"Headlong" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sacrilege terror Of sleep, have gone by. The blood of young Richard Cries on him in vain, In the heart of the Lindwood By arbalest slain. And he plunges alone In the Serpent-glade gloom, As one whom the Furies Hound headlong to doom. ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... of headlong disposition, in my place, would have probably spoken of Miss Eyrecourt's marriage to Romayne at his first meeting with Winterfield, and would have excited their distrust, and put them respectively on their guard, without obtaining ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... our way back he told me of the fight, beginning with the results: none of our own men killed outright, but four badly wounded and already started eastward in the ambulance left us by the Major's brother; some others more slightly hurt. My questions were headlong and his answers quiet; he was a slow-spoken daredevil; I wish he came more than he does into ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... tossed up into wild shapes of spires and jagged points. The river itself was spread out wide and shallow, and went rattling about great grey rocks scattered here and there amidst it, till it gathered itself together to tumble headlong over three slant steps into the ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... crowned with a slender band of crimson like a collar of gold, which is of equal brilliance through all its extent. Its beak is extraordinarily hard. If after it has soared to a great height it swoops headlong on to some rock, it breaks the force of its fall with its beak, which it uses as an anchor. Its head is not less hard than its beak. When it is being taught to imitate human speech, it is beaten over the head ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... when the bird, with headlong descent, shot into the water, making it foam up all about. He reappeared with a fish in his claws, and flew off ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... you, instead of a husband, a dragon who would forthwith devour you, we held ourselves ready to repulse his fury, or die with you. You know it well, Princess; and when you disappeared from our gaze through the air, both, equally carried away by our love and grief, cast ourselves headlong from that rock, in order to follow your beauty, or rather to feel that love-born joy of offering in your behalf a first ...
— Psyche • Moliere
... Goodrich, the cottagers still tell, from father to son, as they have told for centuries over their winter's hearth, how the herald, hurrying from Monmouth to Goodrich fast as whip and spur could urge his steed onward, with the tidings of the Prince of Wales' birth, fell headlong, (the horse dropping under him in the short, steep, and rugged lane leading to the ravine, beyond which the castle stands,) and was killed on the spot. No doubt the idea of its being the news of a prince's birth, that was thus posted on, has added, in the imagination of ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... fearlessness and ease, seldom seeking to lessen the steepness of the acclivity by beginning to ascend before reaching the base of the fall. No matter though it may be several hundred feet in height he holds straight on, as if about to dash headlong into the throng of booming rockets, and darts abruptly up ward, and, after alighting at the top of the precipice to rest a moment, proceeds to ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... long-drawn sunset, and not till between six and seven did Alba, as ever making sure, deliver his decisive attack. The Saxon horse had turned fiercely on the pursuing light cavalry some nine miles from Muehlberg, and then the imperialists, striking home, converted the retreat into a headlong flight. More than a third of the Saxon forces were left upon the field; the whole of their artillery and baggage train was taken. John Frederick regained his timid generalship by his personal bravery. Left ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... need for change ran headlong into strong military tradition. An integrated general service was traditional and therefore acceptable; an integrated servants' branch was not. Faced with the choice of a small number of Negroes in the Navy and the attendant charges of racism or a change in its traditions, the Navy accepted ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... a lightning snatch at a tentacle with both hands, and in the same lithe movement turned from the barrier wall and flung himself headlong toward the center of the enclosure. Zehru had no time to brace himself. He was jerked bodily through the shimmering wall and on after ...
— Zehru of Xollar • Hal K. Wells
... make Me such a woman! but a man, a beast, That hath no bliss like others? Would to heaven, In wreak of my misfortunes, I were turn'd To some fair water-nymph, that set upon The deepest whirl-pit of the rav'nous seas, My adamantine eyes might headlong hale This iron world to me, and ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... after the tinsel but enlivening glories of the Little Rialto—not after the echoing drum-beats of Union Square. There need be no tears, ladies and gentlemen; 'tis but the suicide of a street. With a shriek and a crash Fourth Avenue dives headlong into the tunnel at Thirty-fourth and ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... west of Fifth Avenue. It was a comely gabled edifice of red brick, with square bay-windows and a roomy porch. The occupant, Maler, a German, happened to be at home; and on my sending in my card, we were admitted at once, and he came to greet us in the hall in his usual hearty, headlong fashion. ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... unravel that I have ever met. It is calm, austere, unbending, yet not in the least degree complex. He has the impassioned temperament, pushed to its highest pitch; the temperament that runs deep, with irresistible force; but the passion that inspires him, that carries him away headlong, as love carries some men, is a rare and abstract one—the passion ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... struck bottom, and her main topmast lurched and shivered as if about to come down upon our heads. She fetched up on the slack of the anchors at the moment a big comber smashed her shoreward. The chain parted. It was our only anchor. The Minota swung around on her heel and drove headlong into ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... Mausers covering us from the latticed balconies overhead. Until at last, when the silence had become alert and menacing, a lonely man dashed into the middle of the street, hurled a white flag in front of us, and then dived headlong under the porch of a house. The next instant, as though at a signal, a hundred citizens, each with a white flag in both hands, ran from cover, waving their banners, and gasping in weak and terror-shaken ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... the wisdom of experience and age; to the praise of forethought or subtlety. I choose the obvious path, and pursue it with headlong expedition. Good intentions, unaided by knowledge, will, perhaps, produce more injury than benefit, and therefore knowledge must be gained, but the acquisition is not momentary; is not bestowed unasked and untoiled for. Meanwhile, we must not be inactive ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... ladies were dismounting from their vehicles, and the matrons and women-servants were closing them in so thoroughly on all sides that not a puff of wind or a drop of rain could penetrate, and when they perceived a Taoist neophyte come rushing headlong out of the place, they, with one voice, exclaimed: "Catch him, catch him! Beat ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... scramble up for a plunge into the thickets the enemy was upon him. Yet, even in this moment of shock, the old scoundrel's cunning sought and found a ruse. He stood swaying for seconds, and then tumbled limply headlong to the ground, in a drunkard's fall, familiar to his muscles by experience through three-score years. So he lay inert, seemingly sodden from the kettle's brew. His captors, if resolved to hold him prisoner, would be forced to the arduous task of carrying him through the dark, down the rough ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... cheering, cursing, promising endless gold, then baling with mad energy as the water swirled up and poured over the canvas bulwark that Greek boats carry, and still wildly urging the fishermen to keep her up; and then, the end, a sweep broken and foul of the next, a rower falling headlong on the man in front of him, confusion in the dark, the crazy boat broached to in the breaking sea, filling, fuller, now quite full and sinking, the raging hell of men fighting for their lives amongst broken oars, and tangled rigging and ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... smoke from the eye, I know of no inquiry which the impulse of man suggests that is forbidden to the resolution of man to pursue. In every inquiry, unless sustained by a pure and reverent spirit, he gropes in the dark, or falls headlong. ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... gesture of perplexity caused the deacon to hasten his exit. Tripping over the leg of a chair, he fell headlong into the arms of the watchful Jackson, who received the deacon's blessing for "uplifting the righteous in the ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... much older than Jimmy. She did not realise that perhaps his knowledge of women and the way in which they liked to be treated was the result of a long apprenticeship during which he had had time to overcome the impulsive, headlong blunderings through which Jimmy ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... She limped painfully, so that Ford immediately pictured to himself puckered eyebrows and lips pressed tightly together. "And I'll bet she's crying, too," he summed up aloud. While he was speaking, she stumbled and fell headlong. ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... below. The black and yellow men ran into an open archway, and turned and fired a volley. One of the blue pursuers striding forward close to the edge, flung up his arms, staggered sideways, seemed to Graham's sense to hang over the edge for several seconds, and fell headlong down. Graham saw him strike a projecting corner, fly out, head over heels, head over heels, and vanish behind the red arm of the ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... a fierce gesture, and the lad felt that he was at the fellow's mercy, where a sharp thrust of the hand would send him headlong down, most likely to his death. But he did ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... so far as the pitching and tossing would allow it, to hold him up; but when Elias marked it, he said, "Nay, look to thyself, Bernt, and hold on fast. I go to mother—in Jesus' Name!" and with that he cast himself down headlong from the top of ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... there rumbled once more the deafening iron chariot of the thunder-god; more and more frequently flashed the lightning as the earth rang, and rifts cleft by the blue glare disclosed, amid the obscurity, great trees that were rustling and rocking and, to all appearances, racing headlong before the scourge of a cold, ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... backwards over the precipice, and Manlius stood along on the top, for a few moments, ready to strike the next who should struggle up. The whole of the garrison were in a few moments on the alert, and the attack was entirely repulsed; the sleeping sentry was cast headlong down the rock; and Manlius was brought, by each grateful soldier, that which was then most valuable to all, a little meal and a small measure of wine. Still, the condition of the Capitol was lamentable; there was no certainty that Pontius had ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with which Moe received this remark ought to have warned Leon, but he plunged headlong to ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... punished with death, is not the mere act of taking property from its owner, but the disregarding of fundamental relations, doing violence to an immortal nature, making war on a sacred distinction of priceless worth. That distinction which is cast headlong by the principle of American ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... out of the door, closing it noisily behind him. As he ran along the passage came a sound like a crash of thunder. Outside in the passage were Cousin Mildred's boots, William's father's boots, and William's brother's boots, and into these charged William in his headlong retreat. They slid noisily along the polished wooden surface of the floor, ricochetting into each other as they went. Doors opened suddenly and William's father collided with William's brother in the dark passage, ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... luggage into the vans; the guard was a quarter of the way down the train looking at the tickets; the newspaper boys were flitting about shouting noisily and inarticulately; and the usual crowd of "just-in-times" were rushing headlong out of the booking-office and hurling themselves at ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... another matter. He was a headstrong man, impetuous, prone to leap to conclusions—a very walking heap of favourable and unfavourable prejudice. Thus, neither Claudia nor Darco was dethroned. The headlong, stammering, vivid man had made a mistake—the fat, unwieldy, diamond-hearted creature, all crusted with slag and scoria. Paul could have cried to know that Darco dreamed ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... days after, when the other wife came to the well to draw water, her foot was entangled in the rope, so that she fell headlong into the well, and they who ran to her assistance found her skull ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... we gazed. The man had been dashed against something headlong. He whirled round and round in white water, his legs were thrown up, and we saw no more of him. The woman cast off the plank, and tossed her helpless arms in search of him. A shriek, ringing far on the billowy ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... In the close-curtained court Those causes are deferred Which most import; These wait man's leisure. These daily matters elbow; Merely because His panic meanness Jibs blindly ere it hear What wisdom has prepared, Bolts headlong ere it see Her face unfold its smile. Man after man, race after race Drops jaded by the iterancy Of petty fear. Even as horses on the green steppes grazing, Hundreds scattered through lonely peacefulness, If shadow of cloud or red fox breaking ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... of tillable land on roads. From time to time we crossed a stone bridge, rarely of more than one arch, and that so pointed that the ponies on the road, which followed closely the line of the arch, clambered up with difficulty only to slide headlong on the other side. The bridges of these parts are very picturesque, giving an added charm to the landscape, in glaring contrast to the hideous, shed-like structures that disfigure many a beautiful ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... of Jonathan Johnson, and on he came at the head of some twenty bluejackets, flourishing their cutlasses like a body of Highlanders, and shouting at the top of their voices. This timely support encouraged our men, and charging at the same moment, we drove the enemy headlong ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... kind of boyishness that I am speaking of. The boy does not think. Men, generally, before they do any new or unusual thing, stop to consider what the results and consequences of it are going to be; but boys go on headlong, and find out what the consequences are when ...
— Stuyvesant - A Franconia Story • Jacob Abbott
... involved the sky, The Atlantic billows roared, When such a destined wretch as I, Washed headlong from on board, Of friends, of hope, of all bereft, His floating ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... hard. It seemed so much easier to take in than to give out in any form. Grammar gave him no difficulty, because it dealt with words, and words possessed a magic charm that always held him. Gradually he began to dip into history and geography—wonderful realms into which his imagination plunged headlong. He took almost as eagerly to the old stories out of the Bible—stories of which he had caught more than a glimpse at home—but the Catechism was like washing in the morning: it had to be done because higher powers ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... were apparently Mexican vaqueros of the usual common swarthy type, their faces made still darker by the black silk handkerchief tied round their heads under their stiff sombreros. Either they were unable or unwilling to restrain their horses in their headlong speed, and a collision in that narrow passage was imminent, but suddenly, before reaching its entrance, they diverged with a volley of oaths, and dashing along the left bank of the arroyo, disappeared in the intervening willows. Divided between relief at their ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... robber, exhausted by loss of blood and the violence of the contest, showed signs of faltering. His adversary pursued his advantage; pressed on him, and as his strength relaxed, dashed him headlong from the precipice. He looked after him and saw him lying motionless among the ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... snake-like course before me. Along it I carefully felt a passage, nervously gripping the knife hilt, and vainly seeking to distinguish definite outlines amid the darkness. My groping feet encountered numerous obstructions along the path—here a pile of loosened earth over which I plunged headlong, or a flat stone dropped by the rotting away of its supporting prop, or some sharp declivity, as though softer earth had yielded to rude implements; yet it became evident from the start that the tunnel level rapidly descended, boring deeper and deeper into the bosom of ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... nipped hold of her frock, and in a moment she was in a blaze. With a wild scream she sprang back and turned to fly, but before she had gone more than a single step Ranald, dashing the crowd right and left, had seized and flung her headlong into the snow, beating out the flames with his bare hands. In a moment all danger was over, and Ranald lifted her up. Still screaming, she clung to him, while the women all ran to her. Her ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... and order with which General Scott's brigade crossed the bridge and formed its line, under the galling fire of the enemy's artillery, and the headlong approach of his infantry, who, when only fifty yards distant, were received by a tremendous discharge of musketry from the American line, which forced them to fall back for a considerable distance. But they speedily rallied and advanced again, when they were ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... then he tripped over something lying on the ground, and pitched forward headlong on his face. A moment later he had regained ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... for his message in no small trepidation, went off at once to the hotel. Nothing was to be gained by hanging back, and she felt more sure of herself generally if she dashed headlong into a ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... into disorder by the force of a flank fire. They retreated up the hill, and before they could be rallied, the English, who could not be prevailed upon to stand a second attack of the Highland broadswords, had begun an orderly retreat. Had the whole of the Jacobite army been at hand, to rush headlong upon the enemy the moment they turned their backs, few of their infantry would have ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... my dear!" cried Mary Anne, supporting him, and terrified lest he should pitch headlong ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... cook, coming out just then with the butter-box, Royal thrust it hastily into the back of the wagon, and without another word or glance at the sisters, drove off at a headlong pace. ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... of his men to climb a mountain, and another to ford or swim a stream which rushes along the valley. He orders this set to rush forward with headlong course, and the other to wheel, and approach by circuitous progress perhaps to the very same point. He marches them to the right and the left. He then dismisses them from the scene of exercise, to furbish their arms, to attend to their accoutrements, or to partake of necessary refection. ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... both bamboos to three or four of the pegs. When this was also nearly ended, a third was added, and shortly after, the lowest branches of the tree were reached, along which the young Dyak scrambled, and soon sent the Mias tumbling down headlong. I was exceedingly struck by the ingenuity of this mode of climbing, and the admirable manner in which the peculiar properties of the bamboo were made available. The ladder itself was perfectly safe, since if any one peg were loose or faulty, and gave way, the strain would be thrown ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... there are, who never can contrive, as other some cleverly do, to ride their hobby-horses to good purpose and good effect;—now Beauclerc's hobbies, I plainly see, will always run away with him headlong, cost him dear certainly, and, may be, leave him in the ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... as the wind to seek and spring upon the pyre of her lord." Fate and Aphrodite drive her headlong, and in heaven Selene, remembering Endymion, bewails the lot of her sister in sorrow. OEnone reaches the funeral flame, and without a word or a cry leaps into her husband's arms, the wild Nymphs wondering. The lovers are mingled in one heap of ashes, and these are bestowed in one vessel of gold ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... their right slightly, raising the hope in the mind of Harriet that they were going to pass her without discovering her. Instead a heavy boot came in contact with her own feet. There followed a muttered exclamation, the man pitched headlong, the girl having stiffened her limbs to meet the shock the instant she felt the touch of the boot against ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... listen to this well-meant and really judicious advice, but rushing forward, was attempting to make his way down the ladder. Scarcely, however, had he descended three or four steps, when the smoke filling his mouth and nostrils, he would have fallen headlong down had not Ben and Jack hauled him up again, almost in the same condition as ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... Emerson in line with the ruling tendencies of his age, and his teaching brings all the aid that abstract teaching can, towards the solution of the moral problems of modern societies. Carlyle chose to fling himself headlong and blindfold athwart the great currents of things, against all the forces and elements that are pushing modern societies forward. Beginning in his earlier work with the same faith as Emerson in leading instincts, he came to dream that the only leading ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... weight of lead nor length of blade could stop. In his haste he had left Flambeau without weapon of any kind, for in his mind such things were superfluous, and he had never fought with any but those God gave him, nor found any living thing that his hands could not master. Therefore, he had rushed headlong against this armed and waiting man, reaching for him ever closer and closer till the burning powder stung his eyes. They grappled and fought, alone and unseen, and yet it was no fight, for Runnion, though a vigorous, heavy-muscled man, was beaten ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... Frady tripped on a root and fell headlong, pitching his torch into the dry duff a man's length before him. There was a rush to stamp out the incipient fire, the autumn terror of the forests, before any one lent a hand to help the fallen. Robertson went half-way up his leggings in a spring, and stood swearing fiercely, while the rest ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... grew more and more helpful and considerate. More than that, the children, all three of them, seemed to have quieted down of their own accord. At this hour, they were generally shouting and screaming, racing over the grass, or tumbling headlong from the trees, keeping Margaret in a constant state of terror, and Cousin Sophronia in one of peevish irritation and alarm. But now they had gone of their own will to the summer-house, saying that they were going to tell stories, ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... of the day Seti had little memory. Once or twice as he proceeded headlong through hamlets, he caught from the lips of natives a denunciation of Siptah, a vicious epithet applied to Ta-user, or, like a fresh thrust in an old wound, a pitying groan for himself. His shame had preceded him on fleet wings. He hoped he might as ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... the country now, so he sallied forth with his bow. Luck was with him; at the first shot he downed a big, fat cock. At the second he winged another, and as it scrambled through the brush, he rushed headlong in pursuit. It fluttered away beyond reach, half-flying, half-running, and Rolf, in reckless pursuit, went sliding and tumbling down a bank to land at the bottom with a horrid jar. One leg was twisted ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... man was the model—never understood how it was possible for people to be bored. Flaubert once said in a letter, "Life is so hideous that the only way of enduring it is to avoid it." But Harland believed in plunging into it headlong and getting everything that is to be got out of it. He had eyes to see that "life is just one sequence of many-coloured astonishments", and the colours were the gayer when he came to our Thursday nights because he was still ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... no more time for hesitation. He dropped his unwieldy musket, and clambered into a blackened and branchy hackmatack, so small that he feared the rush of the bull might break it down. It did, indeed, crack ominously when the headlong bulk reared upon it; but it stood. And Sandy felt as if every branch he ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... monumental peaks; but the heights were so cloudlike and the cloud masses so solid we could not for the life of us be certain of the nature of either. There were canons like huge quarries, and canons like rocky mazes, where we seemed to have rushed headlong into a cul de sac, and were in danger of dashing our brains out against the mighty walls that loomed before us. There was many a winding stream which we took at a single bound, and occasionally an oasis, green and flowery; but, oh, so few habitations and so few spots ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... am at the turning-point of my life. Ever since boyhood I have been haunted with the words of Andre Chenier on the morning he was led to the scaffold 'And yet there was something here,' striking his forehead. Yes, I, poor, low-born, launching myself headlong in the chase of a name; I, underrated, uncomprehended, indebted even for a hearing to the patronage of an amiable trifler like Savarin, ranked by petty rivals in a grade below themselves,—I now see before me, suddenly, abruptly presented, the expanding gates into fame and fortune. ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... readily concedes what Dave says,' remarks Peets. 'Ondoubtedly he acts for the best as he sees it. But jest as you puts it: s'pose Dave ain't hungerin' none for this towerist woman himse'f, the headlong way he goes after this yere Black Dog, settin' of the war-jig the next sun-up, an' all without even sayin' "Let me look at your hand," to this female, jestifies them inferences of yours. Of course I don't say—an' ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... from a friend of that gentleman received a copy of a bill which was to do away with the tariff by gradual reductions, prevent the imposition of any further duties, and which at the same time declared against protection and in favor of a tariff for revenue only. This headlong plunge into concession and compromise was not at all to Mr. Webster's taste. He was opposed to the scheme for economical reasons, but still more on the far higher ground that there was open resistance to laws of undoubted constitutionality, ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... Emily's inspired interpreter, whose genius has not made her sister popular. 'Shirley' is not a favourite with a modern public. Emily Bronte was born out of date. Athene, leading the nymphs in their headlong chase down the rocky spurs of Olympus, and stopping in full career to lift in her arms the weanlings, tender as dew, or the chance-hurt cubs of the mountain, might have chosen her as her hunt-fellow. Or Brunhilda, the strong Valkyr, dreading the ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... hear!" he muttered in her ear; "we'll be out of this in a minute." He lunged with her headlong over the smashed door and reached the top of the flight, feeling for the first step cautiously with his foot. She screamed this time, beating his ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... already careering down the hillside. A few paces from the fire the horse plunged into a badger hole and fell headlong. She went over his head, down, with a terrific shock, almost in the very ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... the weak from the torment of doubt, in abdicating the functions of reason and conscience, shifting the onus of responsibility on to others, and agreeing to believe, as it were, by proxy. She had plunged fearlessly and headlong into Aristotle, Bacon, Locke, Condillac, Mably, Leibnitz, Bossuet, Pascal, Montaigne, Montesquieu; beginning to call many things in question, and, through the darkness and confusion into which she was sometimes thrown, trying honestly and sincerely to feel her way to some more glorious ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... quartered, some roasted, some broiled, some put in hot caldrons, some having their eyes bored through, some their tongues cut out, some their skin plucked over their heads, some their hands and feet chopped off, some put in kilns and furnaces, some cast down headlong, and given to the beasts and fowls of the air to feed upon. It would,' said he, 'ask a long time, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of eagerly matching the other person's story or experience with one of your own. There is nothing more disconcerting to a speaker than to observe the listener impatiently waiting to plunge headlong into the conversation with some marvellous tale. Be particularly careful not to outdo another speaker in relating your own experiences. If, for instance, he has just told how he caught fifty fish upon a recent trip, do not succumb to the temptation to tell ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... about that. The Mississippi pond was in sight, and she was just slanting down toward the water, when a hunter fired at her from behind a clump of trees. His aim was all too true, and she fell headlong to the ground, with a broken wing dangling helplessly ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... error of thirty leagues in the reckoning. On the 1st of July, they entered the tropics; and there, with a childish disregard to danger, and knowing that she was surrounded by all the unseen perils of the ocean, her crew performed the ceremony usual to the occasion, while the vessel was running headlong on destruction. The captain, presided over the disgraceful scene of merriment, leaving the ship to the command of a Mons. Richefort, who had passed the ten preceding years of his life in an English prison—a few persons on board remonstrated in vain; though it was ascertained that they were on the ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... even if she re-covered them, she said they should have the same old homey complexion. So she chose a fair, soft buff, with a pattern of brown leaves, for her parlor paper; Mrs. Ledwith, meanwhile, plunging headlong into glories of crimson and garnet and gold. Agatha had her blush pink, in panels, with heart-of-rose borders, set on with delicate gilt beadings; you would have thought she was going to put herself up, in a fancy-box, like a French ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... his eyes, it was to find himself in the clear sunshine with the boat dashing at headlong speed through the water, her port gunwale only an inch or two from the surface and the wet sail bellied out in a dangerous way, while Dan was holding on by ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... arms, he kissed me warmly on both cheeks, and before I had recovered from my surprise ran headlong from the room. ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... she was speaking, the Indians had wheeled into the gateway and swept up with a headlong pace to the ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... not taken ten steps before some object, unseen in the darkness, tripped me up, and I fell headlong on the stones. In the fall my burden rolled from my arms; instantly it was snatched up by a dark figure, which rose as by magic beside me, and was gone into the gloom almost as quickly. I got up gasping and limping, and flung ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... an hour Michael sat talking with Hadassah and Margaret. He had so much to tell them that he succeeded in telling them nothing connectedly or completely. He began a hundred different things and left most of them halfway through, to plunge headlong into another and entirely different subject. The things he wanted to say were tumbling over each other in his mind. The bewildering idea that he was going to be married the next day sent all ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... dose of the drug I had taken, became almost intolerable. I yielded to it for a moment, lying down on a crag near the edge of the pit. I must have become almost immediately unconscious, and remained so for a considerable time. I can remember a horrible sensation of sliding headlong for what seemed like hours. I felt that I was sliding or falling downward. I tried to rouse but could not. Then came ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... be known and the power of knowing shall have become so mutually adequate that each exhaustively is absorbed by the other and the twain become one flesh, and in which the light shall somehow have soaked up all the outer darkness into its own ubiquitous beams. Like all headlong ideals, this apotheosis of the bare conceiving faculty has its depth and wildness, its pang and its charm. To many it sings a truly siren strain; and so long as it is held only as a postulate, as a mere vanishing {140} point to give perspective to our intellectual aim, it is ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... Christians in the seventeenth century, the steep cliff, which forms the seaward side of the island, was an execution point, and from here men and women who declined to abjure their faith were cast headlong on to the sea-washed rocks far below. The present verdure and beauty which so characterize the spot are in strong contrast with the sad history of the place; nor could we gaze upon its precipitous side, as we steamed slowly by, without a shudder at the tragedies ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... an' just then there was two more explosions, an' a couple more o' the seamen bundled headlong out er their berths, utterin' doleful shrieks that'd make ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... manners—and Utopia stands where it did, a great way off indeed, but not turned topsy-turvy by our magician's wand! Should we ever arrive there, that is, attain to a state of perfect moral restraint, we shall not be driven headlong back into Epicurus's stye for want of the only possible checks to population, vice and misery; and in proportion as we advance that way, that is, as the influence of moral restraint is extended, the necessity for vice and misery will be diminished, instead of being ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... day, the secret attack by night, the swarming foe upon the plains below, the bristling arms of the besieged upon the wall, the boom of the great mortars made of ropes and leather and throwing mighty balls of stone, the stormy flight of arrows, the ladders planted against the defences and staggering headlong into the moat, enriched for future agriculture not only by its sluggish waters, but by the blood of many men. I suppose that most of these visions were old stage spectacles furbished up anew, and that my armies were chiefly equipped with their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... the midnight lamp. Each fall whereby the sons of Argos fell, The flingers by cross-buttock, each his man By feats of wrestling: all that boxers e'er, Grim in their gauntlets, have devised, or they Who wage mixed warfare and, adepts in art, Upon the foe fall headlong: all such lore Phocian Harpalicus gave him, Hermes' son: Whom no man might behold while yet far off And wait his armed onset undismayed: A brow so truculent roofed so stern a face. To launch, and steer ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... of a leaf hath force To wake the currents of my blood, That sweep, a wild Niagara-flood, Hurled headlong in ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... thought the day was ours. The headlong Rupert Swept all before him, like the wind that bends The thin and unkind corn, his men were numb With slaying, and their chargers straddling, blown With undue speed, as they had hunted that Which could not turn again—e'en thus was Rupert, When round to meet his squadrons came a host Like ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... upward he sprang; like a panther he leaped to the summit. Too late! on the brave as he crept turned the maid in her scorn and defiance; Then swift from the dizzy height leaped. Like a brant arrow-pierced in mid-heaven. Down-whirling and fluttering she fell, and headlong plunged into the waters. Forever she sank mid the wail, and the wild lamentation of women. Her lone spirit evermore dwells in the depths of the Lake of the Mountains, And the lofty cliff evermore tells to the years as they pass her sad story. [a] In the silence of sorrow the night o'er the ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... island, calling him by name, shouting at the top of my voice the first words that came into my head. But the willows smothered my voice, and the humming muffled it, so that the sound only traveled a few feet round me. I plunged among the bushes, tripping headlong, tumbling over roots, and scraping my face as I tore this way and that among the ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... there he saw something which caused him to forget hunger and grievances of all kinds; something which, after one horrified look to make sure, led him to dart into the light chamber, spring at a reckless gait down the winding stair, out of the tower, rush to the edge of the bluff, and plunge headlong down the zigzag path worn in ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... rifle, which I had scarcely completed when Isaac rode up and inquired what had become of the buffaloes, little dreaming that they were standing within twenty yards of him. I answered by pointing my rifle across his horse's nose, and letting fly sharp right and left at the two buffaloes. A headlong charge, accompanied by a muffled roar, was the result. In an instant I was round a clump of tangled thorn-trees; but Isaac, by the violence of his efforts to get his horse in motion, lost his balance, and at the same instant, his girths giving way, himself, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... again and again, but he renewed his attempts to force a passage with undaunted energy and courage. Finally, compressing his lips and holding his nostrils with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, he gave a headlong plunge, and succeeded in reaching Haydee's door; it was open, displaying a scene that caused the Count's heart to sink within him; the whole chamber was one sea of flame; fiery tongues, like so many writhing and hissing serpents, were licking ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... stand and will stand. None can stay his hand, or reverse his decrees. The means chosen to subvert, are used to build his cause and kingdom. "He taketh the wise in their own craftiness, and the purposes of the froward are carried headlong." ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... towards him his huge and infuriate elephant with trunk upraised. But when the beast came near, Nakula with his sword severed from his head both trunk and tusks. And that mail-clad elephant, uttering a frightful roar, fell headlong upon the ground, crushing its riders by the fall. And having achieved this daring feat, heroic son of Madri, getting up on Bhimasena's car, obtained a little rest. And Bhima too, seeing prince Kotikakhya rush to the encounter, cut off ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... pace, his pipe griped in his teeth, his gun swinging at his side. Presently, as he turned into a grass-grown carrefour, a mere waste of wild-flowers and tangled briers, he caught his ankle in a strand of ivy and fell headlong. Sprawling there on the moss and dead leaves, the sound of human voices struck his ear, and he sat up, scowling and ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... to the fight His scattered legions, and beats ruin back, He, on the field, encamps, well pleased in mind. Yet surely him shall fortune overtake, Him smite in turn, headlong his ensigns drive; And that dear land, now safe, to-morrow fall. But he, unthinking, in the present good Solely delights, ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... me, God, although I curse my Birth, And ban the Ayr wherein I breath a wretch, Since Misery hath daunted all my Mirth, And I am quite undone through Promise breach. Oh Friends! no Friends, that then ungently frown, When changing Fortune calls us headlong down. ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... result occur that Bristles was unable to keep on his feet. His support being withdrawn, he went plunging headlong with the falling door. ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... for the moment of my perception and my tact I am at a loss to say; in their absence I was unable to repress a headlong exclamation. I was destined to regret it. We had stopped at a turning, beneath a lamp. "My poor friend," I exclaimed, laying my hand on his shoulder, "you have dawdled! She's an ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... by—part of the programme of the picnic was to go out rowing on the pond—and as soon as I had fastened my horse, I went down to the bank and stooped over to wash my face, and the bank gave way and I pitched headlong into ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... low and penetrated to the depths of the sea. Then he aimed the third, and it flew from his bow swift as lightning. Straight forward it flew, and struck the magic steed full in the shoulder so that Wainamoinen was plunged headlong into the waves. And then arose a mighty storm-wind, and the old magician was carried far out into the ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... light Laid pausefully upon life's headlong train;— The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew, The heart less bounding at emotion new, And hope once crush'd less ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... lurching of the coach, ended all further attempt at conversation, and the four passengers held on grimly, and stared out of the windows, as if expecting every instant that some accident would hurl them headlong. The frightened driver was apparently sparing neither whip nor tongue, the galloping teams jerking the stage after them in a mad race up the trail. Hamlin thrust his head out of the nearest window, but a sudden lurch hurled him back, the coach ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... trails its cherish'd form, and views, With eye of cockatrice, the little pile Which youthful merit had essay'd to raise; From shrouded night his blacker arm he draws, Replete with vigor from each heavenly blast, To cloud the glories of that infant sun, And hurl the fabric headlong to the ground. How oft, alas! through that envenom'd blow, The youth is doom'd to leave his careful toils To slacken and decay, which might, perchance, Have borne him up on ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... been sometimes sung to "Pisgah," an old revival piece by J.C. Lowry (1820) once much heard in camp-meetings, but it is a pedestrian tune with too many quavers, and a headlong tempo. ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... telling them to come down and that he would pick them up. The Indian, Maco, was the first to follow his advice. Descending to the lowest branch, which was nearly thirty feet above the surface, he plunged headlong in; and though he disappeared for nearly a minute, he rose again, and soon reached the log. The skipper then told him to take the remaining piece of the rope, and, if possible, carry it up to the branch, so that Peter might have the means of descending. ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... perceive it was the voice Of my most honoured Lady, your dear sister. Amazed I stood, harrowed with grief and fear; And "O poor hapless nightingale," thought I, "How sweet thou sing'st, how near the deadly snare!" Then down the lawns I ran with headlong haste, Through paths and turnings often trod by day, Till, guided by mine ear, I found the place Where that damned wizard, hid in sly disguise (For so by certain signs I knew), had met Already, ere my best speed could prevent, The aidless innocent ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... else seemed to have, full confidence in this man, and yet the thrall in which I was held by the dominating power of his passion, kept me from seeking that advice even from my own intuitions, which might have led to my preservation. I was blind and knew I was blind, yet rushed on headlong. I asked him no questions till our ...
— The Hermit Of ——— Street - 1898 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... and restless course in which his life had run along, like a burning train, through a series of wanderings, adventures, successes, and passions, the fever of all which was still upon him, when, with the same headlong recklessness, he rushed into this marriage, it can but little surprise us that, in the space of one short year, he should not have been able to recover all at once from his bewilderment, or to settle down into that tame level of conduct ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... there arose a violent storm. The vessel was hurled hither and thither by the towering billows; the hurricane tore the sails and dashed the mast against the pilot's head, crushing the bones, and he was cast headlong ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... droop. Then as I shook off the drowsiness a sudden crash among the bracken roused me. I raised my eyes. A great bird hung quivering in the air above my face. For an instant I stared, incapable of motion; then something leaped past me in the ferns and the bird rose, wheeled, and pitched headlong into the brake. ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... of Buffon, whose fiery and ardent genius was apt to substitute theory for proof, and fancy for fact; and often did the 'biting smile' of M. Daubenton check the ardency of Buffon, and his well-weighed words arrest him in his headlong progress." What more noble picture of scientific devotion can we imagine than the feeble and aged Daubenton, shut up for whole days in his cabinet of natural history, ardently exerting himself in the complex and weary task of arranging ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... no degrees in degradation—no caste in the world of sin. Headlong they rush to moral ruin. And there are those like Helen Conway, too blinded by the environment of birth to know that work is not degradation. To them it is the lowering of every standard of their lives, standards which ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... cannot tell; He left, I know, before it was discovered. In the middle of the storm, like one possessed, He rushed into the street, half tumbling me Headlong down stairs, and never came again. He had paid his bill that morning, luckily; So joy go with him! Well, he was an ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... generation, when the son of Constantine was deposed and slain by the disciple of Macarius, they tasted the feast of revenge and dominion: the image or monument of the sixth council was defaced, and the original acts were committed to the flames. But in the second year, their patron was cast headlong from the throne, the bishops of the East were released from their occasional conformity, the Roman faith was more firmly replanted by the orthodox successors of Bardanes, and the fine problems of the incarnation were forgotten ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... who succeeded has lang been privately a sworn friend and admirer of the King; and hastens, not too SLOWLY as the King had feared, but far the reverse, to make that known to all mankind. That, and much else,—in a far too headlong manner, poor soul! Like an ardent, violent, totally inexperienced person (enfranchised SCHOOL-BOY, come to the age of thirty-four), who has sat hitherto in darkness, in intolerable compression; as if buried ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... morning, on awakening, they went at once to their observatory, and found that Jupiter's disk was plainly visible to the naked eye, and before night it seemed as large as the full moon. They then prepared to check the Callisto's headlong speed, which Jupiter's attraction was beginning to increase. When about two million miles from the great planet, which was considerably on their left, they espied Callisto ahead and slightly on their right, as Deepwaters had calculated ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... nor rain, Nor the furious air of frost, nor the flare of fire, Nor the headlong squall of hail, nor the hoar frost's fall, Nor the burning of the sun, nor the bitter cold, Nor the weather over-warm, nor the winter shower, Do their wrong ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... a fire, when Southern gusts are rude, Falls on the standing harvest of the plain, Or torrent, hurtling with a mountain flood, Whelms field and oxens' toil and smiling grain, And rolls whole forests headlong to the main, While, weetless of the noise, on neighbouring height, Tranced in mute wonder, stands the listening swain, Then, then I see that Hector's words were right, And all the Danaan wiles ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... a look of human woe from his staring eyes did go, Toll slowly. And a sharp cry uttered he, in a foretold agony of the headlong ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... lady could have meted out the punishment administered to poor Stephen. None but a great lady could have concerned it. And he, who had never been snubbed before, fell headlong into her trap. How was the boy to know that there was no heart in the smile with which she greeted him? It was all over in an instant. She continued to talk about Virginia Springs, "Oh, Mr. Brice, of course you have been there. Of course you know the Edmunds. No? You haven't ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of swords to sway, When timeless night laid hold of heaven, and took With its great gorge the noon as in a gulf, Strangled; and thicker than the shrill-winged shafts Flew the fleet lightnings, held in chase through heaven 1500 By headlong heat of thunders on their trail Loosed as on quest of quarry; that our host Smit with sick presage of some wrathful God Quailed, but the foe as from one iron throat With one great sheer sole thousand-throated cry Shook earth, heart-staggered ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... she did not know where to go next, Margaret came to a pause in her headlong flight, and, sinking on to a chair, covered her face with her hands. Even though the length of the whole house separated her now from the billiard-room, she had not escaped from the sound of the shouts and squeals to which her remarks had given rise, for fresh peals were still ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... course, only a question of time. However, he would tell her before she left for her "home-coming" at Wrayth on Monday, what he thought it was now safe and advisable that she should know, namely, that on her husband's side the marriage had been one of headlong desire for herself, after having refused the bargain before he had seen her. That would give her some bad moments of humiliation, he admitted, which perhaps she had not deserved, though it would certainly bring her to her knees and so, ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... the desire of one sin to the commission of another; thus from the desire of food he tried to lead Him to the vanity of the needless working of a miracle; and from the desire of glory to tempt God by casting Himself headlong. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... bound; With bristles raised the sudden noise they hear, And ludicrously wild and winged with fear, The herd decamp with more than swinish speed, And snorting dash through sedge and rush and reed; Through tangled thickets headlong on they go, Then stop and listen for their fancied foe; The hindmost still the growing panic spreads, Repeated fright the first alarm succeeds, Till Folly's wages, wounds and thorns, they reap; Yet glorying in their fortunate escape, Their groundless terrors by degrees soon cease, And Night's ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... Niccola at miles per second. In half a minute it was tens of miles per second. There was no re-transmission of signals. The Plumie ship had found itself discovered. Apparently it considered itself attacked. It flung itself into a headlong dash ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster
... loosen my numbed limbs, and presently fell headlong over a little scaur into a moss-hole. When I crawled out, with peat plastering my face and hair, I found I had lost my notion of the light's whereabouts. I strove to find another hillock, but I seemed now to be in a flat space ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... needs no fatal necessity or Astral influences to tumble wicked men down forcibly into Hell: No, Sin itself, hastened by the mighty weight of its own nature, carries them down thither with the most swift and headlong motion."[30] "Would wicked men dwell a little more at home, and descend into the bottom of their own Hearts they would soon find Hell opening her mouth wide upon them, and those secret fires of inward ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... headlong down the silent street, neither knowing nor caring whither. Half mad with grief, half with resentment, he vented curses upon himself, upon Angelique, upon the world, and looked upon Providence itself as in league with the evil powers to thwart his happiness,—not seeing that his happiness ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby |
