"Ripple" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seemed to cause a correspondent stir in his uneasy reflections. He would have laid them asleep if he could, but they were in movement, like the stream, and all tending one way with a strong current. As the ripple under the moon broke unexpectedly now and then, and palely flashed in a new shape and with a new sound, so parts of his thoughts started, unbidden, from the rest, and revealed their wickedness. 'Out of the question to marry her,' said Eugene, 'and out of the ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... which we are acquainted—the Lower Laurentian [Footnote: The age of granite is uncertain.—Lyell'a Student's Geology, p. 548.]—were formed under water, but had begun to be elevated before the next series, the Upper Laurentian, were deposited. Ripple marks are found in the Cambrian group [Footnote: Ibid. p. 470], indicating that the parts where they occur formed a sea-beach, and, consequently, that dry land was ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... to him, in the wide, dark ditch between the two piers, a shadow stole up, a large shadow of fantastic shape. Leaning over the granite parapet, he saw that a fishing-boat had glided in, without the sound of a voice or the splash of a ripple, or the plunge of an oar, softly borne in by its broad, tawny sail spread to the breeze from ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... did grapple, But now she's got an unco ripple; Haste, gie her name up i' the chapel, Nigh unto death; See, how she fetches at the thrapple, An' ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... probably suspect the true nature of their escape and take to the river in pursuit; and, as the Indians, in case of discovery, could easily overtake and recapture them, they must necessarily be saved by fortune and stratagem. Though scarce a ripple was heard, the shadowy form of the boat shot swiftly under the hanging trees and round the projecting points of the bank, like some serpent ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... resented such familiarity, but now something touched her spirit with an inexpressible pity, and she let a tiny ripple of a smile pass over her lovely face as her eyes traveled on down the platform in search of the tall form of John Cameron. In the moment of the oncoming train she had somehow lost sight of him. Ah! There he was stooping over a little white haired woman, taking her tenderly in his arms to kiss ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... Lanrick mead— Instant the time—speed, Malise, speed!" Like heath-bird, when the hawks pursue, A barge across Loch Katrine flew; High stood the henchman on the prow, 290 So rapidly the barge-men row, The bubbles, where they launched the boat, Were all unbroken and afloat, Dancing in foam and ripple still, When it had neared the mainland hill; 295 And from the silver beach's side Still was the prow three fathom wide, When lightly bounded to the land The messenger ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... bridge that crossed the brook, she stopped a moment to watch the water ripple over the bright pebbles, the ferns bend down to drink, and the funny tadpoles frolic in quieter nooks, where the sun shone, and the dragon-flies swung among the rushes. When Nelly turned to go on, her blue ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... grapes when the vintage is done.—Ah! Gold? Yes, I trust Our Lady's mercies are not shut up, nor her arms shortened.—Look, senors!"—and he pointed majestically out of the window. "It looks gold! it smells of gold, as I may say, by a poetical license. Yea, the very waves, as they ripple past us, sing ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... civic things. What was anarchism? What socialism? What rights had the rank and file, anyhow, in economic and governmental development? Such were interesting questions, and following the bomb—which acted as a great stone cast in the water—these ripple-rings of thought were still widening and emanating until they took in such supposedly remote and impregnable quarters as editorial offices, banks and financial institutions generally, and the haunts of political dignitaries ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... the avowal a ripple of laughter burst through the room. Jeanne had just awoke, and her eyes were riveted on her doll pacing up and down the table. Monsieur Rambaud, enthusiastic over the success of his tinkering, still kept his hands stretched out for fear lest any accident should happen. But the doll ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... every sense, and, appealing to poetic fancy, awoke a rapture whose fervency was due less to the entrancement of his present life than to the contemplative habit of one who had first known harmony whilst gazing on the stars, and awaked to the consciousness of beauty among the eternal hills. The ripple of the streamlet in these palace halls revived a half-forgotten music of the heart that had once responded to the ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... flood-tides, beating up against the foot of the granite rocks and the granite walls of the ramparts. But at neap tides and eaux mortes, as the French say, there is nothing but a desert of brown, bare sand, with ripple-marks lying across it, and with shallow, ankle-deep pools of salt water here and there. Afar off on the western sky-line a silver fringe of foam, glistening in the sunshine, marks the distant boundary to which the sea has retreated. On every ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... lucky in their weather. A sun of molten glory poured down from the clearest of blue skies, burnishing a track of intolerable brilliance across the water. Hardly a ripple appeared on the smooth surface, though they rose and fell gently to the flat ocean swell. They were running up the coast about four miles out, and except for the Girondin, now almost hull down to the north-west, they had the sea to themselves. ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... danger of forgetting was that Barbara was really only a child; she had begun to speak with a delightful ripple of laughter, and he had driven it from her voice. When she apologized, there was something hurt, something very much surprised—as though he had seen her smiling ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... there was a general giggle, and then a shower of comments upon my appearance,—each sentence punctuated with the chorus of feminine cachination. A remark was made about my hair and eyes, and their risibles gave way; judgment was passed on my nose, and then came a ripple of laughter. I got very red in the face, and uncomfortable generally. Attention was called to the size of my feet and hands, and the usual chorus followed. Those useful members of my body seemed to swell up as they do to a young man ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... and he felt her press her head closely to his breast, felt the intensity of what must have been her need of physical contact to make sure he was here in the flesh. And as he held her, looking down upon her, he recognized the little head and the dull gold and ripple of chestnut hair. Yes—it was Allie. But this new Allie was taller—up to his shoulder—and lithe and full-bosomed and strong. This was not the frail girl he ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... asked me to play" returned the boy cheerily. "He said he could walk through green forests then, with the ripple of brooks in his ears, and that the ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... calling her name. No answer came to his cries. Above him lay the hillside, dozing in the noonday sun; below, the Mediterranean, sleek and blue, without a ripple. He stood alone in a land of ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... sculptured marble and her mouth is a trembling, curving Cupid's bow. (PETER, ASIDE: "What kind of a thing is that?") Her creamy skin is as fair and flawless as the petals of a white lily. Her voice is like the ripple of a woodland brook and her slender form is matchless in its symmetry. (DAN: "That's Valeria's way of putting it, but Uncle Roger says she don't show her feed much." FELICITY: "Dan! if Uncle Roger ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... gargling your supple throat by a liquid process of tuning, with a languishing roll of your wanton eye. At this you may see great brawny sons of Rome all in a quiver, losing all decency of gesture and command of voice, as the strains glide into their very bones, and the marrow within is tickled by the ripple of the measure. CONINGTON. ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... that day David had waked very early, feeling refreshed with his slumbers, and not at all inclined to prolong them. The others were all asleep, and the house was silent. As he lay he could hear the gentle ripple of the water upon the beach, and feel the sweet, balmy air of morning as it tanned his cheeks. For some little time he lay enjoying his situation, and then jumped out of bed and went ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... said!" retorted she, with a ripple of dangerous laughter. "I will carry the comparison no farther. Still, I wager, Chevalier, that the game is not worth ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Ring summer chimes. And soft in fragrant dells, 'Mong tender leaves, great spikes of scarlet flaunt About the pools—the errant wild bees' haunt— And thick with bramble-blooms pink petals starred, And dew-stained buds of blue, the velvet sward. Scarce ripple stirred the sea; and inland wend Far bays and sedgy ponds; and rolling rivers bend. A land of leaf and fruitage in the glow Of palest glamours steeped. And far and low Great purple isles; and further still a rim Of sunset-tinted hills, that softly dim Shine 'gainst the day. "O world, new found," ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... were the most human eyes he had ever seen. Afterward, when he groped through his vocabulary for a more accurate description, he could not find one. There was shrewdness in Gideon Vetch's eyes; there was friendliness; there was the blue sparkle of contagious humour—a ripple of light that was like visible laughter—but above all there was humanity. Though Stephen did not try to grasp the vivid impressions that passed through his mind, he felt intuitively that he had learned to know Gideon Vetch through his ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... ceased its fury at four o'clock, and a cold, bright, and calm morning succeeded. The hills stood out in sharp, clear outlines, mother earth had put on her cleanest cap, and there was not a ripple on all the Tappan Zee. Hanz Toodleburg was now the happiest man in Nyack, for Heaven had blessed his house and heart during the morning with as plump and healthy a boy as ever was seen. There was a fond mother and a happy father in the little house now; and the sweet innocent babe, their first ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... accompanied by a shriek of agony. Sadhu Sing, who instantly turned, saw no trace of his bride, save that her horse ran wild in one direction, whilst in the other the long grass and reeds of the jungle were moving like the ripple of the ocean, when distorted by the course of a shark holding its way near the surface. Sadhu drew his sabre and rushed forward in that direction; the rest of the party remained motionless until roused by a short roar ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... lose himself in the ocean, so do flow our lives till they merge into eternity," said the prior. "Now with impetuous flow, now in gentler ripple, but ever onward as God hath ordained; so may our souls, when the work of life is accomplished, lose ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... the sand down round it, and capital fun they had till the tide began to turn. And then Tom heard all the other babies coming, laughing and singing and shouting and romping; and the noise they made was just like the noise of the ripple. So he knew that he had been hearing and seeing the water-babies all along; only he did not know them, because his eyes and ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... flowers and ferns, and to what rich and lovely places they lead you! Along lonely mountain roads where the golden song of the wood thrush comes from the cool depths and the sweet, pearly notes of the winter wren ripple down through the gloom; out along lonely forest lakes or where trout brooks wander beneath dark hemlock trees and lose their way in the shadows; high up on inaccessible mountain ledges where the river plunges in a solid amber sheet and breaks up into avalanches of shimmering rainbow mist, ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... a more scientific move, which opened up an avenue for himself through his line of Panthans, as well as announcing to the players and spectators that he intended having a hand in the fighting himself even before the exigencies of the game forced it upon him. The move elicited a ripple of applause from those sections of seats reserved for the common warriors and their women, showing perhaps that U-Dor was none too popular with these, and, too, it had its effect upon the morale of Gahan's pieces. A Chief may, ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... spaces; women wandered on the serious business of food-getting. The camps stood a pace or two above high-water mark in the meagre shelter of sighing casuarinas, and were often changed, for there were six miles of gently curving, ripple-embroidered shore on which to rest. To this day most of the traffic is regulated by the tide. High water drives the wayfarer to the loose, impeding sand, over which the great convolvulus sends its tireless tentacles, to be thrown back twisted ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... last refinements of shadow, which are almost invisible except in a strong [65] light, and which the finest pencil can hardly follow. The whole essence of their work is expression, the passing of a smile over the face of a child, the ripple of the air on a still day over the curtain of ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... first sight that she was the perfect wife and mother, and yet there was no sentimental pose about her—only the most naive and innocent delight told in smiles, laughter, and blushes. The things she saw from the tram window seemed to make her whole being ripple with pleasure. Happily I cannot here be judged as a sentimental visionary for my companion will avouch ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... searched the smooth sea for some long, sluggish, inexplicable wave which should break, or for a V-shaped ripple such as a fixed stake will make ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... and right of her rose taller hills, of which Storm was the forerunner, the first small ripple of the Cumberlands as they broke upon the plain. At her feet stretched mile after rolling mile of summer green, and gold, and brown. There were dappled pastures of bluegrass, clover-fields, beech-woods, great golden reaches of corn; there was ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... well, and she was allers a right good housekeeper. Ye can't do too much for her, son. But about that ere fishin' hole, dye know I believe 'twas the same I used to hook 'em out of thirty-odd year ago. Is it the ripple just back o' ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... himself little with these petty details. To him China was only a pleasing background for Miss Roberta Boynton; he saw no further than her eager, smiling eyes, and heard nothing more distant than the ripple of ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... half-past four and five that Miss Grierson, driving in the basket phaeton, made her appearance on the streets, evoking the usual ripple of comment among the gossipers on the Winnebago porch as she tooled her clean-limbed little Morgan to a stop in front of the ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... produced a sympathetic ripple in the Bun Hill establishment. Grubb routed out his flying-machine model again, tried it in the yard behind the shop, got a kind of flight out of it, and broke seventeen panes of glass and nine flower-pots in the greenhouse that occupied the next ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... against the shore; and whenever such a sound came, one or other of us was sure to start, and look in that direction. Here and there, the set of the current had worn down the bank into a little creek, and we were all suspicious of such places, and eyed them nervously. Sometimes, "What was that ripple?" one of us would say in a low voice. Or another, "Is that a boat yonder?" And afterwards we would fall into a dead silence, and I would sit impatiently thinking with what an unusual amount of noise the oars ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... Odysseus moored his ship close to the entrance of the harbour, while all the others came to anchor at the head of the bay under the shadow of the cliffs; for there was not a wave, not a ripple, in that sheltered spot, but the water slumbered, as in a mountain tarn. Having secured his vessel, by making fast her cable to the rocks, he scaled the cliff with a few of his men, and seeing smoke rising in the distance he sent three scouts to explore the country, meantime going ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... down by the little table that fronted the open window and rested his head on his hands. It was early spring; the snow was gone; dazzling sunshine bathed the prairies in the distance, and near at hand were the twitter of birds and the ripple of water. It was a day ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... circumstances in which the ripple passes into the wavelet, and the wavelet into the billow. On this head, as on all others, there is great value in the teachings of history; and the Free Church might be worse employed than in occasionally conning the lesson. Each fifty years of the ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... Owl gravely watched this operation and nodded approval when Woot's silky green fur shone clear and bright in the afternoon sun. The Canary seemed much amused and laughed a silvery ripple of laughter as ...
— The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... hundreds of hearts were beating in that one vessel with the awakening delights of domestic love and renewed affections; but no tongue broke the disciplined silence of the ship into sounds that overcame the propitious ripple of the water. ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... aunts looking for the rest of the word. However, she says it is only Pica who is going up for it this time. She herself was not considered strong enough. Yet there have those two set themselves down with their books under the rocks, blind to all the glory of sea and shore, deaf to the dash and ripple of the waves! I long to go and shout Wordsworth's warning about 'growing double' to them. I am glad to say that Uchtred has come and fetched Avice away. I can hardly believe Martyn and Mary parents to this grown-up family. They look as youthful as ever, and are as active ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the chapel organ on which a weight is attached to show whether the organ is full of air or not. The next morning in chapel the choir began but the organ was mute. The hymn broke off into a miserable wail. The whole service was one silent ripple of merriment. Rogers was taking the service, and was quite at sea without the help of music. Gordon earned a considerable measure of notoriety for the performance. On his way to the tuck shop, Ben, the captain of the Fifteen, came up ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... With a ripple of leaves and a twinkle of streams The full world rolls in a rhythm of praise, And the winds are one with the clouds and beams— Midsummer days! Midsummer days! The dusks grow vast in a purple haze, While the West from a rapture ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... leaped on my eyes. And in the midst of the still bay three beautiful ships were heading for the land, the long oars rising and falling swiftly, while the red and white striped sails hung idly in the calm. One could see the double of each ship in the water, broken wonderfully by the ripple of the oars, and after each stretched a white wake ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... I've strayed on a hot Summer's day Where it gurgles and gushes, then flows on its way With a ripple as sweet as the music that died When the tones of loved voices are to us denied, And mirrored my face in the "Medical Spring," Where the beetling old ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy
... Which died upon the shout, as if amazed By gladness beyond music—they passed on! The Magistracy, with insignia, passed,— And all the people shouted in the sun, And all the thousand windows which had cast A ripple of silks in blue and scarlet down (As if the houses overflowed at last), Seemed growing larger with fair heads and eyes. The Lawyers passed,—and still arose the shout, And hands broke from the windows to surprise Those grave calm brows with bay-tree ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... he exclaimed, startled. "I 'd like to set my dog on the beast." His irritation merely elicited a little ripple of amusement, for though she was submissive to his will, she was never afraid of his censure. "Come," he continued; "this is no place to stand. We will go into that new building across ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... little party. The blood-red sun was sinking, and a broad pathway of light lay in the wake of the boat leading right up to the dazzling globe. The wind died out, there was not a ripple on the water, and the motionless sail was reddened by the rays of the setting sun. The air seemed to possess some soothing influence which silenced everything around this meeting of the elements. The sea, like some huge bird, awaited the ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... clause smuggled into the Fortification Bill to give the President three millions to spend as he liked was struck out and the bill was subsequently lost. This affair, which brought us to the verge of war with France, soon blew over, however, and caused only a temporary ripple, although Mr. Webster's attack on the Fortification Bill ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... now taken complete possession of the body as well as the limbs, and a strange ripple ran just under ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... need the unfeigned "dam" of Luke to convince me that I had snatched his felt hat from his head and deposited it among the lilies. Discouraged by this, we whirled about, and paddled over to the inlet, where a little ripple was visible in the tinted light. At the very first cast I saw that the hour had come. Three trout leaped into the air. The danger of this manoeuvre all fishermen understand. It is one of the commonest in the woods: three heavy trout taking hold at once, rushing ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... of the Chamber of Commerce believed that the influx did not cause anything more than a ripple on the surface. He said: "I cover everything when I say that, no apparent increase in crime; no trouble among themselves; no race friction." Theaters began to discriminate, but soon ceased. The proprietor of the Sheridan Club stated that he took a group of men to one theater which had ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott
... river up to its knees, and slowly shook its wet tail; from time to time, under an overhanging bush, a large fish shot up, bringing bubbles to the surface, and gently sank down to the bottom, leaving a slight ripple behind it. The grasshoppers chirped in the scorched grass; the quail's cry sounded languid and reluctant; hawks sailed smoothly over the meadows, often resting in the same spot, rapidly fluttering their wings and opening their tails into ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... a flying throb of white light across the mirror below, or the sweeping wings of a hawk paint their moth-like image on the blue surface, or a little flaw of wind shudders across the water in a black ripple; but except for these casual stirs of Nature, all is still, oppressive, and beautiful, as earth seems to the trance-sleeper on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... preempted during their absence had been spoken of in a general way, since Jim Swope had gone on the warpath, but in his secret soul Rufus Hardy had a presentiment which made claim-jumping look tame. There was a chastened gayety in the voices, a silvery ripple in the laughter, which told him what Creede with all his cunning could never guess; they were voices from another world, a world where Hardy had had trouble and sorrow enough, and which he had left forever. There ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... living a lonely life, interested only in himself and his own thoughts, he had become in a measure inhuman. The form of external things, black depths in woods, pools in lonely places, those still valleys curtained by hills on every side, sounding always with the ripple of their brooks, had become to him an influence like that of a drug, giving a certain peculiar color and outline to his thoughts. And from early boyhood there had been another strange flavor in his life, the dream of the old Roman world, those curious impressions that he had gathered from ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... all about their habits." "Do you see that beautiful white sandy beach?" said the bird. "Yes!" he answered. "It is there," continued the Kingfisher, "that they bask in the sun. Before they come out, the lake will appear perfectly calm; not even a ripple will appear. After midday (na-wi-qua) you ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... spiritual growth. The coming of John Cotton to Boston, was much as if Phillips Brooks should bestow himself upon the remotest English settlement in Australia, or a missionary station in northern Minnesota, and a ripple of excitement ran through the whole community. It meant keener political as well as religious life, for the two went side by side. Mather wrote later of New England: "It is a country whose interests were most remarkably and generally enwrapped in its ecclesiastical ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... slowly, and with infinite caution, "flew" (and that is the correct term to apply to a fish the movements of which in the water are analogous to the flight of a bird) into such meagre depths that the shark would have been stranded had it followed. No ripple indicated its discreet course within a few feet of the water line and it maintained its way for about two hundred yards parallel with the beach, while the shark furiously quartered ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... she make laughter as pleasant as the ripple of a tinkling brook. "What do you know about Diaries, Moonflower?" Then came the Matron in so great haste to beg of Dr. Ewing that she come at once unto the bedside of Fuku. "She hath an attack," saith the ...
— Seven Maids of Far Cathay • Bing Ding, Ed.
... was the ripple and gurgle of some sleepy fountain. From far off, so faint and far that only a keen ear could catch, he heard a sound that made him smile with pleasure. He knew it for the distant, throaty bawl of King Polo—King Polo, his champion ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... Review. "No one can fail," said Mr. Brown, amiably assuming the fineness of his own ear to be common to all mankind—"no one can fail to observe the sweetness and the strength, the outspokenness, the downrightness, and, at the same time, the nervous delicacy of pausation, the rhythm all ripple and suspended fall, the dainty but, the daintier and forsooth, as though the pouting of a proud reserve curved the fine lip of him, and had to be atoned for by the ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... or evening, a long ripple is seen in the still water, where a musk-rat is crossing the stream, with only its nose above the surface, and sometimes a green bough in its mouth to build its house with. When it finds itself observed, it will dive and swim five or six rods under water, and at length conceal ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... how little it resembled the room she had just left! How much better it would be for her if she could sleep here in the fresh air, sleeping in peace amongst the ferns, with no other noise but the rustling of the leaves and the ripple ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... if each had meditated breaking out of the enchanted circle at a different point of the compass. But the spell of the calm is a strong magic. The following day still saw them scattered within sight of each other and heading different ways; but when, at last, the breeze came with the darkling ripple that ran very blue on a pale sea, they all went in the same direction together. For this was the homeward-bound fleet from the far-off ends of the earth, and a Falmouth fruit-schooner, the smallest of them all, was heading the flight. One could have imagined her very fair, if ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... which appears to belong to the tenth century; three typical Norman pillars support the northern arcade of the roof, and there is a very fine Norman door at the south porch. The Vicar loved to interpret the zigzag moulding as the "ripple of the lake of Gennesareth, the spirit breathing upon the waters of baptism"; he was doubtless more correct in reading a symbolic meaning into the carved vine that creeps from the chancel down the church. On the furze ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... tourists, being, as the crow flies, but eight miles from Pittsburg, and scarce twelve by the course of the river. For three-quarters of a mile below the entrance of the creek the Monongahela was unusually shallow, forming a gentle rapid or "ripple," and easily fordable at almost any point. Its common level is from three to four hundred feet below that of the surrounding country; and along its upper banks, at the second crossing, stretches ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... but the throbbing begins once more, and if you go up on deck and look down in the hold, you see the firemen and engineers at their posts, apparently unconscious of anything but their work, and as sure of getting into port as if there was not a ripple on the water." ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... basin, with a pale blue- green light floating in the centre like a night-light. Round that basin the man on the floor wriggled himself three times. How he did it I do not know. I could see the muscles ripple along his spine and fall smooth again; but I could not see any ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... me; his body was tensed for the deadly spring that would bring him down upon my throat. I saw a ripple of galvanizing energy race through his hands; then I managed an outcry. At the same instant ...
— The Homicidal Diary • Earl Peirce
... wave run over her cheek uncomfortably, and the next instant the big arm tightened its clasp of her—for just one second—not more than one. She did not know that he, himself, had seen the sudden ripple of red colour, and that the equally sudden contraction of the arm had been as unexpected to him and as involuntary as the quick wave itself. It had horrified and made him angry. He looked the next instant entirely stiff ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... fabulous fortune, and administered by the exquisite Charlie Ferrola, should not have brought forth some appreciable results. One was, that the great Castle of Indolence was prepared for the fete with no more ripple of disturbance than if it had been a Nereid's bower, far down beneath the reach of tempests, where the golden sand is never ruffled, and the crimson and blue sea flowers never ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... wave that laved the shore of the island with an almost inperceptible ripple, Lady ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... him to the contemplation of the sea and the distant shores which he was approaching. The day, for a winter's day, was bright and sunny: the sky without a cloud; the atmosphere of a frosty clearness; and the sea so calm, that it appeared scarcely to swell into a ripple, except immediately in the ship's wake. The distant promontory, which he suspected to be the point whither he had been washed by the waves, after the explosion of the Halcyon, and which seemed the extremity of a small island, had now receded into an ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... the ripple of the water among the grass and pebbles; the tongue and lips of the lake are lapping and whispering all along. It is the merest poetry; but you are so ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... group would fall silent. At such moments, Samson would ride out on the waves of melody, and see again the velvet softness of the mountain night, with stars hanging intimately close, and hear the ripple of Misery and a ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... are the waters where danger may nearly always be expected. The sea may be as smooth as glass, the skies bright, and not a breath of wind be stirring; or a gentle breeze, just enough to ripple the water, may send our vessel slowly before it, and in a few hours the winds may be roaring, the waves dashing into the air, and the ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... untroubled. Mrs. Kirke was a woman of marked beauty, whose sweet imperiousness, sympathy, humor, and tact made her the adored of the islanders. She not only spoke native well, but with a zest and sparkle, a silver ripple of irony, ridicule, and good-fellowship that carried everything before it. No kings ever bothered Mrs. Kirke. Even the redoubtable Tembinok, with forty boats full of armed savages, had been stemmed in his Napoleonic ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... back on the window seat, spellbound. Being a real girl in spite of her peculiarities, she would occasionally burst into the most musical ripple of laughter, then suddenly check herself, as if fearful of violating some obligation ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... standing up in it was clothed in a shroud. Her back was towards us, and she had evidently not heard our approach. As we were creeping along slowly, the engines were almost noiseless, and there was hardly a ripple as our fore-foot cut the dark water. Suddenly there was a wild cry from the bridge—Italians are certainly very excitable; hoarse commands were given to the Quartermaster at the wheel; the engine-room bell clanged. On the instant, as it seemed, the ship's head ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... and magnificent as was Lynmouth, wonderful as was Clovelly, and glorious as was Hartland, I believe they would equally have welcomed the waves if they had been on the flattest of muddy shores! The ripple, plash, and roar were as familiar voices, the salt smell as native air; and my mother never had thawed so entirely towards Clarence as when she found him the only person who ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a delicate blurred blue-grey, the former mottled in places. The sun was not visible, but its light lay in one long gleaming line out on the level water; beyond, all was vapour-veiled. There were no breakers; now and then a larger ripple than usual splashed on the beach, and that was the only sound the sea gave. It was full tide; the water at the foot of the cliffs was of a wonderful green, pellucid, delicate, through which the chalk was visible, with dark masses of weed here and there. Swallows in great numbers flew about the ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... name she turned her head a little, so that the ripple of her golden hair was more distinctly visible beneath the silken net she wore, and a deep tinge of red dyed her cheeks; but she made no comment or showed by any sign that she heard what they were saying. Katy was very lovely and consistent ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... when the call had to be made, and for the first time Elizabeth came in contact with polite society which smiles and bows in polite form without any especial regard for sincerity. There was not a ripple of discontent on the surface at her future home. Mrs. Hunter might never have heard of the girl's family difficulties. The girl might have called the day before, so courteous and charming was the dignified hospitality with which she was accepted. ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... the mermaids Pluck and play On their twangling harps In a sea-green day; Down where the mermaids, Finned and fair, Sleek with their combs Their yellow hair ... Bates and Giles— On the shingle sat, Gazing at Turvey's Floating hat. But never a ripple Nor bubble told Where he was supping Off plates of gold. Never an echo Rilled through the sea Of the feasting and dancing And minstrelsy. They called—called—called: Came no reply: Nought but the ripples' Sandy sigh. Then glum and ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... small craft can have no idea of the dangers of such a voyage. Infinite experience, a keen eye, a steady hand, and a nerve of iron are required. Now, when the current swirled almost to a rapid, we grazed a rock by the width of a ripple; and again, despite the effort of Xavier and the crew, we would tear the limbs from a huge tree, which, had we hit it fair, would have ripped us from bow to stern. Once, indeed, we were fast on a sand-bar, whence (as Nick said) Xavier fairly cursed ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... he was helplessly drifting with the powerful current toward the open waters of Lake Erie. In this dilemma, his only resource was to paddle with his hands, and attempt by this tedious method to force his craft to the nearest shore. While he was thus awkwardly engaged, there came it ripple of laughter from close beside him, and he started up just in time to gaze squarely into the laughing face of an Indian girl, who instantly impressed him as the most graceful creature he had ever seen. She occupied, with a girl companion, a beautifully painted and ornamented canoe, which ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... which all women must conform—they must be beautiful, no getting out of that. They simply had to have starry eyes and golden hair, or else black as a raven's wing; they had to have pale, white, and haughty brow, and a laugh like a ripple of magic. Then they were all right and armored knights would die ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... 'Spirit of life that is in Christ Jesus' abides in and inspires it. Just as a sunless landscape is smitten into sudden beauty by a burst of sunshine which heightens the colouring of the flowers on the river's bank, and is flashed back from every silvery ripple on the stream, so the faith which brings the life of Christ into the life of the Christian makes him more of a man than he was before. So, there will be infinite variety in the resulting characters. It is the same force in various ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... rose, which grew beside a large bush of mock-orange, the creamy blossoms of the latter almost as fragrant as real orange blossoms of the sunny Southland. Not far distant, planted in a small bed by themselves, grew old-fashioned, sweet-scented, double petunias, ragged, ripple, ruffled corollas of white, with splotches of brilliant crimson and purple, their slender stems scarcely strong enough to support ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... accident must have befallen Jacob Canfield. He left the shore one morning when it was as mild and fair as the brightest June day that ever dawned, and it was pleasant and calm all day. The sun went down as serenely as it rose, and not a ripple was on the sea—yes, it was a mild, lovely October day, from sunrise to sunset. Jake was seen to go out in his boat, but neither Jake nor the boat was ever seen afterward. I tell you I've never made up my mind as to ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey
... light summer dresses that lent some variety of color to this sufficiently pretty picture. It was altogether an attractive scene—the placid waters, the soft green landscape, the swift, glancing boats, from which from time to time came a ripple of youthful laughter or song. And indeed Nina was regarding rather wistfully those maidens in palest blue or palest pink who went ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... contemplating his daughter with delight. As she stood there slightly bending, her neck stretched out to watch the flight of a bird past the windows, he could only compare her to a gazelle pausing to listen for the ripple of the water where she ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... there is little or none of that fluid sense and continuity of feeling known under those vague terms, speculation, poetry, philosophy. Men of facts and of decision switching imagination on and off at will, subordinating sentiment to reason... one does not think of them when watching wind ripple over ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... voices, that lightly Ripple the silence deep! No; the swans that, circling nightly, Through the silver ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald
... me farewell and departed, leaving me alone in the palace. When the evening drew near, I opened the first door and found myself in an orchard, full of blooming trees, laden with ripe fruit, and the air resounded with the loud singing of birds and the ripple of running waters. The sight brought solace to my soul, and I entered and walked among the trees, inhaling the odours of the flowers and listening to the warble of the birds, that sang the praises of God the One, the Almighty. I looked upon the apple, ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... troubled the waters of her soul, and through the ripple she could descry it settling into form. She was silent ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... in 1874. [Footnote: See also 'Philosophical Transactions' for 1874, p. 183.] To these echoes I attached a fundamental significance. There was no visible reflecting surface from which they could come. On some days, with hardly a cloud in the air and hardly a ripple on the sea, they reached a magical intensity. As far as the sense of hearing could judge, they came from the body of the air in front of the great trumpet which produced them. The trumpet blasts were five seconds in duration, but long before the blast had ceased the ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... The sea which trembles.—Ver. 136. The ripple, or shudder, which runs along the surface of the sea, when a breath of wind is stirring in a calm, is very beautifully described here, and ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... thrown open, and Mr. Grant's figure was silhouetted by the lamp behind him. He seemed to be listening for something, so I, who must have heard any unusual sound, listened too. There was nothing. I could hear the ripple of the river beneath the bridge, so everything was very still. After a minute, or two, perhaps—no longer—Mr. Grant went in, and closed the window. Then I ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... thou thy joys in keeping of the Power Who holds these changing shadows in His hand; Believe and live, and know that hour by hour Will ripple ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... I was nearly overcome. Indeed, I was on the verge of a breakdown when I was mercifully saved by the clause in the discipline calling for the pledge all ministers had to make—that I would not indulge in the use of tobacco. When this vow fell from my lips a perceptible ripple ran over ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... lashes and wondering, with a little thrill of pain, if he has a sweetheart in his own land, of whom he is so sadly dreaming. She thanks him for the song in a voice low and sweet as the musical ripple of the sacred river among the reeds—she dazzles him with her great Egyptian eyes, those ebon orbs in which ever lurks the sensuous splendor of a summer night's high moon. Her hand strays carelessly among his curls as she punctuates with sighs and tears his oft-told tale of unkind ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... over the side, so that it made a ripple in the water (the most delightful experience of childhood). Emmeline, with one hand clasped in her uncle's, watched Mr Button with a grave sort of ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... sufficiently below the surface, too, Mr. Somers," continued Major Woodruff. "We do not want you so close to the surface of the water that a ripple would show on the camera obscura table. You cannot, of course, rise and use your periscope to see where you are. Even ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... heeded my disfiguring attire, I made my bow and plunged into a full and particular relation of Jessamy Todd's encounter with the man Tom. As my narrative progressed, the interest of my audience waxed, and I was gratified and stimulated by a ripple of excitement and hushed exclamations which, as I ended, swelled to a ringing cheer for Jessamy Todd. Thereafter my hand was shaken heartily by one and all, with many laudations on my descriptive powers, in the midst of which my uncle Jervas touched me on ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... Boca de Monos, by which we had entered the gulf at first, and looked out eagerly enough for sharks, which are said to swarm at Chaguaramas. But no warning fin appeared above the ripple; only, more than once, close to the stern of the boat, a heavy fish broke water with a sharp splash and swirl, which was said to be a Barracouta, following us up in mere bold curiosity, but perfectly ready to have attacked any one who fell overboard. ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... that I came to sojourn in the most appealing, the most lovely, the most wistful town in America; whose visible sadness and distinction seem also to speak audibly, speak in the sound of the quiet waves that ripple round her Southern front, speak in the church-bells on Sunday morning, and breathe not only in the soft salt air, but in the perfume of every gentle, old-fashioned rose that blooms behind the high garden walls of falling mellow-tinted plaster: Kings Port the retrospective, Kings Port the ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... last out of his pit and, leaning against the cabin of his boat, look about him to see what hell he had escaped into. The sun was shining somewhere, blinding his eyes, which were already seared. A river coiled by, every ripple a blistering white flame. He heard birds and other music which sounded like an anvil chorus performing in the narrow confines of a head as large ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... at which they were gazing sufficed to show that, thus far, the calm of the preceding night still continued unbroken, for the surface was as smooth and lustrous as that of plate-glass, save where, here and there, a steamer or two—dwindled to the dimensions of toys—ploughed up a ripple on either bow that swept away astern, diverging as it went, until it gradually faded and was lost a mile away. In addition to the steamers, there were perhaps a dozen sailing craft—colliers and fishing-smacks, mostly—in sight, the ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... with Mrs. Wake. She had the air of a full, deep river benignly willing to receive without a ripple any number of such tossed pebbles, to engulf and flow over them. She had told Jack that Mrs. Wake's dry aggressiveness did not blind her for a moment to Mrs. Wake's noble qualities. Mrs. Wake was a brave, a splendid person, and she had the greatest admiration for ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... appeared to be drifting in towards the bank. How eagerly he watched her. Presently he saw a boat lowered from her quarter; several people jumped in, and with rapid strokes pulled towards him. The tide had again risen, and scarcely a ripple was observed on the bank. The boat crossed it, and an encouraging cheer reached his ears; he waved his hat in return, and descending the rigging stood ready to step into the boat as ...
— The History of Little Peter, the Ship Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... music floats The slope of the hillside over— A little wandering sparrow's notes— On the bloom of yarrow and clover. And the smell of sweet-fern and the bayberry-leaf On his ripple of song are stealing; For he is a chartered thief, The ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... it, and really did not appear so very terrible a leap as Cadet made it out to be. On looking down, a confusion of bush-covered crags was visible; and now that the sun was high, a narrow stream was to be seen, flowing, like a line of silver, at the bottom; the ripple and rush of the water, repeated by the echoes of the ravine, ascending to our ears with noise like that of a cataract. On large fragment of rock, a few yards from the brink, was rudely carved a date, and below it two letters. They were the initials, so our guide informed ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... girl, whom the shadow had betrayed into a young man's arms. Elder groups were seated on the fragments of pillars and blocks of marble that lay round the verge of the arena, talking in the quick, short ripple of the Italian tongue. On the steps of the great black cross in the centre of the Coliseum sat a party singing scraps of songs, with much laughter and merriment ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that direction barred. Huge sand dunes formed the shore, covered with sighing pines. At the foot of the dunes stretched a broad beach of firm sand, dimly visible in contrast with the darker water; and at long intervals fell the light ripple of the languid summer waves, running up the beach with a half-asleep whisper, that became softer and softer until it was merged in the silence beyond. Far out on the dark waters a point of light, like a floating star, showed where a steamer was slowly making her way; ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... was sold over her head, but when she stood, penniless, upon the threshold it was to cross it as haughtily as she had done as a bride. The stiff folds of her black silk showed no wavering ripple, the repose of her lips betrayed no tremor. The smooth, high pompadour of her black hair passed as proudly beneath the arched doorway as it had done in the days of her ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... I caught up with him, and found that we stood at the edge of the shallow pond Colonel Wragge had mentioned in his account the night before. It was long and narrow, filled with dark brown water, in which the trees were dimly reflected. Not a ripple stirred its surface. ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... and let it come in. What a perpetual exaltation nature will afford us when we have cultivated the fine habit of looking upon it with the welcoming eyes through which Richard Jefferies beholds it: "The whole time in the open air," he tells us, "resting at mid-day under the elms with the ripple of heat flowing through the shadow; at midnight between the ripe corn and the hawthorne hedge or the white camomile and the poppy pale in the duskiness, with face upturned to the thoughtful heaven. Consider the glory of it, the life above this life to be obtained from constant presence with ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... Hal found himself looking forward to these swift-winged little visits. They made a welcome break in the detailed drudgery; added to the day a glint of color, bright like the ripple of half-hidden flame that crowned Milly's head. Once Veltman, intruding on their talk, had glared blackly and, withdrawing, had waited for the girl in the hallway outside from whence, as she left, Hal could hear the foreman's deep voice in anger and her clear replies tauntingly ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... island, in the third summer of its yellow green, that we built our watch-fire; not in the thicket of dancing willow wands, but on the level terrace of fine sand which had been added that spring; a little new bit of world, beautifully ridged with ripple marks, and strewn with the tiny skeletons of turtles and fish, all as white and dry as if they had been expertly cured. We had been careful not to mar the freshness of the place, although we often swam out to it on summer evenings and lay on ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... loved the truth. He hated tyranny; he loved liberty. He was the friend of the human race. He lived a brave and thoughtful life. He was a good and true and generous man, and "he died as he lived." Like a great and peaceful river with green and shaded banks, without a murmur, without a ripple, he flowed into the waveless ocean of eternal peace. I love him; I love every man who gave me, or helped to give me the liberty I enjoy tonight; I love every man who helped me put our flag in heaven. ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... in the beer parlor around the corner. (Laughter.) He won't find it there. Once upon a time I looked for it there myself (laughter), but that was before I did what every one of you men no matter how young or how old, how poor or how rich (a faint ripple of satirical laughter), can do. ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... large body of men. I remembered the smugglers; but it was as if I had remembered them only to forget them forever. Old Rangsley, who steered with the sheet in his hand, kept up an unintelligible babble. Carlos and Castro talked under their breaths. Along the gunwale there was a constant ripple and gurgle. Suddenly old Rangsley began to sing; his voice ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... 'Hooray, Pat!' 'Go it, Jamie!' 'Well ridden!' A subdued hum runs round the excited spectators. The ardent racers are nose and nose. One swift, sharp cut, the cruel whip hisses through the air, and the black is fairly 'lifted in,' a winner by a nose. The ripple of conversation breaks out afresh. The band strikes up a lively air, and the saddling for the ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... woman nature stands before you; all look at her, but none can interpret her thoughts. But for you, the eye is more or less dimmed, wide-opened or closed; the lid twitches, the eyebrow moves; a wrinkle, which vanishes as quickly as a ripple on the ocean, furrows her brow for one moment; the lip tightens, it is slightly curved or it is wreathed with animation—for you the woman ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... "Streams may ripple, birds may carol, Twinkling-stars may dance and shine, But life's sweetest joy and rapture Is to ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... extinguishing the stars. Before long half the sky was overspread. Evidently motive power lay in the cloud itself, for there was not a breath of wind. Absolute calm reigned in the atmosphere; not a leaf stirred on the tree, not a ripple disturbed the surface of the water. There seemed to be scarcely any air even, as though some vast pneumatic machine had rarefied it. The entire atmosphere was charged to the utmost with electricity, the presence of which sent ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... was necessary the bodies should be thrown overboard. I took up one of them, dragged it to the side, and plunged it into the waves; but the dash of the heavy body into the sea, reminded me more forcibly of my loneliness. The sea was so calm, I could scarcely hear it ripple by the vessel's side. One by one I committed the bodies to their watery grave. At last my horrible task was finished. My next work was to look for the ship's boats, but they were gone, as I expected. I could not bear to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... forest out upon the great Lake Ontario, where the green water stretched flat, east and north and west to the horizon, the Cayuga warriors said farewell and turned again to their own lands. It was at noon of a bright day. The water lay close to the white beach, with hardly a ripple to mar the long black scallops of weed and drift which the last storm had left on the sand. The sky was fair and the ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... present working of a present God. If we only realised how the slow pulsation of the minutes is due to the touch of His finger on the pendulum, and how everything that we have, and the existence of us who have it, are results of the continuous welling out from the fountain of life, of ripple after ripple of the waters, everything would be more sacred, and more solemn, and fuller of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... was shining down on the red parasols, the light dresses, the joyous faces and on the ocean, barely stirred by a ripple. When we were out of the harbor, the little vessel swung round the big curve and pointed her nose toward the distant shore which was barely visible through the early morning mist. On our left was the broad estuary of the Seine, her muddy water, which never mingles with ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... fine. There was not so much as a cloud on the horizon, and scarcely a ripple on the water: therefore, everything seemed to favour my project, for if there had been anything of a breeze, the beating of the waves against the rock would have been a great obstacle to my pursuing my voyage with ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... end. Of course, it would have been different if they could have got hold of you in the beginning. But now," said Pinney, forgetting what he had already said of it, "the whole thing has blown over, so that that letter of yours from Rimouski hardly started a ripple in Boston; I can't say how it was in Hatboro'. No, sir, I don't believe that if you went back now, and your friends stood by you as they ought to,—I don't believe you'd get more than a mere nominal sentence, if ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... The returning tide was coming in with a pleasant ripple and wash over the shingle. The Parade was nearly empty; but some children's voices sounded from the green space before the houses. The brown sail of a fishing craft dipped into the horizon. It was so cool, so quiet, so restful; but Nan's eyes were weary, and ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... her quaint arm-chair— Never was lady more sweet and fair! Her gray locks ripple like silver shells, And her brow its own calm story tells Of a gentle life and a peaceful even, A trust in God and a hope ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... between her and his mother was Austin. With Viviette talking to Austin and Mrs. Ware to Katherine, he felt lonely and disregarded in a kind of polar waste of snowy tablecloth. Once Katherine, escaping from Mrs. Ware's platitudinous ripple, took pity on him, and asked him when he was going to redeem his promise and show her his collection of armour and weapons. Dick brightened. This was the only keen interest he had in life outside things of earth and air and stream. ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... river that wus sweepin' along under sun and moon, bearing on every wave and ripple the glory ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... to the last. There is a flow of movement all along the line, but each brick moves only a short distance. So an electron merely passes to the next atom, which sends on an electron to a third atom, and so on. In this case, however, the movement from atom to atom is so rapid that the ripple of movement, if we may call it so, may pass along at an enormous speed. We have ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... no traffic to turn the snow to slush, and, where it had not been piled up in walls a few feet from the houses, it remained in the narrow ways till it became a lake. It tried to escape through doorways, when it sank slowly into the floors. Gentle breezes created a ripple on its surface, and strong winds lifted it into the air and flung it against the houses. It undermined the heaps of clotted snow till they tottered like icebergs and fell to pieces. Men made their way through it on stilts. Had a frost followed, ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... we came to a creek that ran through the woods and I could see it was deep and all shaded by the trees. Oh, jiminy, it was fine. And you could hear it ripple too, just like the water of Black Lake up near Temple Camp. If I was a grown-up author I could write some dandy stuff about it, because it was all dark and spooky as you might say, and you could see the trees reflected ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... was Rivera as he entered the ring. Only a very slight and very scattering ripple of half-hearted hand-clapping greeted him. The house did not believe in him. He was the lamb led to slaughter at the hands of the great Danny. Besides, the house was disappointed. It had expected a rushing battle between ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... in every individual. Transport yourself in thought to one of the vast solitudes of the New World—listen to the rustling of the myriad-leafed forests as they forever murmur on the banks of the thousands of nameless and unknown streams which ripple through them; to the clash of the impetuous torrents as they rush down the precipitous sides of the mountains to glide on from their feet through beds of soft moss or sedgy grass; to the booming thunder, driving, scattering, and tearing the flying clouds; ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... for Baree. It was strong with the smell of beaver. The top of it was high and dry, and there were dozens of smoothly worn little hollows in which the beavers had taken their sun baths. In one of these hollows Baree stretched himself out, with his eyes on the pond. Not a ripple stirred its velvety smoothness. Not a sound broke the drowsy stillness of the afternoon. The beavers might have been dead or asleep, for all the stir they made. And yet they knew that Baree was on the dam. Where he lay, the ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... frolicsome mood of the waters. Their feeling harmonizes more with the sea-weed and shell decorations of the court itself and its falling-water motif than with the weightier sculpture it contains. They create a pleasing ripple of merriment. Their light and airy modeling has the beauty of unconscious and unforced artistry. The columns stand just within the northern entrance of the court, guarding a vista ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... Instead, he had bought sheep and cattle and goats and hogs from the ranchers, and he had paid a fair price for them and had shipped them openly, under the eye of the stock inspector, to the El Paso Meat Company. So far he had kept his eyes open and his mouth shut, and had waited until some ripple on the surface ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... hallway for an explanation, but all was dark and still, no draperies were stirring, no wind whistled, and they returned to their chairs, talking for a moment over the mysterious sound, then relapsing into their former quiet. Hawthorne meantime sat dreaming, apparently not noticing the light ripple in the quiet of the evening; but not long after—when my friend read the Mosses from an Old Manse, she found that the incident had made an impression upon him and that he interpreted the sound as a ghostly happening. She told me ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... to contribute a beautiful specimen of a rifle-green glossy ibis, common in Europe. I tried the water with a very roughly manufactured fly: the fish rose repeatedly at it, though there was scarcely a ripple, and notwithstanding my own want of success under these unpropitious circumstances, I feel perfectly satisfied that with proper tackle, and on a favourable day, this prince of sports might be enjoyed on ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... also by those of diminished size and accelerated movement The trumpet then does not sounds the ear sounds, and in the ear alone lies the music that it makes. The deaf man, whose auditory nerves are not sensitive to air-waves, sees the clouds move and the trees sway, the brook ripple and the trumpeter with his tube at his lips; but the air-waves they all create pass by him, and sound is inconceivable. That sound is a mere nervous sensation is further proved by the fact that we have disturbances ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... a cold sweat broke once more on his forehead, and he waved his left hand listlessly. Outside the sun had risen, and a broad daylight flooded the wet meadows and the brimming tide of the Severn, catching the sails of the boats that were heeling and trembling on the ripple of the water, which was stirred by the South wind. The King looked towards the window with weariness, expecting, as far as his lethargy allowed, the advent ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... choice, perhaps, you now regret, And crave a titled suitor yet; Hearts that are anchored side by side, No surface-ripple ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey
... told of the average American citizen, qua citizen, there is not much to tell. The like is true throughout the English-speaking peoples, with inconsequential allowance for local color. A definitive neutralisation of citizenship within the range of these English-speaking countries would scarcely ripple the surface of things as they ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... put the photograph back in his pocket, and filled his pipe again, while it was almost dark before he had smoked it out. The thrush had gone, and only the ripple of the water broke the silence, until he heard footsteps on the stones behind him. Then, looking round, he saw a young woman moving towards the river, and he watched her with a quiet interest, for his perceptions were a little sharper ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... now must I fall? Is it now?" Star-fleck'd on the stem of the brier as it gathers and falters and flows, Lo! its trail runs a ripple of fire on the nipple it bids be a rose, 20 Yet englobes it diaphanous, veil upon veil in a tiffany drawn To bedrape the small virginal breasts yet unripe for the spousal of dawn; Till the vein'd very vermeil of Venus, till Cupid's incarnadine kiss, ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... of an old chateau. In the bright light the costumes of the players made a mass of rich colour. Mademoiselle stood, prettily defiant. A ripple of music burst from the orchestra, and died away in a stately movement. With a merry laugh the revellers posed for the dance. They bowed low in courtesy—joined hands—advanced—retired. Then Raoul's violin ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... pretentious instrumental noises which were impudently offered to them as a substitute for melody. While these docile victims of the worst of all quackeries (musical quackery) were still toiling through their first hour of endurance, a passing ripple of interest stirred the stagnant surface of the audience caused by the sudden rising of a lady overcome by the heat. She was quickly led out of the concert-room (after whispering a word of explanation ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... unlike the excitement of the morning, was at work within him; his blood danced, his brain answered to every fleeting picture. He was in that subtlest of all moods when the mind swings out upon the human tide, comprehending its every ripple with a deep intuition that seems like a retrospective knowledge. He had never until this moment stood alone in a Paris street at night; he had never before rubbed shoulders with a Parisian night crowd; but the inspiration was there—the exaltation—that ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... round it, and capital fun they had till the tide began to turn. And then Tom heard all the other babies coming, laughing and singing and romping; and the noise they made was just like the noise of a ripple. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... eyes turn towards the Christ? Was there a ripple of interest and expectancy through the crowd? Did any realize the unearthly beauty and spiritual power of his presence? We know not. Scripture is silent, only telling us that on the following day, when, with two disciples, he looked on Jesus as He walked, and ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... no means thorough; but even if it had been the result might have been the same, since that county and others adjoining have been mapped as Cambrian. The greater part of the exposed rock is a fine sandstone almost as white as gypsum on a fresh fracture, and much of it is ripple-marked so as to show a beautifully fluted surface of remarkable regularity. These ripple flutings are sometimes more than an inch in width, and often less, but the variations never appear on the same level, the smallest being seen on the hill-tops ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... trees. Rachel made herself ready before lunch, to which she came down looking quite lovely, in blue as joyous as the sky's, to find her husband as fully prepared, and not less becomingly attired, in a gray frock-coat without a ripple on its surface. They looked critically at each other for an instant, and then Steel said something pleasant, to which Rachel made practically no reply. They ate their lunch in a silence broken good-naturedly at intervals from one end of the table only. Then the ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... forms, their simple and harmless occupations—if occupations they might be called—the breathless foliage rich in the depth of summer; behind, the old-fashioned house, unpretending, not mean, its open doors and windows giving glimpses of the comfortable repose within; before, the lake, without a ripple and catching the gleam of the sunset clouds,—all made a picture of that complete tranquillity and stillness, which sometimes soothes and sometimes saddens us, according as we are in the temper to ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... that peers 'mid woody braes, And lists the ripple of Glenkinnon's rill— Fair girdled by Tweed's ampler gleaming wave— His well loved home of early happy days, Ere noon of Fame, and ere dark Ruin's eve, When life lay unrevealed, with hopeful thrill Of all that might be in the reach ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott |
