"Tread" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thought. I am as those who come in tottering age Even to life's verge, whom loss of friend or child Touches not deeply, since the dead they love Precede them but a stage upon the road Which they shall tread to-morrow. Yet am I Young, and thou too, my Gycia; we should walk The path of life together many years, But that some strange foreboding troubles me. For oh, my dear! now that the sun of love Beams on our days again, my worthless life Grows ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... a new possibility occurred to him, stimulated by a slight noise like the cautious tread of a man's foot. The next instant a cry of alarm almost escaped him as he saw a human form near the entrance of ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... tip of his forefinger, cautiously, as though it were something that had a life of its own. Suddenly they heard Mr. Watson's heavy tread on the stairs. They threw the clothes back on Philip and dashed like rabbits into their cubicles. Mr. Watson came into the dormitory. Raising himself on tiptoe he could see over the rod that bore the green curtain, and he looked into two or three of the cubicles. The little boys were safely ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... "Tread lightly on his ashes, ye men of genius, for he was your kinsman! Weed clean his grave, ye men of goodness, for he ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... in which all the facts of war that we had put behind or forgotten for the past hundred years have returned to the front and test us as they tested our fathers. It will be a long and a hard road, beset with difficulties and discouragements, but we tread it together and we will tread it together ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... development certain pre-arrangements of nerve-cells and muscle-cells which secure that a fit and proper answer is given to a frequently recurrent stimulus. An earthworm half out of its burrow becomes aware of the light tread of a thrush's foot, and jerks itself back into its hole before anyone can say "reflex action." What is it ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... eye. I dived down below again, and I returned aft to the cabin; there was no more demand for powder; not a soul was to be seen abaft. Suddenly the after-hatchway grating was thrown off; I heard some one descend; I knew it was the hurried tread of the negro captain. It was so dark, and the cabin so full of smoke, that, coming from the light, he did not perceive me, although I could distinguish him. He was evidently badly wounded, and tottered ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... warmth, however, had another and less pleasing aspect. The snow lost its icy case-hardening. A rot set in. On the hill-tops the ice was not always reliable. In the valleys men sank up to their knees in slushy depths. Even the broad tread of snow-shoes failed to save them. Then, too, the dogs floundered belly-deep, and the broad bottoms of the sleds alone saved the outfit from complete disaster. The increasing hardships left Steve without respite. It was only on the hill-tops, when the veer of the wind carried it to the northward, ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... As he watched the progress of that slight gray-haired figure Gordon refused to believe the evidence of his own eyes. The thing was too utterly absurd—yet Gordon was positive that the strong oak floor of the dancing space was visibly swaying and creaking beneath the stranger's mincing tread! ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... worse, for how many a confounded slip is daily got by man with all his foresight about him. Besides, the eyes of the understanding see best when those of the senses are out of the way, and therefore blind men are observed to tread their steps with much more caution, and conduct, and judgment than those who rely with too much confidence upon the virtue of the visual nerve, which every little accident shakes out of order, and a drop or a film can wholly disconcert; like a lanthorn among ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... subordination intolerable. It chose a moment of national disaster to assert complete equality, and so used its powers that at last the Union became inevitable. It is surely no remedy for the ancient wrongs of Ireland—real, alas! though they were—that we should compel her again to tread the weary round of constitutional experiment, and that, in the name of Irish Nationalism, we should again make her the victim of an outworn English scheme, which has been tried, which has failed, which has been discarded, and which, in my judgment, ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... said the gaoler; "but take care how you tread, for the steps are somewhat worn, and you may chance to break your necks some days ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... tea. Joan took an instinctive dislike to her. She was a large, flashy woman, wearing a quantity of cheap jewellery. Her familiarity had about it something almost threatening. Joan waited till she heard the woman's heavy tread descending the stairs, before she expressed ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... of punishment, by avoiding the act which will expose him to it; but with regard to the borders of treason, I believe no man will yet pretend to say how far they extend, or how soon, or with how little intention he may tread upon them. Unhappy would be the man who should be punished for bordering upon guilt, of which those fatal borders are to be dilated at pleasure by his judges. The law has hitherto supposed every man, who is not guilty, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... the officer. It was handed over, and the party moved with heavy tread along the passage and ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... arc of generations comprised in the subject, have deterred competent persons from attempting it; yet therefore is it only the more strange that incompetent persons have not essayed "this great argument," since they generally rush in, where their betters fear to tread. A history of roads is, in great measure indeed, a history of civilization itself. For highways and great cities not merely presuppose the existence of each other, but are also the issues and exponents of two leading impulses in the nature of man. Actuated by the one—the ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... I don't; you know it would kill me," she answered in a voice that was thick with passion, "you know I worship the ground you tread on, and hate every woman you go near, yes, even my cousin who has been so good to me, and whom I love. I will take the risk and come with you, believing you to be an honest gentleman, who would not deceive a girl who trusts him; and if ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... perfectly happy. His feet no longer seemed to tread the ground; he was borne aloft by his burning desire to pass sentence on all the wickedness he had seen committed. He had all the credulity of a little child, all the confidence of a hero. If Logre had told him that the Genius of Liberty perched on the Colonne de Juillet[*] would have come down ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... another story of his infant precocity generally circulated, and generally believed, the truth of which I am to refute upon his own authority. It is told, that, when a child of three years old, he chanced to tread upon a duckling, the eleventh of a brood, and killed it; upon which, it is said, he dictated to ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... softly there rises above the flood of sound a little rippling melody which comes, and goes, and comes again, growing ever sweeter with repetition. And now the roar of wind is changed to the swing of marching feet, the tread of a mighty host whose step is strong and free; and lo! they are singing, as they march, and the song is bold and wild, wild, wild. Again and again, beneath the song, beneath the rhythm of marching feet, the melody rises, very sweet ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... fayre love, of lillyes and of roses, Bound truelove wize, with a blew silke riband. And let them make great store of bridale poses, And let them eeke bring store of other flowers, To deck the bridale bowers. And let the ground whereas her foot shall tread, For feare the stones her tender foot should wrong, Be strewed with fragrant flowers all along, And diapred lyke the discolored mead. Which done, doe at her chamber dore awayt, For she will waken strayt; The whiles doe ye ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... foot hath been, he maketh His track o'er the snowy plain; And listens the tread of phantoms dread, With banner ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... courage, our separation will be short; the new duties which your marriage will impose upon you will confirm your steps still more in the path of forgetfulness and felicity in which you will henceforth tread, for finally, if you should one day be a mother, it would not be only for yourself that it would be necessary you should ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... feet this summer eve? Hast found a pasture green in which to tread, Beside refreshing waters art thou led, Content beyond my powers to conceive? Does overflowing cup thy thirst relieve, With princely feast hast thou thy hunger fed, Uplifted high is thine anointed head, Among thy kind dost ...
— Edward MacDowell • Elizabeth Fry Page
... heard the Maid's iron tread pass down the creaking wooden stairs, and soon I heard the sound of singing birds, for my window ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... accidently tread upon the toes, or otherwise disturb a guest, teach them at once to apologize with an "Excuse me," or, "I beg your pardon." Do not permit them to slam doors, or to shout up and down stairs. Never allow ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... fraud when it is detected, is the proper act of vindictive justice; but to prevent frauds, and make punishment unnecessary, is the great employment of legislative wisdom. To permit Intromission, and to punish fraud, is to make law no better than a pitfall. To tread upon the brink is safe; but to come a step further is destruction. But, surely, it is better to enclose the gulf, and hinder all access, than by encouraging us to advance a little, to entice us afterwards a little further, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... should probably do better, if we were to endeavour rather to draw him off from these dark and slippery regions, (slippery in truth they are to every human foot) and to contend with him, where we might tread with firmness and freedom, on sure ground, and in the light of day. Then we might fairly lay before him all the various arguments for the truth of our holy religion; arguments which have been sufficient to ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... home of her widowhood. If she gave it up, how could she live in peace with the consciousness ever in her brain that the Holy of Holies in which Adrian had worked and died was being profaned by vulgar tread? Our suggestions were callous, monstrous, everything that could arise from earth-bound non-percipience of sacred things. We could only prevail upon her to postpone her return to the flat until such time as she was physically strong enough to ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... Bennet, the biggest and merriest man in the colony, came in and roared his appreciation of Isaac's return. He was a huge man, and when he stalked into the room he made the floor shake with his heavy tread. His honest face expressed his pleasure as he stood over Isaac and ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... prayer, pinned to a shrine, for a body intact as I tread the path that drops straight down the mountain, through the crimson glory of the maples and the blazing yellow of the gingko tree, to the tiny little station far away that looks ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... must have gone along the way of life heralded by sweetest things, by the song of birds, by the gold radiance of the buttercups, by the varied shadows of those beautiful trees under which the cows gently tread the grass. English does not seem exactly the language in which to write of Ireland, with its sylvan wonders of natural beauty. Madame de Sevigne's descriptions of her woods came to my mind. It is not a place which delights one by its actual sensual ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... another breathless moment. Why did Tania not rise to the surface like the rest of them? Madge was trying to tread water and to keep a sharp lookout about her, but her clothes were heavy and kept pulling her down; swimming in heavy shoes is an extremely difficult business, even for an experienced swimmer. All of a sudden it occurred to Madge ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... the very edge and border of Eternity; and when the news of it was borne to my mother I have little doubt but that she imagined it to be a visitation—a punishment upon her for having strayed for that brief season of her adolescence from the narrow flinty path that she had erst claimed to tread in the footsteps ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... unable to grasp the real political character of the American people, the path they were destined to tread, the shape their institutions must necessarily take. He was possessed with the idea that liberty was in danger, and that the attempt was made to change the republic into a monarchy, perhaps a despotism. This delirious fancy beset him by day and was a terror by night. He was haunted by the likeness ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... was thrown slightly forward, his chin protruding stubbornly, and as he listened there was borne to his ears another sound. It was as if something was approaching with a soft tread. He could ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... one was allowed to approach him. Far from his adored family, and from all those friends whom he loved so dearly, the only forms which flitted before his eyes were those of the grim jailor and his rough attendants—the only sounds which fell on his dying ear the heavy tread of the sentry. He retained, however, the calmness of his soul and the possession of his faculties to the last. And the consciousness of dying for his country, and in the cause of justice and liberty, illumined like a bright halo his later moments and kept up his fortitude to the ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... he does some good with his icy tread, For he keeps the corn-seeds warm in their bed, He dries up the damp which the rain had spread, And renders the air more healthy; He taught the boys to slide, and he flung Rich Christmas gifts o'er the old and young, And when cries for ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... pieces as he walked; whereupon our young man quickened his step. Finding the parlor empty, he instinctively crossed over to a small room adjoining it, which Gertrude had converted into a modest conservatory; and as he did so, hardly knowing it, he lightened his heavy-shod tread. The glass door was open and Richard looked in. There stood Gertrude with her back to him, bending apart with her hands a couple of tall flowering plants, and looking through the glazed partition behind them. Advancing a step, and glancing over the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... letting their feet touch the ground.[5] It was an evil omen if the king of Dosuma touched the ground, and he had to perform an expiatory ceremony.[6] Within his palace the king of Persia walked on carpets on which no one else might tread; outside of it he was never seen on foot but only in a chariot or on horseback.[7] In old days the king of Siam never set foot upon the earth, but was carried on a throne of gold from place to place.[8] Formerly neither the kings of Uganda, nor their mothers, nor their queens might walk on ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... keep it always an' read a bit in it ev'ry day," the boy thought, as with the little book in his hand he crept silently down the stairs. They creaked under the light tread of his bare feet as they never had creaked in the daytime. He crossed the wide hall, unfastened the door, and passed ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... with his noiseless tread came to her. 'Asleep still? So is he. All right. Here, waken me ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the rope ditto, and has been induced to take to the road solely by Fate, brandy and (not salt, but) Barbara! By some extraordinary accident, every character in the piece, with two exceptions, have occasion to tread this scene—"Holloway and heath near the village of Holloway" (painted from the best authorities), just exactly in time to be robbed by Ketch; who shows himself a perfect master of his business, and a credit to his instructor; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... swollen with fat, like a blown-out water-skin, With thighs like the pillars of stone that buttress a mountain's head, Lo, if she walk in the West, so cumbrous her corpulence is The Eastern hemisphere hears the sound of her heavy tread." ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... haughty," announced Josiah Brown. "I should not care to tread on her toes much." And then he remembered he had seen her years ago driving through the little town ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... he trod, Grew divine as he gazed on God: Light in a fiery whirlwind broke Out of the dark divine and spoke: Man went forth through the vast to tread By the spirit of ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... We tread upon earth and revile it, forgetting that at last it hides our defects and that through it our dead hearts climb to blossom in violets and rue. Death is the Wanderer's Rest, where there is no questioning, but the same healing sleep for all. In that divine peace, ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... that is, of fundamental human nature, Mr. Raymount was not good at reading a man who made himself agreeable, and did not tread on the toes of any of his theories—of which, though mostly good, he made too much, as every man of theory does. I would not have him supposed a man of theory only: such a man is hardly man at all; but while he thought of the practice, he too sparingly practiced the ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... adorned with three lines like those in a conch shell, of sweet speech, of eyes resembling the petals of a full blown lotus, and of a face like that of the dignity of Meru, resembling the bull of Mahadeva as regards neck, eyes, tread, and voice, endued with arms that were large, massive, and well-joined, having a chest that was broad and well-formed, equal unto Garuda or the wind in speed and might, gifted with a splendour like that of the rays of the Sun, rivalling Usanas himself in intelligence ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... harbour, which Demosthenes, Cicero's own great prototype, had outvoiced with the thunder of his declamation. So countless, indeed, are the memories of the past called up by the genius of the place, that (as one of the friends remarks) "wherever we plant our feet, we tread upon some history". Then Piso, speaking at Cicero's request, begs his friends to turn from the degenerate thinkers of their own day to those giants of philosophy, from whose writings all liberal learning, all history, and all elegance of language may be derived. More than all, ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... wall, picking there an ivy leaf, and it knows me not. It is holy ground to me. It is the mistress whose hand alone I as yet dare to kiss. Some day I shall possess the whole, and I shall walk with the firm and buoyant tread of the accepted, delighted lover. Only to-day I am nobody. I am crowded out. Yet there are moments when the mere joy of being in England, of being in London, satisfies me. I have seen the sunbeam strike the glory along the green. I know it is an ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... a deep, dark pit, and lay in its miry bottom, groaning and utterly unable to move. He heard a man walking by close enough to see his plight. But with stately tread he walked on without volunteering to help. ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... repute, that we must mention it lightly and rapidly, just as we would tread over hot embers. According to the story of the poet, the women have taken it into their heads to compel their husbands, by a severe resolution, to make peace. Under the direction of a clever leader they organize a conspiracy ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... went trampling heavy tread, * And she hath ta'en a vengeance dire on every Arab's head. A Kafir youth like fullest moon in darkness hands her round * Whose eyne are strongest cause of sin ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... cavalier-strides she crossed the room. She threw herself upon the table and proceeded to boast of her doings for Moll's benefit, swinging her feet meanwhile. "I ran the gamut. I had all the paces of the truest cavalier. I could tread a measure, swear like one from the wars, crook my elbow, lie, gamble, fight—Fight? ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... an element of good in all men's lawful pursuits and a divine spirit breathing in all their lawful affections. The ground on which they tread is holy ground. There is a natural religion of life, answering, with however many a broken tone, to the religion of nature. There is a beauty and glory in Humanity, in man, answering, with however many a mingling shade, to the loveliness of soft landscapes, and swelling hills, and the wondrous glory ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... seek to become sufficiently acquainted with the beautiful in nature to secure to themselves the rich fund of happiness which it is so well able to give. There is not a worm we tread upon, nor a rare leaf that dances merrily as it falls before the autumn winds, but has superior claims upon our study and admiration. The child who plucks a rose to pieces, or crushes the fragile form of a fluttering ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... with wonder at the wealth of new impressions which surged to his brain through every sense. He longed for more, and the open gateway of the campong was a scarce needed invitation to pass to the wide world beyond. With the free and easy tread of utter unconsciousness of self, he passed across the enclosure and stepped out into the clearing which lay between the ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... that he will, after an hour or two of rubbing and scraping, develop in a portion of it an odor which, if the whole grain were used, would be capable of pervading an apartment, a house, a village, a province, an empire, nay, the entire atmosphere of this broad planet upon which we tread; and that from each of fifty or sixty substances he can in this way develop a distinct and hitherto unknown odor: and if he tries to show that all this is rendered quite reasonable by the analogy of musk and roses, I shall certainly be justified in considering him incapable of reasoning, ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... arrived upon this post, advancing with head erect and light elastic tread, no one could have recognised Pepe the sleeper— Pepe, habitually plunged in a profound state of somnolence—Pepe, of downcast mien and slow dragging gait—and yet it was he. His eyes, habitually half shut, were now sparkling in their sockets, as if even the slightest ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... you do start you go in a hurry, don't you?" Carolyn June said as the broncho went rapidly forward as if eager to negotiate the crossing, seeming to know that safety lay in the quickness and lightness of his tread. As he lunged ahead the girl had the sensation that the saddle was sinking from under her. Reaching the firmer footing of the gravel bar in the center of the stream Old Blue tried again to ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... impression of a lawless adventurer, brutal, heartless, with low instincts and rapid perceptions. Together with his own autobiography, he gives a picture of the world in which he lives and brags, a picture so vivid ... that as one reads one almost seems to hear the tread of remorseless fate sounding through all the din and merriment. Take those descriptions of the Prussian army during the Seven Years' War, and of that hand of man which weighs so heavily upon man—what ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... appearances a full-blooded wolf. Leclere was lying asleep in his furs when Batard deemed the time to be ripe. He crept upon him stealthily, head low to earth and lone ear laid back, with a feline softness of tread. Batard breathed gently, very gently, and not till he was close at hand did he raise his head. He paused for a moment and looked at the bronzed bull throat, naked and knotty, and swelling to a deep steady pulse. The slaver dripped ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... the tempest given": but aware also that in time to come those few who dared speak and take their chance in this matter, whether remembered or not, will have been the pioneers in reforming an abuse which daily makes daylight hideous. He who does betray the future for fear of the present should tread timidly upon his Mother Earth lest he awake her to gape and bury her ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... responsibility must lastly rest. And such times are pre-eminently, sire, Those wherein thought alone is not enough To serve the head as guide. As Emperor, As father, both, to you, to you in sole Must appertain the privilege to pronounce Which track stern duty bids you tread herein. ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... shuddering breath as if some dull, slumbering pain had wakened into life again. Then, in fierce self-mastery, he rose, stretched his tall form to its full height, and, ascending to the upper deck, began to pace its dimming length with the stern, swift tread of one whose life is a restless, joyless march through ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... better he seemed pleased. It was very curious to see this big bird with thirty or forty little animated balls of yellow cotton following him about, while he moved majestically along, setting down his feet with the greatest care not to tread on them, and swelling himself up with jealous anger at the approach of a ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... released himself from the sweet embrace and gently pushed her back. "That can never be—never will I accept such a sacrifice from you. No, you shall not bury your beauty, your youthful bloom in a living tomb. Your tender foot is not made to tread the rough paths of life. The proud Baroness de Simonie, accustomed to the splendor, luxury, and comfort of existence must not drag out her life in unworthy humiliation. I thank you, love, for the sacrifice you ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach
... fasting and singing her plaintive songs. There she pined away, taking little nourishment, and constantly desiring to pass away to that land of expected bliss and freedom from care, where it is believed that the spirits of men will be again reunited, and tread over fields of flowery enjoyment. And when death came to her, it was not as the bearer of gloom and regrets, but as the herald of happiness. After her decease, the mysterious bird was never more seen, and it became a popular ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... were not so rhythmic in their tread. Some of the lines were very dragging and straggly; the old feet shuffled and faltered in a way which showed that their march was nearly over. Not fifty yards away from Queed, one veteran pitched out of the ranks; he was lifted up and received into the house opposite ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... train on Ladrone, who led the way with a fine stately tread, his deep brown eyes alight with intelligence, his sensitive ears attentive to every word. He had impressed me already by his learning and gentleness, but when one of my packhorses ran around him, entangling me in the lead rope, pulling me to the ground, ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... way to move from tomb to tomb and from chapel to chapel. The day was gradually wearing away; the distant tread of loiterers about the abbey grew less and less frequent; the sweet-tongued bell was summoning to evening prayers; and I saw at a distance the choristers in their white surplices crossing the aisle and entering the choir. I stood before the entrance to Henry the Seventh's chapel. ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... house. Alexander could not now abide the sight of this cripple who had spied, and had not shot some fashion of arrow! He said good-by and loosed Black Alan from the ash-tree and rode away. He would not tread the glen. His memory recoiled from it as from some Eastern glen of serpents. He and Black Alan went over the moors. And still it was early and he had his body strength ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... a good walker. Shoulders, head, and hips drawn well back, and the chest thrown forward. What a firm, vigorous tread! Such a walk may easily be secured by carrying a weight upon the head. An iron crown has been devised for this purpose. It consists of three crowns, one within the other, each weighing about nine pounds. One or all three may be ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... twiggy willow that looked like tamarisk from a distance. The sun was now hot, and the ground was again all astir with lizards. Looking upon the path just in front of me, I brought myself to a sudden stop. Had I advanced a step or two more I could hardly have failed to tread upon a serpent that lay dozing in the sun just in my way. I was glad that I did not do so, for I recognised it, by its olive skin with reddish patches, as the dreaded aspic, or red viper. There it lay stretched out its full length, ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... without punishment, and you shall know what myne office is, and how I ought to punish such as offend. Then he took my basket and cast the fish on the ground, and commanded one of his Sergeants to tread them under his feet. This done he perswaded me to depart, and sayd that onely shame and reproach done unto the old Caitife did suffice him, So I went away amazed and astonied, towards the Baines, considering with myself and devising of the grace of my companion ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... conscience-stricken that I had let him go in so unsympathetic a manner.—At last I proceeded on my journey, and after driving half a verst from the posting-station I observed, ahead of me on the road, a crowd of people moving along with a strange and as it were measured tread. I overtook this crowd,—and what did I see?—Twelve beggars, with wallets on their shoulders, were walking by twos, singing and skipping as they went,—-and at their head danced Misha, stamping time with his feet and saying: "Natchiki-tchikaldi, ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... It was not the staircase by which he had ascended, and he proceeded to explore its lower part. Entering from the blaze of light without, and imagining the stairs to descend as usual, he became aware after a few steps that there was suddenly nothing to tread on, and found himself precipitated downwards to ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... pirouettes of marionettes, They tripped on pointed tread: But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear, As their grisly masque they led, And loud they sang, and loud they sang, For they sang ...
— The Ballad of Reading Gaol • Oscar Wilde
... strength and weakness of his character. For such as he are weak as well as strong; weak in the absence of the innumerable little sympathies and worldlinesses which make life delightful, and but too apt to despise and tread upon those gentle flowers which are as really here as the sun and the stars, and are nearer to us. Zachariah found in the Corsair exactly what answered to his own inmost self, down to its very depths. The lofty style, the scorn of what is mean and base, the courage—root ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... to evening mess when the order, "All hands on the gig falls!" was given, and the master-at-arms chased us off the gun deck. Soon the measured tread of many feet could be heard, and then the order was given by the officer of the deck to the coxswain of the gig, "Secure ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... take that freedom ill. E'en from my tongue some heart-felt truths may fall, And outraged Nature claims the care of all. My tale in any place would force a tear, But calls for stronger, deeper feelings here; For whilst I tread the free-born British land, Whilst now before me crowded Britons stand,— Vain, vain that glorious privilege to me, I am a slave, where all things ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... schisms, it raises them and invests them with a reputation. The punishing of wits enhances their authority, saith the Viscount St. Albans; and a forbidden writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth that flies up in the faces of them who seek to tread it out. This Order, therefore, may prove a nursing-mother to sects, but I shall easily show how it will be a step-dame to Truth: and first by disenabling us to the maintenance of what ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... just what only an Irishman would ever have made any thing out of; for while he was stumbling about, he happened to tread upon my toes, and never, since I was born, did I feel any thing like the weight of him. 'Well,' said I, 'the loss of your hat may give you a cold, my friend; but upon my conscience you are in no danger of ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... environment are concerned. As I advance, my body cannot be regarded as the sole cause of the changes which are taking place. My progress would be impossible without the aid of the ground upon which I tread. Nor can I accuse the tile of being the sole cause of my demolition. Had I not been what I was and where I was, the tile would have fallen in vain. I must be regarded as a concurrent cause of my own disaster, and my unhappy state is attributable ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... trees lay thee all along, Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground; So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread, Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves, ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... principles upon which our Government was founded; and when you deny them, and when you deny to us the right to withdraw from a Government which, thus perverted, threatens to be destructive of our rights, we but tread in the path of our fathers when we proclaim our independence, and take the hazard. This is done not in hostility to others, not to injure any section of the country, not even for our own pecuniary benefit; but from the high and ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... grown grey with the thick mosses of romance and superstition. But tradition must always have that little stone of truth as its kernel; and perhaps he who rejects all, is likelier to be wrong than even foolish folk like myself who love to believe all, and who tread the new paths, thinking ever ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... tongue, nor her prosperous, money-loving, acutely mercantile uncle Karil; but, nevertheless, she was in some degree so subject to them, that she knew that she was bound to tell them what path in life she meant to tread. Madame Zamenoy had offered to take her niece to the prosperous house in the Windberg-gasse when the old house in the Kleinseite had become poor and desolate; and though this generous offer had been most fatuously ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... cotton into his ears. Fancy had obstinately a mind to bring his mother's gentle tread about him, and to ring the sweet tones of home, and to shew him pictures of the summer light on the hills, and of the little snow-spread valley of winter. Nay, by the side of that cold fireplace, with Mr. Glanbally at one corner and himself ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... rush in where angels fear to tread, surely they often rush to their undoing. Kathryn followed the trail to the cabin in the woods, breathlessly and in momentary danger of breaking her ankles, for she teetered painfully on her French heels and humorously wished that when the Lord was making hills He had made them all down-grade; ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... behind and throws handfuls of grain into the furrow: a flock of sheep or goats brings up the rear, and as they walk, they tread the seed into the ground. The herdsmen crack their whips and sing some country song at the top of their voices,—based on the complaint of some fellah seized by the corvee to clean out a canal. "The digger is in the water with the fish,—he talks ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... life "one woe doth tread upon the other's heel!" How continually, while one of those small private tragedies that I have spoken of is being enacted within, the actors are called upon to meet some other tragedy from without, so that external energy counteracts inward emotion, ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... can I do now! (Aside.) Oh! my dear, I have been in such a fright, that I forgot to tell you, poor Mr. Spintext has a sad fit of the colic, and is forced to lie down upon our bed—you'll disturb him; I can tread softlier. ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... tide still tread These hollows and in each cold void cave spread? How shall Love here keep Eternal ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... of a system, or of the publishers and active propagators of a system, which swept away the very foundation of the existing establishment. The one was nothing more than what it would be, in popish countries, to add a saint to the calendar; the other was to abolish and tread under foot ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... is most in apprehension; And the poor beetle that we tread upon, In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... poked his head into an open hatchway, and gave some order to an unseen person. A moment later a Chinaman, the same whose face I had seen as we came aboard, shot out of the hatchway, glided past me as he crossed the deck with silent tread, and vanished into the cabin we had just left. Baxter came back to me, pulling out a cigarette case. "Yes?" he said, offering it. "About ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... dances can you give me? I've kept my programme as free as I could till I found you. I thought the pixies must have spirited you away! What did you say? I ought to ask Gwen? It isn't necessary in the least. You know I'm a duffer at it, and I should probably tread on her toes and she'd hate me for evermore. ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... not ask him,' she said at last, looking away across the room at the blank wall. 'I will not belie my own heart. I do not want to see him here. He has so far got the better of me; but I will not put my neck beneath his feet for him to tread on me.' ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... expressed, whether pure surprise, indignation, or contempt—most of the last, perhaps: he longed to hear it repeated, but he had not that satisfaction. Lord Oldborough turned abruptly—walked up and down the room with such a firm tread as sounded ominously ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... feet which tread in lowliest ways, Yet follow Christ, Are by the secular lords of power and praise Both washed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... Wilhelmina Schulenberg, and though he shuddered with a sort of repulsion at thought of her hard lot, it was not sympathy with Mina Schulenberg that had arrested his steps at the mouth of this human hive. To his imagination it seemed that these dark, uninviting stairs were yet warm with the tread of the feet of Phillida Callender; it could not be more than two hours since she came down. So instead of following the route of a month ago through Tompkins Square and Eighth street, as he had half ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... a loud confident voice. A young man without fear, without reverence, without imagination, without sense, hopelessly insusceptible to the Napoleonic or any other idea, stupendously egotistical, eminently qualified to rush in where angels fear to tread, yet of a vigorous babbling vitality which bustles him into the thick of things. He is just now boiling with vexation, attributable by a superficial observer to his impatience at not being promptly attended to by the staff of the inn, but in ...
— The Man of Destiny • George Bernard Shaw
... husbands, and brothers, and sisters, and unconscionable friends, by doing their duties for them. You recognize that you yourself are on a downward path when you leave duties undone. You have no right to help any one else to tread that path. It is much pleasanter to spoil your brothers than to make them take their fair share of family burdens; it is much pleasanter to be popular,—but if your brother grows up selfish, three-fourths of the sin will be on your head. You will have to be very careful ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... repeated your experiments in relation to the collection of the mud, turf, sods, etc., and have known them to be carried many hundred miles off and identified. I have also found the little depressions caused by the tread of cattle affording a fine nidus for the plants. You have only to scrape the minutest point off with a needle or tooth pick to find an abundance by examination. I have not been able to explore many other sites, nor do I care, as I found all the materials I sought ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... broken a woman's heart. I have spurned the passionate love of a woman who has been near and dear to me; a woman of great nature; a woman of subtle brain who has been my chosen companion, my equal partner in any intellectual path I chose to tread; a sensitive lady, with all the graciousness of soul that term conveys. Heaven knows what a woman can see in me to love. I look in the glass at my bony, hawk-like face, on which the stamp of futility seems eternally set, ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... which, alas! many girls tread boldly, scattering much feather-bloom from the wings of poor Psyche, gathering for her hoards of unlovely memories, and sowing the seed of many a wish that they had done differently. They cannot pass over such ground and escape ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... top. As I lay in the trench, the darling old titan passed me, leveling the wire in front, and I had then an even keener realization of what it meant for Fritz to have these monsters piling over and smashing him under foot just about as a man would tread on a worm and mash it. And if there ever was one time during my entire three years of campaigning, when I felt an atom of sympathy for the gray-clad devils, it ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... pad of camel's feet approached upon the road without his hearing them. He was not roused from his absorption until the camel stopped its tread so near him that he started and looked up. It was necessary that he should look up a long way. He was a deformed little child, and the camel was a tall and splendid one, with rich trappings and golden bells. The man it carried was ...
— The Little Hunchback Zia • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... midst the mouldering relics of the dead In shapes fantastic, which the brethren rear, Profaned by heretic's unhallowed tread, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... just samples of countless expressions of love and devotion for Jerusalem, their happy home. And all the time of the captivity in Babylon the Jews were longing to be once more in Jerusalem! Oh, to see the city of cities again; oh, to tread once more the streets of the holy Jerusalem! They could not even think of ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... Holy Land 'Tis mine in life to tread, Bear thou to Scotland's kindly earth The relics of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... to the south-west, and ascending gradually, gloomy, precipitous, mountain masses rose to view on either hand, with detached snow-beds lying in their clefts. The caravan moved slowly, and apparently with a more solemn, measured tread. The Bedouins became serious and silent, and looked steadily before them, as if to catch the first glimpse of some revered object. The space before us gradually expanded, when suddenly Tualeb, pointing to a black, perpendicular cliff, whose two ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... pursue the inquiry further there was a firm tread on the porch steps, and the old man rose from the chair, his ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the others, and all was quiet except for the captain's measured tread, for he was slowly pacing the ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... remember edging along the sunless side of the small mouldy houses and pausing very often to look at nothing in particular. It was all very hot, very hushed, very resignedly but very persistently old. A wheeled vehicle in such a place is an event, and the forestiero's interrogative tread in the blank sonorous lanes has the privilege of bringing the inhabitants to their doorways. Some of the better houses, however, achieve a sombre stillness that protests against the least curiosity as to what may happen ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... supposed to be a sacrifice: my selfe and diuers of my company standing by, they were desirous to haue me go into the smoke, I willed them likewise to stand in the smoke, which they by no meanes would do. I then tooke one of them, and thrust him into the smoke, and willed one of my company to tread out the fire, and to spurne it into the sea, which was done to shew them that we did contemne their sorcery. [Sidenote: Great theeues.] These people are very simple in all their conuersation, but marueillous theeuish, especially for iron, which they haue in great account. They began through ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... horse form in clearly preserved. When a harvester grows weary at his work, it is said, "He has the fatigue of the Horse." The first sheaf, called the "Cross of the Horse," is placed on a cross of boxwood in the barn, and the youngest horse on the farm must tread on it. The reapers dance round the last blades of corn, crying, "See the remains of the Horse." The sheaf made out of these last blades is given to the youngest horse of the parish (commune) to eat. This youngest horse of the parish clearly represents, as Mannhardt says, the corn-spirit ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... crowd within with stones it plucked from an embankment. I saw untenanted land cars shooting wild through packed streets. Great ponderous tractors left the fields and moved in ordered array on the panic-stricken cities. Methodically they pursued the fleeing aristos, and crushed them beneath their tread ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... loose confederacy of differing political groups, embracing paupers and millionaires, moderate anti-slavery men and slave barons, all of whom were held together by the unreliable bond of an agreement not to tread ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... to go up the steps in the evening, he tramped and stamped so on the way, that they had to beg him to tread softly lest the King should come to know it. So he came into the Princess' bedroom, lay down, and began to snore at once. Then the Princess ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... quite sure that all was right with the young "foreigner," but this idea she abandoned as much because she felt that such a visit would necessitate an explanation which she would dislike to make, as because her many burdens would have made the way a long and difficult one to tread. How could she tell Layson that Joe Lorey might resent his helping her to study, might resent the other hours which they had spent so pleasantly among the mountain rocks and forest trees together, might, in short, be ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... everyone gave liberty to fart at his own ease, if that the blankets had no streaks wherein the liars were to be crossed with a ruffian-like crew, and, the rainbow being newly sharpened at Milan to bring forth larks, gave his full consent that the good woman should tread down the heel of the hip-gut pangs, by virtue of a solemn protestation put in by the little testiculated or codsted fishes, which, to tell the truth, were at that time very necessary for understanding the syntax and construction of old boots. Therefore John Calf, her cousin gervais once ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... others who are obstinate will perish in the battle. In all these battles and victories of the Church, Mary, blessed mother of her divine Founder, co-operates with the Church through her intercession. Mary was already spoken of in paradise as the one who would come to tread upon the head of the serpent, the spirit of darkness. This she has done by becoming the mother of God, by bringing forth the Redeemer. And as Jesus through Mary's co-operation came into this world, so He desires her ...
— The Excellence of the Rosary - Conferences for Devotions in Honor of the Blessed Virgin • M. J. Frings
... around us keep up their perpetual sonorous chirping. The mountain smells delicious. The atmosphere, the dawning day, the infantine grace of these little girls in their long frocks and shiny coiffures-all is redundant with freshness and youth. The flowers and grasses on which we tread sparkle with dewdrops, exhaling a perfume of freshness. What undying beauty there is, even in Japan, in the fresh morning hours in the country, and the dawning ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... how we step, too, on that first time "in." We lift each foot like a trotting thoroughbred. We step high, we step lightly. We tread as daintily as does a gray tomcat when he encounters a glass topped ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... machinery by running bamboo supports from the shoulders of the men behind to the shoulders of the men in front: you can see the constant, tortuous play of the muscles around each man's rigid backbone while the strained, monotonous, half-weird chorus, "Hy-ah! Hullah! Hee-ah! Hey!" measures their tread and shifts the strain from man to man, step by step, with the precision of clock work. On the rivers in China, too, one sees boats run by human treadmill power: a harder task than that of Sisyphus is that of the men who sweat all day long at the wheel, ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... out that I could not rely, with my usual cheerful confidence, upon myself to achieve the constantly recurring task, and began to feel (for the first time in my life) giddy, jarred, shaken, faint, uncertain of voice and sight and tread and touch, and dull of spirit. The medical advice I sought within a few hours, was given in two words: 'instant rest.' Being accustomed to observe myself as curiously as if I were another man, and knowing the advice to ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... the big sailor. "No, no, messmate; you keep hold o' the barrel and walk alongside. I'll ladle it out. Mind, all on you, not to tread in the dust. D'yer hear, darkie? Keep back, I tell you; too many cooks ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... ze-e-e-e-e" close to the ear of the passer-by, who otherwise might not hear the low grasshopper-like song. At the north the bird somehow loses the shyness that makes it comparatively little known farther south. Depending upon the scrub and grass to conceal it, you may almost tread upon it before it startles you by its sudden rising with a whirring noise, only to drop to the ground again just a few yards farther away, where it scuds among the underbrush and is lost to sight Tall weeds and fence-rails ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... my ravished eyes, Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise; Poetic fields encompass me around, And still I seem to tread on classic ground." ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... the brink of a precipice, be calm? Can a man be calm on the verge of the grave? I love you, Agatha, with a true and holy love; but still with a love fierce and untameable. You reviled me when I said I worshipped you, but I adore the ground you tread on, and the air you breathe. I would shed my last drop of blood to bring you ease; but I could not live and see you give that fair hand to another. My joy would be to remain ever as your slave; but then the heart that beats beneath your bosom must be my own. Agatha, I await ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... Nicholas Attwood, his blue eyes shining with delight. "Hurrah, hurrah, for the Admiral's men!" And high in the air he threw his cap, as a wild cheer broke from the eddying crowd, and the arches of the long gray bridge rang hollow with the tread of hoofs. Whiff, came the wind; down dropped the hat upon the very saddle-peak of one tall fellow riding along among the rest. Catching it quickly as it fell, he laughed and tossed it back; and when Nick caught ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... Mundi, or Spirit of the World, had, as a skilful experimentalist, constructed somewhere an excellent electric machine, and from it proceed certain very mysterious wires, which pass through the lives of us all; these we do our best to creep round and avoid, but at some moment or other we must tread upon them, and then there passes a flash and a shock through our souls, suddenly altering the forms of everything within them. Upon this thread Traugott must surely have trod in the moment that he was unconsciously sketching ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... hadn't done twenty times before. I thought some o' goin' to war with the wild niggers in the hills, an' avengin' my father-in-law's death, but I couldn't get my army more than three miles inland, so I had to give that up. Before three months had passed I wanted to abdicate the worst way. I wanted to tread a deck again, an' rove around with Bull McGinty. I wanted th' smell o' the open sea an' th' heave o' th' Dashin' Wave underfoot. I was tired o' breadfruit an' guavas an' cocoanuts an' all th' rest o' th' blasted grub that Pinky was feedin' me, an' most of all I was ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne |
