"Afloat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The government has struggled to (a) sustain adequate jobs growth for tens of millions of workers laid off from state-owned enterprises, migrants, and new entrants to the work force; (b) reduce corruption and other economic crimes; and (c) keep afloat the large state-owned enterprises, many of which had been shielded from competition by subsidies and had been losing the ability to pay full wages and pensions. From 80 to 120 million surplus rural workers are ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... was disposed to regard the report as a false one, a canard set afloat by the irrepressible Wrinkle, who would joke as readily about the dead as the living. But even the shrewd business man himself was convinced one morning by the appearance of Wrinkle, who had dismounted from a ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... be rejected only from a criminal and pertinacious obstinacy, had hitherto gratified to the full their bigoted zeal, in a like doctrine and practice: the Independents, from the extremity of the same zeal, were led into the milder principles of toleration. Their mind, set afloat in the wide sea of inspiration, could confine itself within no certain limits; and the same variations in which an enthusiast indulged himself, he was apt, by a natural train of thinking, to permit in others. Of all Christian sects, this was the first ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... see us. On making himself known he found that his mother and two sisters had been sold to the Arabs after he had been enslaved. The uncle pressed him to remain, and Mataka urged, and so did another uncle, but in vain. I added my voice, and could have given him goods to keep him afloat a good while, but he invariably replied, "How can I stop where I have no mother and no sister?" The affection seems to go to the maternal side. I suggested that he might come after he had married a wife, but I fear very much that unless some European would settle, none of these Nassick ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... fresh leak. One room is a little better than the rest, and we all gather there and make the best of it,—smoking, writing, telling yarns. A bumping noise from across the hall and the cry of a child startles us. It proves to be Sergeant Anderson's baby whose cradle has started afloat, and there is a general rush to rescue Moses from his bulrushes. ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... enough while they were smoking and talking over plans, they might have reached a place where it turned a corner of the mountains and was joined by another and larger stream. The two in partnership were able to float a canoe. There was no canoe afloat there, but there was something yet more important away on down, a pretty long way, below the fork made by the junction of the two streams. There was a camp occupied by red warriors only, without one squaw to be seen in it, and it was therefore the camp of ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... leaves when he makes his leap; and after, to kindle his darkened flame-wood lamp at a meteor spark. The fairy bows, and without a word slowly descends the rocky steep, for his wing is soiled and has lost its power; but once at the river, he tugs amain at a mussel shell till he has it afloat; then, leaping in, he paddles out with a strong grass blade till he comes to the spot where the sturgeon swims, though the watersprites plague him and toss his boat, and the fish and the leeches bunt and drag; but, suddenly, the sturgeon shoots from the water, and ere ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... that a whole nation removes from its home, and its possessions are completely swept away. But such had been the case with the Attic state. For a time all Attica was afloat, the people of city and country alike taking to their ships; while a locust flight of Persians passed over their lands, ravaging and destroying all before them, and leaving nothing but the bare soil. Such ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Stars. This he allowed to be true, but still insisted, that Seven was an Odd Number; suggesting at the same time that if he were provided with a sufficient Stock of leading Papers, he should find Friends ready enough to carry on the Work. Having by this means got his Vessel launched and set afloat, he hath committed the Steerage of it, from time to time, to such as he thought capable of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... a word, the first tumult of the restoration being over, the troops of the Allies withdrawn, and the memory of recent sufferings and disasters beginning to wax dim amidst the vainest and most volatile of nations, there were abundant elements of discontent afloat among all those classes who had originally approved of, or profited by, the revolution ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... cheer Lothian Scott. Some one tossed Mr. Chamberlain's name into the air. Like a paper balloon it was kept afloat by vigorous puffings of the human breath. ''Ray fur Joe!' 'Three cheers for Joe!'—and it looked as if ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... Lump of Ice About as Big as a Solitaire Diamond." Or suppose it was about election time, and the doctor should look out, he might name a child that had a right to grow up a minister, "Candidate for office so Full of Bug Juice that His Back Teeth are Afloat;" or suppose he should look out and see a woman crossing a muddy street, he might name a child "Woman with a Sealskin Cloak and a Hole in Her Stocking going Down Town to Buy a Red Hat." It wouldn't do at all to name children the way Indians do, because the doctors would have the ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... He was touched, softened, and subdued. He was not in that mood which can bear to be left alone; curiosity, too, mingled with his purer stimulants—he was anxious to see those rites of which so many dark and contradictory rumours were afloat. He paused a moment, looked over his garb, thought of Arbaces, shuddered with horror, lifted his eyes to the broad brow of the Nazarene, intent, anxious, watchful—but for his benefits, for his salvation! He drew his cloak round him, so as wholly to conceal his robes, and ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... civilized world! RICH. Why, lord love ye, Rob, that's but a trifle to what we have done in the way of sparing life! I believe I may say, without exaggeration, that the marciful little Tom-Tit has spared more French frigates than any craft afloat! But 'taint for a British seaman to brag, so I'll just stow my jawin' tackle and belay. (Robin sighs.) But 'vast heavin', messmate, what's brought you all a-cockbill? ROB. Alas, Dick, I love Rose Maybud, and love ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... by the unexpectedness of the thing, you are weighed down by your clothes and your purse, you are entangled with sails, or clutched at by fellow-passengers, or sucked into vortices. In a big steamer accident, what chance is there for those who can swim? Only an occasional Hercules can keep afloat in a heavy sea, and he not for long. The most that swimming can do for you is to enable you to save yourself in circumstances where you would very probably be saved by somebody else. On the other hand, the ability to swim exposes you to many ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... raised their rents) worry a sirloin, and hew down, (I mean cut up) a goose like a log: while a good Cheshire cheese, and plenty of nappy ale, and strong March beer, washes down the merry goblets, sets all their wit afloat, and sends them to their respective homes, as happy ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... managed to keep the boat afloat until he reached Riverbank, but to fix her up would take more money than he had. So he had hunted a job in his own line, ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... it is understood, are determined to make her beat all afloat in speed, does not sail until November 5, and therefore it is premature to say anything about her interior equipments. She is the sister of the celebrated Arizona, and was built by the well-known firm of Elder ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... a small community no individual is so obscure that his private affairs escape observation and discussion; partly because the field is smaller. In small communities there is a perfectly amazing amount of personal information afloat among the individuals ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... right honourable friend. I, too, am one who reads the present pinch As passing all our risks heretofore. For why? Our bold and reckless enemy, Relaxing not his plans, has treasured time To mass his monstrous force on all the coigns From which our coast is close assailable. Ay, even afloat his concentrations work: Two vast united squadrons of his sail Move at this moment viewless on the seas.— Their whereabouts, untraced, unguessable, Will not be known to us till some black blow Be dealt by them in some undreamt-of quarter ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... so busy holy-stoning the quarterdeck, while all hands are wanted to keep the ship afloat, can no doubt show spots upon it that would be very unsightly in fair weather. No thoroughly loyal man, however, need suffer from any arbitrary exercise of power, such as emergencies always give rise to. If any half-loyal man forgets his code of half-decencies and half-duties so far ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... such delightful embodiments of light and atmosphere as 2633 and 2637. The gallery contains no more triumphant piece of Impressionism than the saucy "Lady in Pink" by the Russian, Nicholas Fechin. The story set afloat that it is the work of an untaught Russian peasant simply testifies to ignorance of this master. Every splotch of color here breathes technique. As if by way of contrast, the opposite wall shows one of Puvis de Chavannes' classical murals, even more ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... quietly, "was simple. It was dark and hazy, and raining quite hard, and the first thing we did was to run the boat down and leave her nearly afloat. Then we crawled back, and lay by listening outside that store. We were figuring how we were to break it in when two men came along. They went in and came out with a bag or two, and as they left the door open we figured they were coming back for more. We humped out a moderate load, and had ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... her from the chocks, she was borne clear of the booms and dashed over the gunnel into the water, to leeward, which was comparatively smooth—not, however, without being filled nearly up to the thwarts. But this was little cared for by the intoxicated seamen, who, as soon as they were afloat, again raised their shouts and songs of revelry as they were borne away by the wind and sea towards the beach. Philip, who held on by the stump of the mainmast, watched them with an anxious eye, now perceiving them borne aloft on the foaming surf, now disappearing in the trough. More and more distant ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... parties may have availed themselves of one common instrument. It is not necessary to suppose that for this purpose they secretly entered into a formal agreement; though, by the way, there are reports afloat, that the editors of the Courier and Morning Chronicle hold amicable consultations as to the conduct of their public warfare: I will not take upon me to say that this is incredible; but at any rate it is not ...
— Historic Doubts Relative To Napoleon Buonaparte • Richard Whately
... the rich farm islands, which heaped up levees and pumped day and night to keep afloat. It was a monotonous land, with an unvarying richness of soil and with only one landmark—Mt. Diablo, ever to be seen, sleeping in the midday azure, limping its crinkled mass against the sunset sky, or forming like a dream out of the silver dawn. Sometimes on foot, often by ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... cook was dead, Perfishka himself made up his mind to abandon the house and go off to town, where he was constantly being persuaded to come by his cousin, apprenticed to a barber; when suddenly a rumour was set afloat that his master was coming back. The parish deacon got a letter from Panteley Eremyitch himself, in which he informed him of his intention of arriving at Bezsonovo, and asked him to prepare his servant to be ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... got afloat again, and had been coming up to the aid of the schooner, when the pirates fired their second broadside now at her. When the lieutenant looked at her she was quivering with the impact of the shot, and the next moment she began falling off to the wind, ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... shower. Jane screamed with delight. "You're wet all right, now! No mistake about that," jeered Crazy Jane. "And what have we done? Moved the old tub three quarters of an inch. At this rate we'll have her afloat about supper time. I wish I had my car hitched to it. I'd drag the old thing out so fast it would ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... men in the annals of rowing in England have taken part. But seven years ago our river trip was attended with mild excitements; the small skiff, carrying our party of six, was an excessively leaky canoe, which had to be incessantly baled out to keep it afloat, and wherein, notwithstanding our efforts, a deep pool of water accumulated, necessitating our sitting with feet tucked under us in Oriental fashion. Hence I cannot say we realized to the full the enjoyments of boating as we know it at home in far less beautiful surroundings, ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... groaning over the interminable nature of every debate, and shaking their heads over the prospect of getting away. Women in society knew all their own and their neighbours' dresses by heart, and were dead sick of them all; and even the very gossip and scandal that is always afloat to keep up the spirits of the idlers and the chatterers had lost all the zest, all the charm of novelty that gave flavour and piquancy to every canard that was ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... was utterly degenerate. But since then I have changed my opinion, for I have seen a portrait which would be an ornament to the Pinakothek in your baths. The northern windows are closed, or, in this land of inundations, and in such weather as this, we might find ourselves afloat even under cover of a roof; so it is too dark here to judge of a painting, but your dressing-room is more favorably situated, and the large window there will serve our purpose. May I be allowed the pleasure of showing you there the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... distant object was seen with great distinctness. The snowy Pin Punjaul range, in its southern boundary looked magnificent, rising abruptly from the level and beautiful plain. On board the boat again, I continued the journey towards Srenuggur. We had not been long afloat before a sudden squall came down from the hills and blew the roof of the boat off; it took a long time to repair the mischief, but fortunately all the matting was blown on to the bank, it was eventually ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster
... so light that it could easily be carried by one person from the open shed where it was kept, and in a few minutes after leaving my house I would be afloat, paddling slowly over the smooth water, and looking over the side for the mullet. In the Nanomea, Nui, and Nukufetau Lagoons the largest but scarcest variety are of a purple-grey, with fins (dorsal and abdominal) and mouth ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... apparently rumours afloat in countries outside of Germany that prominent Socialists at the outbreak of the war had been shot. The State Department cabled me to find out whether there was any truth in these rumours, with particular reference to Liebknecht ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... was quite moved, overpowered, and wept like a child. Nevertheless the most of Italy is under the cloud, and God knows how all may end as the thunder ripens. Now I mustn't, I suppose, write politics. Our plans about England are afloat. Impossible to know what we shall do, but if not this summer, the summer after must help us to the sight of some beloved faces. It will be a midsummer dream, and we shall return to winter in Italy. ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... command," said Mr. St. George, with a certain gayety that seemed struck out like sparks against the flinty fact of the late occurrence,—and half the party trooped down the turf to the shore. The boats were afloat and laden before one knew it. Mr. Marlboro' and Eloise were just one instant too late. Laura Murray shook a triumphant handkerchief at them, and St. George feathered his oar, pausing a moment as if he would return, and then ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... it, eh? I knew there was some women's scheme afloat. Well, children," said the youth, waving his hand over them in paternal benediction, "since this thing is up we might as well settle it 'right here and n-a-o-w,' as our American friend, Mr. Ralph Waldo Farwell, would say, ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... doors, England had imagined that she was on terms of the most satisfactory friendship with her neighbours. The foe had taken full advantage of this, and also of the fact that, owing to a fit of absent-mindedness on the part of the Government, England had no ships afloat which were not entirely obsolete. Interviewed on the subject by representatives of the daily papers, the Government handsomely admitted that it was perhaps in some ways a silly thing to have done; but, they urged, you could not ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... Before we had finished the cross-timbering, it was necessary to take an anchor rope ashore for fear our wagon would float away. By the time we had succeeded in getting twenty-five dry cottonwood logs under our wagon, it was afloat. Half a dozen of us then swam the river on our horses, taking across the heaviest rope we had for a tow line. We threw the wagon tongue back and lashed it, and making fast to the wagon with one end of the tow rope, fastened our lariats to the other. With the remainder of our unused ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... Amid the multiplicity of his engagements he had failed to procure a flat-boat, and the first work his new hands must do was to build one. They cut the timber, with frontier innocence, from "Congress land," and soon had a serviceable craft afloat, with which they descended the current of the Sangamon to New Salem, a little village which seems to have been born for the occasion, as it came into existence just before the arrival of Lincoln, nourished for seven years while he remained one of its citizens, and died soon after ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... or means of keeping reckoning, should have sometimes struck upon those treacherous shelves which lay hidden in the track before him? Is there not rather just cause for wonder that he did not speedily sink to the bottom, but that, on the contrary, he kept afloat, advanced to conspicuity and fame, and would, in all probability, have ultimately come with flying colours to a mooring in the port of honour and happiness, if Death had not unexpectedly arrested ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... Paul's after-life. The result of the quarrel was that Paul was discharged from the position he had held ever since he came to Brunford, and was, as a consequence, for some time out of work. Moreover, lying stories were set afloat, which, while they did not harm him greatly, caused him to feel bitterly towards the ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... Bonum is such a kind of animal as our modern virtuosi from Don Quixote will have windmills under sail to be. The same authors are of opinion, that all ships are fishes while they are afloat; but when they are run on ground, & laid up, in ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... sea-coast; nor, besides the Phliasians, are there any whose lands do not touch the sea; and beyond the Peloponnesus, the AEnianes, the Dorians, and the Dolopes are the only inland people. Why should I speak of the Grecian islands, which, girded by the waves, seem all afloat, as it were, together with the institutions and manners of their cities? And these things, I have before noticed, do not respect ancient Greece only; for which of all those colonies which have been led from Greece into Asia, Thracia, ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... see it all now. Them chaps lives atop o' the cliff when they ar'n't afloat, and they've got tackle rigged up ready, and what do they do but whip one another up the side o' the rock, just as you might whip a lady out of a boat up the side of ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... by a law as sure as that of gravitation, they will gradually sink to the bottom. We have all known noble lords who would have been coachmen, or gamekeepers, or billiard-markers, if they had not been kept afloat by our social corks; we have all known men among the lowest ranks, of whom everyone has said, "What might not that man have become, if he had only had ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... about love and all that nonsense?" Why didn't I tell him he had nothing to do with it, yet awhile? Why didn't I hold up to him those awful examples I could have cited, where poor young fellows that could just keep themselves afloat have hung a matrimonial millstone round their necks, taking it for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... sides of the box were filled with many holes, from which the water now dripped. Laddie told how he had set it afloat in the brook, with Vi as a passenger. He had pushed her out from shore, hoping to give her a nice ride, but in the middle of the stream the boat went down, and Vi was frightened—or maybe just cross because she was not getting the ride she expected. She screamed. Laddie ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's • Laura Lee Hope
... five times thus rejected, his heart was not so heavy when he left. She had not denied that she loved. Upon what shallow waters can the bark of passion remain afloat! Or, shall we play the doctrinaire, and hint that at thirty-four the tides of life are calmer and cognizant of many sources instead of ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... a like spirit might diffuse itself generally into the minds of the people of this country," replied the Virginia farmer, "but I despair of seeing it. To set the slaves afloat at once would, I really believe, be productive of much inconvenience and mischief, but by degrees it certainly might and assuredly ought to be effected; and that too by ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... He began by saying that he had little things in his past life that it gave him especial pleasure to recall; and that the faculty of receiving such sharp impressions had now died out in himself, but must at my age be still quite lively and active. Then he told me that he had a little raft afloat on the river above the dam which he was going to lend me, in order that I might be able to look back, in after years, upon having done so, and get great pleasure from the recollection. Now, I have a friend of my own who will forgo present enjoyments and suffer ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sure of my loading, and besides to give the chain I wore about my neck, to any one who could procure me this, and offered to give a higher price than they paid for the spice. Having set this matter afloat, and knowing that my ship rode in a dangerous place, I told the governor that, now he was satisfied I was not a man of war, I would bring my ship into their roads. He and his officers then said, that I should find them ready to shew me all the friendship ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... signature, but became a law without it. It is known as the "Act of February 4, 1868, prohibiting any further reduction of the currency, and authorizing the replacing of mutilated notes." By this Act the minimum limit of legal-tender notes was fixed at $356,000,00,—the volume then afloat after Mr. McCulloch's policy of ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... from the hearth, and left poor Pat's alone But Ellen's stayed by Christy Byrne's upon the wide hearthstone. An' all the while the childher bobbed for apples set afloat, The old men smoked their pipes and talked about the foundered boat, But Mollie walked upon the cliff, and never feared the rain; She called the name of one she loved and bid ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... need not be uneasy about them! It was pretty plain that one was the devil, and protected the other; for when we recovered the boat, after she got afloat again, instead of finding these two creatures injured by the shock, we found nothing, not even the carriage ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... instinctively he grabbed it and though bruised in a hundred places, he finally shot out at the foot of the rapids still clutching Bill's limp form. Bob was himself practically unconscious, but struggled to keep himself and Bill afloat ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... of the insurgents under Andreas Pico. We also knew that General R. B. Mason had been ordered to California; that Colonel John D. Stevenson was coming out to California with a regiment of New York Volunteers; that Commodore Shubrick had orders also from the Navy Department to control matters afloat; that General Kearney, by virtue of his rank, had the right to control all the land-forces in the service of the United States; and that Fremont claimed the same right by virtue of a letter he had received from Colonel Benton, then a Senator, and a man of great influence with ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... France herself. If she shall stop where she is, remain quiet, united and happy at home, and avoid all interference with other governments, the work is done. If, on the other hand, storms should arise within to drive her from her present anchorage, and set the revolution afloat again on a sea of anarchy, every thing is to be feared for herself and for Europe. Is there any danger of such a relapse? That there are domestic malcontents, and perhaps foreign emissaries enough in the kingdom to make the wicked attempt, is probable enough. Is there any reason to believe that ...
— Celebration in Baltimore of the Triumph of Liberty in France • William Wirt
... loon who had spent the winter of 1919-1920 on the Atlantic Ocean. There had hardly been, perhaps, in a million years a handsomer loon afloat on any sea. Even in her winter coat she was beautiful; and when she put on her spring suit, she was ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... saw the vengeance consummated. With great bravery and determination the Cantonese under Poo Liang Tai swept the Portuguese lorchas up the entire coast and into Ningpo. The fight began afloat and ashore. Bullets whistled everywhere; the distracted lorchamen ran wildly about, hoping to escape the inevitable. Some of the poor wretches reached the British Consulate, alive or half alive, clamouring for shelter; but Mr. Meadows, then ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... Here you are, then, afloat with a body a rod and a half long, with arms, or wings, as you may choose to call them, stretching more than twenty feet from tip to tip; every volition of yours extending as perfectly into them as if your spinal cord ran ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... companion-way, and caught his pistols from a drawer. "Mr. Reyburn, we need you and the other gentlemen," he cried. "We are throwing out our ballast. All hands must take spells at the pumps, for the leak gains, and I shall have all I can do to keep the men at work and the yacht afloat." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... that higher region where nobody ever thinks at all, and everybody is more or less devout in seeming at any rate, because disbelief is vulgar, and religion is an "affaire des moeurs," like decency, still the subtle philosophies and sad negations which have always been afloat in the air since Voltaire set them ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... has not his match afloat," said Hurliguerly to me one day. "He ought to be in command ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... When the cry goes out that the ship is in danger of sinking, the first duty of every man on board, no matter what his particular vocation, is to lend all the strength he has to the work of keeping her afloat. What! shall it be said that we waver in the view of those who begin by trying to expunge the sacred memory of the fourth of July? Shall we help them to obliterate the associations that cluster around the glorious struggle for independence, or stultify the labors ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... Lakes is now open, and ships are thick as ducks. I'm afloat, en route for Buffalo, with the assets of the New Orleans and Chicago Semperfrigid Ice Company in my vest pocket. We are busted out, my poor Pikey—we are to fortune and to fame unknown. Arrange a meeting of ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... over life's wild stream In a frail and shattered boat, But the pilot was sure—and we sailed secure When we seemed but scarce afloat. ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... and a few other signs induce a sportsman to suspect that there is some mischief afloat, and his doubts are soon set at rest: upon some bough of a tree, which stretches far out over the water and thus affords its occupant a view of all that is passing in the lake below, he sees extended the form of an aged native, his white locks fluttering in the breeze; he is ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... called manioc. Tapioca is also a preparation of the root. Plantains, bananas, melons, and mangoes abound, and the last are especially fine. The climate is healthy, but the Mauritius is occasionally visited by terrific hurricanes, which commit great damage both afloat and on shore. We soon made friends among the French residents, and one of them, with whom I had had some transactions, invited William and me, and a military acquaintance, Captain Mason, to his ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... more frequent opportunities to observe the cheerfulness, the exuberance of spirits even, of Eastern women, they would soon and more easily be convinced of the untruth of all those stories afloat about the degraded, oppressed, and listless state of their life. It is impossible to gain a true insight into the actual domesticity in a few moments' visit; and the conversation carried on, on those formal occasions, hardly deserves ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... great white sheets over the anchor chains. From aft came the steady chug-chug of the engines' exhaust, to be drowned out at intervals as the swell of water surged over the port-holes. They seemed to be afloat on a narrow raft propelled swiftly through the water by ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... Burr has neither patriotism nor a principle, nor the least regard for his good name. He is bankrupt, profligate—he has been living in the greatest extravagance at Richmond Hill, and his makings at the bar, although large, are far exceeded by his expenses; there is always a story afloat about some dark transaction of his, and never disproved: he challenged Church for talking openly about the story that the Holland Land Company had, for legislative services rendered, cancelled a bond against ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... devoutly made the sign of the cross. As we slowly stemmed the current the houses of Nicolayevsk and the shipping in its front, the smoking foundries, and the pine-covered hills, faded from view, and with my face to the westward I was fairly afloat on the Amoor. ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... often thought I might be afloat in an open boat without anything to eat, but I never expected to be caught in such a pickle ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger
... ut. And I think she's in the right. If you enter the world of commerce, you must be prepared for speculation. We looked over the advertisements in a newspaper, just to get an idea, and we calculated the concern could be set afloat for seventy-five pounds. Out of that we could pay a quarter's rent, and stock the shop. Sally's been behind the counter a good bit of late, and she's getting an insight into that kind of thing. Wonderful girl, Sally! Put her in Downing Street for a week, and ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... pike doth range, the silly tench doth fly, And crouch in privy creeks with smaller fish; Yet pikes are caught when little fish go by; These fleet afloat while those do fill the dish. There is a time even for the worms to creep. And suck the dew while all ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... the storm, there came a sharp explosion. There was a puff of flame, and a cloud of smoke hovered over the hapless motor boat, which, strange to say, still remained intact and afloat. ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... scarcely on board when the plank was pulled in, and a few minutes passed and we were afloat on the Mississippi river. Miss S. and myself were the only lady passengers; we had, therefore, the whole range of staterooms from which to choose. Each could have a stateroom to herself, and we talked ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... search for some short road to prosperity: ere long the idea was set afloat that the great want of the country was more of the circulating medium; and this was speedily followed by calls for an issue of paper money. The Minister of Finance at this period was Necker. In financial ability he was acknowledged as among the great bankers ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White
... regard the poets as the principal theological teachers of the ancient Greeks, or as the compilers, systematizers, and artistic embellishers of the theological traditions and myths which were afloat in the primitive Hellenic families, we can not resist the conclusion that, for the masses of the people Zeus was the Supreme God, "the God of gods" as Plato calls him. Whilst all other deities in Greece are more or less local and tribal gods, Zeus was known in every village ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... praised!" cried he, "the last obstacle is vanquished and we are afloat." As he spoke the island could be perceived advancing down stream, slowly it is true, ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... could sing; But your voice is now still queerer, And as yet you've come no nearer To a song. In fact, to sum the matter, I never heard a flatter Failure than your doleful clatter. Don't you think it's wrong? It was sweet to hear your note, I'll not deny, When April set pale clouds afloat O'er the blue tides of sky, And 'mid the wind's triumphant drums You, in your white and azure coat, A herald proud, came forth to cry, "The royal ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... from her confinement in the chest, the princess speedily revived, and, when she was able to sit up, the prince began to question her as to who she was and how she came to be shut up in the chest and set afloat upon the water; and she, blushing and trembling to find herself in the presence of so many strangers, told him that she was the princess of Rahmatabad, and that she had been put into the chest by her own father. When he on his part ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... the pony to get started on his way, when he lifted away from the saddle, with the water's aid, and clung snugly up to the stirrup. He swam with one hand only. To keep himself afloat and offer no resistance to the broncho was the most that he ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... had trouble enough to make her look subdued, poor soul! She was a handsome girl then; and I daresay the world would have overlooked the marriage in time if her character had been untarnished. But stories which I need not repeat were afloat; and from what I have lately heard ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... cold and very dark, and there was some ice afloat in small masses, amidst which my boat, turning with no guidance, moved on the full of the ebb tide toward the great river. For about two hundred yards I drifted, lying flat on my back. At the outlet of the creek was a sudden turn where the current almost fetched me ashore on the south ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... we were afloat again on beautiful smooth water. The lake stretched away to the southwest six and a half miles. We camped that evening on a rocky ridge stretching out in serpent-like form from the west shore of ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... mysterious," Morriston said, "that all sorts of absurd rumours will be afloat if we don't take a strong, straightforward line at once. Don't you ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... of thirty men. After a bombardment of two and a half hours, these ships were forced to haul off with considerable damage and loss of life. The little tower had received no injury, and its garrison were unharmed. Here were one hundred and six guns afloat against one on shore; and ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... at the same time to delight the hearer. General Scott, in full uniform, was the beau ideal of a military hero, and with him were other brave officers of the army and of the navy, each one having his history ashore or afloat. ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... a new significance and came to be used as the political war-cry of Indian Nationalism. To that war-cry public meetings were organised in Calcutta and all over the province. The native press teemed with denunciatory articles. The wildest rumours were set afloat as to the more concrete mischiefs which partition portended. Never had India seen such popular demonstrations. Government, however, remained inflexible, and the storm abated when it was announced that Lord Curzon had resigned and was about to leave India—the last ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... established or unendowed, are exposed in an age in which men's minds are so stirred by the fluctuations of opinion, that though there may not be much progress, there is at least much motion. They lie open, on the one hand, to the danger of getting afloat on the tide of innovation, and so drifting from the fixed position in which Churches, as exponents of the mind of Christ, possess an authoritative voice, into the giddy vortices of some revolving eddy ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... labor to put on record and to establish this monotonous complaint, which needs not other record or evidence than those very sighs and groans. What is life? Darkness and formless vacancy for a beginning, or something beyond all beginning—then next a dim lotos of human consciousness, finding itself afloat upon the bosom of waters without a shore—then a few sunny smiles and many tears—a little love and infinite strife—whisperings from paradise and fierce mockeries from the anarchy of chaos—dust and ashes—and once more darkness circling round, as if from the beginning, and in this way ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... has mingled with and studied the diverse people of the Malayan coast, from the Sultan of Johore and Aguinaldo the Filipino to the lowest Eurasian and "China boy" of that wonderful Oriental land. These stories are based on his experiences afloat and ashore, and are offered to the American public at this time when all glimpses of the land that Columbus sailed to find are of especial interest to the modern possessors of the land he ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... complete in itself, and each containing a small balloon inflated with hydrogen. It was sub-division as practised in connection with vessels ploughing the water applied to aerial craft, the purpose being somewhat the same. As a ship of the seas will keep afloat so long as a certain number of its subdivisions remain watertight, so would the Zeppelin keep aloft if a certain number of the gas compartments retained their charges of hydrogen. There were no fewer than seventeen of these gas-balloons arranged in a single line within the envelope. Beneath the hull ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... had their first sight of the preparations made to resist them. Six little gun-boats, carrying twenty-three guns in all, were afloat on the lake under command of Lieutenant Thomas Ap Catesby Jones. These gun-boats were mere mosquitoes in comparison with the great British men-of-war, and when they made their appearance in the track of the invading fleet, ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... an hour for the Wiggle to get afloat again. She had run up the beach, and it was necessary to unload the stores, carry them back to the quay and ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... real shipmate and a true woman too. It was like an article of faith with him that there never had been, and never could be, a brighter, cheerier home anywhere afloat or ashore than his home under the poop-deck of the Condor, with the big main cabin all white and gold, garlanded as if for a perpetual festival with an unfading wreath. She had decorated the center of every panel with a cluster of home flowers. It took her a twelvemonth to go round ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... would lock up the whole house. He would begin at the front door and fasten every window and entrance even to the scullery. There should nothing more be missing, and no more suspicion fixed on a poor old man. He didn't yet know who had set the miserable idea afloat in the beginning, and he didn't dream of its being Dorothy. He had found himself strangely questioned by the other servants and had met curious glances from the visitors in the house. Finally, a stable lad had suddenly ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... years old; but it is before me now! a sweet, sad, patient young face, full of holy love. Among the earliest memories of my life is that of the young Countess of Hurstmonceux, and the stories that were afloat concerning herself and you. It was said that every day at sunset she would go to the turnstile at the crossroads on the edge of the estate, where she could see all up and down two roads for many miles, and there stand watching to catch the first glimpse of you, if ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... devilry (there were people in Calne who called it nothing less) the old countess-dowager set afloat to secure her ends I am unable to tell you. She was a perfectly unscrupulous woman—poverty had rendered her wits keen; and her captured lion was only feebly struggling to escape from the net. He was to blame also. Thrown again into the society ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... end of August he wrote to Conrad Som of Ulm, after giving some notice of the appearance of the comet: "I stand unshaken prepared for everything, seeking my help in God." He heard without alarm, how people in one place were terrified by monstrous births, and how in another reports were afloat concerning portentous signs, a shield and banner seen in the sky; ships manned by spirit-warriors crossing Lake Luzern; and the shooting of guns by night, that wakened from slumber the neighbors on the ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... of his situation, made the utmost haste to complete his fleet. It consisted of seven large barques, open save at the bows and stern. The bulwarks were mainly composed of hides. Each barque had seven oars on a side. This frail squadron was soon afloat, and the Governor and ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... Various versions were afloat: "St. George was back from Wesley with a touch of chills and fever—" "St. George was back from Wesley with a load of buckshot in his right arm—" "St. George had broken his collar-bone riding ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... reason for this rumor to get afloat, but beyond doubt the rumor was afloat, was in the air, and was talked of by the girls—at first, as I have said, scarcely at all, but by and by more and more plainly as the hours flew on towards ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... escape became established, the news would travel faster than they possibly could; the whole country for many miles round, would be apprised of their number and appearance, and recapture would be certain. To get afloat, therefore, as speedily as possible was their first object; after that they must trust to chance—or Providence, ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... tide obliging us to go on board in the night. The distance is only 100 miles, but the passage is considered dangerous at this time (during the spring-tides) and we were therefore provided with a large vessel and an experienced crew. The great object in this navigation is to keep afloat and to make progress towards the top of the tide and during its flood, and to ground during the ebb in creeks where the bore (tidal wave) is not violent; for where the channels are broad and open, the height and force of this wave rolls the largest coasting craft ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... produced by Venus: but Venus and the egg meant the same thing: even that vast floating machine, which was esteemed an epitome of the world, and from which was born that Deity who is also literally said to have been set afloat in an ark. Sometimes the order of production was inverted; and, instead of the egg being produced by Night or Venus, Venus herself was fabled to have been produced from the egg. There is a remarkable legend of this sort which ascribes Venus and her egg to the age of Typhon and Osiris, in other ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... some investigations of this kind afloat in France; and should they lead to a confirmation of my principles, when your constitution is revised, the rights of woman may be respected, if it be fully proved that reason calls for this respect, and loudly demands JUSTICE for one half ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... to get his revolver and an electric torch. He then descended with Doria to the water and they were soon afloat again. The boat ran at full speed for a few minutes; then her course was changed and she turned in under the cliffs. Mark soon saw a solitary gleam of light, like a glowworm, at sea level in the solid darkness of the precipices, and Doria, slowing down, crept in toward it. Presently ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... great national objects for which a clear warrant can be found in the Constitution. Among these I might mention the extinguishment of the public debt, a reasonable increase of the Navy, which is at present inadequate to the protection of our vast tonnage afloat, now greater than that of any other nation, as well as to the ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... entered his wife's drawing-room, filled with hired furniture, she thought he was somebody else, for he had not come upstairs humming the most catching air afloat in musical circles or in his ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... heroes stepped into their vessels, each skipper made up his mind that his boat must be the first one to touch the opposite shore. Not a word was said about a race, but every one knew that one would be sure to come off. Every thing was done in a hurry, and the little vessels were all afloat in a moment. They were on the leeward side of the island—that is, the side from the wind—and they would be obliged to get around to the opposite side before they ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... the course pursued by Stevens, joined him in his entreaties, and they got the captain and some of his crew to make one more effort. The water, however, gained on the pumps, and it seemed as if they would not long be able to keep the vessel afloat. ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... considerations? Could it be well that the heir of the house of Omnium should marry an American girl, as to whose humble birth whispers were already afloat? As his friend, would it not be right that she should tell him what the world would say? As his friend, therefore, she had ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... late. If there was any reason to believe, when the army first began to disembark at Siboney, that the houses of the village were likely to become sources of infection, they should have been burned or fumigated at once. To burn them after they had set yellow fever afloat in that malarious and polluted atmosphere was like locking the stable door after the horse has been stolen. But it is very questionable whether they should have been burned at any time. In a country like eastern Cuba, where at intervals ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... fleet there. It is, however, for us to regard the interests of the United States, and to see if any foothold can be gained for our protection. Had war been the result of the Trent affair, what would have become of our immense fleet of merchant ships which was then afloat in Indian waters? Manila and Batavia were the only two neutral ports to which they could have fled for safety; and neither Spain nor Holland would have dared to permit our cruisers to refit or to coal in their ports. The American flag would have been driven ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... Montausier came to see me at my country-house; she told me of the general rumour that was afloat at Court. The news, said she, of my retirement had begun to get about; three bishops had gone to congratulate the King, and these gentlemen had despatched couriers to Paris to inform the heads of the various parishes, ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... necessity, and that article, being imported, cost almost more than hull and sails together. When all was done, however, and a new coat of paint applied, Flint vowed she was worth any sixty-dollar boat on the pond. Once afloat in "The Aquidneck" (for so Flint had christened her, finding her a veritable "isle of peace" to his tired nerves) he seemed to become a boy again. The Jonathan in him got the upper hand. All the super-subtleties of self-analysis which in other conditions paralyzed his will, and congealed his ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... important role was played at court by Dr. Badmaev, Rasputin's friend. There were many rumors afloat in court and it is difficult to tell the truth. But this I can say that Nicholas Alexandrovich was drugged with different drugs from Thibet. In this Rasputin took part. During the last days they brought the Emperor to a state of almost total insanity ...
— The Russian Revolution; The Jugo-Slav Movement • Alexander Petrunkevitch, Samuel Northrup Harper,
... convincing several wealthy friends of the sanity of his plan. They advanced the necessary funds and with a carefully picked crew he started out on a vessel of his own with Allison as first mate in pursuit of the sailors who had cast him afloat ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... and dreadful sound, Which sky and ocean smote, Like one that hath been seven days drowned My body lay afloat; But swift as dreams, myself I found Within ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... consent to the employment of the entire official force of the colonies to prevent infringements of the Navigation Acts, and the army and navy were to assist them. There were large emoluments for seizures, and the right of search was unrestricted, afloat or ashore. In order to diminish the danger of union between the colonies, a new distribution, or alteration of boundaries, was adopted, with a view to increasing their number. But the country between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... my song of a boat For it is but short:— My boat you shall find none fairer afloat, In river or port. Long I looked out for the lad she bore, On the open desolate sea, And I think he sailed to the heavenly shore, For he came not back ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... on the mirror of waters All the world seems with us afloat,— All the wide, bright world of the night; But the mad world of men is remote, And the prating of tongues is afar. We have fled from the crowd in our flight, And beyond the gray rim of the waters All the turmoil ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... water pouring below, it was necessary to get a pump in position to keep our craft afloat. She was now far down by the head and had a heavy list, and as the ship's pumps would not draw, the Firemaster arranged to put one of his pumps into the fore-peak. To make this efficient, we had to raise the sluice in the forrard bulkhead; and even the Old Man looked ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... word, yes—in another, no. Within a few weeks of Dance's disappearance rumours got afloat that his ghost had been seen on the road, just where, you may say, you saw it. As a matter of fact, I've seen it myself—and so have crowds ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... not understand, I know, How one like me can love you so. It was a strange, strange thing. Love came So like a swift, devouring flame And burned my frail, fair-weather boat And left me on the waves afloat, With nothing but a broken spar. The distant shores seem very far; I cannot reach them, so I sink. God will forgive my sins, I think, Because I die for love, like One The good Book tells about, ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... parents, in their close-shut house, yielded themselves to perpetual night; while to Psyche, fearful and trembling and weeping sore upon the mountain-top, comes the gentle Zephyrus. He lifts her mildly, and, with vesture afloat on either side, bears her by his own soft breathing over the windings of the hills, and sets her lightly among the flowers in the bosom ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... an inexpensive talking machine and a dozen records. Neil had contributed a patent life-preserver that looked like a waistcoat to be used by an Arctic explorer and was guaranteed to keep Barnum and Bailey's fat man afloat. Phil had supplied the cabin with magazines, few of them, to Perry's chagrin, of the sort anyone but a "highbrow" would care to tackle. Joe, as an after-thought, had stocked up heavily with Mother Somebody's Cure for ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... he asked, "how long a dirigible can be kept afloat? Do you know for how long a voyage the best aeroplane types can be provisioned with power? There's not an air-ship of any kind that can go more than two weeks at the very uttermost without touching solid earth, and then it must be mighty sparing of its power. If we can save mankind now, ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... afloat in a pond is free to sit in the tub till it dies there, it is under no obligation to wet its feet; and a drowning man may catch at a straw or not, just as he likes—it is a glorious liberty! Let any man think ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... substitute,"—said the gentleman rather impatiently.. For those who want to believe in something supernatural, there are plenty of different ideas afloat, Esoteric Buddhism for example,—and what is called Scientific Religion and Natural Religion,—any, or all, of these are sufficient to gratify the imaginative cravings of the majority, till they have been educated out of imagination altogether:—but, for advanced thinkers, religion is really not ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli |
