"Ripple" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ah! no returning: No second crossing that ripple's flow: "Come to me now, for the west is burning: Come ere it darkens."—"Ah, no! ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... A ripple of panting laughter alongside brought Venner and his guests to the rail in haste, and gone to the windless heavens was their ennui. A gleaming, gold-tinted creature, a miniature model of Aphrodite surely, arose from the blue sea and climbed nimbly into the main ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... with mineral colors running through them like enamel. So delicate are the touches of the magic water, as the persistent heart-beats of old Mother Earth propel it over their ornamental rims, that every ripple leaves its tiny mark. Hence it is no exaggeration, but literal truth, to say that beautiful mosaic work is being formed each time the films of boiling water are dimpled ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... and nights of fierce warfare with the Indians "way back in the fifties," when every ripple of the Columbia River and her tributaries hid covert danger. God had dowered him with a queer, crooked gift of expression and a fierce anxiety for the welfare of his two little sons—tanned and reserved children, who attended school daily and spoke ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... and thence to Washington was pleasant inland sailing, with prevailing fair winds and smooth sea. Christmas was spent on the Chesapeake—a fine, enjoyable day it was! with not a white-cap ripple on the bay. Ducks swimming ahead of the canoe as she moved quietly along were loath to take wing in so light a breeze, but flapping away, half paddling and half flying, as we came toward them, they managed to keep a long ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... sun went down into the ocean, the rosy light faded from off the snows of the Andes; and when both ships had become invisible from the shore, the skins were hauled in, the night wind rose, and the water began to ripple under the Pelican's bows. The Cacafuego was swiftly overtaken, and when within a cable's length a voice hailed her to put her head into the wind. The Spanish commander, not understanding so strange an order, held on his course. A broadside brought ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... perfect equilibrium. Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind, and spirit. The man who preserves his selfhood ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence—not a leaf, as it were, astir on the tree; not a ripple upon the surface of shining pool—his, in the mind of the unlettered sage, is the ideal ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... 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 ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... 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. I love every man who has lifted his voice in any age for liberty, for ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... underbrush. The sweet wonderful note of a wood-thrush, somewhere far out of sight, assured me, what everything conspired to assure me, that I was certainly in fairyland, not on the common earth. But I could not get on with my Bible at all. Again and again I began to read; then a bird or a bough or a ripple would catch my attention, and straightway I was off on a flight of fancy or memory, dancing over again my dances with Mr. Thorold, dwelling upon the impression of his figure and dress, and the fascination of his brilliant, changing hazel eyes; or recalling ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... were weighed down with the snow-fall till they lay half submerged in the drifts; but wherever the wind could strike them, they swung free of this load and met in low, flat arches above the track. The river betrayed itself only when the swift current of a ripple broke through the white surface in long, irregular, grayish blurs. It was all wild and lonesome, but to the girl alone in it with her lover, the solitude was sweet, and she did not wish to speak even to him. His hands were both busy with the reins, but it was agreed between them that ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... the ripple of the flowing water the weeping of Cucuduri, and throws three small fish to him. If he should not do this, he would catch nothing. Cucuduri would throw stones into the water and drive the fish off, or he would even throw stones at ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... God alone, think not of the rushing torrents of this world! Envy not even the crystal stream which winds among the meadows. The ripple of its waters is sweet indeed, but it can be heard by creatures. Besides, the Field-flower could never contain it in its cup. One must be so little to draw near to Jesus, and few are the souls that aspire to ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... 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
... religion seemed to be a matter of concern. The audience wore a look of interest, and, even after their first gaze of admiration and whispered criticism at the splendors of their new church, when at length the clergyman entered to begin the service, a ripple of excitement swept across the field of bonnets until there was almost a murmur as of rustling cornfields within the many colored ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... beautiful summer morning. There is only a slight ripple on the surface of the water, and not a cloud in the blue sky overhead. The gentle breeze that just keeps us in motion blows off the land, bearing with it a subtle perfume of trees and flowers and herbage; how unspeakably grateful to our nostrils none can tell so well as we, who inhale it with ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... Wash, wash, ripple, ripple went the water, and the cries whispered away as fading echoes, and then Pete's voice rose in ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... it that makes youth in Italy so fresh and beautiful—so lithe, erect, and strong? What gives that lustre to the eye, that ripple to the hair, that faultless mould to the features, that mellowness to the skin—like the ruddy rind of the pomegranate—those rounded limbs that move with sovereign ease—that step, as of gods treading the earth? Is it the ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... swam Sammy following the stream as it twisted and turned now in the shadow, now in the moonlight. Now it flowed along straight and smooth with scarcely a ripple, its banks sweet with dew-soaked wild flowers, and now it dashed against a huge rock which partly blocked its path, or glided swiftly ...
— How Sammy Went to Coral-Land • Emily Paret Atwater
... the weather, which was bright, warm, and inspiriting; and when we reached the walk which leads to the baths, we were in raptures with the whole scene which presented itself. The fine broad sea, smooth and green, lay shining in the sun, without a ripple to disturb its serenity; and for about a quarter of a mile along its margin extended one of the most beautiful promenades I ever beheld. The first part of it is planted with small young trees, on each side of a good road, which extends between ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... got it yesterday,' he said, 'was an unassuming picture of General Petain presenting military medals. There wasn't a scratch or a ripple on its surface. But I got busy with it, ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... or another, sometimes against my convictions, and oftener against my will. But one thing I've stuck to, and that's my right to discharge a hand when I see fit, without dictation from the Union or anybody else. In the past, this has been comparatively easy sailing. One man, now and again, isn't a ripple on the surface of four thousand employees. Besides, there was always a good reason. The others saw that, and there was never a finger raised. They believed in me, through and through, and it has been my pride to know that they did, and that they had good cause to. ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... a most entrancing outlook. On the extreme left, a lovely retrospective and bird's-eye view of charming Mentone; the towns and little villages on the distant shore as far as Bordighera; dimpling in the glowing sunshine, and before us, the long stretch of inimitable blue sea, with just a feathery ripple on the golden sandy shores below, winding in and out in a series of tiny bays and creeks; while beyond us, like a realized dream of Paradise, lay the beautiful plague-spot of the Riviera—the town of Monte Carlo, nested amid luxuriant gardens of semi-tropical foliage, the mosque-like minarets ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... these walls, rising sheer from the water to the height of two thousand feet, going down sheer beneath it, or rather by the side of it, to many times that depth. The water was of some colour blacker than black. Even by daylight it is inky and sinister. It flows without foam or ripple. No white showed in the wake of the boat. The ominous shores were without sign of life, save for a rare light every few miles, to mark some bend in the chasm. Once a canoe with two Indians shot out of the shadows, passed under our stern, and vanished silently down stream. We all ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... now gained off the southern coast of Africa, and was about one hundred miles from the Lagullas coast; the morning was beautiful, a slight ripple only turned over the waves, the breeze was light and steady, and the vessel was standing on a wind, at the rate of ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... into the faces which met his kindly, and the brown spot on his eyelid gave him the mischievous look which always made folk laugh. It was amid a ripple of good-natured laughter that he and his pets made their way to the platform which had been erected in front of the palace. Here on a high seat sat the King, and beside him the Prince, with a flush of pleasure on his thin cheeks. Gaily dressed lords and ladies ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... 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 newer ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... was the effect, and so tickling—this grim old veteran revealing in himself the Eternal Child who hides behind us all—that the Frenchmen at their guns, hearing in the silence the sudden ripple of a boy's laughter, whispered among themselves that the ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... "To be a great sentinel and forester worthy to be compared with the greatest, Dagaeoga must hear the whisper of the grass as it bends under the lightest wind, he must hear the sound made by the little leaf as it falls, he must hear the ripple in the brook that is flowing a hundred yards from us, and he must hear the wild flowers talking together in the night. Only then can Dagaeoga call himself a sentinel fit to watch over two such sleeping foresters as the Great ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... under him. With a quick effort he got the other foot into position and rose slowly, lifting the white form out of the pool. The shaggy hair hung from the white goat, limp and reeking, numerous thin streams of water making a little ripple as they fell. The limbs of the Herd quivered under the weight, he staggered back, his heavy boots grinding in the gravel; then he set his teeth, the limbs steadied themselves, he swayed uncertainly for a moment, then staggered ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... with the ripple of the tide on the sea-beach which we see to-day. The ebb and the flow of the tide are the present manifestations of an agent which has been constantly at work. Let that present teach us what tides must have done ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball
... the student of medicine, with a snort, "it's quite evident that we're all playing the fool together. I wish you a very good-evening, and the devil take all crawfishers." And with that he marched off, evidently in high dudgeon. A little ripple of laughter swept over the upturned faces of the crowd. "One dollar," repeated the young man, his voice full of a polite weariness. "Do I hear no other bid? I offer myself, a human chattel, at absolute sale; no reservations; warranted sound and kind; no objection to the country; ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... through, with the same dark shade upon her face, in the same attitude even to the holding of the screen, with her lips a little apart, her brow a little contracted, but for the moment dead. He sees her consciousness return, sees a tremor pass across her frame like a ripple over water, sees her lips shake, sees her compose them by a great effort, sees her force herself back to the knowledge of his presence and of what he has said. All this, so quickly, that her exclamation and her ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... teak wood and the brown bodies of the rowers pushing long oars glow in the halo of soft light; other figures resting on their decks are wrapped up in rose and white and green draperies, and each soft colour is reflected quivering in the ripple from the oars. ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... of May. The weather was intensely hot, and these rustic bowers were found to be refreshingly cool and grateful. The name of this friendly chief was Casquin. Here the army remained for three days, without a ripple of unfriendly feeling arising between ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... missionary path had ever been so easy and 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 career and turned back by her from his projected ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... gazing at her patiently, her face grave with reproach, until Mrs. Willoughby succeeded in composing herself to a fitting seriousness. But for all her efforts her mouth worked, and the dimples appeared and vanished in her cheeks, and a little ripple of laughter now and again escaped from ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... to-day hardly even the winter ones. I amuse myself by exercising my voice in recitations, and in ringing the changes on all the vocal and alphabetical sounds. Not even an echo; only the cawing of a solitary crow, flying at some distance. The pond is one bright, flat spread, without a ripple—a vast Claude Lorraine glass, in which I study the sky, the light, the leafless trees, and an occasional crow, with flapping wings, flying overhead. The brown fields have a few white patches ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... died away upon the night, and there was no sound but the soft ripple of the water under keel. In the bow sat the girl, motionless as a crouched Indian, her face fixed ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... out into the broad channel and into Goose Bay. There was little or no wind, and when the sun broke gloriously over the white-capped peaks of the Mealy Mountains it shone upon a sea as smooth as a mill pond, with scarcely a ripple to disturb it. The men worked laboriously and silently at their oars. A harbour seal pushed its head above the water, looked at the toiling men curiously for a moment, then disappeared below the surface, leaving an eddy where it had been. Gulls soared overhead, their white wings and bodies looking ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... return in order to reach Cross Lake, unnoticed the night before, was fully enjoyed now. The ground was carpeted ankle-deep with moss of endless variety, and ferns sparkling with raindrops. Hawk Lake was calm, only a light ripple glittering in the sun where had been white-capped waves before. Crossing the north-west end, we struck a short portage to a tiny lake, across which a few minutes' paddle carried us. It was now comparatively easy work for the men, all the heavy ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... visible god approach, with step divine; And Agni's boon was this, that he would come Whenever Nala called—for everywhere Hutasa shineth, and all worlds are his; Yama gave skill in cookery, steadfastness In virtue; and Varuna, King of Floods, Bade all the waters ripple at his call. These boons the high gods doubled by the gift Of bright wreaths wove with magic blooms of heaven; And those bestowed, ascended to their seats. Also with wonder and with joy returned The Rajas and the Maharajas all, Full of the marriage-feast; for Bhima made, In pride and pleasure, ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... A ripple of laughter ran around the room that was now hot and stuffy from the glare and smell of the great oil-lamps. Code heard the laugh, and his brows drew ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... did it take to cover distances in the wilderness, spring and summer were past, and the Illinois were dwelling in their great town, nearly opposite the rock which La Salle desired to have fortified. Tonty often gazed at it across the river, which flows southwestward there, with a ripple that does not break into actual rapids. The yellow sandstone height, rising like a square mountain out of the shore, was tufted with ferns and trees. No man could ascend it except at the southeast corner, and at that place a ladder or ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... change. During his absence, the Countess of Charolais had died and been buried at Antwerp. Charles is repeatedly lauded for his perfect faithfulness to his wife, but her death seems to have made singularly little ripple on the surface of his life. The chroniclers touch on the event very casually, laying more stress on the opportunity it gave Louis XI. to offer his daughter Anne as her successor, than on ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... Snail from a green, shelving bank, and shoved her off with the long sticks we carried. The wind caught her sail and drove her forward in fine style; she made a great ripple as she went. Once she caught in a drowned bush; but the current swung her clear, and she cut across the course of the brook like a Falmouth Packet. Hugh and I ran along the causeway, and over the bridge, to catch her on the other side. We had our eyes on her as we ran, ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... very early that year, and although it was not yet May, the green tassels were on the maples and the wild flowers made the ground gay in places. All around the clearing ran a ripple of bird song. The sunshine was 15 dreamy, the ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... and in the perfect silence was heard the strains of the mermaid's song, and through it the pleasant ripple of summer waters on the pebbly beach. Then the theme was changed, and on the air was borne the measured sweep of countless oars and the swish of waters around the prows of contending galleys, and the breezy voices of the sailors and the sea-bird's cry. Then his ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... had been placed on arrival. The night was beautiful and starlight, and, our repast over, the awning was removed, and we sat out enjoying our cigars in the cool night breeze blowing in fresh and strong from the sea. The quiet ripple of the waves as they broke on the sandy beach had a soothing effect very favourable to reflection (and baccy), and the lights of the little fishing village twinkling at the foot of the black and rugged peak of Santubong—which ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... particularly surprised, because his backwoods philosophizing had long ago led him to the conclusion that when things get started happening, they have a way of keeping it up. Days, weeks, months, glide by without event enough to ripple the most sensitive memory. Then the whimsical Fates do something different, find it interesting, and proceed to do something else. So, though Timmins had been accustomed all his life to managing bulls, good-tempered and bad-tempered ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... ardent gaze. Hugh's eyes were bright, with the brightness of a blue lake, where the sunbeams strike deep into it, and transfuse the clear water with light; but the eyes of the strange boy twinkled and snapped, as when sunshine sparkles from ripple to ripple. He was the first to break ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... delicate pink and white, even more beautiful than those exquisite little shells one picks up sometimes on the seashore, her clear green eyes sparkled and flashed like the waves with the sun on them, while her hair was the colour of rich gold, like the sun in its glory, and with a ripple in it such as one sees on the sea ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... eye and looked down sullenly, the conflict in his mind as plain as daylight. He had only to insist that I must fight; and if by luck or skill he could master me his fame as a duellist would run, like a ripple over water, through every garrison town in France and make him a name even in Paris. On the other side were the imminent peril of death, the gleam of cold steel already in fancy at his breast, the loss of life and sunshine, and the possibility of a retreat with honour, if without glory. I read ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... accordingly, and getting his hands beneath the arms of the corpse, dragged it to one of the flights of steps that led down to the water. Kate sat watching him with her hands clasped in her lap. She heard a splashing sound and a ripple. Sir Archibald came back, picked up the pistol, and flung ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... sweeping round had cut out a wide bed, nearly three times its usual breadth. Tall trees grew almost to the verge of the banks on both sides, so that the water was almost always in shadow, while so high were the banks that few breezes were able to ripple its surface. It lay placid all the year, scarcely troubled even in winter, when the other parts of the creek rushed and tumbled in flood. There was room in the high banks of Anglers' Bend for all the extra ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... purposes, intrigue is endless, and the merciless war of diplomacy goes on unceasingly. Occasionally, only occasionally, a bubble comes to the surface, and when it bursts the echo goes crashing around the earth. Sometimes a dynasty is shaken, a nation trembles, a ministry topples over; but the ripple moves and all is placid again. No man may know all that happens there, for then he would be ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... with frequent soundings, they pressed on toward the southwest. The next day came a dead calm. Each vessel floated on the glassy sea, "like a painted ship on a painted ocean." Thus they moved along, day after day, encountering calms, when not a ripple was to be seen on the mirrored expanse, and fresh breezes, which tossed the ocean in billowy foam, and storms which threatened to tear the masts from ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... an encampment of eight lodges on the left, in order to view a rapid before us: we had already passed eight, and some of them difficult; but this was worse than any of them, being a very hazardous ripple strewed with rocks: we here purchased roots and dined with the Indians. Among them was a man from the falls, who says that he saw white people at that place and is very desirous of going down with us; an offer which however ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... exclaimed, as a light blue ripple was seen advancing over the mirror-like surface of the ocean. The sails were trimmed, and the boat once more glided on at the rate of three or four knots an hour. Even should the breeze continue, however it would take them many days to reach Batavia. The wind lasted but a few hours, when they ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... winding river, 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
... who cared nothing for sport, had paddled up-stream to inspect the next reach of the river, and there, at the first ford, had found the moose lying dead and warm, with the ripple running over his flank and his gigantic horns high out of ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... who has the joyous art of sending a ripple of mirth across the faces of the Anglo-Saxon world recognizes this fact in a cheerful poem, called "The Morning Visit," and to which I gladly refer any of my readers who would like to know from the lips of Oliver Wendell Holmes what manner of delightful patient he must have ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... 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 ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... ripple behind, that head sank from view. It had vanished in an instant before the eyes of the two thoroughly ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... with him. Had Etty been on the spot he would have got a hint for one of his finest pictures; though I can give but little idea of it in writing, however, let me try. Before us was a long reach of deep, still water, unbroken by a ripple, so hemmed in on all sides by walls of deep green black wattle, tea-tree, and delicate silver acacia, that the water seemed to flow in a deep shoreless rift of the forest, above which the taller forest trees towered up two hundred ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... that this happened and about ten minutes after eight bells, midnight. I keep the eight to twelve watch with the Fourth, you see, and it often happens that I don't feel like turning in right away. It was a clear yet dark night without a ripple on the sea. It had been one of those calm days that we have in English waters in winter time, a pale sun shining through a light haze, cold yet pleasant. I'd seen the Third tumble down the ladder and heard ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... the process that annually clothes the turf with wealth and beauty. The leaves put out, rustle in the winds, and fall to their rest, while others follow. The fierce, fiery energy of the lightning writes the truth upon the scudding clouds. The formless waves that in the atmosphere ripple and dash against the cheek, tell of a restless ocean around us, a medium of health and sound. From the world that rolls, to the summer flies that float on the air and glance in the sun, the truth is proclaimed that all is activity. Man cannot ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... The ripple of events which we have recorded may seem too insignificant; of still less import is the story of the efforts of Clairborne, from 1634: to 1647, to gain, or retain possession of Kent Island, in the Chesapeake, on which he had "squatted" before Baltimore got his charter. Yet, from another ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... giant of other days. There was no mistaking the meaning that ran through that quietly worded message. It brought the crowd up with a thrill of apprehension, followed by honest shame. There was even a ripple of applause. The crowd started once more to file out, but in different mood. Some of the more impetuous, who had rushed downstairs before the judge had spoken, were hustled away from the agent's automobile, around which they ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... a little ripple of surprise. When a sophomore goes in for work in the box it is notice that he has a good ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock
... that great man, whom science owed so much, and then without waiting for the joy in every breast to burst forth, he began to read. It was curious to watch his triumph with the house. His carefully studied effects would reach the first rows in the orchestra first, and ripple in laughter back to the standees against the wall, and then with a fine resurgence come again to the rear orchestra seats, and so rise from gallery to gallery till it fell back, a cataract of applause from the topmost rows of seats. He was such a practised speaker that he knew all the stops ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... cleared away, when a naked figure with a boarding-sword in its hand, was for one swift moment seen hovering over the bulwarks. The next, a loud splash announced that my brave Queequeg had dived to the rescue. One packed rush was made to the side, and every eye counted every ripple, as moment followed moment, and no sign of either the sinker or the diver could be seen. Some hands now jumped into a boat alongside, and pushed a little off from the ship. Ha! ha! cried Daggoo, all at once, from his now quiet, swinging perch overhead; and looking ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... we left Sagua the path began to ascend, and we rode in single file along the edges of deep precipices. From the depths below giant ferns sent up cool, damp odors, and we could hear the splash and ripple of running water, and at times, by looking into the valley, I could see waterfalls and broad streams filled with rocks, which churned the water into a white foam. We passed under tall trees covered with white and purple flowers, and in the branches of ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... His thoughts had travelled easily back to a few weeks ago. He saw Virginia sitting there, watched the delightful smile coming and going, the large grey eyes that watched him so ceaselessly, the little ripple of pleasant conversation, which he had never dreamed that he could ever miss. After all, what a child! As a matter of justice, and he told himself that it was justice only which had power to sway his judgment, what right had he to blame her for what was really nothing ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the book of sailing directions, that the course of the Gulf Stream (in the vicinity of which we knew we were) is in calm weather and smooth water plainly marked out by a ripple on its inner and outer edges. We clearly saw, about a mile ahead of us, a remarkable ripple, which we rightly, as it turned out, conjectured was that referred to in the book. As soon as we had crossed it, we steered the usual ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... young, yet how wondrously old! Babble such as this fell from a child's lips thousands of years ago, in the morning of the world; it sounded on through the ages, infinitely reproduced; eternally a new beginning; the same music of earliest human speech, the same ripple of innocent laughter, renewed from generation to generation. But he, listening, had not the merry, fearless pride of fathers in an earlier day. Upon him lay the burden of all time; he must needs ponder anxiously on his child's heritage, use his weary knowledge to ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... distant voices, that lightly Ripple the silence deep! No; the swans that, circling nightly, ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald
... met the most ungrateful returns. At every new turn of the road he would endeavor to attract my attention by the objects around,—no white-turreted chateau, no tapered spire in the distance, escaped him; he kept up a constant ripple of half-muttered praise and censure upon all he saw, and instituted unceasing comparisons between the country and his own, in which, I am bound to say, Ireland rarely, if ever, had to complain of ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... bruited abroad, and cultured Rome was agog to see the statue which had duped so astute a judge as Sforza-Riario. The fame of the young sculptor spread like a ripple over water, and it was Cesare Borgia—at that time still Cardinal of Valencia who bought the Cupid. Years later he sent it to Isabella d'Este, assuring her that it had not its equal among contemporary works ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... expression, which his mouth and forehead, well-shaped though they were, could not altogether dispel. And at he same time he looked at her, slim, tall, and elegant, daintily clothed from her shapely shoes to her sailor hat, her brown hair, parted in the middle, escaping a little from its confinement to ripple about her forehead, and show more clearly the delicacy of her complexion. Trent was an ignorant man on many subjects, on others his taste seemed almost intuitively correct. He knew that this girl belonged to a class from which ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... verily To miss that voice two worlds are loth, In which much wisdom spake so merrily. A voice, and no mere echo, thine, Of many tones, but manly ever. Thy rustic Biglow's rugged line A grateful world neglecteth never! It smote hypocrisy and cant With flail-like force; sleek bards that ripple Like shallow pools—who pose and pant, And vaguely smudge or softly stipple,— These have not brain or heart to sing As Biglow sang, our quaint Hosea, Whose "Sunthin in the Pastoral line," Full primed with picture ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 22, 1891 • Various
... us a sandy couch from which no man shall wake us and tell us to be gone! No human eye can see us. None will know from what mysterious cause the empty bark has been washed ashore upon some rock. No ripple on these waters will betray to the curious or the indifferent the spot where our two bodies slid beneath the wave, in one embrace; where our two souls rose mingled in the surrounding ether; no sound of earth will follow us, but the slight ripple of the closing wave!... Oh, let us die in this delight ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... Honorable Percival concerned 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 ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... of the schooner. They climbed on deck and going forward to the jib-boom, leaned over the starboard bulwark and gazed at an object that floated on the water a few strokes ahead of the vessel. It was a small buoy that was rocked by the ripple of ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... a little and nodded. "Yes, Alaska," she said, and the old captain fancied there was the slightest ripple of a tremor in her voice. "Your ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... The sun shone on the bronze roof of the temple of Apollo, making such a contrast to, and harmony with, marble and the green of giant cypresses as only music can suggest. The dying breeze stirred hardly a ripple on the winding ponds, so marble columns, trees and statuary were reflected amid shadows of the swans in water tinted by the colors of the sinking sun. There was a murmur of wind in the tops of the trees and a stirring ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... sun, against which he was abruptly defined, looking larger than usual. Clear space and air soft with colour were about him. Across this space, on a little sloping plateau near him, there crept an animal. It seemed to Lawless that he could see the lithe stealthiness of its muscles and the ripple of its skin. But that was imagination, because he was too far away. He cried out, and swung his gun shoulderwards in desperation. But, at the moment, Pourcette turned sharply round, saw his danger, caught ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... smoke among the dripping boughs, leaving a diamond on each sprouting bud where next year's leaf is hid; by the moorland river, on bright December mornings, when the grayling are lying on the shallows below the ripple where the rock breaks the surface; by the frozen shore where the land-springs lie fast, drawn into icicles or smeared in slippery slabs on the cliff faces, and hoar frost powders the black sea-wrack; on the lawns of ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... the centre of the room, on the bare earth floor, stood a big, deep, brass 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 ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... for centuries kept, Shall it pass like the ripple, unhonour'd, unwept: Unknowing the lance, and the victim unknown, Far from Aberffraw's halls and Eryri ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... higher and higher, chased by the shadows; and then, after lingering for a moment on their crests of honeysuckle and juniper, passed away, and the whole became sombre and grey. The sea-gull sprang upwards from where he had floated on the ripple, and hied him slowly away to his lodge in his deep-sea stack; the dusky cormorant flitted past, with heavier and more frequent stroke, to his whitened shelf high on the precipice; the pigeons came whizzing ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... again and stolen back to the balcony that opened upon the Canal Grande from the vast upper salon, impelled by her longing for freedom and light. The ripple of the water to the plash of passing gondolas took on the note of distance and soothed her like a lullaby, as the charming maid yielded herself to the golden daydream—the soft breezes lifting the bright rings of hair that clustered ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... gray and moss-grown walls, This ivied porch, and trelliced vine, The lattice with its narrow pane, A relic of the olden time; The willow with its waving leaves, Through which the low winds murmuring glide, The gurgling ripple of the stream That whispers softly ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... in Bordeaux—often seems closer to Madrid than to Paris; even the Bordelais accent has a touch of the Mediterranean, and the crisp words of Paris are broken up and even an extra vowel added now and then, until they ripple like Spanish or Italian. "Pe-tite-a ma- dame-a !" rattles some little newsboy, ingratiating himself with an indifferent lady of uncertain age; and the porter will bring your boots in no time-in "une-a ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... are in earnest, show us that you will fight, and we will yield to you as we have yielded to everybody else." Captain Craig, following, said that the Prime Minister anticipated that Ulster's objection would after a few years be merely a ripple on the surface. "If the right honourable gentleman has challenged this part of his Majesty's dominions to civil war, we accept ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... the roadway. The moon was shining brightly, so that it was as light as day; and I could see her face distinctly as she looked up into mine every now and then to answer some remark. Her honest, lustrous, grey eyes sparkled with fun, while a little ripple of silvery laughter came occasionally from the rosebud-parted coral lips! We chatted merrily, exchanging notes touching the enjoyments ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... heads of the crowd. His voice had coarsened and taken on a raw edge, but every gesture was flung from the socket, and from where they had forced themselves into the tight circle Gertie Slayback, her mouth fallen open and her head still back, could see the sinews of him ripple under khaki and the ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... that the one cloud in the eastern quarter of the heaven was the smoke cloud left by a passing steamer three miles distant and more on the invisible sea. When the voices of the pleasure party were still, not a sound rose, far or near, but the faint ripple at the bows, as the men, with slow, deliberate strokes of their long poles, pressed the boat forward softly over the shallow water. The world and the world's turmoil seemed left behind forever on the land; the silence was the silence of enchantment—the ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... from Mill Pond stairs through the crowded shipping of the Pool, past the floating Custom House at Gravesend, and onwards, skirting the little creeks and mudbanks where the Thames widens to the sea—when every sound of the tide flapping heavily at irregular intervals against the shore, and every ripple, were fraught with the terror of pursuit—exemplifies in the most striking way the rapidity and instinctive ease of Dickens's ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... beautiful, calm evening. The moon shone faintly through a mass of heavy clouds, casting a pale light on the waters of Lake Winnipeg, which stretched, without a ripple, out to the distant horizon. The great fresh-water lakes of America bear a strong resemblance to the sea. In storms the waves rise mountains high, and break with heavy, sullen roar upon a beach composed in many places ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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
... merely animal stratum of existence; you live to-day because you lived yesterday, and you do not forecast to-morrow. Perhaps you learn to assuage and deceive the hunger of your immortal soul by forcing your attention upon the petty ripple of daily events and duties, until you present, to the outsider, the appearance of a commonplace, non-tragic person, bearing no noticeable scars of the crime which society perpetrated on you. You perhaps lose, at last, the realization of your own inhuman plight, ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... stranger would be received and welcomed; Christmas would be kept in hearty English fashion; young men from a neighboring estate would ride over through the darkening woods to court, or dance, or play the fiddle, like Patrick Henry or Thomas Jefferson; and these simple events were all that made a ripple on the placid stream. Much time was given to sports, rough, hearty, manly sports, with a spice of danger, and these, with an occasional adventurous dash into the wilderness, kept them sound and strong and brave, both in body and mind. There was nothing languid ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... Commodore came to the wind as sharp and suddenly as if he had anchored; but on a second look, I saw his sheets were let fly, haulyards let go, and apparently all was confusion on board of her. I ran to the side and looked over. The long hearing dark blue swell had changed into a light green hissing ripple. ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... circa. 1500 B.C.—Return to use of light ground. Brown lustrous paint, fine surface to clay. Decoration naturalistic, flowers, cuttle-fish, shells, spirals, ripple patterns, white and orange dots and bands occasionally super-imposed on dark glaze (Figs. 7, 10, ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... waves dance, and glimmer, and shine in the sunlight, the long stretch of sand is yellow as a buttercup, and the fringes of graceful casuarina trees quiver like aspens in the breeze, and shimmer in the heat haze. The wash of the waves against the boat's side, and the ripple of the bow make music in your drowsy ears, and, as you glide through cluster after cluster of thickly-wooded islands, you lie in that delightful comatose state in which you have all the pleasure of existence with none of the labour ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... they might be taught the true way to life and eternal happiness. It was 9.30 p.m. when we paddled back to our camp. We met as usual around the camp fire, and each one repeated a verse of Scripture; then we knelt in the shade of the dark bush, with the ripple of the water in our ears, and God's heaven lighted up by His silvery moon, nearly at its full, and offered up our confessions, and prayers, and praises to Almighty God before retiring ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... hissed and ran over the baked earth; where had been dry channels, rents and scars, full of dust, were now singing torrents and broad pools fetlock deep. Prosper let his good beast go his own gait, which was a sober trot, and ever and again as he heard the ripple of running water and the swirl and suck of the eddies in it, he judged that he must soon or late touch the Wan river, whereon stood the Abbey and his bed. What to do with the girl when he got there? That puzzled him. "A well-ordered abbey," he thought, "has no place ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... the declaration amusing, for there was another well-bred ripple; then once more that murmur of trailing skirts, going toward the window-seat; going the opposite way also, as if one of the two was making a circuit ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... intruder—proof against such small fire—repeated the strokes, and the clam was soon brought to light and tumbled ignominiously into the basket,—to be followed every second or two by another of his companions; for the clam holes were many. The basket was soon full, but not before the cool ripple of the tide had passed the muscle rocks and ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... approached the front door of the Oasis and, opening it, stepped inside, his hands resting on his guns—he had packed two Colts for the last twenty-four hours. His appearance caused a ripple of excitement to run around the room. After what had taken place, a visit from him could mean only one thing—trouble. And it was entirely possible that he had others within call to help ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... a line were making a long ripple on the swell. They were the heads of three sea elephants moving like one. Then the line became the segment of a circle bending in shore. But the swimmers were not going to land; they kept parallel to the rocks and a few hundred yards out, and as ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... Dagger Bill's eyes was something terrible. From away across the lake, where no muskrat could see him at all, he could see the ripple made by the brown nose of the littlest muskrat swimming. So one day, when the Water Babies were playing tag in what was really, you know, nothing more nor less than their own back yard, he saw the swift ripples and splashes crossing and recrossing—and ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... barbed wire lay before me, the shapeless gully of an empty trench, and, thirty-five feet away, another blue-gray tangle of barbed wire and a low ripple of the brownish earth. As I looked, one of the random silences of the front stole swiftly into the air. French trench and German trench were perfectly silent; you could have heard ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... other side. The young man was pleased with the arrangement, and sat furtively studying the delicate tinting of her face, the dainty line of cheek and chin and ear, the sweep of her dark lashes, and the ripple of her brown hair, as he tried to converse easily with her, as an old ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... spot it became evident, even to the passengers clustered forward on the cabin-deck, that the sycamore had remained quite near to its old home, for a long, rough ripple was seen directly across ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... ripple of amusement broke over the still, smoky surface of the the veranda. The Woman was always bringing home startling news and this was only one ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... had given, backed by Dick Follingsbee's 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 ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... out of that copse, dark and damp, The fire-flies, each bearing a flickering lamp! Like meteors, gleaming and streaming, they pass O'er hillside and meadow, and dew-laden grass, Contrasting with ripple on river and stream, Alternately playing in shadow and beam, Till fullness of beauty fills hearing and sight Throughout the still hours of ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... bloody purposes of their hearts, than they fired upon them. Neal and Triplett were killed, and fell into the river.—Rowell was missed and escaped by swimming the Kenhawa, the Indians shooting at him as he swam. In a few days after the dead were found in a ripple and buried. The Indians had not been able to draw them from their watery ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... it his thought? It has the shifting inward lustre of diamond. Is it his feeling? It is as delicate as the impressions of fossil ferns. He seems to have caught and fixed for ever in immutable grace the most evanescent and intangible of our intuitions, the very ripple-marks on the remotest shores of being. But this intensity of mood which insures high quality is by its very nature incapable of prolongation, and Wordsworth, in endeavouring it, falls more below himself, and is, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... Pen was painted to the eyes, and her maid was not quite skilful in blending her complexion rightly with her vivid hair; beautiful hair it was, with a large ripple that was most attractive, but Mr. Withells, sitting on the other side of Lady Pen, decided that he didn't approve of her. She was flamboyant and daring of speech. She made him nervous. He ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... more delightfully did subterranean waters ripple around us; only here and there they peeped out amid rocks and bushes, appearing to be reconnoitring if they might yet come to light, until at last one little spring jumped forth boldly. Then followed the usual show—the bravest ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... steadfastness the divine temple of their beauty and their sacrifice. They create, like God. The universe which science sees, studies, and explains, is small, is petty, beside the one which grows under their spiritual touch; for love begets love. The waves of eternity itself ripple out in immortal circles under the ceaseless dropping of their ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... thrill. And then the ripple of excitement gave place to anger. The rabble had lost one of its victims, and that one the chief. Moreover, the presence of that graceful yacht, sleeping so quietly out there in the sunlit harbor, could not but be associated with that most daring deed of the preceding ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... quivering nostrils. No, this was certainly not a natural woman, for nothing human seemed to emanate from her. Her face expressed no emotion, either good or bad, beyond a voluptuousness at once sensual and divine. She doubtless noticed my suffering, for she asked with a voice as clear as the ripple ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... hopelessly becalmed off Thomas's Point. Not a ripple could be seen down the Chesapeake, and the locusts and pines along the shore were shuddering uncomfortably with the heat of a July afternoon, hidden halfway to their tops in the summer haze. What was to be done? Five miles from home in a large sloop yacht filled with strangers from ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... Amal was undermost.... She saw his fair floating locks dash against the cruel stone. His grasp suddenly loosened, his limbs collapsed; two distinct plunges broke the dark sullen water; and then all was still but the awakened ripple, lapping angrily against ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... had been extraordinarily fine. The intense insular clearness one sees only in Ireland, and after rain, was throwing out every ripple in the sea and sky, and every crevice in the hills beyond ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... breakfast had been long over; the company was scattered over the lawn,—some formed into a dance on the smooth lawn; some seated under shady awnings; others gliding amidst parterres, in which all the glow of colour took a glory yet more vivid under the flush of a brilliant sunshine; and the ripple of a soft western breeze. Music, loud and lively, mingled with the laughter of happy children, who formed much the ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... laugh, and then her tone changed to that ripple of frivolity in which nevertheless Mrs Gildea discerned the under-beat ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... 