"Oar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... If they had not had as many lives as cats it would have been quite another story. The boat had sufficient sails to give the appearance to their unfamiliar eyes of being a sailing vessel, but the real work was done with twelve huge oars, two boys to an oar being the rule. At nights they used to come drifting homeward on the returning tides singing their dirges, like some historic barge of old. There was one familiar hymn called "Bringing in the Sheaves," which like everything ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... with their loincloths girded, ready to start; so I clambered into the stern, or rather—for the boat was shaped alike at stem and stern—the end from which the steersman, or patrao, used his long oar. With a shout the boys laid hold of the sides of the boat, and the next moment it was dancing on the spent waves next to the beach. The patrao kept its head steady, and the boys jumped in and seized the oars, and began pulling with a will, standing up to their stroke. Slowly the heavy craft ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... men. In spite of all this, they decided in the end to go on. Pushing the boat into the sea they rowed out a few fathoms, then set the sail and bore away before the brisk breeze. The fact that the oar-locks, which were mere wooden pegs, were worn smooth and shiny, told that the boat had not been ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... hose cloth, one for the holy days of some colour, and another for working days (how coarse soever it be, it maketh no matter), and a stomacher and two shirts, and a pair of slippers: and if it like you that I may come with Alweder by water"—would they take a pair-oar and pull down? (the figs and raisins came up by a barge;)—"and sport me with you at London a day or two this term-time, then ye may let all this be till the time that I come, and then I will tell you when I shall be ready to come from Eton by the grace of God, who have you in his keeping." ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... it, and found it wedged where she could loosen it,—two planks still nailed to a stout crossbar. She floated it, and held it fast a moment. What if she trusted to it,—with neither sail nor rudder, as before, but now with neither oar nor pole? On shore, for her there were only ravening wolves; waterfalls were no worse than they, and perhaps there were no more waterfalls. She stepped gingerly upon the fragment, seated and balanced herself, paddled ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... onwards; wind and tide did all that. He had merely to keep his place and steer his little bark up the wide river. He saw against the sky the great pile of Westminster. He had drifted almost across the river by that time. He was seated in the bow of the boat, just dipping an oar from time to time as it slipped along beneath the trees. And now the moon shone out for a few minutes clear and bright. It did not shine upon his own craft, gliding so stealthily beneath the bare trees that fringed the wall of the very house he had come to see; but it did gleam upon another ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... each of quart capacity and tightly stoppered, he led Grief down to the water from the peninsula side of the Big Rock. They swam out not more than a hundred feet. Beyond, they could hear the occasional click of an oar or the knock of a paddle against a canoe, and sometimes they saw the flare of matches as the men in the guarding boats lighted ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... on the rainiest day you can recall; and further imagine, on this limitless lot, a network of narrow-gauge tracks and wagon roads, a scattering of contractors' shanties, and you will have some idea of the daily life and surroundings of one of oar American engineer regiments, which is running a railroad behind the British front. Yet one has only to see these men and talk with them to be convinced of the truth that human happiness and even human health thanks to modern science—are not dependent upon ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... he could do nothing with it. If it had been an oar, now, it might have been of some use. He tried to pull up the seat, but it ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... before re-burial some renovation of the wrappings was necessary, and as portions of the body had become loose, the restorers, in order to give the mummy the necessary firmness, compressed it between four oar-shaped slips of wood, painted white, and placed, three inside the wrappings and one outside, under the bands ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Courteau was indeed a "lightning striker"; while Phillips went through the streets offering double wages to men who could wield hammer and saw, and the possibility of transportation clear to Dawson for those who could handle an oar, she called off the building crew and set them to new tasks, then she cleared the house of its guests. Rooms were invaded with peremptory orders to vacate; the steady help was put to undoing what ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... git the words right, but her voice wuz melogious, and as I listened my soul parodied the words to suit my needs. Yes, I felt that I must "bend to the oar" of my purpose, I must not "heed the rollin' waves" of weariness and anxiety, must leave "the poor old stranded wreck" of my domestic happiness and security ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... Swan-white, Lift thine eyes, Banish night By the might Of thine eyes. Snowy arms, Oars of snow, Oar her hither. Flashing low, Soft ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... one of the canoes, so filled with men any movement was almost impossible, yet of this I did not complain for my Uncle Chevet was next to me, and Cassion took place at the steering oar in the stern. To be separated from him was all I asked, although the very sound of his harsh voice rasping out orders, as we swung out from the bank rendered me almost frantic. My husband! God! and I was actually married to that despicable creature! I think ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... Jacques began to howl, for his father's face was all distorted. His mother was rigid as an oar. ...
— A Drama on the Seashore • Honore de Balzac
... this for the maiden! She had been rowed on the waters of Lake Malcolm; but the oar, handled ever so lightly by Harry, always betrayed effort on the part of the oarsman. Now, for the first time, Nell felt herself borne along with a gliding movement, like that of a balloon through the air. The water was smooth as a lake, and Nell reclined in the stern of the boat, enjoying its ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... into elves of this profession? To supply this smallness they are fain to join forces, so they are not singly but as the custom is in a croaking committee. They tug at the pen like slaves at the oar, a whole bank together; they write in the posture that the Swedes gave fire in, over one another's heads. It is said there is more of them go to a suit of clothes than to a Britannicus; in this polygamy the clothes breed and cannot determine whose ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... with the fat of my dogs, I could make smoke enough to be seen if only I could get a light. I had found a piece which I thought would do, and had gone back to wave my flag, which I did every two minutes, when I suddenly thought I saw again the glitter of an oar. It did not seem possible, however, for it must be remembered it was not water which lay between me and the land, but slob ice, which a mile or two inside me was very heavy. Even if people had seen me, I did not think they could get ...
— Adrift on an Ice-Pan • Wilfred T. Grenfell
... down). "There were two men," says he, "and they rowing round with poteen before the cocks crowed, and the oar of one of them caught the body, and they passing the black cliffs ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... earth did you get that from?... What? So you must put your oar in, must you? What the devil do you know ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... is a very material point. The mode universally adopted by Nature is the oblique waft of the wing. We have only to choose between the direct beat overtaking the velocity of the current, like the oar of a boat, or one applied like the wing, in some assigned degree of obliquity to it. Suppose 35 feet per second to be the velocity of an aerial vehicle, the oar must be moved with this speed previous to its being able to receive any resistance; then if it be only required to ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... adept at handling it. To their dismay they saw the distance between Matthews and the other boat widening. The pace of Matthews' boat slowed; it stopped altogether. They saw Matthews tinkering with the motor. Then they saw him take up the oar and begin paddling ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... a light papyrus bark, narrow and long like a fish, and that he was making ready to cross the river. The next moment he sprang into the boat, shoved off with his foot, and sculled into the open with a single oar placed at the stern of ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... armed men. On these the Assyrian foot-soldiers would embark, taking with them a single boatman to each boat, who propelled the vessel much as a Venetian gondolier propels his gondola, i.e., with a single long oar or paddle, which he pushed from him standing at the stern. They would then in these boats attack the vessels of the enemy, which are always represented as smaller than theirs, run them down or board them, kill their crews or force them into the water, or perhaps allow them to surrender. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... a place where she's sensitive. Come at noon and see if you can stretch out wider This thing that troubles her, loosen its tightness." And so you view the result. Observe my case— I, a magistrate, come here to draw Money to buy oar-blades, and what happens? The women slam the door full in my face. But standing still's no use. Bring me a crowbar, And I'll chastise this their impertinence. What do you gape at, wretch, with dazzled eyes? Peering for a tavern, I suppose. Come, force the gates with crowbars, prise them apart! I'll ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... doors than in. He rambled a good deal about the country on foot. I have seen him in by-lanes a dozen miles distant from the town when I have been riding back from the bunt. He was fond of the water, and pulled a mighty strong oar, but declined to belong to our University crew; yet if ever there was a fight between undergraduates and bargemen, he was sure to be in the midst of it. Yes, a very great oddity indeed, full of contradictions, for a milder, quieter fellow in general intercourse you could not see; and as for the ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... around his limbs; he loads the winds with his groans. Arindal ascends the deep in his boat to bring Daura to land. Armar came in his wrath, and let fly the gray-feathered shaft. It sung, it sunk in thy heart, O Arindal, my son! for Erath the traitor thou diest. The oar is stopped at once: he panted on the rock, and expired. What is thy grief, O Daura, when round thy feet is poured thy brother's blood. The boat is broken in twain. Armar plunges into the sea to rescue his Daura, or die. Sudden a blast from a hill came over ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... few minutes they sat so, looking up into the changing autumn sky, listening to the soft tinkle of the water running below, the dip of an oar, the swirl of a blue heron's wing as it clove the air, the distant voices of the picnickers farther down the creek, the rustle of the yellow beech-leaves as they whispered of the time to go, and how they would drift down like little brown boats to the stream and glide away to the end. Now and then ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... little children in all their sportive gaiety, clapping their hands with joyous glee, as they watched the progress of a little boat that was plying its way across the river, and listening to the boatman's whistle, and the splashing of the oar as it dipped the silver waves. The towering mountains rose high above their heads, and "Father Abraham" looked as though it were about to fall and crush them as they seated themselves at its base, to gaze upon the prospect before them. Charles adjusted Matilda's shawl as she seated herself by ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... may be sent to the same galley as Murray, alias Markby, has to serve; and if I am only chained to the same oar I shall be happy." ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... necessary in the early stages of the work, as places could not be spared for more than two, or at most three seamen to each boat, who were always stationed, one at the bow, to use the boat-hook in fending or pushing off, and the other at the aftermost oar, to give the proper time in rowing, while the middle oars were double- banked, ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... added fragm. 32. Fr. 19 shows that the impossibility of distinguishing eggs one from another, which had been brought forward in the Catulus, was allowed to stand in the second edition, other difficulties of the kind, such as those connected with the bent oar, the pigeon's neck, the twins, the impressions of seals (Luc. 19, 54), would also appear in both editions. The result of these assaults on the senses must have been summed up in the phrase cuncta dubitanda esse which Augustine quotes from the ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... associations with which the name of our floating vehicle was generally connected; yet, suggestive fancy could readily supply their place with kindred ideas culled from our more prosaic surroundings. We had, it is true, no crimson-sashed, ragged, ballet-costumed gondolier to "ply the measured oar;" because, in the first instance, we did not row up at all. We were a trifle too wise in our generation to pull up the river in a lumbering barge under a broiling sun, and fancy we were amusing ourselves! ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... in a beautiful nook in a bluff near a little stream. The next day we reached Running Water. The ferry-boat was a little thing, with a small paddle-wheel on each side operated by two horses on tread-mills. A man stood at the stern with a long oar to steer it. The river was not so wide here as at Yankton, but the current was swifter, which no doubt gave the place its name. It looked very doubtful if we should ever get across in the queer craft, but ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth
... red—the men wearing trousers and shirts of red flannel, and red net night caps—which common uniform the captain himself wore, I think I have said before, that he was a very handsome man, and when he had taken his seat, and the gigs, all fine men, were seated each with his oar held upright upon his knees ready to be dropped into the water at the same instant, the craft and her crew formed to my eye as pretty a plaything for grown children as ever was seen. "Give way, men," the oars dipped as ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... from industry, they will be confronted by the inevitable results of depression and privation. If they will continue industrious and thrifty, contented with fair wages and moderate profits, and the returns which accrue from the development of oar natural resources, our prosperity will extend ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Tropical rains fell with terrific violence, and the men would get wetted to the skin ten times a day. It was cold, it was windy, and to push on farther seemed perfectly hopeless. Raleigh therefore determined to return, and they glided down the vast river at a rapid pace, without need of sail or oar. At Morequito, Raleigh sent for the old Indian chief, Topiawari, who had been so friendly to him before, and had a solemn interview with him. He took him into his tent, and shutting out all other persons but the interpreter, he told him that Spain was the enemy of Guiana, and urged ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... withstand; Whether the Sea, imprison'd in the land, A work imperial! takes a harbour's form, Where navies ride secure, and mock the storm; Whether the Marsh, within whose horrid shore Barrenness dwelt, and boatmen plied the oar, Now furrow'd by the plough, a laughing plain, Feeds all the cities round with fertile grain; Or if the River, by a prudent force, The corn once flooding, learns a better course. Nedum sermonum stet honos, et gratia vivax. Multa renascentur, quae jam cecidere; cadentque ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... been long awaited. In 1809, Buckminster said in his Phi Beta Kappa oration at Harvard College: "Oar poets and historians, our critics and orators, the men of whom posterity are to stand in awe, and by whom they are to be instructed, are yet to appear among us." Happily, however, the orator thought ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... Tape ARchiver) and then compressing the result (see {compress}). The latter action is dubbed 'feathering' partly for euphony and (if only for contrived effect) by analogy to what you do with an airplane propeller to decrease wind resistance, or with an oar to reduce water resistance; smaller files, after all, slip ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... up from the bridge,—which, as the thermometer was standing at eighty in the shade, was an inconsiderate proceeding. "I don't think I am quite up to that," said Dolly Longstaff, when it was proposed to him to take an oar. "Miss Amazon will do it. She rows so well, and is so strong." Whereupon Miss Amazon, not at all abashed, did take the oar; and as Lord Silverbridge was on the seat behind her with the other oar she probably ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... am, or than I ever have been! They are contented in obscurity; I was discontented even in the full blaze of celebrity. But my fate is fixed. I embarked on the sea of politics as thoughtlessly as if it were only on a party of pleasure: now I am chained to the oar, and a galley-slave cannot be ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... grounds bordered upon it for some distance, and great was the satisfaction of Richard when he saw several boats, which his companions informed him belonged to the school. There was a large schooner-rigged sail boat, two twelve-oar race boats, besides three smaller craft. He felt at home here, and inquired particularly whether the boys were allowed to use these boats. They were only permitted to sail in company with some ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... gone before. The sail-boat was an advance on the rude dugout propelled by paddles. The first clumsy steamboat seemed a marvel to those who had known no other propulsive power than that of the wind or the oar. The horse-drawn vehicle succeeded the litter and the palanquin, to be in turn followed by the locomotive; and so the telegraph, as a means of rapidly communicating intelligence between distant points, was the logical successor of the signal ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... Ben saw a man plunge from the rocks into the boiling waters. He bent to the oar, his boat rushed through the waves, and as he came one way, that white face moved steadily from the shore. The waters were buffeted fiercely around it. Some mighty power seemed to sweep back the ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... drawn, severely, perhaps mortally, wounded. His rescuers would have killed him on the spot, but he diverted them by pointing out where his money and jewels could be found. The next soldier to come up was one of the galley-slaves, whom Don John had unchained from the oar and supplied with arms. Ali's story of treasure was lost on him. With one blow he severed his head from his shoulders, and carried the gory prize to Don John, laying it at his feet. The generous Spaniard looked at it with a mingling of pity ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... to reply; "I'm doing a loaf this afternoon. I thought I heard my oar crack this morning, so came for some leather to ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... that creek, overspread by the wild shrubs," answered Pausanias; "a few strokes of the oar, and I am where thou seest. And in truth, without thy summons, I should have been on board ere sunset, seeing that on the morrow I have ordered a general review of the vessels of the fleet. Was that to be the occasion for ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... war-band. From the first the daring of the English race broke out in the secrecy and suddenness of the pirates' swoop, in the fierceness of their onset, in the careless glee with which they seized either sword or oar. "Foes are they," sang a Roman poet of the time, "fierce beyond other foes and cunning as they are fierce; the sea is their school of war and the storm their friend; they are sea-wolves that live on the pillage ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... young woman,"—pulling up her sleeve, and showing the knotted tendons and thick muscles of her arm. "I'm pretty tough, thee sees. There's not a boatman in Ocean County could pull an oar with me when I was a gell, an' I'm tough ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... this day that the water was rough, and consequently unfavourable to the Aborigines. At the appointed signal the competitors started. For a short distance the Indians kept up with their rivals, but the long heavy pull of the oar soon enabled the boatmen to leave them at a distance. The Indians, true to their character, seeing the contest hopeless, after the first turn, no longer contended for victory; they paddled deliberately back to the starting ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... The stroke oar is the seat of honor. It may be offered to a guest. Ladies should wear short dresses, free from encumbering draperies, heavy shoes, and a hat with a broad brim. Heavy gloves, if they ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... along the coast, from whence could be seen the traffic on the high-road without enduring the annoyance of dust and heat. Boats skimmed past; brisk sailors, by the help of vigorous strokes of the oar, strove to compete with the steam-packet, the dark smoke from which, like some demon, partly rested upon the vessel, partly floated away in ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... interrupted by the voice of the old boatman who, relinquishing an oar, pointed to a swart precipice near at hand and said in tolerable English (the older generation of natives all spoke ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... and done, I am one of a family. I am not a free agent. I am chained to the oar for life. When we link up with the race we have more than the little ring of our own Ego to remember. It is not, as Dinky-Dunk once pointed out to me, a good thing to get "Indianized." We have our community obligations and they must be faced. The children, undoubtedly, ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... Spaniards, were sent forth in a galiot to take a Greek carmosel, which came into Arabia to steal negroes, and went out of Tripolis unto that place which was two hundred and forty leagues thence; but we were chained three and three to an oar, and we rowed naked above the girdle, and the boatswain of the galley walked abaft the mast, and his mate afore the mast, and each of them a whip in their hands, and when their devilish choler rose they would strike the Christians ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt
... fleet of bateaux and floated down the lake to their landing at the present site of Cooperstown. "This passage down the lake was made on a lovely summer's day, and the surrounding hills being covered with living green, every dash of the oar throwing up the clear, sparkling water, a thousand delighted warblers greeting them from the shores as the response of the martial music from the boats—the whole being so entirely novel—the effect must have ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... um, little brother," said Mooka, her black eyes dancing; and in a wink crabs and sledges were forgotten. The old punt was off in a shake, the tattered sail up, skipper Noel lounging in the stern, like an old salt, with the steering oar, while the crew, forgetting her nipped finger, tugged ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... the one which he has selected, and his gorgeous habiliments will produce the happiest effect when contrasted with the gloomy walls of the good old fortress. And my colleague, my destined successor, did he not talk of the galleys? I had never given him credit for sufficient energy to prefer the oar to the pen, and the chain of a felon to the seals of a minister of state; but since he will have it so, by the soul of Jean du Plessis, ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... Bohun, laughed. 'He is A.1. at his oar, but very deficient as a gardener,' he said. 'Your kindness in keeping him, my dear aunt, is ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... prolonged and desperate siege. On the fourth day the storm abated, and the Saxons prepared to make their way seaward again. The wind still blew, but lightly, from the same quarter, and the sails would therefore be of no use. With their great oar-power they were confident that, once through the Danish flotilla, they ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... inflamed looking, although not so red as the other. Gee, he'd ought to do something! Alcohol! That was it! He ought to bathe the places in alcohol! He jumped out of the dingey, pushed it down the beach into the water and sprawled across the bow. Then he shoved further off with an oar and ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... exclaimed. "Why shouldn't I, in the name of goodness? Let me tell you I can pull a good oar still. If only I had had my flannels! You seem to think I'm ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... are, too, and the boat is new and handsome, graceful with the beautiful lines of a northern shipwright's designing. She has mast and sail and one steering oar, but neither rowlocks nor other oars to fit in them. One of the men is pacing quietly up and down the sand, as if on the quarterdeck of a ship, and the other rests against the ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... prospect, nor have we an easy path before us in the boats, either. On the whole, the chances are against us. There's land not far away to starboard, but whether we'll make it in so rough a sea is another matter. Are you handy with an oar?" ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... head and a wooden pipe in his mouth. Affectionate and jolly, he was a fascinating companion for a voyage down the sparkling stream of life; only his boat was very small. There was room in it for a girl-partner at the oar, but no accommodation for passengers. He was allowed to drift away from the threshold of the Belgravian mansion while Winnie averted her tearful eyes. He was not a lodger. The lodger was Mr Verloc, indolent, and keeping late hours, sleepily jocular of a morning from under his bed-clothes, ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... under their hairy feet; and we often wished that we also might be shod in the same way to enable us to skate on the lake in summer as well as in icy winter. Not less wonderful were the boatmen, swimming on their backs, pulling themselves along with a pair of oar-like legs. ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... Then Alcinous the King said, 'So that thou shalt have something to tell thy friends when thou art in thine own hand, we shall show thee the games in which we are most skilful. For we Phaeacians are not perfect boxers or wrestlers, but we excel all in running and in dancing and in pulling with the oar. Lo, now, ye dancers! Come forward and show your nimbleness, so that the stranger may tell his friends, when he is amongst them, how far we surpass all men in dancing as well as in seamanship and speed ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... supposed that she meant to hasten their progress by a movement of her right arm, for it swung like an oar blade through the water. In her impatience she had crushed her handkerchief into a ball in her tiny, well-gloved fingers. Now and then the old man smiled, but the smiles were succeeded by an anxious look which crossed his withered face and saddened ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... those du Guesclin must have had, large, broad, hairy; hands that once had clasped the sword never, like Joan of Arc, to relinquish it until the royal standard floated in the cathedral of Rheims; hands that were often bloody from the thorns and furze of the Bocage; hands which had pulled an oar in the Marais to surprise the Blues, or in the offing to signal Georges; the hands of a guerilla, a cannoneer, a common solder, a leader; hands still white though the Bourbons of the Elder branch were again in exile. Looking at ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... flocks of sea fowl floating on the water, coming frequently almost within an oar's length, but always just out of reach. We were in worse condition than the Ancient Mariner, with food as well as water everywhere about us, and not a morsel or a drop to eat or drink. Thirst is harder to endure than hunger, ...
— Out of the Fog • C. K. Ober
... your oar into another man's rollocks," said Mat, dexterously knocking Zack's spoon out of his hand just as it touched Mr. Blyth's tumbler. "You stick to your grog; I'll stick to my grog; and he'll stick to Squaw's Mixture." With those words, Mat leant his bare elbows ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... down toward the wharf, the stars were still making their reflections glimmer in the smooth water of the big river, and a sculling sound and the rattle of an oar being heard, told ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... into a boat and rowed, pulling silently, close up to the keels of the enemy; and gradually, by screwing in an auger, he bored the planks (a device practiced by Hadding and also by Frode), nearest to the water, and soon made good his return, the oar-beat being scarce audible. Now he bore himself so warily, that not one of the watchers noted his approach or departure. As he rowed off, the water got in through the chinks of Odd's vessels, and sank them, so that they were seen disappearing in the deep, as the water flooded them more and more within. ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... colours fade, Plainly we see at that impartial hour, Them dupes to pride, and him the tool of power. God help the man, condemn'd by cruel fate To court the seeming, or the real great! Much sorrow shall he feel, and suffer more Than any slave who labours at the oar! 160 By slavish methods must he learn to please, By smooth-tongued flattery, that cursed court-disease; Supple, to every wayward mood strike sail, And shift with shifting humour's peevish gale. To nature dead, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... John Willet, turning his eyes from the ceiling to the face of his interrupter, and uttering the monosyllable in capitals, to apprise him that he had put in his oar, as the vulgar say, with unbecoming and irreverent haste; 'IF, sir, Natur has fixed upon me the gift of argeyment, why should I not own to it, and rather glory in the same? Yes, sir, I AM a tough customer that way. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... can handle an oar?" Frere went on. "There, curse you, I don't want fifty! Three'll do. ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... oracle launched from the windows of the hotel, the young people rowed, lost to all but each other, amazed at the loveliness of the river. They floated amid the bulrushes. Cries and regret when Frank's oar crushed the desired blossom. Never before were lilies as desirable as those that were gathered that day—that bud, it must be possessed, that blown flower must not be left behind. Lizzie dipped her arm to the elbow, and rejoiced in the soft flowing water. The river rose up into what beautiful ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... night, when the thick air seemed too clotted and moist to break into hurly-burly of storm, and yet too heavy and dank to throw off the black envelope of fog and cloud. The black, oleaginous water seemed to slope from the muffled oar in a gluey, shining wave, and the heavy ripple at the bow of their boat parted in a long, adhesive roll, sloping away, but not breaking into froth or glisten of electric fire. The air and the sea seemed brooding in a heavy, hopeless misery, and the strange ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... deep shadow of the foliage under which it flowed until it became lost in the shadows of foliage and rocks. Harriet drove her boat in without the least hesitancy. She saw by glancing above her head that there were no heavy limbs of trees hanging over the little waterway. A sounding with the oar developed the fact that there was only about three feet of water in ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... guessed our course," whispered Henry, "or perhaps they have heard the splash of an oar now and then. Stop, boys, and let's see if we can hear ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to the sky, or paddling in and out among the pond-lilies. I had idled, too, on the lagoons of my beloved Venice, listening to Luigi crooning the songs he loves so well, the soft air about me, the plash of my gondolier's oar wrinkling the sheen of the silver sea. It had been a very happy summer; full of color and life. The brush had worked easily, the weather had lent a helping hand; all had been peace and quiet. Ofttimes, when I was happiest, somehow Muffles's solitary figure rose before me, the tears coursing ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... pictorial records of a religious ceremony which, as we now know, was continued almost without change from the first dynasty to the thirty-third. It is interesting to note on this engraving that the king is represented with the hap and a short stick instead of the oar. ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... water craft, the vessel propelled by pole, paddle or oar must have preceded the use of sails. The former required more strength and the latter more skill. But no matter what science and art may do to make sailing more secure and comfortable, the boy, particularly if he be country bred, and so forced ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... and men, each one trying to secure some frail object that had drifted from the wreck, for the purpose of sustaining himself in the awful struggle with the sea, which awaited him. Some reached a grating, some an oar, some a boat's mast, some a hen-coop, &c., but many poor fellows sprang into the sea to perish in a few minutes, not being able to find any object of support. Lieut. Parker and myself, being both swimmers, were fortunate enough to reach one of the arm-chest gratings, which afforded ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... replied Roland, who perceived the danger of suffering Henderson's half-raised suspicions to become fully awake,—"I would have thought of nothing but the gun and the oar, and the wild water-fowl that tempt me by sailing among the sedges yonder so far out of flight-shot, had you not spoken of my going on shore as what was to occasion burning of town and tower, the downfall of the evangele, and the ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... tarry breeks up with an oar and skelps a splash o' water at the old woman, and laughed at her with the wind blowing her skirts, and ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... shoulders turned dark along the line of the whip, and greenish at the edges. I did not cry. I felt numbed with fright and rage. Suddenly, however, the tall canal-boat captain, coming back along the tow-path, put in his oar by striking the whip out of John Rucker's hand; and snatched me ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... driving swiftly through my brain, I ran one hand hastily along the thwarts of the boat, seeking to discover if paddles had been provided, or even a sail of any kind. I touched a coil of rope, a rude oar-blade so broad as to seem unwieldy, a tightly rolled cloth,—and then my groping fingers rested on the oddest-feeling thing that ever a startled man touched in the dark. It was God's mercy I did not cry ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... his dog, took it along with him to the river. He hired a boat, and rowing into the stream, threw the animal in. The poor creature attempted to climb up the side of the boat, but his master, whose intention was to drown him, constantly pushed him back with the oar. In doing this, he fell himself into the water, and would certainly have been drowned, had not the dog, as soon as he saw his master struggling in the stream, suffered the boat to float away, and held him above water till assistance ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... the wharf in the hope of rescuing the mulatto man, but they were too late. When we put off from the shore we found it no joke, as they fired into our boat and seriously wounded the man who pulled the stroke oar. Luckily the awning was canted towards them, or they would have shot several of us, as it had seven shots through it. We were obliged to fire in self-defence, killing one man and wounding several others. I remarked the man we killed jumped a considerable height ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... obstructions. A mile below the city, where the water becomes shoal, President Lincoln, accompanied by Admiral Porter, Captain Adams of the navy, Captain Penrose of the army, and Lieutenant Clemmens of the Signal Corps, put off from the tug in a launch manned by twelve sailors, whose long, steady oar-strokes quickly carried the party to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... thou wilt find a bow of brass, and three arrows of lead. Shoot the three arrows at the statue, and the rider and his horse will fall into the sea; this being done, the sea will swell and rise to the foot of the dome. When it has come so high, thou wilt perceive a boat, with one man holding an oar in each hand; this man is also of metal, but different from that thou hast thrown down; step on board, but without mentioning the name of God, and let him conduct thee. He will in ten days' time bring thee into another sea, where thou shalt find ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... a fair Account of what I wou'd have attempted at least, and to open all my Heart to you, that was one of the main Subjects I called at your Tomb to talk to you on, to see if we could get any of these Crawlers on the Earth to attempt it, by oar artfully suggesting it to him. In short, my Project was, by procuring greater and more numerous Subscriptions, and by extending and enlarging the Plan of the Dublin Society, to have promoted more than ever the ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... to recover it, but it was gone, and he had concluded that the gardeners had put it into the boathouse. It now appeared that they had not seen it, and were very angry at its having been meddled with. An oar had drifted up with the morning tide, and had been recognised as belonging to the boat; but such a gale was blowing that it was impossible to put out to sea or make any search round the coast. Words could hardly describe the distress ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... scholarship, of which New England has had too many examples, it will be far better that this sketch had not been written. For the student there is, in its season, no better place than the saddle, and no better companion than the rifle or the oar." ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... on board, slipped the rope from its cleat, and with a push of an oar against the bank sent the boat some distance out into the stream. He did not dare to row for he feared that the oars grating in the rowlocks might betray him. But he made a paddle of one of the oars, dipping it in alternately on opposite ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... brought back and the ruffians had gone off up the ravine, Andrew left Mrs. Wehle sitting by the fire in the loom-room of the castle, while he crossed the river to look after Gottlieb. Little Wilhelmina insisted on going with him, and as she handled a steering-oar well he took her along. They found Gottlieb with his arms cruelly pinioned sitting on a log in a state of utter dejection, and dripping ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... my life one day, and announced that its course was to be suddenly and wholly changed. You showed me which was my wearisome seat in the Galley of Barbox Brothers. (When they were, if they ever were, is unknown to me; there was nothing of them but the name when I bent to the oar.) You told me what I was to do, and what to be paid; you told me afterwards, at intervals of years, when I was to sign for the Firm, when I became a partner, when I became the Firm. I know no more of ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... voyaged Lake Bennett, Tagish, then Windy Arm, Sinister, savage and baleful, boding us hate and harm. Many a scow was shattered there on that iron shore; Many a heart was broken straining at sweep and oar. ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... what it is!" exclaimed a fat woman from Fishtown. "At the bottom of the river dead men tell no tales. The rebellious young sarpint of a son, who allus pulled a lusty oar, has chased them two older ones into the deep water of the channel, where a pistol shot can't be heard ashore, and he expected the property to be his'n. But there are gallowses yet, thank ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... boat. The day was lovely, and as we glided along the bright water my mother and Lady Francis and I murmured, half voice, all sorts of musical memories, which made a nice accompaniment to Lord Francis's occasional oar-dip that just kept the boat in motion. When we landed, my mother returned to the house, and the rest of us set off for a long delightful stroll to the farm, where I saw a monstrous and most beautiful dog whom I should ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... the tropical forest beyond, with its luxuriant foliage festooned by gray moss. Here was a day to warm the heart of any fisherman; here was the beautiful river, celebrated in many a story; here was the famous guide, skilled with oar and gaff, rich in experience. What sport I would have; what treasure of keen sensation would I store; what flavor of life would I taste this day! Hope burns always in ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... into the boat, which at once pushed off. The men rowed easily, for they were anxious to hear the particulars of the report which had circulated through the ship. Bill Hardy was rowing the stroke oar, and ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... master erect, plying the oar, his long black robe tucked up under the dark blue sash that exactly matched the color of the gondola. The man's motto might have been, "Ich Dien," or that passage of Scripture, "He that is greatest among you shall be ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... history, Hamilton, Helm, Hay, Clark and Bowman, were not distinguished diplomats. They went at their work rather after the hammer-and-tongs fashion. Clark bluntly demanded unconditional surrender. Hamilton refused. They argued the matter. Helm put in his oar, trying to soften the situation, as was his custom on all occasions, and received from Clark a stinging reprimand, with the reminder that he was nothing but a prisoner on parole, and had no voice at all in settling the ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... Dips an oar-plash—hark!— Gently on the river; 'Tis her lover's bark. On the Guadalquivir. Hark! a song she hears! Every note she snatches; As the singer nears, Her own name she catches. Now the Gitanilla Stays not by the water, For the midnight hour Hath ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... fame; but he ought not to be charged with having created the spirit, which in fact created him; a spirit so powerful, and so extensively diffused, that in comparison with it, even his efforts might be said to be "dashing with his oar to hasten the cataract;" to be "waving with his fan to give speed to the wind." The favourite saying of Napoleon, "Every Frenchman is a soldier, and as such, at the disposal of the Emperor," expresses a principle which was not ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... of the losses which they sustained on the coasts of Britain and Gaul. But the daring spirit of the pirates braved the perils both of the sea and of the shore: their skill was confirmed by the habits of enterprise; the meanest of their mariners was alike capable of handling an oar, of rearing a sail, or of conducting a vessel, and the Saxons rejoiced in the appearance of a tempest, which concealed their design, and dispersed the fleets of the enemy. [105] After they had acquired an accurate knowledge of the maritime provinces of the West, they extended the scene of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... time old news in Rome, especially between the palace and the Forum. The duumvir is discreet; what I am to do, where go to find my fleet, he will tell on the ship, where a sealed package is waiting me. If, however, ye have offerings for any of the altars to-day, pray the gods for a friend plying oar and sail somewhere in the direction of Sicily. But she is here, and will come to," he said, reverting to the vessel. "I have interest in her masters; they will sail and fight with me. It is not an easy thing to lay ship side on a shore like this; so let us judge ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... my Province to provide colde Fowls or Pigeon Pie, which Hubert carries, with what else we neede, to the Spot selected for our Camp Dinner. Sometimes we take Boat to Richmond or Greenwich. Two young Gallants, Mr. Alphrey and Mr. Miller, love to joyn our Partie, and toil at the Oar, or scramble up the Hills, as merrilie as the Boys. I must say they deal savagelie with the Pigeon Pie afterwards. They have as wild Spiritts as our Dick and Harry, but withal a most wonderfull Reverence for my Husband, whom they courte ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... muscle into an oar or a cricket bat and you are a hero; put your muscle into a spade ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... it seemed as if Spithead roadway were fairly alive with craft of every description, from a gun-ship seeking dry dock for repairs, to a slender racing wherry, whose one occupant, bareheaded and armed, flung up an oar in greeting, as the stately ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... over far Pelorus; Burning crimson tops its frowning crest of pine. Purple sleeps the shore and floats the wave before us, Eachwhere from the oar-stroke eddying warm ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... thrust their poles into the channel, and grasping successively the wooden bars, work their way toward the stern, thus pushing on the vessel in that direction. At other times, by the brisk and vigorous use of the oar, they catch and dash through the most favorable lines of current. In this exhausting struggle, however, it is needful to have frequent pauses for rest, and in the most difficult passages there are certain ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... from Bayham Street were chiefly to two connections of the family, his mother's elder brother and his godfather. The latter, who was a rigger, and mast-, oar-, and block-maker, lived at Limehouse in a substantial handsome sort of way, and was kind to his godchild. It was always a great treat to him to go to Mr. Huffham's; and the London night-sights as he returned were a perpetual joy and marvel. Here, too, the comic-singing ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... vibratory silium or fin on the side of the posterior end; the thrust exerted by each fin is toward the rear. If, now, light strikes one eye, say the right, the left fin is set in motion and the animal's body is set rotating toward the right like a rowboat with one oar. This is all that one such reflex arc could do for the animal. Since, however, there are now two, when the animal comes to be turned far enough toward the right so that some of the light strikes the second eyespot (as will ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... moment I could not think how we should do it, as we had only one paddle left and the steering gear had got torn away from its socket, although Alcides with great courage had managed to save it. I ordered my men to paddle with their hands and with the large oar which was used for steering. We were tossed about in a terrific manner, the men and canoe going round and round the whirlpool in ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... of Attica, (50) and the exercise of magistracies which take them into regions beyond the frontier, they and their attendants have insensibly acquired the art of navigation. (51) A man who is perpetually voyaging is forced to handle the oar, he and his domestics alike, and to learn the terms familiar in seamanship. Hence a stock of skilful mariners is produced, bred upon a wide experience of voyaging and practice. They have learnt their business, some in piloting a small craft, others a merchant vessel, whilst others ...
— The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians • Xenophon
... mother's cabin-home, that lay Where feathery cocoos fringe the bay; The dashing of his brethren's oar, The conch-note heard along the shore— All through his wak'ning bosom swept: He clasp'd his ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... put in your oar, Jedidiah Burbank!" she said. "I guess I know what I'm about. If it was leap-year fifty times over, I wouldn't offer myself ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... exemption has not yet expired, or that he is not of the required age; since the Choregus of a boys' chorus must be over forty years of age. He also appoints Choregi for the festival at Delos, and a chief of the mission for the thirty-oar boat which conveys the youths thither. He also superintends sacred processions, both that in honour of Asclepius, when the initiated keep house, and that of the great Dionysia—the latter in conjunction with the Superintendents of that festival. These officers, ...
— The Athenian Constitution • Aristotle |
