"Foundering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... political, and told each other with a secret gladness that the blast grew fiercer every minute. Each humble tavern by the water-side, had its group of uncouth figures round the hearth, who talked of vessels foundering at sea, and all hands lost; related many a dismal tale of shipwreck and drowned men, and hoped that some they knew were safe, and shook their heads in doubt. In private dwellings, children clustered near the blaze; listening ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... when, soon after eight o'clock, Captain Lyon and his party were seen on their return over the hills, and, being met by a number of the officers and men from the ships, arrived on board before ten, when I was happy to find our travellers in good health, excepting a little snow-blindness and "foot-foundering," of which they soon recovered. The result of this journey of Captain Lyon's served to excite very reasonable hopes that he had seen the northeastern extreme of the great peninsula, round which we entertained the most sanguine ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... Interpreter. [big cross] 10. The Apparition of the Brocken. [cross] 11. Savannah-la-Mar. 12. The Dreadful Infant. (There was the glory of innocence made perfect; there was the dreadful beauty of infancy that had seen God.) 13. Foundering Ships. 14. The Archbishop and the Controller of Fire. 15. God that didst Promise. 16. Count the Leaves in Vallombrosa. 17. But if I submitted with Resignation, not the less I searched for the Unsearchable—sometimes in Arab Deserts, sometimes in the Sea. ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... echoes [Footnote: "False echoes":—Yes, false! for the words ascribed to Napoleon, as breathed to the memory of Desaix, never were uttered at all. They stand in the same category of theatrical fictions as the cry of the foundering line-of-battle ship Vengeur, as the vaunt of General Cambronne at Waterloo, "La Garde meurt, mais ne se rend pas," or as the repartees of Talleyrand.] of Marengo), "Ah! wherefore have we not time to weep over you?"—which was evidently impossible, since, in ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... upon it, he launched it into the seething maelstrom of waters and pushed off. Tossed like a cockle-shell upon the mountainous waves, the tiny craft with its precious freight was in imminent danger of foundering. But OLIVER was made of stern mettle. With dauntless courage he rigged a jury-mast, and placed a telescope to his eye. "Pull for the lagoon, JILL," cried the dauntless OLIVER, and in another moment. . ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... very dark, Harry was on deck. He hoped on the return of daylight to get an after jury-mast rigged, and to heave the ship too. All hands were at the pumps. By keeping them going alone, they well knew, could the ship be prevented from foundering. Suddenly there came a cry from forward of "Breakers ahead." It was followed by a terrific crashing, rending sound. The next sea lifted the ship to strike with greater force. Several of the passengers who rushed from the cabin, and many of the terrified ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... rendering assistance to others in distress, Jack was unwilling to go to a distance. Some way off was another vessel with signals of distress flying; he ordered Green to keep away for her, intending to try and get the people off if there was a risk of her foundering, as he had done from the first vessel. The sound of a gun came from her, as if to show her urgent necessity for help; ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... too far gone for curiosity as to how this monstrous pyramid was to be rowed, or even for surmises as to its foundering by the way. I crawled to my appointed seat, and Davies extricated the buried sculls by a series of tugs, which shook the whole structure, and made us roll alarmingly. How he stowed himself into rowing posture I have not the least idea, but eventually we were moving sluggishly ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... before made ten inches of water an hour, in a common fresh breeze, we judge from that, and what we have now seen, that a little labouring would employ two pumps; and that in a strong gale, with much sea running, the ship would hardly escape foundering; so that we think she is totally unfit to encounter ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... than a quarter of an hour out of our ship till we saw her sink, and then I understood for the first time what was meant by a ship foundering in the sea. I must acknowledge I had hardly eyes to look up when the seamen told me she was sinking; for from the moment that they rather put me into the boat than that I might be said to go in, my heart ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... believe, in all that turmoil of the elements, while we were on the brink of foundering and going down to old Davy's locker, that there was not an officer or man, from the captain to the cook, who was not thinking of that pirate, and hoping that he might go down first. I myself, however, felt a sort of confidence, as I was held lashed on the ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... between myself and my eldest sister, under the circumstances of our difference in age (she being above eight years of age, I under six), and of our affinities in nature, together with the sudden foundering of all this blind happiness, I have described elsewhere.[10] I shall not here repeat any part of the narrative. But one extract from the closing sections of the paper I shall make; in order to describe the depth to which a child's heart ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... were near foundering, for the sea was exceedingly high, and our vessel, which was not intended for sailing, laboured terribly, and leaked much. The pumps were continually working. She likewise took fire, but the flames were extinguished. In the evening ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... account of their Adventures in the Strange places of the Earth, after the foundering of the good ship Glen Carrig through striking upon a hidden rock in the unknown seas to the Southward. As told by John Winterstraw, Gent., to his son James Winterstraw, in the year 1757, and by him committed very properly and ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... fear naught, nor take in any sail, but rather hoist every rag higher than heretofore; but little did they miss of foundering or ever they made land; then came Sigrun, daughter of King Hogni, down on to the beach with a great army, and turned them away thence to a good haven called Gnipalund; but the landsmen see what has befallen and come down to the sea-shore. The brother of King ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... which had doubtless struck on a rock was sensibly foundering. The water was creeping up to the level of the deck. The engine fires were probably ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... this, I afterwards discovered was a detour of a mile or two, and it was already sun-set when I reached the entrance to the park. I entered the avenue, and now my impatience became extreme, for although Peter continued to move at the same uniform pace, I could not persuade myself that he was not foundering at every step, and was quite sure we were scarcely advancing; at last I reached the wooden bridge, and ascended the steep slope, the spot where I had first met her, on whom my every thought now rested. I turned the angle of the clump of beech trees from whence ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... in depth, but the black vegetable mud half afloat was unfathomable. I managed to wallow ashore, but poor Jack sank deeper and deeper until only his head was visible in the black abyss, and his Indian fortitude was desperately tried. His foundering so suddenly in the treacherous gulf recalled the story of the Abbot of Aberbrothok's bell, which went down with a gurgling sound while bubbles rose and burst around. I had to go to father for help. He tied a long hemp rope ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... they were exposed to all the terrors of the heavens and the sea, and that at last the fleet was driven by tempest from Africa to the island Aegimurus, from which, with great difficulty, they got into the right course; and that, the ships almost foundering, the soldiers, without orders from their general, got into boats, just as if they had suffered shipwreck, and escaped to land without arms, and in the ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... its main situations, we cannot conceal from ourselves that there is a thread of something that will not bear calm scrutiny. There is much that is disquieting about the storm, admirably as it begins. I am very doubtful whether it would be possible to keep the boat from foundering in such circumstances, by any amount of breakwater and broken rock. I do not understand the way in which the waves are spoken of, and prefer just to take it as a loose way of speaking, and pass on. And ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... English boats had been almost knocked to pieces. Those which could yet swim were immediately lowered. John Deane jumped into one of the first that reached the water. Ere, however, they could get up to the foundering ship, the sea had washed over her deck. Down—down she went, carrying with her all her wounded and a large number of those who had escaped unhurt. The rest had thrown themselves into the water, some to swim, some holding on to planks or broken spars: but of ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... time Bob noticed that it was very warm. It had been so, of course, for several days preceding the wreck, but the thought that they were in a tropical climate had been forgotten in the excitement of the foundering of the ship. Now it was a thing for which to ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... my name among their names stand scored Who keep my brother's door or guard his gate? A lordling—princeling—one that stands to wait - That lights him back to bed or serves at board. Old man, if yet thy foundering brain record Aught—if thou know that once my sire was great, Then must thou know he left no less to me, His youngest, than to ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... no breath for comment. And on sped Raffles like a yacht before the wind, and on I blundered like a wherry at sea, making heavy weather all the way, and nearer foundering at every stride. Suddenly, to my deep relief, Raffles halted, but only to tell me to stop my pipes while ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... lowered, but it was too evident that they could only save a part of the people from the foundering ship. Those on her deck were now seen forming a raft. It was their last hope of life should the boats not take them off. Though several of the people made a rush to the side, they were driven back by the officers ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... another (who was weak in foreign languages) dash hotly into the current of talk with some "Je trove que pore oon sontimong de delicacy, Corot...," or some "Pour moi Corot est le plou...," and then, his little raft of French foundering at once, scramble silently to shore again. He at least could understand; but to Pinkerton, I think the noise, the wine, the sun, the shadows of the leaves, and the esoteric glory of being seated at a foreign festival, made up the whole ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the person who should be sent on this honourable mission, the Society were for a long time much perplexed, and began to fear the "foundering of their hobby from want of a jockey of required weight." It was necessary that he should be deeply imbued with classic lore, and profoundly skilled in languages, because he was to "detect lingual affinities," and further, might have to read manuscripts, and decipher inscriptions, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... swing, or a yard from it when coming down, there will be a convulsive grip of the right hand which, with an immediate acknowledgment of guilt, will relax again. Such a happening is usually fatal; it certainly deserves to be. Slicing, pulling, sclaffing, and the foundering of the innocent globe—all these tragedies may at times be traced to this determination of the right hand not to be ignored but to have its part to play in the making of the drive. Therefore in all respects my right hand is a joint ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... and foundering in that wild gale will always be a wonder to me, for the boat, although she did not ship much water, seemed so deadly sluggish at times that looking astern made my flesh creep. All that night we went tearing along, and glad enough we ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... woke like a giant refreshed with sleep, And lifted the waves of the troubled deep; I clouded the heavens with vapours dark, And rolled the tide o'er the foundering bark, Then mocked in hoarse murmurs the hollow cry Of the drowning wretch in his agony: I have leagued with the North to assert thy right On the land and the wave both by day and ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... saw that the saints, without the world, would make a very bad world of it; and that as ballast is wanted to a ship, so the common and rather low interests and the homely principles, rules, and ways of feeling, keep the church from foundering by the intensity ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... demanded. Sail had been lowered by slashing away the ropes that held the yards. The advance guard of boarders, a hundred strong, was ordered to the poop, and his grapnel-men were posted, and prompt to obey his command at the very moment of impact. As a result, the foundering Arabella was literally kept afloat by the half-dozen grapnels that in an instant moored ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... there was the crackle of musketry, like the noise of rockets sent up in the night, and sometimes there were pitiful cries, smothered by the unreverberating snow, like the cries of a drowning man on a foundering ship at sea. ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... till then, did Wilder relax in his exertions. He had arranged his sails ready to be hoisted in an instant; he had carefully examined that no straggling rope connected the boat to the wreck, to draw them under with the foundering mass; and he had assured himself that food, water, compass, and the imperfect instruments that were there then in use to ascertain the position of a ship, were all perfectly disposed of in their several ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... brought more letters of like nature, until the office boy tallied nearly eight hundred. Then Haynerd, as if rousing from a dream, reached for the telephone and summoned Hitt to his rescue. The Social Era was foundering. Its mailing list had contained some fifteen hundred names. The subscription price was twelve dollars a year—and never, to his knowledge, had it been paid in advance by his ultra-rich patrons, most of whom were greatly in arrears. Haynerd saw it all vanishing now as quietly as the mist ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... mind, Sees all her sons at play; Sees man control the wind, The wind sweep man away; Allows the proudly-riding and the foundering bark. ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... English channel have to undergo. Some of the most fatal disasters the lakes have known resulted from iron vessels, thus racked and tossed, sawing off, as the phrase goes, the rivets that bound their plates together, and foundering. Fire, too, has numbered its scores of victims on lake steamers, though this danger, like indeed most others, is greatly decreased by the increased use of steel as a structural material and the great improvement in the model of the lake craft. Even ten years ago the lake boats were ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... hardly time to get into these frail craft, to encounter once again on worse terms the perils of the ocean that had already proved too strong for their vessel, and push off from her side, when they saw the old Gustav Barentz go down before their eyes—foundering almost without ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Biscay, July come two years? Her as drove through the storm like a mad thing, and flew like a swallow, when everything was splitting and foundering, and shipping seas around her? Her as was the first to bear down to the great 'Wrestler,' a-lying there hull over in water, and took aboard all as ever she could hold o' the passengers; a-pitching out her own beautiful ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... to the geologist here,—of Scotland, proudly, aristocratically, supereminently old,—for it can call Mont Blanc a mere upstart, and Dhawalageri, with its twenty-eight thousand feet of elevation, a heady fellow of yesterday,—is not that of a land settling down by the head, like a foundering vessel, but of a land whose hills and islands, like its great aristocratic families, have arisen from the level in very various ages, and under the operation of ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... that she could not be towed. The heavy rolling started her seams, and it was soon evident that she was sinking. With the greatest caution a boat was lowered from one of the steamers, and put off to rescue the crew of the foundering craft. Laboriously the sailors worked their way through the tossing sea to the lee side of the "Grape-shot," and after much difficulty succeeded in taking off all on board, and the return trip was commenced. All went well ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... on the raging seas I rode, The storm was loud, the night was dark, The ocean yawned, and rudely blowed The wind that tossed my foundering bark. ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman |