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 ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... at my hand Beneath the green swell, With pathways of glimmering sand And borders of shell. There twinkle the star-fish and there Red jellies unfold; The weed-banners ripple and flare All purple and gold. And have I no poultry? Oh, come When the Equinox lulls; The air is a-flash and a-hum With the tumult of gulls; They whirl in a shimmering cloud Sun-bright on the breeze; They perch on my chimneys and crowd To nest ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... young girl, who has the hill to climb," replied her brother, smoothing her hair with his hand. Her hair was long and smooth and glossy, with a wave like the ripple of a summer breeze upon the surface of still water. It was the girl's great pride, and had been sedulously cared for. "What lovely hair! It has just the ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... water)—the purest of all the maids that have been named from the sea-foam or the rivulet's ripple, unsullied,—not the troubled and troubling Aphrodite, but the Leucothea of Ulysses, ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... lost their smile, and she drew herself up ever so little. There was just a ripple of a quiver of her gentle lips, and she said quite quietly and with a dignity that could not help impressing ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... up there on that plateau, I didn't find any man at all," I ventured faint-heartedly, but with a ripple of my risibles; the last ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... continued to speak on various occasions, and expressed himself so courteously, so modestly, so becomingly, that the members listened in awe and curiosity. Then soon it was discovered that beneath the mild and gentle ripple of his speech ran a deep current of earnest truth, tinged with subtle wit. When he spoke, the loungers came in from the cloakrooms, fearing to miss ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... that I was then at Sorrento by the order of my physician. Never shall I forget the soft autumn day when I sat amongst the lonely rocklets to the left of the town,—the sea before me, with scarce a ripple; my very heart steeped in the melodies of that poem, so marvellous for a strength disguised in sweetness, and for a symmetry in which each proportion blends into the other with the perfectness of a Grecian statue. ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... at first the tones were pure And tender as a summer night, The full moon climbing to her height, The sob and ripple of the seas, The flapping of an idle sail; And then by sudden and sharp degrees The multiplied, wild harmonies Freshened and burst into a gale; A tempest howling through the dark, A crash as of some shipwrecked bark. A loud ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... followed them, looking as if he had gathered up all the gloom of the deserted spot, and was hearing it as a burden of inestimable treasure. But still they rambled on, and soon found themselves in a rocky dell, through the midst of which ran a streamlet, with ripple, and foam, and a continual voice of inarticulate joy. It was a wild retreat, walled on either side with gray precipices, which would have frowned somewhat too sternly, had not a profusion of green shrubbery rooted itself into their crevices, and wreathed gladsome ...
— The Lily's Quest (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... colour of the water entirely changed, a circumstance even remarked by the ladies. About three in the afternoon, being in 19 deg. 30' north latitude, and 19 deg. 45' west longitude, an universal cry was heard upon deck. All declared they saw sand rolling among the ripple of the sea. The Captain in an instant ordered to sound. The line gave eighteen fathoms; but on a second sounding it only gave six. He at last saw his error, and hesitated no longer on changing the route, but it was too late. A strong concussion told us the frigate had struck. ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... huge band of satin, and the slightest motion of the leaves was immediately perceptible in the mirror beneath them. From time to time, the least possible breeze rustled through the trees, and curled the water with a tiny ripple. The water itself was of the brightest emerald-green; and the forest of palmetto stems that grew along the edge, was reflected in it like myriads of swords and lances. In the small creeks and inlets, flocks of swans, pelicans, and wild geese, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... made a profound bow, with a subsidiary backward movement which brought his spine sharply up into a position behind its starting-point, a gesture in which he must have been trained by the husband of his sister, Mme. de Cambremer. This rapid recovery caused a sort of tense muscular wave to ripple over Legrandin's hips, which I had not supposed to be so fleshy; I cannot say why, but this undulation of pure matter, this wholly carnal fluency, with not the least hint in it of spiritual significance, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... 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 repeated his affirmation, ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... gone. Away across the river went a long ripple—what sailors call a cat's paw. The man in the boat was putting up a sail. The moon was coming to herself on the edge of a great cloud, and the sail began to shine white. Diamond rubbed his eyes, and wondered what it was all about. ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... nasal discords of the brethren in choir droning through an office. No one spoke. The prior's lips moved at his prayers; Fra Corinto looked frowningly before him; La Testolina was fidgety to speak, but dared not; Vanna, her long form like a ripple of moonlight in the dusk, cooed under her voice to the baby; he, unheeding cause of so much strife in high places, held out his pair of puckered hands and crowed to the company. So with their thoughts: the prior thought he had seen the Holy Virgin; Fra Corinto thought the prior an old fool; La Testolina ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... with surging roar Its waves dashed wildly on the rocky shore; While on its broad, expansive bosom lay The twinkling orbs in beautiful array; And every pearly drop shone clear and bright, Bathed in a flood of soft and silvery light. Scarcely a ripple stirred its quiet breast; For every sighing breeze was lulled to rest, And every sound was hushed on earth, in air, And silence held supreme ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... of the river 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, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... not finish his speech. The sound of approaching feet on the stairs turned the eyes of every one toward the wide doorway. A ripple of fond surprise circled the room, as Grace descended the last step to be met by Tom Gray. Into the room, hand in hand, stepped two veritable foresters. In his suit of brown corduroy, with his high-laced tan boots, Tom looked as ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... he lost sight of the stranger who melted into the dusky cover of the shadows. Then came a quiet ripple of water close to his own hiding place. The man from the spacer camp was using ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... beat to quarters. Swarms of men set the head-sails and brought the frigate round, while the gun-crews threw off their jackets and shirts, tightened their belts, and ran out their eighteen-pounders, peering through the open portholes at the stately French man. The wind was very light. Hardly a ripple showed itself upon the clear blue water, but the sails blew gently out as the breeze came over the wooded banks. The Frenchman had gone about also, and both ships were now heading slowly for the sea under fore-and-aft canvas, the Gloire a hundred yards ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle |
