"Gliding" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... communication either revived old memories, or brought before you new pictures of "the bright tumult" of that existence of which your guest made a part,—you began to compare him curiously with yourself; you began to feel that what before was to rest is now to rot; that your years are gliding from you unenjoyed and wasted; that the contrast between the animal life of passionate civilisation and the vegetable torpor of motionless seclusion is one that, if you are still young, it tasks your philosophy to bear,—feeling all the while that the torpor may be yours ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... floating coffin had left its moorings and was gliding with the stream. On the hatches sat Grandmaison, with Jolly and two other Marats, howling the "Carmagnole" to drown the cries of the wretches underneath, and beating time with their feet upon ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... the trickling of water, so inexpressibly grateful to the ears of those who dwell in frosty climes, was heard all around, as the heavy masses of snow on the housetops sent a few adventurous drops gliding down the icicles which depended from the eaves and gables; and there was a balmy softness in the air that told of coming spring. Nature, in fact, seemed to have wakened from her long nap, and was beginning to think of getting up. Like people, however, who venture to delay so long as to think ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... canoe with tact, apparently to Micah's satisfaction and soon they were gliding down the river, now, owing to the long-continued drought, ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... exaltation looks down equally upon plain and mountain. Or you behold a hawk sallying from some crag, like a Rhenish baron of old from his pinnacled castle, and darting down towards the river for his prey. Or perhaps, lazily gliding about in the zenith, this ruffian fowl is suddenly beset by a crow, who with stubborn audacity pecks at him, and, spite of all his bravery, finally persecutes him back to his stronghold. The otherwise dauntless bandit, soaring at his topmost height, must needs succumb to this sable image ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... was located well in on the point, and Walter steered to land some distance out from it. A few strokes of the paddle sent the light canoe gliding in amongst the mangrove bushes that fringed the shore. Climbing out upon the curious gnarled roots, Walter pulled the canoe far enough in to effectually screen it from sight. Next he examined his pistols to see that they were properly loaded, and with a parting word of cheer for his chum, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... our heads in mantles hiding, 2 Our feet on some stol'n pathway now to ply, Or with swift oarage o'er the billows gliding, With ordered stroke to make the good ship fly Such threats the Atridae, armed with two fold power, Launch to assail us. Oh, I sadly fear Stones from fierce hands on us and him will shower, Whose heavy plight no comfort ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... Clinton Place, he ran up that side of the triangular block, and met the stage. He pulled his old cap farther over his eyes, to prevent the possibility of recognition by young Van Quintem, and, gliding swiftly behind the stage, when he was sure that the driver was not looking, hooked on to the step behind, just as he had done a thousand times when he ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... quarrel, but I saw the politely tempered tension in the dignified house, during the stately meals, even as the servants saw it. Yet my father would sometimes hum a tune from an opera and joke and laugh boisterously with his friends; but mother always went about silently and gravely, gliding over the thick carpets like a spectre and, at her best, showing but ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... The gliding sloop brought the speaker into view. She was a girl both little and pretty. A rosy, blue-eyed, golden-haired sprite, hanging over the gunwale, and smiling pleasantly ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... few moments were very anxious ones. The fisherman was studying us sharply, while we were gliding up ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... after him, "God give victory to our master!" Karain walked fast, and with firm long strides; he answered greetings right and left by quick piercing glances. Children ran forward between the houses, peeped fearfully round corners; young boys kept up with him, gliding between bushes: their eyes gleamed through the dark leaves. The old sword-bearer, shouldering the silver scabbard, shuffled hastily at his heels with bowed head, and his eyes on the ground. And in the midst of a great stir they passed ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... jar, a scream, a plunge, and that fairy form was precipitated into the foaming waters beneath, and the boat was gliding on with such rapidity that no arm could reach her. She sank slowly from sight, as her spreading robe buoyed her up for a moment on the waves. Her long curls lay spread out, tossing upon the surface by the motion of the waves, then as they sank slowly from sight, one snowy hand was raised, ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... myself were walking on the fourth of last November round the sea-banks at Newhaven, near the mouth of the Lewes river, in pursuit of natural knowledge, we were surprised to see three house-swallows gliding very swiftly by us. That morning was rather chilly, with the wind at north-west; but the tenor of the weather for some time before had been delicate, and the noons remarkably warm. From this incident, and from repeated accounts which I meet with, I am more and more induced ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... signifies, "The Garden of the Pleasure of Peace." It is laid out like a landscape garden of old time, and deserves its name. Over its verge you behold the great bay, and fishermen in boats, and the white far-gliding of sails splendid with light, and beyond all, shutting out the horizon, a lofty beautiful massing of ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... the silence, pointing up the lake, to where a tiny point of red showed like a low-hung star through the gathering darkness. Moment by moment, other lights came into view, silently, steadily, until it seemed like some long, gliding sea-serpent, creeping down ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... the lake or rivulet, or half-way upon eminences, embedded amidst the vegetation, buildings that must surely be the homes of men. I could even discover, though far off, forms that appeared to me human moving amidst the landscape. As I paused to gaze, I saw to the right, gliding quickly through the air, what appeared a small boat, impelled by sails shaped like wings. It soon passed out of sight, descending amidst the shades of a forest. Right above me there was no sky, but only a cavernous ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... against the dark background. It seemed to be poised on the earth like a bird just lightly descended; in the stirless air its garments appeared closed about it fold on fold like the petals of an unopened magnolia flower. As he looked, it came gliding towards him with the floating ease of an air bubble, and the strong radiance of the large moon showed its woman's face, pale with the moonbeam pallor, and set in a wave of hair that swept back from the brows and fell in a loosely twisted coil like a shining snake stealthily losing ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... too short to solve the uses of the fascia in animal forms. It penetrates even its own finest fibers to supply and assist its gliding elasticity. Just a thought of the completeness and universality in all parts, even though you turn the visions of your mind to follow the infinitely fine nerves. There you see the fascia, and in your wonder and surprise, you exclaim, "Omnipresent ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... Bright thy crystal waters flow, Sliding where the aspens shiver, Gliding where the ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... the batteries marked their position, all objects beyond the ramparts were invisible. The town around me lay silent, and looking more like a vast grave than a place of human existence. Now and then the light of a lantern gliding along the ruined streets, showed me a group of wretched beings hurrying a corpse to the next churchyard, or a priest seeking his way over the broken heaps to attend some dying soldier or citizen. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... foam-flakes seem to be always gliding downward, the same spray dashing over the stones, the same eddy coiling at the edge of the pool. Send your fly in under those cedar branches, where the water swirls around by that old log. Now draw it up toward the foam. There is a sudden gleam of dull gold ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... There came a strange thrashing sound, a groan of mortal anguish, silence. If this was a trick it was a crude one. Sandy waited. That groan, half sigh, half rattle, could not be mistaken. He half circled the boulder, gliding up a flattened traverse, and saw, lying outspread over a low bough of the withered tree, face to the moon, gun away from the ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... of course, but then he's got brains, so that he knows how to make a fool of most of his enemies. And he certainly does manage to get a lot of fun out of life, taking it all in all, except when the owl comes gliding around his roosting places in the black nights, or an extra bitter midwinter frost catches him after ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... of the Pacific, with their long and gentle swell, the pale light of the full moon, our steamer gliding so quietly along, the soft air of the California coast, the absence of noisy travellers, these made a fit setting for the story of his early love and marriage, and the tragic mystery which surrounded the ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... them again, and upon the points there danced and flickered a blue light. A heavenly smile shone upon the beautiful face of the Magus, his hands slowly sank upon the heads of the kneeling ones, the flames gliding upon their heads, resting there a moment, ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... your mother spoke of," began Rose as they went gliding across the wide expanse before them, for Charlie seemed to have forgotten everything but the bliss of having her all to himself ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... was likely to be the case, for though still going ahead, her progress was very slow. She had already got some little distance to the eastward of Hurst Point, when, the wind freshening again, her sails blew out, and, gliding majestically on, she edged over to the Isle ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... way. So careful were they to conceal their identity that the whole party—there were six in all—would dart into an open gate, crouching behind the snow-laden hedge to avoid even a single passer-by. Only once were they in any danger, and that was when a sleigh gliding by stopped in front of them, the driver calling out in a voice which sounded twice as loud in the white stillness: "Where's Mr. Dabney's new house?" (evidently a stranger, for the town pump was not better known). No one else stopped them until they reached ...
— The Little Gray Lady - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... parting beams from off the nether shores. O quick and forgetive power! that sometimes dost So rob us of ourselves, we take no mark Though round about us thousand trumpets clang! What moves thee, if the senses stir not? Light Kindled in heav'n, spontaneous, self-inform'd, Or likelier gliding down with swift illapse By will divine. Portray'd before me came The traces of her dire impiety, Whose form was chang'd into the bird, that most Delights itself in song: and here my mind Was inwardly so wrapt, it gave no place ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... out his pocket-book and busied himself with his pencil; using it alternately for minuting memoranda of the scene before him, or sketching some of its more striking features. These were at this moment irresistibly captivating. The boat was gliding through a sea unrippled by a breeze: the water was exquisitely clear and reflecting the rich orange lights of the decaying sunset: a bold rocky shore was before him—haunted by gulls and sea-mews, flights of which ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... living waters, in whose depths the fish might be seen gliding and darting to and fro; whose clearness is such that an object dropped to the bottom may be discerned at the depth of fifty or sixty feet, a dollar lying far down on its green bed, looking no larger than a half dime! I could hardly wonder at the enthusiastic ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... Now gliding peacefully, Calm and serene, Smoothly it takes its way, Softly I ween Murmur its waters past— Oh, will that stillness last? See, rocks are ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... to materialise everything ideal, but the great world, half shrewdly, half doggedly, manages to escape their contagion. Language may be entirely permeated with myth, since the affinities of language have much to do with men gliding into such thoughts; yet the difference between language itself and what it expresses is not so easily obliterated. In spite of verbal traditions, people seldom take a myth in the same sense in which ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... is to us—of the artillery uttered its majestic bass to the sharp ringing fire of musketry. While, as wreath after wreath of the light morning mist floated away before the breeze, the glittering files and compact bristling squares, the centaur-like cavalry, and stealthy riflemen gliding along the windings of the copse, became apparent, stretching far into the distance; now hidden for a moment by the rolling vapour from a discharge of firearms, then, as it curled above them, dimming the clear sky, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... very ordinary journey feeling rather sad. Leaning against the side of the vessel, I watched the water gliding past, when I noticed a few rose petals on the surface. Carried by an invisible current, they were borne against the sides of the boat; then the petals increased to thousands, and in the mysterious sunset rose the melodious chant of the ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... of Egypt, of Assyria. In her purposes their purposes lived. Mediaeval imperialism strove not to rival Rome but to be Rome. In Britain the spirit of Empire receives a new incarnation. The form decays, the divine idea remains, the creative spirit gliding from this to that, indestructible. And thus the destiny of empires involves the consideration of ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... May Parcher, kissed her devotedly; then, with Flopit once more under her arm, she ran and jumped upon the steps just as the train began to move. She stood there, on the lowest step, slowly gliding away from them, and in her eyes there was a sparkle of tears, left, it may be, from her laughter at poor William's pageant with Jane and Rannie Kirsted—or, it may ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... on the very edge of the pavement, and waited. His exercised eyes had made out in the confused movements of lights and shadows thronging the roadway the crawling approach of a hansom. He gave no sign; but when the low step gliding along the curbstone came to his feet he dodged in skilfully in front of the big turning wheel, and spoke up through the little trap door almost before the man gazing supinely ahead from his perch was aware of having been boarded ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... stragglers would be in that direction, but still almost as much afraid of friends as foes. My pursuers gained on me, for the prickly underwood not only obstructed my passage, but tore my flesh miserably; and the delight with which I saw a mountain stream gliding along at the bottom of a deep ravine cannot be imagined. My strength had almost left me, and I seized the young branches issuing from the stump of a large tree which overhung the ravine, for the purpose of letting myself down into the water, as the sides were precipitous; ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... marked the hour, the long, lean figure of Thomas Jeffrey, in a suit of shabby black, and half a dozen volumes under his arm, was seen issuing from his garret in the West Bow, darting down the frail stair with the velocity of a shadow, measuring the Lawnmarket and High Street with gigantic strides, gliding like a ghost up the South Bridge, and sailing through the Gothic archway of the College, till the punctual student was lost in its inner chambers. Years rolled by, and at length the great, the awful ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... canoe; backward stretched the submerged paddle and came out of the water edgewise at full reach behind, with an almost imperceptible swerving motion that kept the slender craft true to its course. No rocking; no rush of water before or behind; only the one constant glassy ripple gliding on either side as silently as a beam of light. Suddenly, without any apparent change of movement in the sinewy wrists, the narrow shell swept around in a quarter circle, and Narcisse sat face ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... soul and constancy— Even as she spake, the gods disclosed themselves. By well-seen signs the effulgent Ones she knew. Shadowless stood they, with unwinking eyes, And skins which never moist with sweat; their feet Light-gliding o'er the ground, not touching it; The unfading blossoms on their brows not soiled By earthly dust, but ever fair and fresh. Whilst, by their side, garbed so and visaged so, But doubled by his shadow, stained with dust, The ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... the marshes. The place might well seem haunted, so many had suffered there and died there. Poetical imagination might have evoked a piece of sad pageantry—starving times, massacres, quarrels, executions, cruel and unusual punishments, gliding Indians. A practical question, however, faced the inhabitants, and all were willing to make elsewhere a ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... they hunted, And nothing could they find, But the moon a-gliding, A-gliding with ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... homeward through the gathering dusk, moved as noiselessly and as swiftly as a ghost. The soft white sand beneath her feet gave forth no sound, and she seemed to be gliding forward, rather than walking; though there was a certain awkward emphasis and decision in her movements altogether human in their suggestions. The way was lonely. There was no companionship for her in ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... What was their delight, as well as astonishment, on seeing the bear fall "slap" back to the earth—with one of the ex-grenadier's great boots fast clutched between his paws—while Pouchskin himself was seen gliding upward to the top ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... severest discipline, prevailed. "You are contemplating," resumed my preternatural Monitor, "one of the most interesting scenes in Europe. See the effect of revolutionary commotions! While you view the sable spirit of the last monarch of France gliding along, at a distance, with an air of sorrow and indignation; while you observe a long line of legitimate princes, exiled from their native country, and dependant upon the contributions of other powers; mark the wonderful, the unparalleled ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... quality in her voice did not belong to it, and her articulation was carefully clear, not at all like the gliding vowels and consonantal elisions that help make musical the speech ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... quietly took the opportunity of gliding from the room. Sir Henry stretched his legs on an ottoman, and appeared immersed in the study of a print—the Europa of Paul ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... as the ghastly truth dawned upon him. A crocodile, gliding beneath the struggling lad, had tossed him upward, and caught him in its loathsome jaws when he fell. Then it had dragged him beneath the yellow waters, where ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... it at the dangerous-looking head with the intention of crushing it; but the stone hit upon the rocky ground a little on one side of the mark and, being soft, flew into a hundred small fragments. This roused the creature's anger, and in a moment with raised head he was gliding swiftly towards me. Again I retreated, not so slowly on this occasion; and finding another stone, I raised and was about to launch it when a sharp, ringing cry issued from the bushes growing near, and, ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... is the absorbing anxiety of watching the coffee boil! What is it that warms his veins and soothes your nerves, And turns all the world suddenly from a dismal gray vale of disappointment to a bright rosy garden of hope— And starts another day gliding smoothly along like a new motor car? What is it that will do more to transform a man from a fiend into an angel than baptism in the River Jordan? It is the first cup of ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... it rather hard work to climb the hill, which was very steep, but when they got to the top, they were well paid for all their trouble. They could see many pretty towns, with the beautiful river gliding along through them, and many high hills, like the one they were on, far away in the distance. Mr. Wilson pointed out and told them the names of the different villages which were in sight, and thus amused and instructed them till they were all well rested. Then ...
— Happy Little Edward - And His Pleasant Ride and Rambles in the Country. • Unknown
... twilight shadows awed me. Here it was a gnarled and twisted tree-trunk so like a crouching panther that I sprang aside and had the steel half out before the clearer vision came. There it was the figure of a man gliding stealthily from tree to tree, it seemed; keeping even pace with me as if with ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... each other, with the same pretty gestures of their arms, the same supple motions of their hips. From time to time, without loss of step or distance, both ran, in a direct line like arrows. But this was only an habitual variation of the dance,—and, ever in measure, quickly, as if they were gliding, they returned ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... lovely valley which had been the favorite home of his tribe, upon the fields where he grew his corn, and the sparkling stream whence he drew his fish. John used to fancy at times, as he sat there, that he could see that red specter gliding among the trees on the hill; and if the tombstone suggested to him the trump of judgment, he could not separate it from the war-whoop that had been the last sound in the ear of Phineas Arms. The Indian always ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... us go forth into the summer woods. The eye takes in the charming prospect,—the trees dressed in beautiful green; the "grassy carpet," parted ever and anon by a gliding, gurgling brooklet; the wild flower peeping up near the feet; a landscape of even surface, or at times pleasingly undulated. The atmosphere is freighted with a delightful fragrance; and from rustling bough, from warbling bird, from rippling ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... strange life to me, opening there suddenly enough. The Thames was one of the usual West Indiamen; but to me even the very ropes and spars, the sea, and the unbroken dome of the sky, had a rich strangeness. Time passed lazily and gliding. I made more fully the acquaintance of my companions, but seemed to know them no better. I lived with Carlos in the cabin—Castro in the half-deck; but we were all three pretty constantly together, and they being the only ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... depressed, the remainder of the body appearing merely like an appendage. The wide mouth extends all round the anterior circumference of the head; and both jaws are armed with bands of long pointed teeth, which are inclined inwards, and can be depressed so as to offer no impediment to an object gliding towards the stomach, but to prevent its escape from the mouth. The pectoral and ventral fins are so articulated as to perform the functions of feet, the fish being enabled to move, or rather to walk, on ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... response. Just at that moment the limousine was gliding past a building whose courtyard was one blaze of parrot tulips, and, his eye caught by the flaming colours, he was staring at them and reflectively rubbing his thumb and forefinger up and down his chin. After a ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... They were gliding swiftly across the water, and had nearly reached their landing place, when Clif heard a noise that ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... with a slow, gliding motion at first, rapidly gathering headway. As her stern sank and finally the bow dipped into the water, cheers broke forth. Then a cloud of smoke hid her. There was an ominous silence. Was she wrecked, at last, after all? A puff of wind cleared ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... curiosity to hear the story, which sounded doubly interesting told on the very spot, and while gliding over those lovely waters. ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... went on in his chanting voice, "a hundred and fifty and three of them—a hundred and fifty and three; and when I dream in this place at night, I have seen the ghosts of every one of them arise from beside their forms and come gliding down the cave—the husband with the wife, the child with the mother—to look at me, and ask when the maiden returns again to take her heritage ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... laughed, and Barnet laughed and retired; and the quiet little party went gliding down the nave and towards the porch, Lucy's new silk dress sweeping with a smart rustle round the base-mouldings of the ancient font, and Downe's little daughters following in a state of round-eyed interest in their position, and that of ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... they gave to Pythagoras of old. He will hold the key to every faith—nay more, he will form and feel new faiths for himself in studying mountains and seas. To him the cliff, high-rising above the foaming tide, the serpent gliding through the summer grass, the cool dark woodland path winding into arching leafy shadows, the brook and the narrow rocky pass, the red sunset and the crimson flower, gnarled roots and caverns, lakes, promontories, and headlands, will all have a strange meaning—not vague and mystical, ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... The flag rose and rocked and waved over the heads of the people, gliding toward the gray wall of soldiers. The mother trembled. She closed ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... unobserved, Mere Riquette abandoned all further pretence, and stalked silently about the room. The starlight just made visible her gliding shadow, as first she visited the made-up sofa-bed where the exhausted mother snored mildly beneath the book- shelves, and then, after a moment's keen inspection, turned back and went at a quicker pace into the bedroom where the children slept. There the ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... that sage's declaration of ignorance have not enlightened us more upon this important point; for, according to the Christian dispensation, no one can know whether he is sure of salvation—even the most righteous—since a single slip of faith may throw him on his back, like a skaiter, while gliding smoothly to his paradise. Now, therefore, whatever the certainty of faith in the facts may be, the certainty of the individual as to his happiness or misery is no greater ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... wrapped in a cloak stood up like a ghost against one of the columns of the uncompleted basilica, and gliding slowly and carefully among the stones which were lying about round the foundations of the new church, advanced as far as the fountain which, formed the centre of the piazza, erected in the very place where the obelisk is now set up of which we have spoken already; ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... boughs, whose leaves do not differ in colour from the faded foliage of the stately oaks from which these relics of the storm depend: all else speaks of tranquillity; not a breath of air, no restlessness of insects, and not a moving object perceptible— except the clouds gliding in the depths of the lake, or the traveller passing along, an inverted image, whose motion seems governed by the quiet of a time to which its archetype, the living person, is perhaps insensible; or it may happen that the figure of one of the larger birds, ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... and little dreaming then of becoming the pioneers of the great invasion, could see the hitch. Presently the major got a definite order, and beckoning to us of the battalion staff, began to cross the bridge. Dusky bodies of troops, their arms glistening in the moonlight, had been silently gliding past us while the discussion progressed. Most of them seemed to have halted on the bridge, we found as we passed on, and to have squatted down in the shade of the parapet, gassing, smoking, or napping. It was nearly midnight. We had got to the middle of the causeway, and found ourselves ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... knock, And the 'Rathaus' clock Booms twice, through the shrill sounds Of flutes and horns in the lamplit grounds. Pressed against him in the mazy wavering Of a country dance, with her short breath quavering She leans upon the beating, throbbing Music. Laughing, sobbing, Feet gliding after sliding feet; His—hers— The ballroom blurs— She feels the air Lifting her hair, And the lapping of water on the stone stair. He is there! He is there! Twang harps, and squeal, you thin violins, That the dancers may dance, and never ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... the green things growing, the running of the sap, the bursting of the bud. And he knew the subtle speech of the things that moved, of the rabbit in the snare, the moody raven beating the air with hollow wing, the baldface shuffling under the moon, the wolf like a grey shadow gliding betwixt the twilight and the dark. And to him Batard spoke clear and direct. Full well he understood why Batard did not run away, and he looked more often over ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... I do somethin' funny, I reckon. Ain't this a putty sight?" he added, referring to the dense canopy of an overarching tree, beneath which they were gliding, and whose extreme branches dipped quite into ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... as close as they could, and the captain was in the act of stepping in, placing a hand on Don's shoulder to steady himself, worn out as he was with his long tramp, when it seemed to Don that he felt the cold, slimy touch of a shark gliding up against his bare legs, and with a start of horror he sprang sidewise, with the result that the captain, who was bearing down upon the lad's shoulder, ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... they lost the habitual vivacity, and having the food in disgust, had from time to time to complain with mournful wailings, without justified reasons.... The sky became of a thick darkness,... interrupted only by flashes of light which the lava reverberated, by the bloody gliding of the thunderbolts, by the incandescence of enormous projectiles, thrown to an incommensurable highness.... Death surprised the charming town; houses and streets became the tombs of the unhappies hit by an ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... fellow twice his size. He could tell all about the great base-ball and foot-ball games of New York City, knew the pitchers by name and yet did not boast uncomfortably. He could swim like a duck and dive fearlessly. He could outrun them all, by his lightness of foot, and was an expert in gliding away from any hand that sought to hold him back. They ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... especial remembrance of the lowly, the poor, the outcast, and distressed; and if Christ should come back to our city on a Christmas day, where should we think it most appropriate to his character to find him? Would he be carrying splendid gifts to splendid dwellings, or would he be gliding about in the cheerless haunts of the desolate, the poor, the forsaken, ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... with voluminous, white, canvas hoods, loaded with provisions; after these, countless, giant cannon decorated with branches, flowers and flags, mounted on open trucks without sides. All this procession was a weird phenomenon gliding by in the sky like a mirage, for the road-bed at the rear of the chateau is very high and is hidden by intervening shrubs and bushes so that the wheels of the cars are quite concealed. It reminded me of those Amazon warriors in "Die Walkuere" ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... face beams upon us with serenity, but he looks in one direction, and rows in the opposite course. Even thus it was three centuries ago. Was it to be wondered at that many did not see the precipice towards which the bark which held their all was gliding under the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... a sleep. They do not know where they are, and cannot tell which way to turn. Jungles and swamps are about them, man-eating crocodiles are watching from the water, poisonous and strangling snakes are gliding about the brush, the pythons that loop themselves from overhanging limbs are sometimes thrice the length of a man. Dread and danger are on every hand. And at home the mothers sit crying. Sometimes, though rarely, a man or woman totters back to a village bearing marks of great age, and is sure ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... this numb and impotent sense of dread, she heard the devotees enter the chapel, one after another, and pass to their chosen seats with soft, gliding steps. With a sickening knowledge of approaching catastrophe, she saw another of the unconventional black-robed servants emerge from behind the Sanctuary curtain, and proceed with maddening deliberation to light the sixteen groups ...
— The Mystics - A Novel • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... seemed content to have achieved the balloon, but there were a few men who realized that the air had not been conquered, and who believed that success could only be attained by the scientific study and practice of gliding. Prominent among these, Sir George Cayley, in 1809, published a paper on the Navigation of the Air, and forecasted the modern aeroplane, and the action of the air on wings. In 1848 Henson and Stringfellow, the latter being the inventive genius, designed and produced ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes
... the news, and, gliding in and out among the crowd which clustered round the young and lovely widow, whispered softly to her—"Madam, do not forget poor Avenant." If she had been disposed to do so, the sight of his little dog would have been enough to remind ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... a hunky-dory road, all right!" ventured Hanky Panky shortly afterward. "Why, we seem to be gliding along as smoothly as if on a parlor floor. We could go twice as fast, ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... night after I had first seen her that the accident happened. I had been watching, I remember, an unusually long time before she appeared, gliding out of the shadows. She seemed in a different mood, pensive and sad, as she bent down over the pool, staring into it intently. Suddenly there was a tremendous cracking sound, sharp as an explosion, and I was thrown backward upon ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... time there was a very poor fisherman, who lived in a little hut on the banks of a river. This river, although deep, was calm and clear, and, gliding from the sun and noise, would hide itself among the trees, reeds, and brambles, in order to listen to the birds who delighted it with ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... bridegroom cannot mix with his acquaintances for two or three weeks. It is a sort of decamping after marriage, as if the parties had done something of which they were ashamed, like in travelling honey-moons amongst ourselves. But at certain hours of the day the bridegroom may be seen gliding about like a spectre in the dark streets, alone and with noiseless tread. He usually is dressed in gayest colours of blue and scarlet, with a fine long stave of brass, or a bright iron spear in his hand. When he is met by any one he instantly vanishes: ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... there, through the curve of a flying buttress, or the apertures of a pierced parapet, gay bits of this yellow world were caught and framed. The sea lay beneath like a quiet carpet; and over this carpet ships and sloops swam with easy gliding motion, with sails and cordage dipt in gold. The smaller craft, moored close to the shore, seemed transfigured as in a fog of gold. And nearer still were the brown walls of the Mont making a great shadow, and in the shadow the waters were as black as the skin of an African. In ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... the gate, and sue for admittance, but in vain. They, therefore, mount the neighbouring hill commanding the abbey, and as the solemn sounds float faintly by, and glimpses are caught of the white-robed brethren gliding along the cloisters, and rendered phantom-like by the torchlight, the beholders half imagine it must be a company of sprites, and that the departed monks have been permitted for an hour to assume their old forms, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the bar, gliding through muddy water on an even keel and giving the lie direct to him whose fee was ten pounds English. The pilot drew a talisman of some kind from underneath the least torn portion of his shirt, and to the commander's amazement kissed it. It is ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... and, slipping past Unity, moved up the aisle to the Carrington pew. The two left behind looked after the gliding white figure in silence. Unity sighed. "To me Lewis Rand's like a giant, and she's like his captive. And yet—and yet there's much that's likeable in the giant, and I can perfectly well see how the ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... alas! at the present time the world takes no interest. Sir James Edward Smith, founder and first President of the Linnaean Society, ought not to be forgotten. Of Taylor himself Mackintosh wrote: 'I can still trace William Taylor by his Armenian dress, gliding through the crowd in Annual Reviews, Monthly Magazines, Athenaeums, etc., rousing the stupid public by paradox, or correcting it by useful and seasonable truth. It is true that he does not speak the Armenian or any other tongue but the Taylorian, but I am so fond of his vigour and originality, ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... crowded, as those steamers sometimes are crowded, suggesting visions of the bottom of the river. The day was fine; warm for September, but not too hot; the gliding down the stream delightful. With a heart at ease, Lionel would have found it so; as it was, he could scarcely have told whether he was going down the stream or up, whether it was wet or dry. He could see but one thing—the image of ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Larkyns; but Verdant was in far too dreadful a state of mind to understand what he said, or even to know which was the curb-rein; and after convulsively clutching at the mane and the pommel, in his endeavours to keep his seat, he first "lost his head," and then his seat, and ignominiously gliding over the mare's tail, found that his lodging was on the cold ground. Relieved of her burden, the mare quietly trotted back to her stables; while Verdant, finding himself unhurt, got up, replaced ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... foolhardy, made trial of the waves and for a mad boast risked your lives in the deep water? None, friend or foe, could turn you from the sorry venture when ye two swam out upon the sea. But ye enfolded the ocean-streams with your arms, measured the sea-streets, buffeted the water with your hands, gliding over the deep. The ocean was tossing with waves, awinter's sea. Seven nights ye toiled in the power of the waters; and he overcame thee in the match, for he had the greater strength. Then at morning-tide the sea cast him up on the coast of the Heathormas, whence he, beloved of his people, ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... partially repaired,—all indicated the movements of hostile armies. In those places where the gentry were attached to the Stuart cause, their houses seemed dismantled or deserted, the usual course of what may be called ornamental labour was totally interrupted, and the inhabitants were seen gliding about, with fear, sorrow, and ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... preoccupied by my own private and extremely modern anxieties, I should have let imagination work the spell it longed to work, and make of me some humble character gliding shadow-like, but ever observant, through tale after tale of the "Arabian Nights." In just such a palace as this had the Seven Calenders lost each an eye; behind any one of these fretted arches ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the noise, yes, surely, just as it had been described—like dried peas in a pod—and gliding across the road was a big rattlesnake. I confess had Whiskers been so inclined, I should have been content to have passed on with haughty disdain. But Whiskers performed a left flank movement so nearly unseating me that I deemed it expedient to drop to the ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... to the help of their comrades, when a thousand cries, a wild war whoop, burst from the arches of the forest and in the dim twilight they saw numberless forms gliding over the short space which separated the castle ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... desolate and lonely scene,—the river gliding dark and cold between its banks of rushes; the empty lodges, covered with crusted snow; the vast white meadows; the distant cliffs, bearded with shining icicles; and the hills wrapped in forests, ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... muscles lent themselves mechanically to their work and the boat slid across the quiet waters of the moonlit harbor. The town lights grew bigger, wharves loomed above us, and soon we were gliding along under their shadow. The eddies from our oars went lap-lap-lapping off among the great dark spiles and stirred up the keen smell of salt-soaked timbers and seaweed. Blindly groping, we found a rickety ladder, tied our boat and climbed stiffly up, and there we were ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... a very graceful figure, and can use it with great elegance, it is better for him to walk through the quadrilles, or invent some gliding movement ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... car, and in a moment they were gliding down the drive and out upon the high-road. A little exultant feeling came to Bobby when they were once away and going at full speed. His heart thumped loudly; he was extremely uncomfortable and dared not change his position, but he could not help ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... But the boys and girls—for they were little more— put on the most courtier-like and grown-up airs. The ladies sat round the room, fluttering their fans, or laughing behind them: in some cases gliding about with long trains sweeping the waxed oak floor. The gentlemen stood before them, paying compliments, cracking jokes, and uttering airy nothings. Both parties took occasional pinches of snuff. For a few minutes the scene struck Phoebe as pretty and amusing; but this ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... he sat him down on a stone and fell a brooding and pondering how he should escape with his life, a pair of snow-shoes came gliding so smoothly towards him out of the sea-fog and stood still just ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... from the ground; You scarcely saw its silvery gleam Among the herbs that hung around The borders of that winding stream,— A pretty stream, a placid stream, A softly gliding, bashful stream. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... arm and was gliding kitty-corner fashion, across the floor. Presently she and the stunning girl had saluted each other after the impulsive fashion of American girls, and were playing cat- in-the-cradle, to the amusement of those foreigners nearest. A nod, and I was threading ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... Bradys observed the pair gliding swiftly down a passage, out on which opened the ...
— The Bradys and the Girl Smuggler - or, Working for the Custom House • Francis W. Doughty
... of the river a water wheel was driving a drill boring for salt water, it seemed through solid rock. Up to this time the current was slow, and its course through a dense forest. We occasionally saw an Indian gliding around in his canoe, but no houses or clearings. Occasionally we saw some pine logs which had been floated down some of the streams of the north. One of these small rivers they called the "Looking-glass," and seemed to be the ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... Luxury has grown on us since the thousands of wealthy idlers who draw their money from trade began to make the stream of lavish expenditure turn into a series of rushing rapids. The flow of wasted wealth is no longer like the equable gliding of the full Thames; it is like the long deadly flurry of the waters that bears toward Niagara. These newly-enriched people cause the rise of the usual crop of parasites, and it is the study of the parasites which ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... men saw Antler gliding over the drifts they wondered if it was one of the gods. Not until Antler spoke were they really sure it was she. And not until she showed them how to tie the branches to their feet did they understand what she had ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... freely,' said Clodius. 'Imitating the Egyptians, we sometimes introduce a skeleton at our feasts. In truth, the presence of such an Egyptian as yon gliding shadow were spectre enough to sour the richest grape ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... Quebec. Before I leave off speaking of that wonderful cataract, I must tell you that the impression of awe and terror it produced at first upon me completely wore away, and as I became familiar with it, its dazzling brightness, its soothing voice, its gliding motion, its soft, thick, furry beds of foam, its vails and draperies of floating light, and gleaming, wavering diadems of vivid colors, made it to me the perfection of loveliness and the mere magnificence ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... cranny trembled with the yell Of frighted owls, whose secret haunts forlorn Were from their kindred vaults and windings torn; Of bold Antiquity's rough pencil born. Thrice Fancy leads the dismal echo round, And paints the spectre gliding o'er the ground. From ev'ry turret, ev'ry vanquish'd tower, In heaps confused the broken fragments pour; And, as they plunge toward the pebbly grave, Like wizard wand, draw circles in the wave. Meand'ring stream! ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... the last time he crossed my path. He never withstood me again; but he thwarted me several times. Once as I was descending the slope I saw him gliding down from a low cedar. The distressing cries of two chippies told me what he had been doing in the tree; I did not need to look at the half-dislodged nest. Then and there I vowed to kill him, but from that moment I never set eyes on him again. His evil work, however, went on. In ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... rescuing millions of human beings from misery, have attended the spirit on its departure from the body; and then also would this spirit, most of all purified when in the contemplation of peace, good-will, and charity upon earth, be in the fittest state, on gliding from its earthly cavern, to commix with the endless ocean ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... profound feeling of regret, of longing for the wild and lonely. I looked up at the shining green and white mountains and they allured me still, notwithstanding all the toil and discomfort of the journey just completed. The wind from the south, damp and cool, the great river gliding with rushing roar to meet the sea, had a distinct and wonderful charm from which I rent myself ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... one, and it was eleven o'clock when Jimmie left the hotel. He went straight home to bed, and an early hour the next morning found him gliding out of Victoria station in a South ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... south lay the enviable and important Bay of St. Francisco with its many islands and creeks; to the north flowed the broad beautiful river formed by the junction of the two, sometimes winding between high, steep rocks, sometimes gliding among smiling meadows, where numerous herds of deer were grazing. In every direction the landscape was charming and luxuriant. Our Aleutians here straggled about in their little baidars, and pursued the game with which land and water were ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... connected bulwark seems to grow; Spreads its long arms amidst the wat'ry roar, Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore. 290 While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile, Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile: The slow canal, the yellow blossomed vale, The willow tufted bank, the gliding sail, The crowded mart, the cultivated plain,— 295 A new creation ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... a swarm of midges, and against the blue the eye could not distinguish them. Then from out of the sky dropped one after another, leaving the soaring flock looking wonderfully ethereal and gauzy in the clear air, with the sun above him, almost like a spirit bird gliding motionless through the ether till he alighted at last quietly beside his fellows on the ground. In another half hour they were all behind the plow ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... so industriously that he never once lifted his head from the ground, while the tiger crawled towards him in a manner that was exquisite to see. Belly to the ground, its movements resembled rather those of a snake than an animal as it wound its way through the scrub, gliding through the ferns, and taking advantage of all the bushes. Occasionally it sat up to peer cautiously at the bull, and then sinking down it again glided on. Except now and then, when the bushes were ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... gently. And she came—gliding, trembling, as she had come to him that afternoon at Chelsea, a year and a half ago. But she kept her eyes fixed on Katherine. She was ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... 'Dolph, left to themselves, wandered across the bridge. The road beyond it stretched out through the last skirts of the town, and across the head of a wide green level dotted with groups of pasturing kine; and again beyond this enormous pasture were glimpses of small white sails gliding in and out, in the oddest fashion, behind clumps of trees and—for aught they could see—on ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Claude rang the bell. Always full early his pirogue came gliding out of the woods and up through the bushy fen to the head of canoe navigation and was hauled ashore. Bonaventure had fixed his home near the chapel and not far from Claude's landing-place. Thus the lad could easily come to his door each morning at the ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... land unknown, and like a river flow- ing, Forest and field and hill are gliding backward still athwart my dream; Till in that country strange, and ever stranger growing, A magic city full of lights ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... Mrs. Porter was possessed of an abhorrent detestation of horse racing; also an assertive Christianity. The daughter, Allison, had inherited the horse taint. The swinging gallop of a striving horse was to her the obliteration of everything but sunshine, and the smile of fields, and the blur of swift-gliding hedges, and the driving perfume of clover-laden winds that passed strong into spread nostrils. For Alan Porter, the son, there were columns of figures and musty-smelling bundles of tattered paper money where he clerked ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... a pleasant drive. May in Ireland! What does it mean? It means coming out of a dark tunnel into blinding sunshine; it means casting off the slough of winter, and gliding with crest erect and fresh habiliments under leafy trees and by the borders of shining seas, the crab-apple blossoms, pink and white, scenting the air over your head, and primroses and violets dappling the turf beneath your feet; it ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... past the rocks, which seem scarcely to allow it a passage; at other times it glides serenely onwards. At every turn we behold new beauties, and scarcely know on which side to turn our eager eyes. Meanwhile the ship sails swiftly on, gliding majestically ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... isle, the gifted wizard-seer Lodged in the wintry cave with Fate's fell spear Or in the depths of Uist's dark forests dwells, How they whose sight such dreary dreams engross With their own vision oft astonished droop When o'er the wintry strath or quaggy moss They see the gliding ghosts unbodied troop." ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... luxurious style, she had behaved like a child astonished at everything, and pleased at the least thing. With her face close to the window she saw through the transparent darkness of a lovely winter's night, villages and forests gliding past like phantoms. Afar off, in the depths of the country, she caught sight of a light glimmering, and she loved to picture a family gathered by the fire, the children asleep and the mother working in ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... him in a silk chasuble with a white cross embroidered in silver, and the mass began. Shortly before the communion, the black veil was gently withdrawn; behind the high grating, and in a blueish light like that of the moon, Durtal faintly saw white phantoms gliding and stars twinking in the air, and close to the grating a woman's form, kneeling motionless on the ground, she too holding a star at the end of a taper. The woman did not move but the star shook; then when the moment of communion ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... later the young folks were gliding about the big hall to the strains of a Strauss' waltz, while the judge and his friends looked on, taking an almost melancholy pleasure in the gay ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower |
