"Pit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... RIFLE-PIT. Cover hastily thrown up by one or two skirmishers, but contributing, when a line of them is joined together, to form ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... graduates of Harvard. But even the best speeches of these men are gradually being forgotten, although a stray sentence or paragraph may still occasionally be heard, such as Wendell Phillips's reply to those who hissed his antislavery sentiments, "Truth dropped into the pit of hell would make a noise just like that," or Edward Everett's apostrophe to "that one solitary adventurous vessel, the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future state and bound ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... saying: "'Give me another horse!' Well, where's the horse? don't you see I'm waiting for him? 'Bind up my wounds!' Look sharp now with these wounds. 'Have mercy, Heaven!' but be quick about it, for the pit can't wait ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... had once opposed Themistocles in some measures that were expedient, and had got the better of him, he could not refrain from saying, when he left the assembly, that unless they sent Themistocles and himself to the barathrum,(a pit into which the dead bodies of malefactors were thrown) there could be no safety for Athens. Another time, when urging some proposal upon the people, although there was much opposition to it, yet he was gaining the day; ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... limpid streams of liberty, it has polluted the minds of your youth, sown the seeds of despotism, and without a speedy check to her ravages, will sink you into a pit of infamy, where you shall be robbed of all the honours ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole
... the screen in front of the gunrack, got the film and loaded his projector. The Fuzzies, who had begun on a new stick-and-ball construction, were irritated when the lights went out, then wildly excited when Little Fuzzy, digging a toilet pit with the wood chisel, appeared. Little Fuzzy in particular was excited about that; if he didn't recognize himself, he recognized the chisel. Then there were pictures of Little Fuzzy killing and eating land-prawns, Little Fuzzy ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... uttered this petition than she thought she heard a voice, and these were its words: "Say, 'O Lord, pluck me out of the fiery brands, and take my feet out of the miry pit, and make me stand on the everlasting rock; and, O Lord, save my soul.'" Tidy had heard a great many of her people tell about dreams and visions and voices, but she had never before had any such experiences. ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society
... with its trunk, so as not to trample them under foot; and it never hurts any thing unless when provoked. When one has fallen into a pit the others fill up the pit with branches, earth and stones, thus raising the bottom that he may easily get out. They greatly dread the noise of swine and fly in confusion, doing no less harm then, with their feet, ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... about them, with their grey, hard faces, and their dreamy eyes, looking back into the ghastly years that were gone. But, even in my fear, I had a kind of pity for Miss Furnivall, at least. Those gone down to the pit can hardly have a more hopeless look than that which was ever on her face. At last I even got so sorry for her—who never said a word but what was quite forced from her—that I prayed for her; and I taught Miss ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... twinkle at her out of his piggish eyes. But Emigration Jane had come out to South Africa, hearing that places at five shillings a day were offered you by employers, literally upon their knees, and that husbands were thick as orange-peel and programmes on the pit-floor of the Britanniar Theayter, 'Oxton, or the Camden Varieties on the morning after a Bank Holiday. She had left her first situation at Cape Town, being a girl of spirit, because her mistress had neglected ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... morning found Maggard busied about his dooryard, albeit with his rifle standing ready to hand, and to-day he wore his shirt with the arm-pit pistol holster ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... challenged the tallest boy of the company—taller than himself by a head, though not so broad—to cope with him in a boxing match. Having already tried that game several times and invariably come off with a savage griping in the pit of the stomach, the tall boy made it a point just then to hear his mother's call—though heard by no one else—which answering, he walked off briskly, under press of filial obedience, to see what was wanted. As if hoping to force what would not come of its own accord, or by persuasion, Bushie ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... my strength redouble, Heaven open, heed my trouble! God, if my cause Thine shall be, Grant a day of victory! Fell all Thy foes now! Fell all Thy foes now! Roll forth Thy thunders, Thy lightning affright them, Into the pit, the bottomless, smite them, Their seed uproot, Tread under foot! Send then Thy snowy white dove peace-bringing, Unto Thy faithful Thy token winging, Olive-branch fair of Thy summer's fruition After the ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... to do by one of the heavy-hatted policemen in his front, who enforced his commands for silence, with a backward shove of his wooden truncheon, which came with rather unnecessary violence against the pit of John's stomach. ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... with similar weapons, and with the same sun and the same wind. It was unfair, because the stakes were of such totally unequal value. A man in his prime, who had done good work in his profession and promised to do still more, must pit himself against an irresponsible young fellow, who up to the present had shirked everything serious. And then Guentz's position as husband and father must be compared with his opponent's irregular life. An absolute cypher was opposed to ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... buried in one pit, and above them was a head-board, on which was painted in large letters the story ...
— Fred Fearnot's New Ranch - and How He and Terry Managed It • Hal Standish
... was the dreadful Case of the Major-General's Bath. Of this Draycott speaks first hand; he, personally, was an awe-struck spectator. Now the question of baths on that boat was not one to be trifled with. The queue for the pit of a popular play was as nothing to the procession that advanced to the bath in the morning. And the least penalty for sharp practice with regard to one's ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... (Fig. 4) showing a large boulder being dumped into the hopper, or roll-pit, will serve to illustrate the method of feeding these great masses of rock to the rolls, and will also enable the reader to form an idea of the rapidity of the breaking operation, when it is stated that a boulder of the size represented would be reduced ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... stare upon M. de Bellegarde. Valentin had promptly retorted that if there were too many people in the box it was easy for M. Kapp to diminish the number. "I shall be most happy to open the door for YOU!" M. Kapp exclaimed. "I shall be delighted to fling you into the pit!" Valentin had answered. "Oh, do make a rumpus and get into the papers!" Miss Noemie had gleefully ejaculated. "M. Kapp, turn him out; or, M. de Bellegarde, pitch him into the pit, into the orchestra—anywhere! I don't care who does which, ...
— The American • Henry James
... and form a cue down there and get squeeged like at the Adelphi Pit, all to set in a rickety gondoaler! I can see all I want to see without messing about ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various
... ask you, if it be possible, to row my body out to sea and there sink it in deep water, deep, clean water, far from this place of stench and pestilence, for I would not lie in the common pit at last. Now kneel down and pray for my passing soul, since there is no priest to give me absolution, and I must seek it straight from God. Nay, thank me not. I have done with the world and its affairs. ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... guide your bear gently in this direction, and settle the disputed boundary between Augpore and Durwan while I am on this side of my kingdom? Give me open country and room to move rather than the finest bear-pit ever ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... eleven o'clock at night, and the theatres were pouring their audiences from pit and stalls, galleries and boxes, into the crowded, tumultuous, clamoring Strand, blazing and flashing like a vast, long furnace, echoing to the roar of raucous throats, and throbbing to the rumble of an endless invasion of cabs and private carriages. A fascinating ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... of the hill a brook gushes down to the sea through the boulders that bestrew its banks. Obliged to wait until the preceding couple had holed out, our citizen and golfer amused himself by upturning one of the great lichen-stained boulders. He gazed into the dank pit thus disclosed to his eyes, and half drew back dismayed at the extraordinary activity of insect life that was revealed. It was so sudden, so unexpected. Beneath that grey and solemn boulder that Time and man accepted as a freehold tenant ...
— Rembrandt • Mortimer Menpes
... suspicion that the death of Mr. Farrell was more opportune than natural. You are the kind of man who is much impressed by his own cleverness, and when you met me in Devonshire it occurred to you to throw down a challenge, to pit your wits against mine. I suspected you then, for you overdid certain things, and a sinister intention had entered into your head. You confessed yourself charmed with Miss Lester, yet your whole attitude suggested that you believed Dr. Morrison guilty of murder. You ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... the test of raising man out of the pit. And how does it propose to do it? Not by minimizing the danger and need. It says: "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores." It demands as the first necessity a new ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody
... never see an egg formed immediately of mud, for it is produced in the bodies of animals alone; but a thousand living creatures rise from the mud. What need of many instances? None ever found the spawn or egg of an eel; yet if you empty a pit and take out all the mud, as soon as other water settles in it, eels likewise are presently produced. Now that must exist first which hath no need of any other thing that it may exist, and that after, which cannot be without the concurrence of another thing. And of this priority is our present ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... this ponderous globe could fly a thousand miles in a minute, and no body feel the motion; and with Deacon Homespun, in the dialogue, "why, if this world turned upside down, the water did not spill from the mill ponds, and all the people fall headlong to the bottomless pit?" ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... my son, I am forced to tell thee thou art trifling with the Church. Miserable man! another evasion, and I leave thee, and fiends will straightway gather round thy bed, and tear thee down to the bottomless pit." ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... the mother's duty to see that her children protect themselves from the many pit-falls which surround them, such as malice, envy, conceit, avariciousness, and other evils, by being clad in the armor of self-respect; and then they will be able to encounter temptation and corruption, ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... nose-like hand which Nature has given it in compensation for its very short neck, for the benefit of its master, accepting the presents which will be profitable to him. It always walks cautiously, remembering that fatal fall into the hunter's pit which was the beginning of its captivity. When requested to do so, it exhales its breath, which is said to be a ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... will join me in sport that is novel—who'll dare In his prosperous pit to go baiting the "Bear," Who will lead him a dance, who his talons will pare, And make summary work of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 12, 1892 • Various
... to move in open order toward the river. Ambrose, as they opened up, caught sight of the two dead bodies. It afflicted him with a dull at the pit of the stomach—these were the first deaths by violence ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... He could not help it. Dunk threw up his hands in a gesture of despair. The fielder, with a gulp and a gone feeling at the pit of his stomach, picked up the muffed ball, and threw it to second. It was the only play left. And the batsman, who had started to make his two-bagger, went back to first. But ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... ye'll chust say that the young Chief is a' richt the noo, but that we're a' wat wi' sweet watter, and if she thinks a wee drappie o' whusky would pe good for ta young Chief and the rest, she can pit ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... began to climb from rock to rock until I had reached the opposite side of the jagged plateau, when suddenly one of the great stones wobbled, I lost my balance and slid down an incline into a sort of a pit. Then my feet struck something which momentarily stopped my unexpected descent, but it proved to be a mere shell, and crashing through it I landed with a violent jolt about ten feet further below. Although somewhat stunned and a trifle confused by the suddenness ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... and did instil something of it in his Orfeo) no poet of Italy had anything serious to say. I doubt it even of Tasso, though Tasso, I know, has a vogue. I except, of course, Michael Angelo, as I have already said; and I except Boccace and Bojardo. Painting was drawn out of the pit laid privily for her by the sheer necessity of an outlet; and painting, having much to say, became the representative Italian art. Poetry, the most ancient of them all, as she is the most majestic; the art which refuses to be taught, ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... younger son would bow to the law of primogeniture and that would end the matter. Schiller, however, felt the need of a bolder contrast to his hero. The 'sublime criminal' required a colossal foil; and as equality with the sword was out of the question, the most obvious recourse was to pit natural depravity against natural greatness; scheming intellect against ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... at the window. Hours passed, the day waned, darkness settled down. Then she saw a torch brought, a shallow hole was dug,—as it seemed to her; but in fact a condemned well of slight depth, a mere pit, was uncovered,—and the little broken form was buried. She informed the officers of justice. From what came to light at a later season, it is hard to think that in this earlier case the investigation was more than superficial. Yet an investigation was made, and some legal action was taken ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... dusty in the sunshine, and showed him Kangaroo. Nqong said, "Dingo! Wake up, Dingo! Do you see that gentleman dancing on an ash-pit? He wants to be popular and very truly run after. Dingo, make ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... accompanied us; he was very unwilling that he should take me from home, as, he said, he foresaw many difficulties that would attend my going with them.—He endeavoured to prevail on the merchant to throw me into a very deep pit that was in the valley, but he refused to listen to him, and said, he was resolved to take care of me: but the other was greatly dissatisfied; and when we came to a river, which we were obliged to pass through, ...
— A Narrative Of The Most Remarkable Particulars In The Life Of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, An African Prince, As Related By Himself • James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw
... Dovedale to Ashbourn, and by coach to Derby. On July 24th to Birmingham, where we found Mr Guest, lodged in his house, and were joined by my pupil Guest. Here we were fully employed in visiting the manufactures, and then went into the iron country, where I descended a pit in the Staffordshire Main. Thence by coach to Cambridge, where I stopped to prepare for the ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... dainties, and such high living can never be conducive to our health and happiness. Ye know, cousins, that from beholding the drunken degradation of those in high authority in Judah, our parents, many years ago, arrived at the wise conclusion that their children, in order to escape the pit-falls into which others had fallen, should never be counted among wine-drinkers. To this desire of our fond parents we strictly adhered while in Jerusalem, although often ridiculed by drunken wit, and frowned upon by countenances flushed with strong drink. Shall we, then, ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones
... merely because they have in them an element of the "black kitten," which must frolic and play, but has no desire to get into danger. "Do you not think it a little hard," she added, "that men should have dug by the side of her foolish dancing feet a bottomless pit, and that she cannot have her jump and fun in safety, and put on her fine feathers like the silly bird-witted thing she is, without a single false step dashing her over the brink, and leaving her with the very ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... noticed the round houses near the railway—say at York Road, Battersea—those are the engine-"stables." Every engine is placed in its "stall," so that its chimney is just under an opening, or flue. It is also over a "pit," so that the fire can be raked out, or the working examined from underneath before the engine goes into the station next day to take the train away to the seaside, or to carry you to school, or home for ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... MY life, but who certainly had not sent a single person to hurt you. The prologue was exceedingly liked; and, for effect, no play ever produced more fears. In the green-room I found that Hortensia's sudden death was the only incident disapproved; as we heard by intelligence from the pit; and it is to be deliberated tomorrow whether it may not be preferable to carry her off as in a swoon. When there is Only SO slight an objection, you cannot doubt of your full success. It is impossible to say how much justice Miss Younge did to your writing. She ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... evolved by its component members. State, upon actual experience, the per centage of this gas in the atmosphere of the following places:—The Concerts d'Ete, the Swan in Hungerford Market, the pit of the Adelphi, Hunt's Billiard Rooms, and the Colosseum during ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... resinous juice as to be ready to burst. The chief time of preparing the aloes is in September, when the north winds blow, after the fall of some rain. Being gathered, it is cut in small pieces, and cast into a pit in the ground, which is paved and cleaned from all filth. It lies here to ferment in the heat of the sun, which causes the juice to flow out; which is put into skins that are hung up in the wind to dry and grow ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... popularity until the appearance of 'That Lass o' Lowrie's' in 1877. The thoughtfully drawn group of characters—Derrick the engineer, Grace the young minister, Annie the rector's daughter, and Joan the pit girl,—are dramatic figures, working out their life problems under the eyes and the comments of half-cynical, half-brutalized miners. There is nothing in her history to account for Joan, or for the fact that ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... a pit," O'Flynn had said airily, stretched out before the fire after dinner. "Make it about four feet deep, and as long as ye'd like yer boards. When ye've done that I'll ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... applause—which was less, perhaps, an expression of gratitude for an artistic creation rarely equalled than of the natural rebound of the spirit after so tense a strain. In another moment the seats were emptied and the multitude was flowing down the tiers—a veritable torrent of humanity—into the pit: there to be packed for a while in a solid mass before it could work its way out through the insufficient exits and so return again to ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... suffered from dyspepsia. For twenty years I had spent so much nervous energy in mental work, that I had not sufficient left to digest my food. And I had suffered in consequence, not only from violent heart-burn, but from a more distressing pain at the pit of my stomach. I had continually, or almost continually, for months together, a feeling as if a red-hot bullet lay burning in my stomach, or as if some living creature was eating a hole through the ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... attitude involves a further sourge of danger. In few parts (if any) of the body is a blow more fatal than over what is popularly called the "pit of the stomach." In the quadruped this part is little exposed either to accidental or intentional injuries. In man it is quite open to both. A blow, a kick, a fall among stones, etc., may thus easily ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... more, into one moment. No far forest country, no secret paths, nor cloven hills, nothing but a gleam of pale horizontal sky, that broods over pleasant places far away, and sends in, through the wild overgrowth of the thicket, a ray of broken daylight into the hopeless pit. No flaunting plumes nor brandished lances, but stern purpose in the turn of the crestless helmet, visible victory in the drawing back of the prepared right arm behind the steady point. No more claws, ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... space, at an inclination of thirty odd degrees, was a field of seats, cut into three equal parts by two aisles that ran from the entrance, divergently upward. The small space at the entrance—popularly dubbed "the pit"—was professordom's own particular region. From this point, by an unwritten law, the classes ranged themselves according to the length of their university life; the seniors at the extreme apex of the angle, the other classes respectively above, ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... some pit, or lost himself among the dungeons," said my mother. "We will go and help you to ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... whirled to try and reach the control cabin in time, a steel arm shot out from the pit uncovered by the raised hatch. Mike didn't see the fine-wired grid at the end of the arm but he knew it was there and he ...
— Before Egypt • E. K. Jarvis
... hollow confines of the town towards Turnhill, where there were several pits of marl and clay. They stared in silence at a vast ochre's-coloured glistening cavity in the ground, on the high edges of which grew tufts of grass amid shards and broken bottles. In the bottom of the pit were laid planks, and along the planks men with pieces of string tied tight round their legs beneath the knees drew large barrows full or empty, sometimes insecurely over pools of yellow water into which the plank sagged under their weight, and sometimes over little hillocks and through little ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... from the design of revealing myself, which I was on the point of executing. "I would rather that these walls would crush me into dust, or that this solid stone would crumble beneath my feet,—ay, even into a bottomless pit, than meet the glance of ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was that hurt her so, and attributed it to her evil instincts. Poor little Ophelia, devoured by a mysterious evil, she felt with horror dark and uneasy desires mounting from the depths of her being, from the very pit of life. She could not work, and she had given up most of her pupils: she, who was so plucky, and had always risen so early, now lay in bed sometimes until the afternoon: she had no more reason for getting up than for going to bed: she ate little or nothing. Only on her brother's ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... tunnel, outside whose gates the swaddled dvornik huddled upon the sheltered side of the arch. Of all his body, only his eyes moved as they approached, pivoting under his great hood to scan them and follow them through the gate. Within, the small court was a pit of gloom roofed by the windy sky; a glass-paneled door let them in to a winding stone stair with an iron handrail that was greasy to the touch. It was upon the second floor that Miss Pilgrim halted and put ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... you know, better than any other living, the heart of the woman who is supposed to be so calm and placid! Now you can have some idea what I have suffered to-night, when I saw the same pit opening for you? Do you understand ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... Ellen's face was a compound of expressions. She instantly acquiesced, however, and went down with her brother, her heart, it must be confessed, going very pit-a-pat indeed. She took him into the library, which was not this evening thrown open to company; and sent a servant for Mr. Lindsay. While waiting for his coming, Ellen felt as if she had not the fair use of her senses. Was that John Humphreys quietly walking up and down the library! Mr. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the valley itself, which is as dark as pitch: we also saw there the hobgoblins, satyrs, and dragons of the pit; we heard also in that valley a continual howling and yelling, as of a people under unutterable misery, who there sat bound in affliction and irons; and over that valley hangs the discouraging clouds of confusion: death also doth always spread his wings over it. ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... of the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893. It was odd to see that fair dream city rising out of the lake, so far more beautiful in its fleeting loveliness than the Chicago of the stock-yards and the pit which had provided the money for its beauty. The millionaires did not interfere with the artists at all. They gave their thousands—and stood aside. The result was one of the loveliest things conceivable. Saint-Gaudens and the rest did their work as well as though the buildings ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... Fontenelle showed less docility in his youth. If the tragedy of Aspar also disappeared in the flames, it was not only in consequence of the criticism of a friend; for the author went so far as to call forth the noisy judgment of the pit. ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... they represent?" I said I did not know. "Then," said he, "you do not know the secrets of your own house." I said, "Suppose I were to tell you that they represent the Lion of Bethlehem, and the horned monster of the flaming pit in combat, as to which should obtain the mastery in England, what would you say?" He replied, "I should say that you gave a fair answer." This man and myself became great friends; he came from Palmella, not far from St. Ubes; he had several ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... that from the moment in which I sunk into the black pit, knowing the treacherous hand that had sent me to what might have been my death, my chief thought was of the safety of the woman who had betrayed me. I fell upon my feet upon a mass of slush and mire, but my shoulder was bruised, and my arm broken against the side of the well. I was stunned and dazed ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... was seen concentrating for the carnival of death; his artillery was massing to destroy the remnants of the charging divisions; those who deserted the crater, to scramble over the debris and run back, were shot down; then all that was left to the shuddering mass of blacks and whites in the pit was to shrink lower, evade the horrible mitraille, and wait for a charge of their friends to rescue ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... enormous bird also hovered in the skies waiting to pounce upon vessels and bear them away to some unknown eyrie. Even if any foolhardy adventurers should defy these dangers, and escape the horror of the dragons and the bird, other perils threatened them. For far in the west there lay a bottomless pit of seething fire. That was easy of proof. Did not the face of the setting sun glow with the reflected light as it sank in the west? There would be no hope nor rescue for any ship that should be drawn into ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... final words brought a sinking sensation at the pit of his stomach, and the discomfort of a fencer, dueling in the dark—a swordsman who recognizes that his cleverness is outmatched. His question came ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... seven birds were to begin.... We have won the throw, was whispered in his ear. We've the advantage. But why it was an advantage to fight from the right rather than from the left Joseph was too excited to inquire, for the cocks had just been put into the ring or pit, and Joseph recognised the tall lank bird that the Heeler had taken out of his basket in the orchard. He's fighting to-day with long spurs, he was told. But why does he fight the other bird—a yearling? ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... doing what everybody has been doing ever since the coup d'etat. When Ponsard's comedy, which was known to be a furious satire on the agioteurs, was first played, Louis Napoleon took the whole orchestra and pit stalls, and filled them with people instructed to applaud every allusion to the faiseurs. And he himself stood in his box, his body almost out of it, clapping most energetically every ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... of us would ride to a sand-pit on Mont Noir and blaze away with our revolvers. Incidentally, not one of us had fired a shot in anger since the war began. We treated our revolvers as unnecessary luggage. In time we became skilled in their use, and thereafter learnt to keep them ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... in search of some goats, and laid snares for them, with rice for a bait I had set the traps in the night, and found they had all stood, though the bait was gone. So I thought of a new way to take them, which was to make a pit and lay sticks and grass on it, so as to hide it; and in this way I caught an old goat and some kids. But the old goat was much too fierce for me, so I let him go. I brought all the young ones home, and let them fast a long time, till at last they fed ...
— Robinson Crusoe - In Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... and we knew that we were saved. With grateful hearts and trembling limbs we scrambled out of our pit ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... God; to make some human hearts, a little wiser, manfuler, happier—more blessed, less accursed! It is work for a God. . . . Unstained by wasteful deformities, by wasted tears or heart's-blood of men, or any defacement of the Pit, noble, fruitful Labour, growing ever nobler, will come forth—the grand sole Miracle of Man, whereby Man has risen from the low places of this Earth, very literally, into divine Heavens. Ploughers, Spinners, Builders, Prophets, Poets, Kings: . . . all martyrs, ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... guard, he with the pistol, and I with a hatchet, for I did n't like fire-arms. Biddy, who slept in the attic, practised getting out on the shed roof, so that she might run away at the first alarm. Every night we arranged pit-falls for the robbers, and all filed up to bed, bearing plate, money, weapons, and things to barricade with, as if we lived ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... gained the shelter of their wagons, and from behind them and the piles of dead horses which literally covered the ground, they returned a vigorous fire upon their assailants, meanwhile digging a rifle pit as they fought. It was a fierce morning's battle, and the foe, in largely superior numbers, had nearly surrounded and captured them when reenforcements arrived. So hot was the attack, that one of the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... O Christ, disgraced, insulted! Horrible man, Remembered be your laugh in lowest hell, Dragging you to the nether pit! Forgive me; You are my friend—take me from here—unbolt Those iron doors—I'll crawl upon my knees Unto my father—I have much to tell him. For but the freedom of one hour, sweet Prior, I'll brim the vessels ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... provisions. After being loaded, the team was put in the care of two of the most trustworthy and valuable slaves that my master owned, and driven away. It was master's intention to have these things taken to a swamp, and there concealed in a pit that had recently been made for the purpose. But just before the team left the main road for the by-road that led to the swamp, the two slaves were surprised by the Yankees, who at once took possession ...
— Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days • Annie L. Burton
... across the arena toward the rocks upon the opposite side, where, spreading their bat-like wings, they rose above the high wall of the pit, settling down upon the bowlders above. These were the reserved seats, ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... overalls that appeared filthy. He held a cloth in his hand and strode toward the nearest sheep. Folding the cloth round the neck of the sheep, he dragged it forward, with an ease which showed great strength, and threw it into a pit that yawned at the side. Souse went the sheep into a murky, muddy pool and disappeared. But suddenly its head came up and then its shoulders. And it began half to walk and half swim down what appeared to be a narrow boxlike ditch that contained ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... felt that our motor troubles were at an end, but ten miles beyond the station my car refused to pull through a sand pit and we found that there was trouble with the differential. It was necessary to dismantle the rear end of the car, and Coltman and Gup were well-nigh discouraged. The delay was a serious matter for I had urgent business in Japan, and it was imperative that I reach ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... long we drifted before I regained my sanity. It must have been a good while. When I first returned to my seat by the wheel it was with the firm determination to allow the Comfort to drift into the bottomless pit rather than to stir hand or foot to prevent it. In fact that particular port looked rather inviting than otherwise. Any torments it might have in store could not be worse than those I had undergone because of this girl. I sat, silent, with my gaze fixed upon the motionless engine. I heard ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Lambourne, again appealing to the audience. "Here's a fellow will rip up his kinsman's follies of a good score of years' standing. And for the gold, why, sirs, I have been where it grew, and was to be had for the gathering. In the New World have I been, man—in the Eldorado, where urchins play at cherry-pit with diamonds, and country wenches thread rubies for necklaces, instead of rowan-tree berries; where the pantiles are made of pure gold, and the paving-stones ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... huntsman in that day: Who has not heard my father say, That, when a boar was brought to bay, {40} Three times, four times out of five, With his huntspear he'd contrive To get the killing-place transfixed, And pin him true, both eyes betwixt? And that's why the old Duke would rather He lost a salt-pit than my father, And loved to have him ever in call; That's why my father stood in the hall When the old Duke brought his infant out To show the people, and while they passed {50} The wondrous bantling round about, Was first to start at the outside blast ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... gave up the knife and joined the others who stood and watched John down in the hole. When he had loosened a considerable amount of earth he climbed up and Fred and George took his place and threw the loose sand out of the pit. This operation was repeated many times with different ones doing the work. In this way the labor was lightened and the ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... on the first guard, and they worked out with shameful ease. When the soldier saw the left coming for the pit of his stomach, he crouched and hugged himself, thereby extending his jaw so that it waited there with the sun shining on it until the young man's right swing came across and changed the middle of the afternoon to midnight. Number one was lying in profound slumber when ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... it. And therefore does your dragon make a fearful outcry. And on this wise mayest thou come to know this. After thou hast returned home, cause the island to be measured in its length and breadth, and in the place where thou dost find the exact central point, there cause a pit to be dug, and cause a cauldron full of the best mead that can be made to be put in the pit with a covering of satin over the face of the cauldron. And then in thine own person do thou remain there watching, and thou wilt see the ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... lies before it. All the features of the view correspond with the waters in grandeur and wildness. The glacier sculptured walls of the canyon on either hand, with the sublime mass of the Glacier Point Ridge in front, form a huge triangular pit-like basin, which, filled with the roaring of the falling river seems as if it might be the hopper of one of the mills of the gods in which the mountains ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... oppose the intrusion of parsons into affairs of state on the principle of self-preservation, and not on any arrogant pretension of superior sagacity, knowledge, and ability. In the power to inform the people of their rights and teach them their duties, we would be willing to pit one Mayhew against a score of Cushings and Rhetts, of Slidells and Yanceys. The fact that Mayhew's large and noble soul glowed with the inspiration of a quick moral and religious, as well as common, sense, would not, in our humble opinion, at all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... the Blessed Virgin herself to the status of an idol, concentrated Salvationism to a point at which the most execrable murderer who believes in it when the rope is round his neck, flies straight to the arms of Jesus, whilst Tom Paine and Shelley fall into the bottomless pit to burn there to all eternity. And sceptical physicists like Sir William Crookes demonstrate by laboratory experiments that "mediums" like Douglas Home can make the pointer of a spring-balance go round without touching the weight ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... means of a cavern, and in stormy weather the rush up this gigantic earth's chimney-must be something terrible: will this convey a rough idea? the scenery all round is really magnificent, and the looking down this black smooth stone-pit is quite fearful; it slopes away so deceitfully, and looks like a huge lion-ant's nest. Few people see this, because you can only get at it by a walk of a mile, but I think it quite as worth seeing as ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... clean, children! You must walk on your hind legs. Keep away from the dirty ash- pit, and from Sally Henny Penny, and from the pigsty and ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter
... Paolo, second mate, that if he lose a hair of his head we shall know it. In that way it may turn out that we shall get from him the link which is lost in the chain; and when he would draw us, we shall pump him as dry as a sand-pit. At least, that's my way of thinking, and I don't think it's such a ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... mean to say you don't know that what the people hereabouts call the Bottomless Pit is situated right off that point—the most dangerous spot along the ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Be good enough to vanish. Permit yourself to be swept quietly into the dunghill. All that there was about you of value has departed from you; and allow me to say that you are now—rubbish." And then the ruthless besom comes with irresistible rush, and the rubbish is swept into the pit, there to be hidden for ever from the sight. And the pity of it is this—that a man, if he will only restrain his greed, may eat his cake and yet have it; aye, and in so doing will have twice more the flavour of the cake than he who with gormandizing maw will devour ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... and laved the snake's slime from her limbs With water of the pool, comforting her And giving food; and afterwards (my King!) Inquiry made: "What doest, in this wood, Thou with the fawn's eyes? And how earnest thou, My mistress, to such pit of misery?" And Damayanti, spoken fair by him, Recounted all which had befallen her. But, gazing on her graces, scantly clad With half a cloth, those smooth, full sides, those breasts Beauteously ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... was no sarcasm in his words; in his tones only a sort of dreary monotony. She shivered a little—how cold it seemed! She did not quite grasp his words—and yet she shrank from them. And then her very soul seemed to cry out against them, to pit itself against their meaning, as their meaning surged upon her. And unconsciously she drew herself up, and the whiteness of her face fled ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... times these grisly imaginings came back upon him as he actually walked the narrow path next night, and it was all he could do to keep his head and not fling the lantern into the depths of the pit ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... dizzy, like a man in a dream falling from a height and enduring the anguish of falling. All kinds of indistinct ideas, of confused anxieties and vague terrors, seemed to rise from the pit of his stomach and buzz round his temples. Yesterday, to-day, to-morrow, the doctor, his daughter, her illness, all this whirled round in his head, perplexing him, mingled as it all was with a physical sensation of uneasiness, anxiety, fear, and dread. Then ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... off the stage from Hart." This pleasant playgoer likewise says, in 1667-8, "when I began first to be able to bestow a play on myself, I do not remember that I saw so many by half of the ordinary prentices and mean people in the pit at 2s. 6d. a-piece as now; I going for several years no higher than the 12d. and then the 18d. places, though I strained hard to go in then when I did; so much the vanity and prodigality of the age is to be observed in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 392, Saturday, October 3, 1829. • Various
... when the Revolution was at its height here, sixty persons: men and women ('and priests,' says Goblin, 'priests'): were murdered, and hurled, the dying and the dead, into this dreadful pit, where a quantity of quick-lime was tumbled down upon their bodies. Those ghastly tokens of the massacre were soon no more; but while one stone of the strong building in which the deed was done, remains upon another, there they will lie in the ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... Jimmy had been faring. The past night's experience must have given him a shock, and I reckoned to give him another. I wasn't disappointed either. I walked leisurably down the village street, then crossed the hedge and doubled back on the high moors. At length, drawing near the old gravel-pit, where we had fixed to meet in case of separation, I dropped on all-fours and so came up to the ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... that flowed underneath it; and upon further examination, perceived there were innumerable trap-doors that lay concealed in the bridge which the passengers no sooner trod upon, but they fell through them into the tide and immediately disappeared. These hidden pit-falls were set very thick at the entrance of the bridge, so that the throngs of people no sooner broke through the cloud, but many of them fell into them. They grew thinner towards the middle, but multiplied and lay closer ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... occasion with what was then considered sumptuous furniture. "Near the King's bed she caused a seat to be prepared, magnificently decked and surrounded with curtains, and underneath it the wicked woman caused a deep pit to be dug." The author from whom the above translation is quoted adds with grim humour, "It is clear that this room was on ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... so placidly and unmoved while all heaven comes to your soul with congratulation, and harps are strung, and crowns are lifted, and a great joy swings round the heavens at the news of your disinthrallment? If you could realize out of what a pit you have been dug, to what height you are to be raised, and to what glory you are destined, you would spring ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... never know who he is," he said to himself "In this neighbourhood the first comer will take his shirt and trousers. They will suppose he has been killed and robbed, no uncommon matter in these days, and his body will be thrown into the public pit, and no one be any the wiser. I will burn the coat and waistcoat as ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... woman with a flat chest or an expression of sanctimony. He would swing along when he was walking, or dawdle, dawdle; he would sing and laugh, and make her laugh too till she ached, and half an hour later would sit staring into some pit of darkness in a sort of powerful brooding of his whole being. Insensibly she shared in this deep drinking of sensation, but always gracefully, fastidiously, never losing sense of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy |
