"Off and on" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... regarded the porter gravely. "Sam, I have been in Newport off and on for some time, but have been too busy to study the social side. Still, I happen to know you have the honor of having under your excellent care, the very ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... Gull had anchored off the Rhu Ban Cove there would be plenty to be wondering why she was there. No, no, my lad; there's sailor men on the Gull, and a wee thing will not frighten them. She just ran before it, man, and she's standing off and on ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... in the tropics, I think you told me?" he said to Evadne, with exaggerated preciseness. "Ah! now, I have been, off and on, several times. The heat is very trying. I knew a lady, the wife of a Colonial Governor, who used to be so overcome by it that she was obliged to undo all her things, let them slip to the ground, and step out of them, leaving them looking like a great cheese. ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... which, she started work at the library the first thing and has been off and on ever since, and is now going to do it permanently, besides teaching a class in the Sunday-school, looking after the choir-boys, running errands for ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... ice-pressure. Every one rushed on deck to look. The Fram behaved beautifully, as I had expected she would. On pushed the ice with steady pressure, but down under us it had to go, and we were slowly lifted up. These 'squeezings' continued off and on all the afternoon, and were sometimes so strong that the Fram was lifted several feet; but then the ice could no longer bear her, and she broke it below her. Towards evening the whole slackened again, ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... night under our top-sails, standing off and on, with the wind steady, but light, at the southward. Next morning, the duty of the ship went on as usual, until the men had breakfasted, when we stood again into the bay. This time, we hove-to so as to get one of the buoys, when we dropped the stream, leaving the top-sails set. We then hove up ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... just got a new key to the situation. So that threat about America could serve a double purpose? He was now more than ever convinced that Ferdinand Lind was merely playing off and on with him until this money question should be settled; and that he had been resolved all the time that his daughter should not marry. ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... obstacle in her way, and with no particular finesse. But nothing could daunt her, and two or three years later she was riding round in her car—a striking red one—while the major number of her rivals were still dependent upon the ambling cab-horse, directed off and on by a fat driver who was normally asleep. Jealousy, however, for the most part had merged into admiration; for your average male, of whatever race, is not only philosophical but bows to success; she was both recognized and called in for consultation. ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... HENRY was in the House, off and on, for thirty-four years before discovering that he was on the wrong side, Mr. MOSLEY has made the same discovery after an experience of barely as many weeks. From his new perch he inquired this afternoon if Government cement was being sent abroad, to the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various
... prevented; for, on a sodaine, came rushing in vpon me a Spanish Horseman, whose name as afterwards I was informed was Don Juan of Cales, a Knight.... Five or sixe Skirmishes wee had, and for a pretty while fought off and on.' As the fight went on Peeke got the better of Don Juan, who 'fell on his knees and crying out in French to me, Pardone moy, je vous pree. Je suie un buon Chrestien.... Having a Soldier's minde to Rifle him, I searched ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... right," she said. "I knew him all his life, off and on. But I wish I hadn't screamed. I don't believe he killed Lucas, and I never will. ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... captain, as the foreigner who must somehow be responsible for this unusual spectacle. Consequently, when they came into Tregarthen's little garden,—which formed the platform from which the captain had seen Kitty peeping over the wall,—the captain brought to, and stood off and on at the gate, while Kitty hurried to hide her tears in her own room, and Alfred spoke with her father, who was working in the garden. He was a rather infirm man, but could scarcely be called old yet, with an agreeable ...
— A Message from the Sea • Charles Dickens
... this as a matter of certainty, seeing that we have made the same on a fixed course, and ships following this course are sure to find it true. On the 21st do. we saw land, to wit, Kleyn Jaevae; we kept off and on during the night, and at daybreak made for the land, passing through the strait between ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... caught one day in the current and carried away. Poor, little, posthumous chicks, how your father Billy would have loved you and taught you to crow. Again I tried; this time with more success and brought from the eggs six little, fluffy pullets. All lived and we took turns, off and on, supplying the family with eggs, till one day men passing in a row boat, saw us and took us aboard. We had been on the island for two months. All my six pullets lived and married, and are now in the yard ...
— In Macao • Charles A. Gunnison
... some time, and from what we have heard of God, off and on, we don't believe he is going to let no ordinary man, bald-headed and appoplectic, carry off all the persimmons, and put his fingers to his nose and dare the ruler of the universe to tread on the tail ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... our satisfaction, for they consisted of twenty-six sail, and most of them ships of force, as well as burthen, both merchantmen and men-of-war; so, seeing there was no meddling, we lay still where we were also, till the fleet was out of sight, and then stood off and on, in hopes of meeting with ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... that he was approached by a man whom he had known off and on for years, a man who was employed by you in connection with shipyard inquiries. He was informed that this man was still employed by you for the same purpose now as in ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... rhymes" of him to whom "souls were always more than songs," written "at random—off and on, here, there, anywhere," touch the heart and linger like remembered music ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... a good many stories of this kind off and on, but this particular one, I think, brought home, to me at least, the general beastliness of the Hun closer than ever before. We all loved our little kiddie very much, and when we saw the evidence of the terrible cruelties the poor old woman ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... stood off and on under easy sail, and next morning, when the day broke, with a strong breeze and a fresh shower, we were about two miles of the Moro Castle, at the entrance of Santiago ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... ourselves out bravely and pretending we didn't care, but I remembered one little girl who aroused our contemptuous laughter by answering "goldfish." And now, after all these years, for the first time I found myself marveling at her sagacity. Indeed, she was off and on in my thoughts until I had clothed myself in dry garments and partaken of a grown man's breakfast; after which I dropped into a state of retrospective contentment, divided between the annoyances that beset kings, Azurian princesses, and the culinary ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... of a short frock made of dark blue cloth, and a head-dress peculiar to the Indian women among the Crees. It was preferred by the little wearer to all other styles of bonnet, on account of the ease with which it could be thrown off and on. She also wore ornamented leggings and moccasins. Altogether, with her graceful figure, flaxen curls, and picturesque costume, she presented a strong contrast to the fat, dark, hairy little creatures who followed her by brook and bush and ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... hours, how many hours was Amyas Leigh in reaching that boat's bow? Alas! the negroes are there as soon as he, and the guard, having left their calivers, are close behind them, sword in hand. Amyas is up to his knees in water—battered with stones—blinded with blood. The boat is swaying off and on against the steep pebble-bank: he clutches at it—misses—falls headlong—rises half-choked with water: but Frank is still in his arms. Another heavy blow—a confused roar of shouts, shots, curses—a confused mass of negroes and English, foam and ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... or two," answered the unconsciously gossipy little bachelor. "Looks like the whole family have missed him, too. Miss Viney has been in bed off and on ever since he left, and Miss Amandy has tooken a bad cold in her right ear and has had to keep her head wrapped up all the time. Mr. Tucker's mighty busy a-trying to figure out how to crap the farm like Mr. Mark laid off ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the business of a younger man than I am,' said the General, 'and I doubt if there's any mending in that direction. I have been at the game now, off and on, for something like forty years, and I know we have the best fighting stuff in the world at our command, but the Department have always made it their business to cripple it and starve it, and leave it naked and hungry. I've seen it in Spain, and in the Low Countries, and I've dragged out three ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... enough to make Bill chuckle. His mother said that the Major spoiled Bill. And in his secret heart Bill knew that there were times, off and on, say a few times every week, when the Major gave him treats that he would never have been able to coax from his mother. The little car for instance. His mother had declared that it was a crazy thing to give a boy twelve years ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... the first night after we took this hellion. I'd stood the wheel most of the afternoon—off and on, that is, because she sails herself uncommonly well. Just put her on a reach, you know, and she carries it ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... intellectual and scientific resources, his honesty of purpose, his fidelity of character, his eminent scholarship, his unswerving integrity, and his command of tongue, rendered him alike invulnerable to politicians and to royal minions. He was with Raleigh at Winchester and in the Tower, off and on, as required, from 1604 to 1618, except during the last voyage to Guiana. He was at the same time a pensioner, a companion, and confidential factotum of his old friend the Earl of Northumberland both in the Tower and at Sion for fifteen years. Watched as these two prisoners were, ensnared, ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... You were locked up at the time, poor fellow,—and had other things to think of; but all the interest we had for anything beyond you through May and June was devoted to Laurence and his prospects. It was off and on, and on and off, and he was in a most wretched condition. At last she wouldn't consent unless she ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... man of God and when he die, I marry another, Tom Thompson, a colored Baptist preacher. You see dat house yonder? Dats where my daughter and grandchillun live. They is colored aristocracy of de town, but they has a mighty plain name, its just Smith. I grieve over it off and on, a kind of thorn in de flesh, my husband used to say. But both my husbands dead and I sets here twice a widow, and I wonders how 'twill be when I go home up yonder 'bove them white thunder heads us can see right now. Which one them men you reckon I'll see first? ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... his singularly serene and smooth life—the death of his mother. She died on the 23rd of May, in her ninetieth year. The three avenues to Smith, says the Earl of Buchan, were always his mother, his books, and his political opinions—his mother apparently first of all. They had lived together, off and on, for sixty years, and being most tenderly attached to her, he is said, after her death, never to have seemed the same again. According to Ramsay of Ochtertyre, he was so disconsolate that people in general could find no explanation except ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... been going on like that, off and on, all night. It clean broke my heart to see it, and that's the holy truth," and Pigott looked very much as though she were ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... for a quiet term of life, and I accordingly settled down at home. Work was once more found for me at Messrs Lund's mill; indeed, I have often since thought that the late Mr William Lund must have stipulated in his will that work was at all times to be found for me. Off and on, I must have worked at North Beck Mills some score times, and each time there was a sort of welcome reception for me. Perhaps my father's life-long connection with the firm had something to do with it. Be that as it may, ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... mother; at least if they do not advance again. I shall be here off and on. I mean to find Dinah Morris if it is possible, and if I can obtain the slightest clew I shall follow it up and go wherever it ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... consent of her father, who was glad to be rid of her out of the way of a new wife; took the trembling, clinging child to the nearest parson, and made her a pensioner on his small wages in a tiny lodging of her own. They honeymooned for a fortnight, off and on, as his ship could spare him—the happiest pair of mortals in the wide world—and then parted in tears and anguish unspeakable for the best part ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... dipped slowly, but if the room was fairly cool, could make two hundred candles for a day's work. Some could dip two rods at a time. The tallow was constantly replenished, as the heavy kettles were used alternately to keep the tallow constantly melted, and were swung off and on the fire. Boards or sheets of paper were placed under the rods to protect the snowy, ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... helpings of game pie, for I was very hungry; but before I had finished the first of them I was interrupted. Crossan stalked into the room. He was the last man I wanted to see. His appearance and manner are, at the best of times, tragic. Clithering had been with me, off and on, most of the day, so I had got rather tired ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... her hand. "Tell your mistress to get you a French coffee-pot, and if you don't know how to use it, I'll come and teach you. I shall be here off and on as long as Mrs. Drane stops in this house." And then, seating herself, La Fleur proceeded to put Molly through an ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... ever awake, and ever alive to all the interest of the road; now joining in conversation with a passenger, shrewd, sensible, and respectful; now exchanging a little elegant badinage with the coachman; now bowing to a pretty girl; now quizzing a passer-by; he was off and on his seat in an instant, and, in the whiff of his cigar, would lock a wheel, or unlock ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... here's Lot Number Three, a likely young nigger who answers to the name of Sam Brown. Not much to look at, but will make a good field hand, if looked after right and kept away from liquor; used to workin', when in the chain gang, where he's been, off and on, since he was ten years old. Amount of fine an' costs thirty-seven dollars an' a half. A musical nigger, too, who plays the banjo, an' sings jus' like a—like a blackbird. What am I ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... you for coming—oh, sir, I'm grateful to you," cried the poor woman in the bed. "I've been ill, off and on, for years, but never took thought to it as I ought. I've put off and put off, waiting for a better time—and now, God help me, it's perhaps too late. Oh, sir, tell me, when a person's ill and dying, is it ...
— The Rector • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... seen a good many of such pictures, he grows quiet. Stops whistling. He learns how to worry, and he worries off and on till it hurts. Then, to get some relief, he makes a contract with one of those companies, which provides him with what we call ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... Telegraph keys are merely pieces of apparatus by which the circuit can be conveniently and rapidly opened or closed at the will of the operator. An ordinary push-button may be used to turn off and on the current, but it is not so convenient as a "key." Fig. 92 shows a side view of a simple key. C is a metal strip about 3/4 in. wide and 4 or 5 in. long. At the left end it is fastened to the base with a screw, A. Another screw, ...
— How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus • Thomas M. (Thomas Matthew) St. John
... which we have been at some pains to collect, and have good reason to believe exactly true. The English last year carried on a very valuable whale fishery on the coasts of Brazil, off the River Plate in South America, in the latitude 35 south, from thence to 40, just on the edge of soundings, off and on, about the longitude 65 from London. They have this year about seventeen vessels in the fishery, which have all sailed in the months of September and October. All the officers and almost all the men belonging to those seventeen vessels are Americans, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... heard them talking off and on—I, who lay awake plunged into new miseries. I was sure that some other dreadful thing had happened. Probably Dingaan's armies had destroyed all the Boers, and, if so, oh! what had become of Marie? Was she dead, or had she perhaps been taken prisoner, as Dingaan had told me would ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... man, it is my very thought," says he. "You see, I have just been set on shore here by a very honest man, whose name I cannot remember, and who is to stand off and on for me till morning, at some danger to himself; and, to be clear with you, I am a little concerned lest it should be at some to me. I have saved my life so often, Mr. ——, I forget your name, which is a very good one—that, faith, I would be very loth to lose it after all. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sat bare at the table, according to their usage, chiefly (though no occasion were for it at this time) to avoid the trouble of often putting off and on their hats and caps in healths. They were full of good discourse, more cheerful than serious. Most at the table spake or understood somewhat of English, for which reason they were chosen to accompany Whitelocke ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... Cry. I had, as I thought, remarkable power on each of the three occasions, and finished off at ten o'clock far less exhausted than I frequently am. Still, I scarcely got into my rooms before the giddiness came on in my head very badly, and continued off and on until ten the next morning. I can't account for it. It may be my stomach, or it may have something to do with the rocking of the steamer on Friday night. It may be what the doctors fear, my overtaxed brain, or it may be something else. Whatever ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... he went down to the family solicitor's office. He had done so, off and on, for weeks. He spent the time in looking through old family papers, fishing out ancient documents, partly out of curiosity, partly from an unaccountable presentiment. He had been there about an hour this morning when a clerk brought him a small box, which, he said, had been ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the ascendant. Formal anything—formal dress, formal manners, formal religion, formal this and that—always counts for more than the informal, the spontaneous, the original. It is easier, it can be put off and on. ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... commences, what in theatrical language is called the madness, but which the author more accurately entitles, delirium, it appearing indeed a sort of intermittent fever with fits of lightheadedness off and on, whenever occasion and stage effect happen to call for it. A convenient return of the storm, (we told the reader before-hand how it would ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... significant but nothing really adds up. The routines were all standard, the four men were all vets. Aside from the pilot they had all worked together for years, off and on." ...
— The Last Straw • William J. Smith
... Island of Luconia, the principal of the Philippine group, on the 5th of February, in the morning watch, and employed that day in running down its coast. Stood off and on the entrance of the Bay of Manilla that night, and early the next morning passed El Corregidor, and stood up the bay with a fair wind, coming to anchor off the town about six bells, eleven o'clock, ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... commonly said to be at Mecca[243]. We remained at Yamboa six days, and set sail at four o'clock on the 1st of May; but after proceeding only 10 miles the wind became contrary, and we had to anchor among some shoals, where we staid two days. During the 3d and 4th, we had to stand off and on, beating up against a contrary wind; and so continued for six days, advancing only eight miles in all that time. The 10th and 11th, the wind being still contrary, we made only 10 miles, and anchored in a different place. Proceeding ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... Mr. Merewether—he is still at Bludston—asking who his visitor was that year and what had become of her. So she found out it was I. I've known her off and on ever ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... On January 16, 1951, two people from General Mills and four people from Artesia, New Mexico, were watching a skyhook balloon from the Artesia airport. They had been watching the balloon off and on for about an hour when one of the group saw two tiny specks on the horizon, off to the northwest. He pointed them out to the others because two airplanes were expected into the airport, and he thought that these might be the airplanes. But as they watched, the two specks began to move ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... belonging to the submarines got chased, and the Arethusa and Fearless went back to look after it. We presently heard a hot action astern, so the captain in command of the flotilla turned us around and we went back to help. But they had driven the enemy off and on our arrival told us to 'form up' on ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... three minutes sometimes. The linin' was pea-green; and I've often thought since it was a leetle too fine for the tother part, which was seal-skin, and wore tolerable bare,—I havin' wore it, not off and on, but steady on, from the time I left off my bunnet that was made of the end of my cradle-quilt; but I didn't calculate it was too fine then, and I made a pint o' standin' on a chair afore the lookin'-glass, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... one time suffered extremely from constipation. Walked and talked early. No convulsions. Menstruated first several months ago. Sometimes complains of severe headaches. One observer reported that the girl had been subject to slight melancholia within the last year. Choreic movements have been present off and on for about a year, but have not been marked until a little while previous to the incident which brought her to us. The diagnosis had been made that it was a case of mild St. Vitus dance. During all the year Nellie ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... down the river and stood, off and on, near its entrance. Will was delighted with the bright sea, dotted with ships and fishing craft. The sun was shining, and there was just enough wind to send the smack along briskly through the water, without raising any waves sufficiently high to give her a perceptible ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... left. Burt had scarcely time to do more than encircle Amy with his arm and sweep her out of the path of the terrified beast. The cadet made heroic efforts, until it was evident that the horse would dash into the iron fence beyond the road, and then the young fellow was off and on his feet with the agility of a cat, but he still maintained his hold upon the bridle. A second later there was a heavy thud heard above the screams of women and children and the shouts of those vociferating advice. The ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... you've anything on your mind, Sergeant, hoist it out freely; for, you know, you trust it to a friend. You were my own sister's husband, and poor little Magnet is my own sister's daughter; and, living or dead, I shall always look upon you as a brother. It's a thousand pities that you didn't lie off and on with the boats, and send a canoe ahead to reconnoitre; in which case your command would have been saved, and this disaster would not have befallen us all. Well, Sergeant, we are all mortal; that is some consolation, I make no doubt; and if you go before ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... short. "No," he resumed, "I couldn't think of you sleeping on the lockers; they're that hard and uncomfortable you'd never be able to get a bit of real rest on 'em; to say nothing of Purchas or me coming in, off and on, during the night to look at the clock, or the barometer, or what not, and disturbing you. Besides, you'd be in our way there. No, that won't do; that won't do at all. I'll be shot if I can see any way out of it but to make you up a shakedown in the longboat. ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... Southampton was a busy scene, and took many hours to accomplish, but finally fourteen huge transports got under way, and steamed up Channel for Dover. There we 'stood off and on' until 9 p.m. on October 6, when picking up our pilot we steamed out into the Down in the quiet ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... for I had hardly had two glimpses of salt water in my life till then—kept her standing off and on all that day, while I listened for the first time with the curiosity of my tender years to the song of the wind in a ship's rigging. The monotonous and vibrating note was destined to grow into the intimacy of ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... ship ——." A gust of wind carried away the name, and Rodgers was still in doubt as to whom he had been fighting. Hoisting a number of bright lights in her rigging, that the stranger might know her whereabouts, the "President" stood off and on during the night, ready to give aid to the disabled ship ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... of them laughed. Others were frightened. He was an ugly brute—well over six feet tall, with a blonde beard, a hooked nose, and a pair of eyes that saw beyond reality. He was fascinating. He could turn his eloquence off and on like a tap. He sat in a drunken stupor, glaring at the crowd, until someone shouted: "Eh bien, Pilleux—you were saying?" Then the deluge! He had a peasant's acceptance of the elemental facts of life—it was raw, that hymn of his! The women of the streets ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... 'Oh! off and on. I've been keeping my eye on Harris' room,' he pointed across the yard to the kitchen and store-building opposite—at the end of which Harris had installed himself—to the squat outline of the slab and back hide house. 'My ear, too,' he went on, 'for ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... coming home—if, as I say, it was Shaw—rather to the surprise of everybody they made one of the Windward Islands, and lay off and on for nearly a week. The boys said the officers were sick of salt-junk, and meant to have turtle-soup before they came home. But after several days the Warren came to the same rendezvous; they exchanged ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... gabble worry you, son. These psi-mediums have real powers, but they can't turn them off and on like a water tap. When they don't get anything, they don't like to admit it, and they invent things. Always generalities like that; never ...
— Ministry of Disturbance • Henry Beam Piper
... off and on, of opening a store there," chimed in Lois Daggett, setting down her cup with a clash; "but I guess nobody'd patronize it. Folks don't ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... the island, deepened quickly to 30 and 35 fathoms. Six miles from it the depth decreased to 23 fathoms. We stood off and on during the night, the current setting North-North-West a mile an hour. The space between the Abrolhos and the main bears the name of Geelvink Channel, after Vlaming's ship, the first that ever passed ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... for the ultimate reaping of the crop. But this is no matter for wonder, since so many chins are to be shaven, and a razor-case holds but two razors. For only two razors does a man-of-war barber have, and, like the marine sentries at the gangway in port, these razors go off and on duty in rotation. One brush, too, brushes every chin, and one lather lathers them all. No private brushes and boxes; no ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... Nicholson. "We'll stand off and on near where I place the shore line till we have daylight enough to see what we are about. Anyhow, I don't suppose there will be any lights, or if there are, they will likely be misplaced, to ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... have got ours in retaliation. Off and on, through all of yesterday, after the ventilator tragedy, there were noises beneath the cabin floor or deck. We heard them under the dining-table, under the steward's pantry, under ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... And she patted his hand. The determined front she was putting on it stayed the turmoil in Val's chest, and he busied himself in drawing his gloves off and on. He had taken what he now saw was the wrong pair to go with his spats; they should have been grey, but were deerskin of a dark tan; whether to keep them on or not he could not decide. They arrived soon after ten. It was his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... news. As to poor Mr. Innes Cross of our regiment, who is missing, I know nothing. The other or 2nd Battalion might tell you something. A machine gun has been going hard at my trench for some time, off and on.... ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... boastful in me, if I make the remark (for I can't put down what I have got to say, without putting that down before going any further), that I have always been of an ingenious turn. I once got twenty pound by a screw, and it's in use now. I have been twenty year, off and on, completing an Invention and perfecting it. I perfected of it, last Christmas Eve at ten o'clock at night. Me and my wife stood and let some tears fall over the Model, when it was done and I brought her in to ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... after this, going and returning, many bergs, hundreds in all. With one of the finest, a little more broken and varied than those previously described, we came up at a little past noon, and the schooner stood off and on while Bradford went in the boat to sketch it in color,—Captain Handy's steady and skilful hand upon the sculling-oar. Bradford worked at it like a beaver all the afternoon, and then directed the schooner ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... up to be a wise and useful man, but he loved rather to run idle about the street than to go to school. He was fond of playing along the River Hudson, for he there saw the great ships come and go. They were as big as houses. He watched them load and unload their cargoes and hundreds of people get off and on. His father had told him that the ships came from far distant lands, where lived many large animals and black men. His father told him too, that in these faraway countries the nuts on the trees grew to be as large ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe • Samuel B. Allison
... sail for the island of Ulietea, which lies S.W. by W. distant seven or eight leagues from Huaheine, and at half an hour after six in the evening we were within three leagues of the shore, on the eastern side. We stood off and on all night, and when the day broke the next morning, we stood in for the shore: We soon after discovered an opening in the reef which lies before the island, within which Tupia told us there was a good harbour. I did not, however, implicitly take his word; but sent ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... large expectations they secretly cherished of a fortune in the Knobs of East Tennessee. How pinched they were perhaps no one knew but Clay, to whom they looked for almost their whole support. Washington had been in Hawkeye off and on, attracted away occasionally by some tremendous speculation, from which he invariably returned to Gen. Boswell's office as poor as he went. He was the inventor of no one knew how many useless contrivances, which were not worth patenting, and his years had been passed in dreaming ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the yacht brought up at her cable, when the Juno, in which Laud Cavendish had been laying off and on where he could see the launch, ran alongside ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... the town very much alive indeed to the news which the Star had blazoned to the world. Hardy had been a well-known figure, off and on, for many years in Rockdale, and the names of the Durgins and of ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... the man. Genius of that astounding kind has all the qualities of an extraneous thing. A man is not answerable for it. It is nothing to his salvation; it is little even to his general character. It has been known to come and go, to be put off and on like a garment, to be lent by Heaven and taken ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... in the early afternoon of that day and found a letter waiting for him with an English postmark. Peg had eyed it curiously off and on for hours. She had turned it over and over in her fingers and looked at the curious, angular writing, and felt a little cold shiver run up and down her as she found herself wondering who could be writing to her father ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... what I want to say right now," said the handcuffed man as soon as he was alone with Mr. Gubb. "I've heard of Detective Gubb, off and on, many a time, and as soon as I got into this trouble I said, 'Gubb's the man that can get me out if any one can.' My ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... followed in the evening by a gale from the SW which reduced them to their storm sails, and compelled them to keep off and on during the night. The wind, however, moderating the next day, and a southerly current having been in their favour, Mr. Flinders concluded his labours at dusk in the evening of the 20th; at which time he secured his little vessel alongside his Majesty's ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... hath drowned his tongue in sack: for my part, the sea cannot drown me; I swam, ere I could recover the shore, five-and-thirty leagues off and on. By this light, thou shalt be my lieutenant, monster, ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... be arranged—in a day or two, at farthest—you will go to sea for a three months' cruise, touching here, at the end of it, for your captain. Let me hear a good report of you, now, when you come back. At present, you will continue lying off and on the harbour. I will send you fresh provisions as soon as I can get them. There: I've nothing more to say; go forward to ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... in a tone of relief. "I come yar as Tennessee's pardner—knowing him nigh on four year, off and on, wet and dry, in luck and out o' luck. His ways ain't allers my ways, but thar ain't any p'ints in that young man, thar ain't any liveliness as he's been up to, as I don't know. And you sez to me, sez you—confidential-like, and between man and man—sez you, 'Do you know anything ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... ought. Mind, I'm not sure, but I think so. RICH. That's what my heart says. It says, "Dick," it says (it calls me Dick acos it's entitled to take that liberty), "that there young gal would recoil from him if she knowed what he really were. Ought you to stand off and on, and let this young gal take this false step and never fire a shot across her bows to bring her to? No," it says, "you did not ought." And I won't ought, accordin'. SIR D. Then you really feel yourself at liberty to tell me that my elder brother lives—that ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... was bright, thy coat it shone; Thou hast thine errands, off and on; In joy thy last morn flew; anon, A fit! All's over; And thou art gone where Geist deg. hath gone, deg.65 ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... could see 'im wiping his eyes on his sleeve. He kept it up from morning till night. Sometimes, Alfred, I doubt the goodness of God Almighty. I know it's a sin to say so, but I can't help it. I've talked a heap to Joe off and on, an' he's had more put on 'im than a grown person ought to bear. Poor thing! he misses his Ma. From what he says I judge she was good and tender. I had a queer dream the other night. I seemed to see a woman in my room; she was crying, ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... was on his right course, decided to make a landing and ask his way. He noticed, after a while, the figure of a man in a field below. Planing down, and alighting in the field, he shouted questions to this man, switching his engine off and on, while he did so, in order that his words, and those of the other, might be audible. But the man in the field, demoralised by the advent of this being from the air, and gazing at him and his machine with an expression of blank amazement, was unequal to the task of giving ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... trembled a little. Knowles's sharp eyes darted from one to the other; then, with a smothered growl, he shook himself, and rushed headlong into the old battle which he and the schoolmaster had been waging now, off and on, some six years. That was a fight, I can tell you! None of your shallow, polite clashing of modern theories,—no talk of your Jeffersonian Democracy, your high-bred Federalism! They took hold of the matter by the roots, clear at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... Farallone, upon the other, banished to the threshold of the port, rolling there to her scuppers, and flaunting the plague-flag as she rolled. A few sea birds screamed and cried about the ship; and within easy range, a man-of-war guard boat hung off and on and glittered with the weapons of marines. The exuberant daylight and the blinding heaven of the tropics picked out and ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... its name not from its churning water but because the boiler of the steamer Wrigley was lost here and still remains at the bottom of the basin. The walls of this rapid are as clear-cut as if wrought into smoothness by mallet and chisel. The tar-soaked sands appear off and on all the way to McMurray. Next comes the Long Rapid (Kawkinwalk Abowstick), which we run close to ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... immense amount of mud washed down from the gold-diggings through the Sacramento River; I can not say whether this is true or not. We hoped to get into San Francisco in time to dine the next day; but a calm dissipated all such anticipations, and we lay off and on by the Farallone Islands all ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson
... where the Populist had been fusing with the Democrats off and on for several years, the combinations were arranged with little difficulty. In apportioning the places on the electoral tickets the strength of the respective parties was roughly represented by the number of places assigned ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck
... woman. I don't refer to her age, but her ideas. She carded and spun and wove and dyed all the family clothing. She made her own soap and wouldn't have a stove in the house. She had eight children, too, and they all of them turned out badly. I used to go there off and on; I think she looked on me as a kind of sinful amusement. Anyhow, she told me the world was going to ruin, and the women were poor 'doless' creatures, who couldn't spin a hank of yarn, or gin a pound of cotton, or heel a sock. ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... said pier is a very pleasant place of promenade, the water and banks are so pretty, and there is so much liveliness of ships about it. Well I started in a gig, in a swashing rain, which continued off and on for a good while. Of the 21 miles, I should think that 15 were across the New Forest. I do not much admire it. As for Norman William's destruction of houses and churches to make it hunting ground, that ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... this is the third day," replied Frank. "Yesterday I slept most of the time while the schooner was standing off and on, and the day before that was the day they put me ashore. I've had a rush with the pirates that infest these waters under the guise of honest working fishermen. They're a bad ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... putting in at various ports off and on," returned the captain, "and be mailing you letters, postals and trinkets of one sort and another. Moreover, you're all going to write to me, I hope—even Martin. For if there's any one thing a sailor man ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... Country, off and on, almost since Christmas last; ready here, if the Saxons had been ready. As the Saxons were not ready, and always broke their appointment, Nussler had gone into the Mountains, to pass time usefully, and take preliminary view ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Johnson had written a tragedy—"Irene"—and he had read it to Garrick several times, and Garrick said it was good and should make a hit. But Garrick didn't know much about tragedies—law was his bent—he had read law for two years, off and on. They would go to London and seize fortune by the scalp-lock. In London good lawyers were needed, and London was the only place ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... told me, just as if it were no more than a bargain for a pound of tallow candles, how Mr. Herbert Castlewood, patient and persistent, was kept off and on for at least two years by the mother of his sweet idol. How the old lady held a balance in her mind as to the likelihood of his succession, trying, through English friends, to find the value and the course of ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... that you expect me to retract!" cried Joseph, impetuously. "Never will I retract what I have said or done, for I act from conviction, and conviction does not slip off and on like a glove! But let us speak no more on this subject. If your holiness will write down your canonical objections to my proceedings against the church, I will lay them before my theologians for examination. My chancellor shall reply to them ministerially, and the correspondence can be published ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... had been for some minutes standing off and on, reconnoitering Lord Ipsden; he now bore down, and with great rough, roaring cordiality, that made Lady ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... three round windows fitted with thick plate-glass in the helmets to which we refer. The front one is made to screw off and on, and the fixing of this is always the last operation in completing ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... then, I ain't either!" Skinny declared. "If you two ain't willing to take turn about with the widow and love her off and on between you I'll be everlastingly hell-tooted if I'm going to stand for a whole one by myself all of the time! I'll go on strike first ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... this summons the clerk got off the high stool (to which he had communicated a high polish by countless gettings off and on), and presented himself in Mr Nickleby's room. He was a tall man of middle age, with two goggle eyes whereof one was a fixture, a rubicund nose, a cadaverous face, and a suit of clothes (if the term be allowable ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... marrying agin reminds me o' something that 'appened to a young fellow I knew named Alf Simms. Being an orphan 'e was brought up by his uncle, George Hatchard, a widowed man of about sixty. Alf used to go to sea off and on, but more off than on, his uncle 'aving quite a tidy bit of 'ouse property, and it being understood that Alf was to have it arter he 'ad gone. His uncle used to like to 'ave him at 'ome, and Alf didn't like work, so it suited ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... off and on during the night, seeking for us," added Paul, as he again looked through the spy-glass at the ship. "She seems to be sound in all her upper works, so far as ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... square," returned the voice of the coxswain, Israel Hands. "He's no fool, is Dick." And he turned his quid and spat. "But, look here," he went on, "here's what I want to know, Barbecue: how long are we a-going to stand off and on like a blessed bum-boat? I've had a'most enough o' Cap'n Smollett; he's hazed me long enough, by thunder! I want to go into that cabin, I do. I want their pickles and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... just below the big cherry bough. I'll see it set behind the hill. I've seen it there, off and on, for twelve years, and now I'm taking a good-by look at it. I want you to keep still, too. I've got a few things to think over, and I ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the details—never could get 'em, either—for I was away at school; but after I came back from the Philippines the Madero fuss was just brewing, so I went over and joined it. But it didn't last long, and there wasn't enough fighting to suit me. I've been back, off and on, since, and I've burned a good deal of Guadalupe property and swum a good many ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... there must be immense reserves for an emergency, and on the Somme a day's allowance when the battle was only "growling" was a month's a year previous. Let the general say the word and fifty thousand more shells will be fired on Thursday than on Wednesday. He throws off and on the switch of a Niagara of death. The infantry is the Oliver Twist of incessant demand. It would like a score of batteries turned on one machine gun, all the batteries in the army against a battalion front, and a sheet of shells in the air night and ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... re-delivered the anti-coercion speech which he has been making off and on for the last forty years. Mr. DEVLIN was a little more up-to-date, for he introduced a reference to the Belfast riots and drew from the CHIEF SECRETARY an assurance that the Bill would be as applicable to Ulster as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 11, 1920 • Various
... decided to move to a smaller city, where we could live more cheaply, and some of the musicians that father knew gave him a benefit concert. The money from that helped us to move to Sanford, and father has been writing articles off and on for the magazine ever since then. It's better for all of us to be here. Uncle John isn't quite like other people. When he was a young man he studied to be a virtuoso on the violin. He overworked ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... indeed somewhat extraordinary that in the perpetual permutations of international politics the Hohenzollerns have never gone astray into the path of enlightenment. They have been in alliance with almost everybody off and on; with France, with England, with Austria, with Russia. Can any one candidly say that they have left on any one of these people the faintest impress of progress or liberation? Prussia was the enemy of the French ...
— The Appetite of Tyranny - Including Letters to an Old Garibaldian • G.K. Chesterton
... the copying-machine is his invention of a drying-machine for cloth, consisting of three cylinders of copper over which the cloth must turn over and under while cylinders are filled with steam, the cloth to be alternately wound off and on the two wooden rollers, by which means it will pass over three cylinders in succession. This machine was erected for Watt's father-in-law, Mr. MacGregor in Glasgow, by an ingenious mechanic, John Gardiner, often employed by Watt in earlier ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... make typewritten copies of things for the faculty, put on dress braids (that's how I met the B's), mend stockings, and wait on table off and on when some one's maid leaves suddenly. We thought it would be cheaper and pleasanter to board ourselves and earn our money in different ways than to take our board in exchange for regular table-waiting; but I don't know. The ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... a good deal, off and on. He must 'a' e't considerable," said Andrew. "And now he's up and lost your boat for you." He glanced complacently at the Andrew Halloran swinging at anchor. "You'll never see her again," he said. He gave a final toss to ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... he had been dipping into the recent novels written by women, here and there, with a view to noting the effect upon literature of this sudden and rather overwhelming accession to it. There was a good deal of talk about it evening after evening, off and on, and I can only undertake to ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... just de-sash-sheys 'round de top of dead trees, and make sich a rat-ta-ta-tapple after worms. His way of gittin' his meat for dinner. My mistress name Betsy. Deir fust child was Robert, dat never marry; him teach nearly every school in Fairfield County, off and on befo' he died. Then dere was young Marster Tom, small little man, dat carry his Seceeder 'ligion so far, him become 'furiated and carry dat 'ligion right up and into de Secession War. Make a good soldier, too! General Bratton call him, 'My ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... the best and the others were in San Francisco. Here, especially on Sunday night, almost everybody went to vary the monotony of home cooking. Every one who was any one in the town could be seen there off and on. It was perfectly respectable. A man might take his wife and ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... what those principles are. In fact, it is often only at the end of a research, that they are discovered to be the fundamental principles. Such has been my own experience with regard to the subject of the present enquiry. Although all my thinking life has been concerned, off and on, in contemplating the problem of our religious instincts, the sundry attempts which have been made by mankind for securing their gratification, and the important question as to their objective justification, ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... first story when I was eighteen or so. Kept on writing off and on for almost twenty years. Of course, Robertson's thermo-nuc formula came along in '75, and after that everything went to pot. It knocked out the chances of future war, but it also knocked out the interest in speculation or escape-fiction. So I moved over ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... delighted to give him the paper—he had it some place, though he very seldom opened any of his exchanges. He evidently bore Mr. Steadman no ill-will for his plain talk two weeks ago. With some difficulty he found it, with its wrapper still intact. It was a loose wrapper, which slipped off and on easily. Mr. Steadman remarked carelessly that there was an editorial in it to which his attention had been drawn, on hearing which Mr. Driggs turned his head and winked at ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... the ship had sailed, leaving him behind. I never in my life saw so forlorn a fellow, so ragged, so wretched; and even his wits seemed to have been beaten out of him, if perchance he ever had any. He got an order for the hospital; and there he has been, off and on, ever since, till yesterday, when I received a message that he was dying, and wished to see the Consul; so I went with Mr. Wilding to the hospital. We were ushered into the waiting-room,—a kind of parlor, ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was that a Dutch skipper, irritated with a foul wind, swore by donner and blitzen, that he would beat into Table Bay in spite of God or man, and that, foundering with the wicked oath on his lips, he has ever since been working off and on near the Cape. The term is now extended to false reports of ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... be reasonably sorry about it. Still, is there any need of pulling quite such a portentously long face? After all, a great many other persons have died, off and on: and for anything I can say to the contrary, this particular young fellow may have been no ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... fighting. Lieutenant-Commander J.G. Walker in the De Kalb was sent up to Yazoo City with sufficient force to destroy the enemy's property which he might find, and the gunboats below Vicksburg were moved up to fire on the hill batteries, an annoyance to the garrison which they kept up off and on during the night. On the 19th six mortar-boats were got into position, with orders to fire night and day ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... suddenly rang at her. "Off and on! Why, my good woman, it's just two days you could have worn it ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... proud, mother, that I looked for rank and gold, He said I did not love him—he said my words were cold; He said I kept him off and on, in hopes of higher game— And it may be that I did, mother; but who hasn't done ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... of the Austrian government. She was not a very clever woman, I am inclined to think, but she had been clever enough to induce a high official to fall in love with her, and by keeping this high official hanging off and on she had contrived to obtain promotion in her abominable calling far beyond her intellectual deserts. Brunow, it seemed, had known her for a year or two, but I learned afterwards that he had made no guess as to her ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... kiss her, "I have not been able to write a note of thanks to Mr. Gaythorne yet, but will you tell him that I have not had such a Christmas gift as that since my husband left me, and that I have been praying for him off and on all day, that he may have his heart's desire—there, tell him that——" And then she sank back ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... three leagues distant from the land we were coasting, which here forms a very deep bay, and beats E. by N. of the other island on which we had seen the long tufts of grass: We saw the sea break at a good distance from the shore, and during the night stood off and on. The next morning at three o'clock we made sail, and stood in for the land to look for a harbour. At six, the east end of the rocky island bore W.S.W. distant about three miles, and our soundings then were sixteen fathom, with rocky ground; but when we got within the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... that this great picture took Titian three years, off and on, to finish. It was a commission from the Duke of Ferrara, who supplied canvas and frame for it, and repeatedly wrote to press for its delivery; it reached ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... presents, to trade horses with me, and in this way I became the owner of the buckskin steed, not as my own property, however, but as a government horse that I could ride. I gave him the name of “Buckskin Joe,” and he proved to be a good second Brigham. That horse I rode off and on during the summers of 1869, '70, '71, and '72, and he was the horse that the Grand Duke Alexis rode on ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... idea, write it down, and have it printed; that's what I like. Twelve sheets composed in a week!" And thus short-tone poems, or a long piece, such as the "Humoreske," of irregular form, were the result. Now that was not the way in which he composed his two sonatas. He was two years, off and on, at work on the first, in F sharp minor (Op. 11), and eight on the other, in G minor (Op. 22). One may therefore conclude that the fetters of form were a source of trouble to him. And he can scarcely have felt very enthusiastic over his task; in 1839, ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... taken off the roaring beach through a tumult of breaking surf, but as they pulled seaward the fog shut down on them, and one boat, manned by three men, never reached the schooners. They blew horns all night, standing off and on, and crept along the smoking beach next day, though the surf made landing impossible. Then a sudden gale drove them off the shore, and, as it was evident that their comrades must have perished, they reluctantly sailed for other fishing grounds. As one result of this, Wyllard broke with his prosperous ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... one year, off and on, I had the honor to be the photoplay critic of The New Republic, this invitation also based on the first edition of this book. Looking back upon that experience I am delighted to affirm that not only The New Republic constituency but the world ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... David. "Let's have something more improved and up-to-date. Suppose, for instance, we use Marian's Jack-o'-lantern for the head. I'll put some little electric bulbs in the eye holes and attach them to a battery so that we can turn her eyes off and on. And we'll ride her on a broomstick ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... engagement between the two armies here; drums beating, trumpets sounding, thunder and lightning. They fight off and on several times. Some ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... so—strike me as being so simple as the one I have myself thought upon. It is this. I propose returning during the night to a spot near where the French frigate lies—I marked it particularly to-day, while we were lying off and on—and sending a boat's crew ashore about an hour before daybreak to-morrow morning, to see what can be done with that battery. They will, of course, be kept upon the tiptoe of expectation all night to- night, anticipating ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... the surrender people was passing from the War and for two years off and on somebody come along going home. Some rode and some had a cane or stick walking. Mother was cooking a pot of shoulder meat. Them blue soldiers come by and et it up. I didn't get any I know that. They cleaned us out. Father was born at Eastern Shore, Maryland. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... I did in time, during years in Brighton, off and on, with all the gypsies who roamed the south of England, to be beloved of the old fortune-tellers and the children and mothers as I was, and to be much in tents, involves a great deal of strangely picturesque rural life, night-scenes by firelight, in ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... Loveday apologized in a whisper to Mrs. Garland for the presence of the inferior villagers. 'But as they are learning to be brave defenders of their home and country, ma'am, as fast as they can master the drill, and have worked for me off and on these many years, I've asked 'em in, and thought ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... secured with a padlock by the superintendent above, to which Don Cumanos had a corresponding key, one of the chief men informed him that a vessel had anchored off the mouth of the river the day before, and weighed again early that morning, and that she was now standing off and on. ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... uncle. "Poor old Polly! What a bird she was to screech! She never liked me, Nat, but used to call me wretch, as plain as you could say it yourself. It was very wicked of me, I dare say, Nat, but I was so glad when she died, and your aunt was so sorry that she cried off and on for ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... change in the pavilion, and not a human creature was seen all day upon the links. The schooner in the offing was the one touch of life within my range of vision. She, apparently with no set object, stood off and on or lay to, hour after hour; but as the evening deepened, she drew steadily nearer. I became more convinced that she carried Northmour and his friends, and that they would probably come ashore after dark; not only because that ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... miles of the landing-place, we saw a boat coming off, so we immediately hove-to and awaited her arrival. There was no question of anchoring; indeed, there seldom is in these vessels, unless they are going to make a long stay, for they are past masters in the art of "standing off and on." The boat came alongside—a big, substantially-built craft of the whale-boat type, but twice the size—manned by ten sturdy-looking fellows, as unkempt and wild-looking as any pirates. They were evidently put to great straits for ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... think. We had a bun or two at different shops—out of the shillings—and it was quite late in the afternoon when we got to Fleet Street. The gas was lighted and the electric lights. There is a jolly Bovril sign that comes off and on in different coloured lamps. We went to the Daily Recorder office, and asked to see the Editor. It is a big office, very bright, with brass and mahogany and ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... Secesh," is the answer; as though it were observed, ooo-ooo-sp't! "I leave for New York again to-morrow; but shall be off and on again in Bumsteadville until midsummer, when I go to Egypt, Illinois, to be an engineer on a railroad. The stamps left me by my father are all in the stock of that road, and the Mr. BUMSTEAD whom you saw to-night ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... the panic of their approach spread like the cholera. The three suspicious crafts had so long lain off and on, that none doubted they were led by the audacious viking, Paul Jones. At five o'clock, on the following morning, they were distinctly seen from the capital of Scotland, quietly sailing up the bay. Batteries were hastily thrown up at Leith, arms were obtained from the castle at Edinburgh, alarm ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... try to keep in the offing until the flood, that is to say, till about seven in the evening, and if there is still light enough I will try to enter the gulf; if not, we must stand off and on during the night, and we will enter to-morrow ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... his dentist,'" Guy answered, in the most matter-of-fact voice on earth, suppressing a tremor, "because you know I've had toothache off and on myself, one day with another, for the whole last fortnight. And it's a tooth that never ached with either of us before-this one, you see"—he lifted his lip with his forefinger—"the second on the left ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... wonder if our friends suspect you?" said Crossthwaite. "Can you deny that you've been off and on lately between flunkeydom and the Cause, like a donkey between two bundles of hay? Have you not neglected our meetings? Have you not picked all the spice out of your poems? Though Sandy is too kind-hearted to tell you, you have disappointed us both miserably, and there's the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... ridiculous. Of course, nerve-racked tired waitresses and be-deviled chefs "cussed each other out" as a regular thing up at the eating-house during a rush, and Donna, having listened to these conversational sparks, off and on, for three years, felt now, for the first time, as she imagined they must feel—that the unusual commotion in one's soul occasionally ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... equal to my anticipation to visit Chatsworth for the first time, after a sojourn in England, off and on, for sixteen years. It is the lion number three, according to the American ranking of the historical edifices and localities of England. Stratford-upon-Avon, Westminster Abbey and Chatsworth are the three representative celebrities which our ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... days after Albert's row with Westcott he met George Gray, the Hoosier Poet, who had haunted Metropolisville, off and on, ever since he had first seen ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... had his boyish scraps with his fellows off and on ever since he could remember; but his first real fight came when he was twelve. He had had an altercation with an erstwhile pal over the division of the returns from some freight-car booty. The gang was all present, and as ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... "Off and on—nasty sort of twinges. If I trusted myself with a carpenter, I'd let you give me a check-up. Well, let's cut this short. What I was going to say ... let's see ... oh, since Timmy seldom pays any attention to the dog, why does the dog stick ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... here, now? A little out of the way of most of the parish, isn't it? I never could see, exactly, what put it into his head to come so far. Not but what he makes out to do his duty as a pastor, pretty prompt, too. I don't hear any complaints. He's rather off and on about settling, though. I guess he's a man that keeps his intentions pretty close to himself—and all his affairs, for that matter. Of course he's a perfect right to. But I will say I like to know all about folks from the beginning. It aggravates me to have to begin in the middle. I tell Serena, ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... mettle of his countrymen in a close encounter at sea, and preferred to trust to the calibre of his cannon. On the 11th October, however, the whole patriot fleet, favored by a strong easterly, breeze, bore down upon the Spanish armada, which, numbering now thirty sail of all denominations, was lying off and on in the neighbourhood of Horn and Enkhuyzen. After a short and general engagement, nearly all the Spanish fleet retired with precipitation, closely pursued by most of the patriot Dutch vessels. Five of the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... you see, that she'd known in her young days. Mrs. Halliday meant to have brought the poor soul back to Yorkshire, and had settled it all with Jim; but it was too late for anything of that kind. She found Susan dying, wandering in her mind off and on, but just able to recognise her sister, and to ask forgiveness for having trusted to Montagu Kingdon, instead of taking counsel from ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon |
