louder in my ears, sometimes with a clattering insistence as though it sought to match itself against the surging of my own quick blood in an endeavour to drown my thoughts. On we went and still onward,—the path seemed interminable, though it was in reality a very short journey. But there was such a weight of unutterable things pressing on my soul like a pent-up storm craving for outlet, that every ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... moaned Rourke, so great was his fury, his angry face shoved close to the Italian's own. "Waut fer the concrete, is it? It's a pity ye didn't fall into yer waut fer the concrete, ye damned nagur, an' drown! Waut fer the concrete, is it, an' me here, an' Mr. Mills steppin' off an' lookin' in on me, ye black-hearted son of a Eyetalian, ye! I'll waut fer the concrete ye! I'll crack yer blitherin' Eyetalian ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... this was not the worst. A deep melancholy took possession of him, and gave a dark tinge to all his views of human nature and of human destiny. Such wretchedness as he endured has driven many men to shoot themselves or drown themselves. But he was under no temptation to commit suicide. He was sick of life; but he was afraid of death; and he shuddered at every sight or sound which reminded him of the inevitable hour. In religion he found but little comfort during his long and frequent fits of dejection; ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the signal to be up and doing. In the city, the signal to be up and to do is a hoarse, metallic roar that would drown a million country cock-crows if each particular cock were as big as the mythical rooster of antiquity and could crow in proportion to his size. My readers who dwell on the hills and in dales and wheat-fields, and who are unfamiliar with the wild, weird early ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... speak, and underside, of confidence in the divine help. The coin, as it were, has its two faces. On the one is written, 'Trust in the Lord'; on the other is written, 'Nothing in myself.' A drowning man, if he tries to help himself, only encumbers his would-be rescuer, and may drown him too. The truest help he can give is to let the strong arm that has cleft the waters for his sake fling itself around him and bear him safe to land. So, eager desire after offered blessings and consciousness of my own impotence ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... grandmother; he called his grandmother an old witch, and said Suzette was her cat, and that as for voice and eyes, their cat had much finer ones. Then they had even worse words, and she had pulled his hair, and he had banged the door, and said he was going to drown himself; and he had come down to the pond, for she had run after him, and she was sure—yes, positively sure—that her brother was dead, and she should never ...
— Harper's Young People, August 31, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... to steal the pretty wife of his rich and tyrannical neighbor from the paste-board cottage at the left entrance? and when he advances down to the foot-lights and defiantly informs the audience that, "he who lays his hand on a woman except in the way of kindness," do we not all applaud so as to drown the ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... thy sight, And the wild winds drown'd the name, For the Dryburgh bells ring, and the white monks do sing, For Sir ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... country-folk came of an obstinate stock, fierce to resent what they could not understand. Half a century before, a Dutchman, Cornelius Vermuyden by name, had arrived and drained their country for them; in return they had cursed him, fired his crops, and tried to drown out his settlers and workmen by smashing the dams and laying the land under water. Fierce as they were, these fenmen read in the Wesleys a will to match their own and beat it; a scorn, too, which cowed, but at the same time turned them sullen. ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Brannum," said Brother Roach, "bekaze it's as much as I can do for to listen at the racket of my mill. Yit there are some sights meal dust won't begin to hide, and some talk the clatter of the hopper won't nigh drown." ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... only opened his eyes as they entered. Without a word on either side they thrust him into the sack, and tying up the mouth, the eldest threw it over his shoulders. After that they all set out to the river, where they intended to drown ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... not fair to let any one be under the imputation of a thing he did not do, and surely no man need be afraid or ashamed to have his own views appear over his own name. He asks, Who saw the assault? and answers, Nobody. Who saw Hooper try to drown his wife? Nobody. And yet one of these so-called detectives was instrumental in landing him in prison, and people seem to think that he did ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith
... harder to manage. Dey nebber let em know anything about anythin'. Never have any church. Effen you go you set in de back of de white folks chu'ch. But de niggers slip off an' pray an' hold prayer-meetin' in de woods den dey tu'n down a big wash pot and prop it up wif a stick to drown out de soun' ob de singin'. I 'member some of de songs we uster sing. One of ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... of it. If we stay here we shall be hanged; if I fail to reach land I shall drown, and I think I would rather drown than be hanged. ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... two joints of it. "Of mortadella so much," he said; "of polenta so much"—and he shut one fist; "of pasta so much"—and he coupled the two fists; "and of wine, by the soul of the world, not enough to drown a flea! I tell you, Baldassare," he said finally, emboldened by the merchant's growing doubt—"I tell you that you ask of me a treasure which I would not part with for a cardinal's hat. No indeed! Not to be Bishop of Verona, throned and purfled on ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... happy tears, Cloudy, or the other kind? Tell us quick, or we'll jump in the creek and drown ourselves," laughed Leslie; and then two white handkerchiefs, one big and one little, came swiftly out and dabbed at her cheeks until there wasn't a sign of a ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... know ye this? Alas! no more, than Thames' calm head can know Whose meads his arms drown, ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... son of Peleus ceased: the chiefs around In silence wrapt, in consternation drown'd, Attend the stern reply. Then Phoenix rose; (Down his white beard a stream of sorrow flows;) And while the fate of suffering Greece he mourn'd, With accent weak these tender ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... in a shallow portion of the pond, and the chain was too short for him to reach water deep enough to drown him; but now a new danger appeared, for there on the low, mossy bank was an otter, glaring at him through the darkness. Beaver-meat makes a very acceptable meal for an otter, and the Beaver knew it. ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... oyster-shop then facing the Strand Theatre, the barmaid Jane, thoroughly out of humour at Jerrold's chaff, slapped down before the little man the liquor he had ordered, with the words, "There's your grog and take care you don't drown yourself;" with the effect of damping his spirits for the rest of the night. When Alfred Bunn retaliated with "A Word with Punch,"[39] Jerrold made no reply, to the astonished delight of the rival press. No man had greater courage than he; ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... we shall. There's nowhere he can fall down to hurt himself, nor yet drown himself, but our dam; and he has ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... prominent than it would do, next day at dinner, when it made its appearance in a skin gold-embroidered like a chasuble, and its precious juice was poured out drop by drop as from a pyx. When it was dead Francoise mopped up its streaming blood, in which, however, she did not let her rancour drown, for she gave vent to another burst of rage, and, gazing down at the carcass of her enemy, uttered ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... same promises before. He took to drink merely to forget—to drown this thing that was working in his brain. If he had lived, it would have been the old story over again. He would have buried the portrait in St. James's Park, as he did before, gone back to the gin-shop, and in course of time drank himself to death. This end is terrible enough, but ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... first, but the men yelling them were leather-lunged. The chairman's face turned reddish, and he wavered a bit in his speech, then raised his own voice in an attempt to drown ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... shadow cast that setting sun, Whose glorious course through our horizon run, Left the dim face of this dull hemisphere, All one great eye, all drown'd in one ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... difficulty that the assembled students repressed a desire to uplift their voices and drown the sounds which came from the wretched orchestra; but they felt that it would not do to alarm the players by too great a demonstration, and so the only interruptions to the overture were a ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... Ben did to you at Long Wharf. That will prove what a villain he really is. Why, he intended to drown you that night, and he would have succeeded if I had not happened to be present. You can make your sworn statement to Squire Hawkins who can come here, so it will not be necessary for you to go to ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... an anticipatory shudder, "if our men should come up, the first cannon shot would make half these men drown themselves in trying ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... should be so; 't is well all men an' women 's got to be childer fust, for they brings brightness an' joy 'pon the earth as babies, though 't is mostly changed when they 'm grawed up. If us could awnly foretell the turnin' out o' childern, an' knaw which 't was best to drown an' which to save in tender youth, what a differ'nt ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... worshippers from the world's end kissing my feet, a hollow doubt came over me, a sense of dream, and hollow voices echoed ever in my ear, asking, 'Art thou Messiah? Art thou Messiah? Art thou Messiah?' I strove to drown them in the festive song; but in the stillness of the night, when thou wast sleeping at my side, the voices came back, and they cried mockingly, 'Man! Man! ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the wave Where you have murdered, cry you down; And seamen whom you would not save, Weave now in weed-grown depths a crown Of shame for your imperious head,— A dark memorial of the dead,— Women and children whom you left to drown. ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... bell, Pussy's in the well! Who put her in?— Little Johnny Green. Who pull'd her out?— Little Johnny Stout. Oh! what a naughty Boy was that, To drown his poor Grand-mammy's cat, Which never did him any harm, But kill'd the mice in his ...
— Harry's Ladder to Learning - Horn-Book, Picture-Book, Nursery Songs, Nursery Tales, - Harry's Simple Stories, Country Walks • Anonymous
... a small thing to do, Mr. Gibbs. Any fellow could pull a poor little kitten out of the water. It wasn't really deep enough to drown me, anyhow; and I guess it would take more than that to do the business, for I'm a ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... king, to cut the throats of all the Protestants in a night. He assures us that one of the most prevailing dangers among the Londoners was "a design laid for a mine of powder under the Thames, to cause the river to drown the city." This desperate expedient, it seems, was discovered just in time to prevent its execution; and the people were devout enough to have a public thanksgiving, and watched with a little more care that the Thames might not be blown up. However, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... them. She had not come to this hour without knowing what he meant to her, this quiet man with the splendid mouth and the keen gray eyes, and she trembled now with an exquisite emotion that seemed to drown out all the past and all the future—everything except that she loved him, and he needed her! But when she spoke it was as ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... sometimes," said Jan. "Now I have another favour to ask of you. We don't know just what to do with Glory Goldie's kitten. It will have to be put out of the way, I suppose, as we can't afford to keep it; but I can't bear the thought of that, nor has Katrina the heart to drown it. We've talked of asking ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... stars, to the bright ghost-road of the Milky Way and on out to other galaxies and flocks of galaxies, until the light which a telescope might now register had been born before the Earth. Looking from his air-lock cave, past the radio web and the other ships, Coffin felt himself drown in enormousness, coldness, and total silence—though he knew that this vacuum burned and roared with man-destroying energies, roiled like currents of gas and dust more massive than planets and travailed ...
— The Burning Bridge • Poul William Anderson
... midst of these feelings I sought the society of friends, and endeavored around the social board to exhilarate my senses and drown these ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... younger growth; and the unflagging thunder-peals came now in ear-splitting explosive bursts, keen and sharp, and unspeakably appalling. The storm culminated in one matchless effort that seemed likely to tear the island to pieces, burn it up, drown it to the tree-tops, blow it away, and deafen every creature in it, all at one and the same moment. It was a wild night for homeless young heads to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... it usually settles on a sandbank, and then grows in much the same way as our couch grass grows on land in England, so as to form a network, which catches for its adopted sandbank all sorts of floating debris; so the sandbank comes up in the world. The waters of the wet season when they rise drown off the grass; but when they fall, up it comes again from the root, and so gradually the sandbank becomes an island and persuades real trees and shrubs to come and grow on it, and ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... not leave me very much choice," I remarked. "If I refuse to throw in my lot with you, you drown me; and if I accept your alternative, and should be unlucky enough to incur the suspicion that I am not acting honestly ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... as when the halcyon breeds, with these He that was born to drown might cross the seas." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 481, March 19, 1831 • Various
... with the gulf beyond, the horizon being veiled in mist. Up the river there was a flat beach with a hill beyond. It was a black iron-looking hill, devoid of all visible verdure, and it plunged abruptly down into the sea as if it were trying fiercely to drown itself. Down the river there was a continuation of flat beach, with, apparently, nothing whatever beyond. The only objects that enlivened the dreary expanse were, the sloop at the end of the wooden jetty and a small flagstaff in front of the house, from which a flag ...
— Fort Desolation - Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land • R.M. Ballantyne
... is the psychic man's craving for the stimulus of sensation, the din of which smothers the voice of the spiritual man, as, in Shakespeare's phrase, the cackling geese would drown the song of the nightingale. And this craving for stimulus is the fruit of weakness, coming from the failure to find strength in the primal life of ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston
... water in the river than there was overnight, the curator said, and Joseph hoped he was right, for it would be a harsh and disagreeable death to drown in a lake so salt that fish could not live in it. True, one would escape being eaten by fishes; but if the mule be carried away, he said to himself, drown I shall, long before I reach the lake, unless indeed I strike out and swim—which, it seemed to him, might be ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... was a little un, and I wouldn't let you drown yourself in the moat, or break your neck walking along the worsest parts o' the ramparts, or get yourself trod upon by the horses. Why, I've known you kick, and squeal, and fight, and punch me as hard as ever ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... your opinion, that ignorance is the best security for female virtue. If this connexion between virtue and ignorance could once be clearly proved, we ought to drown our books deeper than ever plummet sounded:—I say we—for the danger extends equally to both sexes, unless you assert that the duties of men rest upon a more certain foundation than the duties of the other sex: ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... that they has bin compelld to decline the LORD MARE's customery Ministerial Bankwet this year, coz they coudn't tell for serten whether they would be the Ministers to go to it! And the LORD MARE to drown his sorrer has gone and berried hisself in the 'art of Scotland!" "What a sad story to be shure!" said my Amerricane, with a sigh! "Yes, Sir," I replied, "these are sum of the many trubbels as our werry greatest men has to endewr, and happy is he who does ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 13, 1892 • Various
... gives a brief stimulus to his nerves. They say that the Styrian peasants, who habitually eat large quantities of arsenic, show symptoms of poison if they leave it off suddenly. These are but samples, in the physical region, of a tendency which runs through all lire, and leads men to drown thought by plunging into the thick of the worldly absorptions that really cause their unrest. The least persistent of men is strangely obstinate in his adherence to old ways, in spite of all experience of their crooked slipperiness. We wonder at the peasants who have their cottages ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... hammers during the vocal rendering of some of the thrilling passages of the opera. On another platform, behind the stage, the orchestra was making strenuous, and at times, very effective attempts to drown the squeals of the Leading Lady, who did not seem to mind it a bit. The conductor, in his shirt sleeves, was laying on, alternately, to a Chinese drum and what looked like two empty cocoanut shells, whacking out ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... for the propitious instant when the tapping of the pipe-men's hammers should drown the noise of a dash for effacement. When it came, he flung himself backward, whipped Nan over his head and out of the line of sight as if she had been feather-light, and rolled ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... meeting in the vicinity of the shanty-boat, the whole family attend it with alacrity, and prove that their BELIEF in honest doctrines is a very different thing from their daily PRACTICE of the same. They join with vigor in the shoutings, and their "amens" drown all others, while their excitable natures, worked upon by the wild eloquence of the backwoods' preacher, seem to give evidence of a firm desire to lead Christian lives, and the spectator is often deceived by their apparent earnestness and sincerity. Such ideas are, however, quickly dispelled by ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... enough to hold the material for one course; put in unslaked quicklime in proportion to 1 to 20 or 30 of other material; throw into it plenty of water, and don't have that antediluvian idea that you can drown it; put in clean sand and gravel, broken stone, making it thin enough, so that when it is put into boxes the thinner portion will run in, filling all interstices, forming a solid mass. A brick trowel is necessary ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various
... to the downfal of my happiness, Then to the ruin of this city Rome. But if mine inward ruth were laid in sight, My streams of tears should drown my foes' despite. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... Faith, it is That keeps the world alive! If, all at once Faith were to slacken,—that unconscious faith Which must, I know, yet be the corner-stone Of all believing—birds now flying fearless Across would drop in terror to the earth; Fishes would drown; and the all-governing reins Would tangle in the frantic hands of God And the ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... was awful mad after he was in here, and he told Mr. Fillow he wished that you would burn out or that the water pipes would burst and drown you out. Then he asked me if I couldn't worry you a bit, and I said I'd try, and that's the truth ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... began to cross the sea, as before, but when about half over the dog expressed a wish to carry the ring in his mouth. The rat refused, lest he should drop it; but the dog threatened, unless he would give it him, to dive and drown them both in the sea. The rat, alarmed for his life, complied with his demand: but the dog missed his aim in snatching at the ring, which fell into the ocean. They landed, and informed the fisherman's son of his loss: upon which he, in despair, resolved to drown himself; when suddenly, as ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... has the notable peculiarity of the verbs oftentimes differing greatly in the plural from the singular, as, vaqun, enter one; mume, enter many; von, one to lay down; medguame, lay down many; mran, one to run; vome, many to run; batmucun, to drown oneself; betcoome, many to drown themselves; batemean, drown one; ...
— Grammatical Sketch of the Heve Language - Shea's Library Of American Linguistics. Volume III. • Buckingham Smith
... walk, and if she wasn't a saint she'd have kicked me out long ago. Why, I sneaked off and left a lie on her dresser, and never gave her a chance to get the thing straight, or anything. I tell you, Marion, if I was in her place, and had a measly cub of a son like I've been, I'd drown him in a tub, or something. Honest to John, I wouldn't have a brat like that on the place! How she's managed to put up with me all these years is more than I can figure; it gets my goat to look back at the kinda mark I've been—strutting around, ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... father said, with unperturbed gentleness; "but very often we can't. In a world where every one's swimming for his own dear life, those who can't swim have got to drown." ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... hither hurried Whence? And, without asking, Whither hurried hence! Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine Must drown the memory of ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... special attention withhold their judgment, while those who are able, form their conclusions with diffidence and modesty. But theologians will not tolerate diffidence; they demand absolute assent, and will take nothing short of it; and they affect, therefore, to drown in foolish ridicule whatever troubles or displeases them. The Bishop of Oxford talks in the old style of punishment. The Archbishop of Canterbury refers us to Usher as our guide in Hebrew chronology. The objections of the present generation of 'infidels,' he says, are the same which have ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... dislike it, it is in your power to drown a much greater. Do you but speak, madam, and I am sure no one will be heard ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... have? it can't do us any harm, for I'm sure we couldn't drown if we tried," said Harold. "Come now, Elsie, don't be so silly. I wouldn't ask you to do anything your papa had forbidden, but he never said you shouldn't wade ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... that wickedness like a flood is like to drown our English world: it begins already to be above the tops of mountains; it has almost swallowed up all; our Youth, our Middle age, Old age, and all, are almost carried away of this flood. O Debauchery, Debauchery, what ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... them to settle near. The practice of ringing bells and drumming on tin, &c., is usually ridiculed; but we believe it to be useful, and that on philosophic principles. The object to be secured is to confuse the swarm and drown the voice of the queen. The bees move only with their queen; hence, if anything prevents them from hearing her, confusion follows, and the swarm lights: therefore, any noise among them may answer the purpose, and save ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... she was cooking. I heard them say they would get whooped if they sot around with a book in their hand. When company would come they would turn the pot down and close the shutters and doors. They had preaching and prayed that way. The pot was to drown out the sound. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... occasion is subservient to a general law with which it does not seem at first sight to have any connection. A severe winter may be sufficient to kill the quails, just as the ancient morass was sufficient to drown the mastodon. But the question is, why these causes began to operate just at these times. We may as well stop with the evident fact, that the unresting circulation is forever going ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... had deserved to end. Absolutely dependent on a man who was at that moment perhaps lamenting the wife whom he had deserted and lost, how long would it be before she found herself an outcast, without a friend to help her—with a reputation hopelessly lost—face to face with the temptation to drown herself or poison herself, as other women had drowned themselves or poisoned themselves, when the brightest future before ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... shrinking, The draught of failure drinking, In trickery's quicksand sinking, Pulls he not others down? Will PLON-PLON stand securely, The COMTE pose proudly, purely, Whilst slowly but most surely Their tool must choke or drown? ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... returned Benjamin, just listen to the philosophy of the thing. Would it stand to reason, that such a fish should live and be catched in this here little pond of water, where its hardly deep enough to drown a man, as youll find in the wide ocean, where, as every body knows that is, everybody that has followed the seas, whales and grampuses are to be seen, that are as long as one of the pine- ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... clouds, the orange rim came nearer and we knew that we were once again approachin' the edge of the hurricane. There happened to be a little food in the galley and a scrap was given to each man. If we were going under, there was no need to drown hungry. So, faintly, but with quickenin' loudness, the whirring roar of the hurricane rose into a shriek and the ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... a Scarecrow couldn't drown and never relaxed her speed until she stood on the edge of the pool, with the spray dashing in her face. Cap'n Bill, puffing and panting, had just voice enough to ask, as ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... a sudden cry and a splash. Has some one fallen in the river, or is it boys on a bathing frolic? He leans over the edge of the cliff, where he can command a sight of the river, but there is nothing save one eddy on the shore where no one could drown. And yet there are voices, a sound of distress, it seems to him, so he begins to scramble down. A craggy point jutting out shuts off the view of a little cove, and he turns his steps thitherward. Just as he gains the point ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... never felt so much like crying in my life,' said Dolly, as he asked for a glass of brandy-and-water at about midnight. 'Good-night, old fellows; good-bye. I'm going down to Caversham, and I shouldn't wonder if I didn't drown myself.' ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... Christian souls, all base temptations spurning, Drown coward thoughts in Faith's triumphant hymn; Since Jesus suffer'd, our salvation earning, Shall we not toil that we may rest with Him? Soldiers ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... my lady," "At almost any time I am glad to see you, but just at present—" he raised his voice to drown the din of the knocker—"just at present your appearance, I fear, is a trifle indiscreet. It is not the paper they wish, Mademoiselle. It is merely myself, your humble servant, they require. But pray calm yourself and rest assured they shall get neither. ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... request, took a seat; and called him, invariably, 'Mr. Higgins,' instead of the curt 'Nicholas' or 'Higgins,' to which the 'drunken infidel weaver' had been accustomed. But Nicholas was neither an habitual drunkard nor a thorough infidel. He drank to drown care, as he would have himself expressed it: and he was infidel so far as he had never yet found any form of faith to which he could attach himself, heart ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... and viewed the shaking walls, and people say the way I wept would beat Niagara Falls. Then words of sympathy I dealt to Bildad and his wife; such kindly words, I've always felt, nerve people for the strife. If I can kill with words your fears, or argue grief away, or drown your woe by shedding tears, call on me any day. I have a sympathetic heart that bleeds for others' aches, and I will ease your pain and smart unless the language breaks. And so to Bildad and his mate I made a helpful talk, with vital truths that elevate and break disasters' shock; ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... some gunner, having dined, To show his guest the glories of his art 'Poops off a round or two,' which burst behind, But fail to drown ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... in my wife that I began to love her more and more. But my brothers began to be jealous of my prosperity, and set to work to plot against my life. One night when we were sleeping they threw my wife and myself into the sea. My wife, however, was a fairy, and so she did not let me drown, but transported me to an island. When the day dawned, she ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... a military commission! One Fabre Marat, a republican General, wrote, about the same period, I think from Angers, that the Guillotine was too slow, and powder scarce, so that it was concluded more expedient to drown the rebels, which he calls a patriotic baptism!—The following is a copy of a letter addressed to the Mayor of Paris by a ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... he chose. Though too free an exercise of so extreme an authority was no longer recognised, it was still quite legal to make away with an infant which was badly deformed. Says Seneca, in the most matter-of-fact way, "We drown our monstrosities." It was quite legal also to expose a child, and leave it either to perish or to be taken up by whosoever chose. In most such instances doubtless the child became the slave of the finder. Not only was this ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... she was gone and the gambler, with a muttered curse, went to the sideboard and poured out a glass of whiskey, with which to drown ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... thought that though he was a Jew it was a shame to let him drown, so half-a-dozen or more of them ran off to get a rake to haul him out. One couldn't find a rake, and another couldn't find a rake; so, long before they came back, the poor Jew was drowned. That is the reason why we say, when a chap is a long time doing a thing that he ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the dead. It sings in my sleeping ears, It hums in my waking head, The name—Ticonderoga, The utterance of the dead. Then up, and with the fighting men To march away from here, Till the cry of the great war-pipe Shall drown it ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 'm not precisely an aeolian lute Hung in the wandering winds of sentiment, But drown me if the ugliest, meanest brute Grunting and fretting in that sultry tent Did n't ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... just a choice between drowning and starving? For my part, I'd rather drown and have it over with, than starve ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... Tressilian, "my father—such I must ever consider Sir Hugh Robsart—sits at home struggling with his grief, or, if so far recovered, vainly attempting to drown, in the practice of his field-sports, the recollection that he had once a daughter—a recollection which ever and anon breaks from him under circumstances the most pathetic. I could not brook the idea that he should live in misery, and Amy in guilt; and I endeavoured ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... blood, they say, are given to boasting. America adds flashing nerve fire to the dull muscle of Europe. That is the fact. But the tendency to boasting is an honest inheritance. We can hardly boast louder than our fathers across the sea have taught us. The boasting of New York can scarcely drown the boasting of London. Jonathan thinks highly of himself, but, certainly, John Bull is not ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... brain that will go and drown himself," said a frequenter of the place. He looked round about at the other players, who all ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... assemble at his house, to discuss his virtues and drink his poteen. There is one who is called a 'keener,' usually an elderly woman, with a touch of madness, or poetry, and a wild rolling eye, who chants a 'keen,' or lamentation; in short, it's a sort of melancholy frolic, where we only drink to drown our sorrow—a good old Irish custom. Now, ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... burst upon them from the side door. They saw me coming, and scattered right and left, revealing Johnnie Cobden engaged in torturing a mouse. I will spare you the grisly details. I called to one of the boys to come and drown the creature quick! John I seized by the collar; and dragged him squirming and kicking in at the kitchen door. He is a big, hulking boy of thirteen, and he fought like a little tiger, holding on to posts and doorjambs as we passed. ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... thy great trumpet sound? Then a great harmony shall hover over sea and hill. Ah! would that I could suffer with humanity; their cries and sobs should drown the sound of mine! ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... manner of heathen language to my dog. He cooled down arter a bit, when I'd spoke to him pretty straight, axin' who'd pay for the mess he'd made, and he went down-along to village, sayin' he'd take a bed there for hisself and his man, and pay me what was fair. Drown me if he wasn't back in half-an-hour, all of a heat, tellin' me in a commandin' way—being an officer by what he said—to pull down my fence and help him hoist that airyplane on to the road. I wouldn't stir ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... get what was wanted for the highest employments, particularly if they could gain an exhibition or scholarship. But after a man had passed his examinations, the country or the government had nothing more to do with him. "Swim or drown" was the maxim followed everywhere; and it was but natural that the first years of professional life, whether as lawyers, medical men, or clergymen, were years of great self-denial. But they were also years of intense struggle, and the years of hunger are said to have accounted for ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... would you burn me?' says she. 'God forbid!' replied the priest, 'except for the good of the Church!' Now, this priest must be descended from some of those who attempted to blow up a river with gunpowder, in order to drown a city. Or he must have taken her for a witch, whereas, by his own confession, she 'was no heretic.' A gentleman whom I know declared to me, upon his honor, that he heard Mr. Wesley repeat, in a sermon preached by him in the city of Cork, the following words: 'A little bird ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... craft, a schooner-rigged, half-decked boat, about five-and-twenty feet long, with a well aft, in which we could sit comfortably enough. She was not a bad boat for smooth water, but if caught in a heavy sea, very likely to drown all on board. ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... ghastly comedies. The ladies, with hair bound high over their heads, would kneel before the inverted chairs, and place the snowwhite necks beneath this imaginary guillotine. Speeches were delivered to a mock populace, whilst a mock Santerre ordered a mock roll of drums to drown the last flow of eloquence of ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... and disregardful of what should be done and what should not, and if he transgresses all restraints. Jadu's son, king Sagara, of great intelligence, from desire of doing good to the citizens, exiled his own eldest son Asamanjas. Asamanjas, O king, used to drown the children of the citizens in the Sarayu. His sire, therefore, rebuked him and sent him to exile. The Rishi Uddalaka cast off his favourite son Swetaketu (afterwards) of rigid penances, because the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Thousands of minutes of the seven hundred and ninety-eight days—and there were over one million of them, during which I had been borne down by intolerably burdensome delusions—were, I imagine, much like the last minutes of consciousness experienced by persons who drown. Many who have narrowly escaped that fate can testify to the vividness with which good and bad impressions of their entire life rush through their confused minds, and hold them in a grip of terror until ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... will lead you into trouble, if you follow her. Suppose she is what you think her,—a mermaid: it is her delight to draw people into the water, where, of course, they drown. If she is what I think her,—a sly, bad child, who sees that you are very simple, and who means to get taken care of without doing any thing useful,—she will spoil you in a worse way than if you followed her into the sea. I've ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott |
