"Perilous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... horse-shoe of glittering boxes; the balconies above and the standing-room below where the poor art-students gathered to applaud; and he had said that when he was rich he would subscribe for a box and come there just to hear her sing. And now he was broke, and Drusilla was going East to run the perilous gauntlet of the tenors. He jerked up the stylus in the middle of a record and cursed his besotted industry. If he had let his ore go, and gone to see her like a gentleman, Drusilla might even now be his. She might have relented and given him a kiss—he cursed ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... which it had proved a work of time and difficulty to surmount, yet without securing my spoil. All this time there was a glow of animation on my cheek, and a buoyancy of spirit in my speech, that accorded ill, the first, with the fatigue one might have been supposed to experience in so perilous a chase; the second, with the disappointment attending its result. Your father, ever cool and quick of penetration, was the first to observe this; and when he significantly remarked, that, to judge from my satisfied countenance, my time had been devoted to the pursuit of more interesting game, I ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... India and Hudson's Bay Companies, the traders to China and the Indian archipelago, the Australian and New Zealand colonists, together with their connexions at home—in a word, all those who are desirous of shortening the tedious and perilous navigation round Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope—would be benefited by the construction of a railroad; which, by making Panama an entrepot of supplies for the western shores of America and the islands in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... almost without ammunition. Two platoons reenforced it at midnight; but the reenforcements had no machine guns, which would have given at least temporary relief. Under the circumstances the only thing for the Territorials to do was to retreat. The Germans made that quite as perilous a venture as the advance had been. Only half of those who started for the cottages returned. Among the slain was the commander, and twelve other ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... a particularly perilous season for the man with a passion for shirts. By some diabolic agreement, all the haberdashers at one and the same time filled their windows with luscious lavenders and faint green stripes and soft silk shirts with comfortable French cuffs, and marking out $2.00 or $3.00, as the case might ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... I had to think of my perilous journey back, and I shuddered as I thought how nearly I had been wedged fast beside the crate. Somehow, though, now that I knew the extent of my risk, it did not seem half so bad, I reached the crate, changed from the horizontal to the perpendicular opening, kept close to the ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... a short, sheer drop, he let himself down by his hands on to a tumbled mass of boulders, and began his perilous descent in earnest. Whereupon Brutus,—who stood at the khud's edge peering into space, ears and tail dumbly demanding explanation,—lunged forward, as if to follow so practical a lead; and only Colonel Mayhew's prompt clutch at his collar saved him from joining the ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... the preceptor. Every feeling heart will excuse a weakness, which we shall presently find carried with it its own severe punishment. Cadenus, indeed, believe him who will, has assured us, that, in such a perilous intercourse, he himself preserved the limits which were unhappily transgressed by the unfortunate Vanessa, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Sir Arthur Wardour, couched in extremely civil language, regetting that a fit of the gout had prevented his hitherto showing Mr. Lovel the attentions to which his conduct during a late perilous occasion had so well entitled himapologizing for not paying his respects in person, but hoping Mr. Lovel would dispense with that ceremony, and be a member of a small party which proposed to visit ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... those days, for the ideal friend who would thoroughly understand him, to whom he would be able to say all, and whom he imagined he had found at various periods in his life from his earliest youth onwards. Now, however, that the way he had chosen grew ever more perilous and steep, he found nobody who could follow him: he therefore created a perfect friend for himself in the ideal form of a majestic philosopher, and made this creation the preacher of ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... sandy desert of the north, Herodotus seems to have made his way. The "region of the wild beasts" must have been truly perilous, "for this is the tract," he says, "in which huge serpents are found, and the lions, the elephants, the bears, ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... yet their floats looked very perilous,—three pieces of old plank or slabs, with two cross-pieces and a fragment of a board for a rider, and made without ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... fell into a great wan-hope at his departure, and grieved continually, neither would be comforted; for she said, "I have brought this on myself by sending him such perilous journeys heretofore, and now I cannot bear to part from him." But that she bore his child she would have taken her own life for very trouble of heart; only for that child's sake she was fain to live and mature it when ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... stirring my tea and striving to be thoroughly at home. Her subtle scrutiny made me very uncomfortable. She asked me questions with an obvious purpose of putting me at my ease, and I answered in embarrassed monosyllables. Whether I would or no, I seemed constantly to slide to the perilous edge of my seat, and no matter what care I used, I strewed crumbs over the rug until it seemed to me that my bit of cake had a demoniacal ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... progress that waxed more perilous as he proceeded. The waves dashed themselves to cataracts below him. Return was impossible, and many would have deemed advance equally so. But he struggled on, maintaining his zigzag course upwards, with nerve ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... division; but as soon as they were formed up on the plain, Marshal Oudinot attacked the enemy lines, and they directed their artillery fire at several different points so that the exit from the marsh would have become less perilous for the remainder of the army, if Wittgenstein had not at that moment attacked with all his force the units which we had in the open. His superiority in numbers compelled us to give ground and we were driven back towards the causeway of the Khodanui. ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... wisely," Norbanus said warmly, "though for you the promotion is perilous. To be Nero's friend is to be condemned beforehand to death, though for a time he may shower favours upon you. He is fickle and inconstant, and you have not learned to cringe and flatter, and are as likely as not to anger him ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... now degrade them. A man's reformation oftener depends upon the indirect, than upon the direct action of the will. The will must be exerted in the choice of employment which shall break the force of temptation by erecting a barrier against it. The drunkard, for example, is in a perilous condition if he content himself merely with saying, or swearing, that he will avoid strong drink. His thoughts, if not attracted by another force, will revert to the public-house, and to rescue him permanently from this, you ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... literature, so perilous to Mormons, at least two volumes escaped. These have been placed in my hands by certain patriotic influences, and are here reprinted as The Mormon Menace. Much that was shocking and atrocious has been eliminated in the editing, as unfit for modest ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... ultimate bounds of the inhabited earth, and all beyond it is unknown. No one has been able to verify anything concerning it, on account of its difficult and perilous navigation, its great obscurity, its profound depth, and frequent tempests; through fear of its mighty fishes and its haughty winds; yet there are many islands in it, some peopled, others uninhabited. There is no ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... possible, and with difficulty bending his little stiff, scratched body into a kneeling position, he prayed his nightly postscript to 'Now I lay me': 'God bless papa, 'n' mamma, 'n' Bell, 'n' Jack, 'n' Madge, 'n' Polly, 'n' Phil, 'n' Geoff, 'n' Elsie.' Then, realizing that he was in a perilous position, and it behoved him to be as pious as possible, he added: 'And please bless Pancho, 'n' Hop Yet, 'n' Lubin, 'n' the goat—not the wild goat up on the hill, but my goat, what got sick to his stummick when I ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of a rattan to the shoulders of his men. Suspecting that the blows fell thicker because we were witnesses of his discipline, it seemed a point of humanity to hasten forward; especially as the approach of night threatened to make our journey still more perilous than before. After riding about three miles, we met two well-dressed mulatto women on donkeys, accompanied by their cavaliers. Of course, we allowed the ladies to pass between us and the rock; a matter of no slight ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... that made by the dean? How, in such embarrassment, could I believe in my own memory? Gentlemen, I did not believe my own memory. Though all the little circumstances of that envelope, with its rich but perilous freightage, came back upon me from time to time with an exactness that has appeared to me to be almost marvellous, yet I have told myself that it was not so! Gentlemen, if you please, we will go into the ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... lady. She made some comments on flowers; she invented some new species with startling names; she asked whether these were known in Ireland; but Lord Dunbeg was for the moment so vague in his answers that she saw her case was perilous. ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... a serious lesson here in love and friendship. It is possible for us to become Satan even to those we love the best. We do this when we try to dissuade them from hard toil, costly service, or perilous missions to which God is calling them. We need to exercise the most diligent care, and to keep firm restraint upon our own affections, lest in our desire to make the way easier for our friends we tempt them to turn from the path which God has ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... round upon my peaceful room, and pressing more closely the arm of Prue, I feel that I have reached the port for which they hopelessly sailed. And when winds blow fiercely and the night-storm rages, and the thought of lost mariners and of perilous voyages touches the soft heart of Prue, I hear a voice sweeter to my ear than that of the syrens to the tempest-tost sailor: "Thank God! Your only cruising is in ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... cooeperation difficult and not infrequently defeats the desired purpose. To put off a decision to the last moment is a trait of Mr. Wilson's character which has caused much anxiety to those who, dealing with matters of vital importance, realized that delay was perilous if not disastrous. ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... that certain old bull whales are just as savage and revengeful as tigers. Indeed, among all wild creatures—either on land or in the sea—there seem to be ancient bulls that go off from their kind and sulk. They easily "run amuck"—perhaps are really insane. To attack them is far more perilous than to attack a herd of ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... this interpretation of things. It may seem to you fantastic, nasty, perilous to all comfort. Life often does make on the tender-hearted an impression of coarse violence; life, nevertheless, always has its way. What other interpretation is possible? Lancashire, to take any random contrast, is much richer than Ireland in wealth and population; but Lancashire ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... that time too busy otherwise. She had recalled to me the fact that time was passing, in spite of the sadness of our separation, and that the month of September, the month of her freedom, was drawing near. Should we be compelled again, like the year before, to resort to these perilous trips to Fontainebleau? Why not get a house in a ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... his family were sleeping, and he was sitting by his desk, not thinking or moving, he was engulfed in his perilous ideas, when a sound of footsteps resounded down the little silent street, and a knock on the door brought him from his stupor. There was a murmuring of thick voices. He remembered that his father had not come in, and he thought angrily that they were bringing ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... revolutionists to South Carolina was to dare all, to risk seceding alone, confident that the other States of the South would follow. Rhett and his new associates took this perilous advice. The election was followed by the call of a convention of delegates of the people of South Carolina. This convention, on the twentieth of December, 1860, repealed the laws which united South Carolina with the other States ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... pain into ecstasy, a dizzy and perilous rapture, close to the border-line of madness; and Sergeant Perkins arose and looked down on him and shook his head. "By God!" said he. "What's in that little hell-pup?" He gave Jimmie a kick in the ribs; and Jimmie's soul took a leap, and went ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... was a hard and perilous one, and nothing about it was more hard and perilous than its definition. What were they there to do? Were they framing a treaty between independent Sovereignties, which, in spite of the treaty, would retain their independence, or were they building a nation by merging these Sovereignties ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... lyke; to that entent, that tho that wole go by that weye, and maken here viage be tho costes, mowen knowen what weye is there. For no man may passe be that weye godely, but in time of wyntir, for the perilous watres, and wykkede mareyes that ben in tho contrees; that no man may passe, but zif it be strong frost, and snowe aboven. For zif the snow ne were, men myght not gon upon the yse, ne hors ne carre nouther. And it is wel a 3 journeys of suche weye, to passe from Prusse to the lond of Sarazin habitable. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... reach us, so long as we remain respectively as we are. The more theology is cultivated, honoured, and supreme, then, other things being equal, the more perfect will human science be: that is to say, it will have the greater force and expansion, and will be the more free from every mischievous and perilous connection.[9] ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... bottoms, and its virgin forest slopes. Having seen, he had grasped and never let go. "Land-poor," they had called him in the mid-settler period. But that had been in the days when the placers petered out, when there were no wagon roads nor tugs to draw in sailing vessels across the perilous bar, and when his lonely grist mill had been run under armed guards to keep the marauding Klamaths off while wheat was ground. Like father, like son, and what Isaac Travers had grasped, Frederick Travers had held. It had been the same tenacity of hold. Both had ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... pillars of that institution to rock and reel. It has diminished the value of slave stock. Two hundred million dollars, says a Southern paper, John Brown destroyed that Sunday night, and has led how many families to look for a speedy and certain method of getting rid of the perilous property. That man whom we wrong in calling crazy, was groping for the pillars of the slave institution, and he has been successful." Then came Rev. T.W. Higginson who had known much of Brown's plans, and to ...
— John Brown: A Retrospect - Read before The Worcester Society of Antiquity, Dec. 2, 1884. • Alfred Roe
... his battery being then stationed in Dublin, he was informed many devoted adherents to the Fenian cause had determined to try and seize Dublin, with a view of starting a wide revolt against English domination, perilous as it was, he cast his lot in with them, and speedily found sufficient adherents in his own field battery to seize it and bring it into action against the English. The plan miscarried. Sergeant McCarty, along with many ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... Ramona was threading a perilous way, through great difficulties. She had reached her room unobserved, so far as she could judge. Luckily for her, Margarita was in bed with a terrible toothache, for which her mother had given her a strong sleeping-draught. Margarita was disposed of. If she had not been, Ramona ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... monster is it before the fore-court standing, and hovering round the perilous flame? Whom dost thou seek? Of what art thou in quest? Or what, friendless being! desirest thou ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... dancing curls, or supple arms. The youth on the roof's edge deepened his frown. At a point on the stage where its sheer, naked sides spanned the narrow chasm through which the waters swept between boat and wharf, her feet strayed too near one perilous edge, and just then her eyes went up to him. The two glances had barely met when she tripped and staggered. With a dozen others aboard and ashore, he gave a start. She sent him a look of terror, then turned from deadly pale to rosy red and gasped her ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... already referred to this motive for seclusion as "the only natural element in modesty.") Crawley has devoted a large part of his suggestive work, The Mystic Rose, to showing that, to savage man, sex is a perilous, dangerous, and enfeebling element in ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... early spring, how the snow shoes sank deeply and became a burden to lift, how the sledge runners no longer slid along the surface, and the floundering dogs tired after half a day's journey; he thought how full the river was of jagged ice cakes in the spring, and how perilous was the passage of a deeply-laden canoe. Surely the new post must not go to Little Peter. And ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... the plane kept on steadily. Time and space have become purely relative in these days, in startling verification of Mr. Einstein, and the distance between Buenos Aires and Magellan Strait is great or small, a perilous journey or a mere day's travel, according to the mind and the transportation facilities of the voyager. Before four o'clock in the afternoon the coast was low and sandy to the westward, and it continued sterile and bare for long hours while ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... endowed him, there came, out of some thunderous and smoky realm, peopled with swart kobolds, and lit by the white fire of gushing cupolas and dazzling billets, a train of carriages, drawn by a tamed volcanic demon, on a wonderful way of steel, armed strongly to deliver us from the Castle Perilous in which we were besieged by the Giants. The way was marvelously prepared by theodolite and level, by tented camps of men driving, with shouts and cracking whips, straining teams in circling mazes, about dark pits ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... critical period of the Teutonic race; little talked of, because little known: but very perilous. Nevertheless, whatever the Eastern Empire might have done, the Saracens prevented its doing; and if you hold (with me) that the welfare of the Teutonic race is the welfare of the world; then, meaning nothing less, ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... general conditions as I found them. I wondered not a little at this mission, as I could not then see what close interest Germany could have in a possible war between Russia and Japan. Also, I by no means relished the assignment, for it was a perilous business and I judged the Russians to be extremely suspicious—which I afterwards ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... me awake and in a fever heat of excitement. But along in the small hours the monotonous clack-clack of the horses' hoofs on the limestone pike and the steady rumbling of the wheels quieted me. Reflecting that I had had little sleep the night before, and that the way ahead would be perilous enough to ask for sharpened faculties and a well-rested body, I braced myself in a corner of the ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... this continual alternation of pretensions and compromises, of quarrels and accommodations, was no longer possible; in order to keep up their position in the eyes of one another, they were obliged to come to a deadly clash; and in this struggle, perilous for both, Boniface VIII. was the aggressor, and with Philip the Handsome ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... moment Shongotongo, or the Big Horse, one of the braves whom Mahtoree had despatched in quest of his daughter, appeared in view in pursuit of the fugitives. It was not till Mahtoree had taxed his courage that Big Horse had ventured on the perilous quest. He approached with the strength of heart and singleness of purpose which accompany an Indian warrior who deems the eyes of his nation upon him. When first the brave was discovered thus wantonly, and with no other purpose but the shedding of blood, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... orders to box your ears, and send you in?' added Berenger, as he lifted his half-sister from her perilous position, speaking, as he did so, without a shade of foreign accent, though with much more rapid utterance than was usual in England. She clung to him without much alarm, and retaliated by an endeavour to box his ears, while Philip, slowly making his way back to the mainland, exclaimed, 'Ah ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of these imputations. If she were cruel enough to desire her husband's death, and bold enough to plan for it, she was also intelligent enough to execute her purpose in a manner less foolish and less perilous to herself. Never, up to this time, had she given the slightest indication of such cruelty in her character, and never after that time was the slightest suspicion cast upon her for any other evil act. How, then, ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... Christianity, which justifies them from all past sin and seals them for heaven. What could be a more explicit declaration of this than the following? "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son to redeem them that were under the law." Herein is the explanation of that perilous combat which Paul waged so many years, and in which he proved victorious, the great battle between the Gentile Christians and the Judaizing Christians; a subject of altogether singular importance, without a minute acquaintance with which a large part of the New Testament cannot be understood. ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... dwelling-place and fortress of our nature, instead of being the object of its vague aspiration in moments of indolence. At the Round Table of King Arthur there was left always one seat empty for him who should accomplish the adventure of the Holy Grail. It was called the perilous seat because of the dangers he must encounter who would win it. In the company of the epic poets there was a place left for whoever should embody the Christian idea of a triumphant life, outwardly all defeat, inwardly victorious, who should make ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... "Petersburg" has become so odious to the Russians as the name of their capital. "The Teutsch Ritters build a Burg for headquarters, spread themselves this way and that, and begin their great task. The Prussians were a fierce fighting people, fanatically anti-Christian: the Teutsch Ritters had a perilous never-resting time of it.... They built and burnt innumerable stockades for and against: built wooden Forts which are now stone Towns. They fought much and prevalently, galloped desperately to and fro, ever on the ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... which had been made by the admiral upon that subject. The doctor scarcely knew whether to be pleased or not at this discovery; it was almost a terrifying one, sceptical as he was upon the subject of vampyres, and he waited breathless for the issue of the singular and perilous adventure. ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... over they led Rosamund to the boat, felt their way down the creek, towing behind them the little skiff which they had taken from the water-house—laden with their dead and wounded. This, indeed, proved the most perilous part of their adventures, since it was very dark, and came on to snow; also twice they grounded upon mud banks. Still guided by Nicholas, who had studied the river, they reached the galley before dawn, and with the first light weighed ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... February, 1919, was about as perilous to some of them as the war had been. It was a period of unusually rough weather. The north Atlantic, never very smooth during the winter months, put on some extra touches for the returning Negro soldiers. An experience common to many on several different transports has been described ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... who listened to them. The Mystery play only lasted one day, and consisted of one subject, such as The Conversion of St. Paul. Noah and the Flood was a very popular piece. His wife is represented as being much opposed to the perilous voyage in the ark, and abuses Noah very severely for compelling her to go. Sometimes the authors thought it necessary to introduce a comic character to enliven the dullness of the performance. But, in spite of humorous demons, these mysteries ceased to attract, and plays called Moralities ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... Edison Electric Light Company went back to 1878; but up to the time of leasing 65 Fifth Avenue it had not been engaged in actual business. It had merely enjoyed the delights of anxious anticipation, and the perilous pleasure of backing Edison's experiments. Now active exploitation was required. Dr. Norvin Green, the well-known President of the Western Union Telegraph Company, was president also of the Edison Company, but ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... ever at their distaffs and needles in seemly fashion," cried a small but stout and self-assertive dame, known as "Mother of the Maidens," then starting, "Oh! my lady, I crave your pardon, I knew not you were in this coil! And if the men-at-arms be let to have their perilous goods strewn all over the place, ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stirring in the womb of the year, they sat, as I have said, in the hedged garden; and about them the birds piped and wrangled over their nest-building, and daffodils danced in spring's honor with lively saltations, and overhead the sky was colored like a robin's egg. It was very perilous weather for young folk. By reason of this, when he had ended his reading about the lady of the hollow hill, Sir Adhelmar sighed again, and stared at his companion with hungry eyes, wherein desire strained like ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... "little cliff" arose, a sheer, unobstructed precipice of black shining rock, some fifteen or sixteen hundred feet from the world of crags beneath us. Nothing would have tempted me to within half a dozen yards of its brink. In truth, so deeply was I excited by the perilous position of my companion, that I fell at full length upon the ground, clung to the shrubs around me, and dared not even glance upward at the sky—while I struggled in vain to divest myself of the idea that the very foundations of the mountain were in danger ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... predestined by their special devotion for the Osiris of Abydos and his associates, Horus and Anubis, to establish themselves in this territory. Beyond Heracleopolis, he entered the domains of the Memphite gods, the "land of Sokaris," and this probably was the most perilous moment of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... all four meet again and return together to us. It was exciting work to prepare the different disguises and arrange for everything. At last, after repeated good-byes and words of encouragement, the four messengers left on their perilous errand. All seemed quiet around us, so quiet that I unburied my sextant and artificial horizon and was taking astronomical observations when a herd of over a hundred yaks appeared on the pass north of our camp, and ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... Linley appeared in the oratorios at Covent Garden; and Sheridan, who, from the nearness of his retreat to London, (to use a phrase of his own, repeated in one of his friend's letters), "trod upon the heels of perilous probabilities," though prevented by the vigilance of her father from a private interview, had frequent opportunities of seeing her in public. Among many other stratagems which he contrived, for the purpose of exchanging a few words with her, he more than once disguised himself as a hackney-coachman, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... little way, and that on the level of familiar effort and within sight of familiar things. It is another thing to hear the call of the mountains and to feel the fascination of some far and glittering peak. That is a call to perilous and painful effort. And yet again, high desire sometimes leaves life where it found it because the heart attaches an intrinsic value to vision. It is something to have seen the Alpine heights of possibility. Yes, it is something, but what ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth
... predisposition to heresy. Merchants from the Lower Danube were often seen in the fairs of Prague; and the Lower Danube was peculiarly the seat of the Paulician theology. The Church, torn by schism, and fiercely assailed at once in England and in the German empire, was in a situation scarcely less perilous than at the crisis which ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... other, or contradict other truths given us by God. Long before the Reformation, a monk, who had found his way to heresy without the help of Martin Luther, not venturing to breathe aloud into any living ear his anti-papal and treasonable doctrines, wrote them on parchment, and sealing up the perilous record, hid it in the massive walls of his monastery. There was no friend or brother to whom he could intrust his secret or pour forth his soul. It was some consolation to imagine that in a future age some one might find the parchment, and ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... or those ungratious sons that daily vexed their fathers hearts at home, and were therefore thrust upon the voyage, which either writing thence, or being returned back to cover their own leudnes, do fill mens ears with false reports of their miserable and perilous life in Virginia, let the imputation of misery be to their idleness, and the blood that was spilt upon their own heads that ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Sample-case in hand, trunk key in pocket, cigar in mouth, brown derby atilt at an angle of ninety, each young and untried traveler starts on his journey down that road which leads through morasses of chicken a la Creole, over greasy mountains of queen fritters made doubly perilous by slippery glaciers of rum sauce, into formidable jungles of breaded veal chops threaded by sanguine and deadly streams of tomato gravy, past sluggish mires of dreadful things en casserole, over hills ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... "Perilous undertakings shall have no terrors. Dangers will be welcomed as the spice of life. My restless energies crave occupation, but there must be no menial taint. Mental and physical toil are not to be shunned, but ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... resolve themselves into the Union, beggary, or theft. Many choose the Union and, with all its drawbacks, it is undoubtedly the wisest choice; but others have such a horror of the restraints imposed upon the inmates of a workhouse that they enter upon the perilous and precarious career of the beggar or petty thief. The men who make such a choice as this are not, as may easily be surmised, the pick of their class. They consist, to a good extent, of persons who have ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... the airman gradually became used to the "heels-over-head" position, and, feeling sure of himself, he determined to start on his perilous undertaking. No one with the exception of M. Bleriot and the mechanics were present at the Buc aerodrome, near Versailles, when Mr. Hucks had his monoplane brought out with the intention of ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... learned to the industrial class; production is insufficient, and too much of a good thing cripples the country. The nervous system is a learned class in the body; it contributes dignity and superior uses, but makes no corn grow in the physiological fields. A brain of great animation and power is a perilous freight for the stanchest body; in a weak and shattered body it is like gold in a spent swimmer's pocket,—the richer it would make him on dry land, the less chance it gives him of arriving there. That this danger is not imaginary too many are able to testify.—Few scenes in Rabelais ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... youths responded quickly and with zeal, and Sergeant Whitley, when he was chosen, too, nodded in silent gratitude. The night was dark, overcast with clouds, and in an hour Colonel Winchester with his four departed upon his perilous mission. He was to secure information in regard to the Southern army, and to do that they were to go very near the Southern lines, if not actually inside them. Such an attempt would be hazardous in the extreme in the face ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... off passed from my shocked brain as the exigencies of the perilous moments increased, demanding of me constant and untiring effort, and piling upon my shoulders responsibilities that left no room for morbid brooding or even for the ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... the beacon of insurrection should be kindled. When kindled, and upon thine own ground, too, still thou holdest back! But think not to escape!—Think not to watch in safety whilst others work. Whoever wins in this perilous game, thou wilt lose. Marked out for destruction, thine own policy will betray thee. Choose thee one party, and thou hast yet one chance of safety. But double-dealers, such as thou, do ever tumble into the trap baited by their ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... a most excellent commander, although the enemy's arrival was not reported when it should have been, easily ESCAPED the DANGER by his well-known daring in perilous positions. ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... and loquacious calumny, yet even Egypt never breathed a word against the sanctity of her life. And when during their homeward voyage her husband died, in spite of danger and tempest and the deeply-rooted superstition which considered it perilous to sail with a corpse on board, not even the imminent peril of shipwreck could drive her to separate herself from her husband's body until she had provided for its safe and honorable sepulchre. These are the traits of a good ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... and soul, with delicious perfumes. In like manner we can recollect the good things we consumed long years ago—the things we cannot eat now because we are no longer capable of digesting and assimilating them; it is like recalling past perilous adventures by land and water in the brave young days when we loved danger for its own sake. There was, for example, the salad of cold sliced potatoes and onions, drenched in oil and vinegar, a glorious dish with cold meat to go to bed on! Also hot maize-meal ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... with the last remnant of his unconquerable incredulities, for the twentieth time mentioned another day. A post-mortem flicker of reargument started: started, but went out, quickly extinguished by the perilous fascination of the personal. Unspoken thoughts pressed in upon them as they circled, lifelessly reiterating. These thoughts grew rapidly louder; and Canning, striving to keep his bitter hostility from his ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... these tales, the one that made me shiver despite the radiant pitch knots, was that of his perilous descent of the precipice on Long's Peak. Time has not changed the character of that face—it is sheer and smooth and icy now, as then. He was probably the first man to attempt its descent, and I was always weak and spent when he ended his story of it, so vividly did he portray its dangers. ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... Oliver Proudfute, as he tells us," continued the pottingar, who contested no man's claim to glory provided he was not himself compelled to tread the perilous paths which lead to it. "I say, neighbours, since they have left a hand as a pledge they will never come in Couvrefew Street again, why, in my simple mind, we were best to thank our stout townsman, and the town having the ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... Lhasa lie many hundred miles of barren, windswept plateaus and perilous mountain passes. There are, I believe, at least ten of these passes higher than Mont Blanc. Connection between the two places is over one of the most difficult mountain roads in the world, yet it was ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... got a sixpence. Haven't I told you you are not required to give up a single principle? Have I asked you to denounce a single companion? All I have requested you to do, as an honest citizen, is to give me a hint if you hear of anything which would be as perilous to you ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... visible. It took too little account of the complexities of Julie's nature, of the ravages and the shock of passion. Julie herself might be ready enough to return to the things of the mind, but they were no sooner offered to her, as it were, in exchange for the perilous delights of love, than she grew dumbly restive. She felt herself, also, too much observed, too much thought over, made too often, if the truth were known, the subject of religious ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... first line mean? Some paths that are right paths for us to walk in still lead through perilous places; and this is the way the Psalmist refers to ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... to follow, and after some bargaining the junk was placed at our disposal. Before many hours had passed we were on our way to Formosa, little knowing what a strange adventure was in store for us, or how perilous a task we had so lightly undertaken. Before commencing our journey we carefully questioned the coolies as to where it was rumoured the treasure had been secreted, and, learning this, provided ourselves with everything we thought necessary for the enterprise. Our tent and possessions were ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the coast, the number who die from it is not great. Only some six or seven have succumbed. I expect myself that we shall both return to our regiments in the pink of condition, with our medals on our breasts, and proud of the fact that we have gone through one of the most perilous expeditions ever achieved by British troops; and the more wonderful that, except for a handful of English officers and non-commissioned officers, it has been carried through successfully ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... couch, borne upon its long shafts of elastic bamboo, Saloo at one end and Murtagh at the other, Helen was transported like a queen through the forest she had lately traversed as a captive in a manner so strange and perilous. ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... way, was rather philosophical than superstitious. And I can sincerely say that I was in as tranquil a temper for observation as any practical experimentalist could be in awaiting the effects of some rare, though perhaps perilous, chemical combination. Of course, the more I kept my mind detached from fancy, the more the temper fitted for observation would be obtained; and I therefore riveted eye and thought on the strong daylight sense in the ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... disheartening misunderstanding and misrepresentation, of Puritan suspicion and opposition, of artistic isolation, of commercial seduction? There is something downright heroic in the way the man has held his narrow and perilous ground, disdaining all compromise, unmoved by the cheap success that lies so inviting around the corner. He has faced, in his day, almost every form of attack that a serious artist can conceivably encounter, and yet all of them together have scarcely ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... the stony road, some distance from the cottage, in the very face of the coming tornado, her heart beating like a trip-hammer, her eyes bent on the little light up the mountain-side, before it occurred to her that this last flight was not only senseless but perilous. She even laughed at herself for a fool as she recalled the tell-tale handbag on the porch and the damning presence of a Bazelhurst lantern in ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... interval ensued. The house grew silent once more. Duane could not see Miss Longstreth, but he heard her quick breathing. How long did she mean to let him stay hidden there? Hard and perilous as his life had been, this was a new kind of adventure. He had divined the strange softness of his feeling as something due to the magnetism of this beautiful woman. It hardly seemed possible that he, who had been outside the pale for so many years, ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... convoy, and though in one night alone it received fourteen warnings of submarines, it threaded its perilous way in safety, and on August 18 reached Gibraltar, where a stop of three days was made. The officers and nurses were given shore leave, and put in their ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... to straighten out our line so as to get it level with Ypres, and the whole position all around was a very perilous one. We were short of men—very short—and had practically no reserves. Almost every available man had to do the work and duty of three. For a month or so almost all the heavy work fell upon the line regiments, we doing the wiring, digging, and the usual work of the Royal Engineers, ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey
... after the others, down to the mouth of the creek, where a strip of alluvial land, covered with bushes and rank grass, interrupted the belt of firs and cedars. Calling in fire as an ally against itself seemed to Robert very perilous; but the calm Indians, accustomed to wilderness exigencies, set about the protective burning at once. The flame easily ran through the dry brushwood; it was kept within bounds by cutting down the shrubs where it might spread farther than was desirable. Soon a ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... no reason to think the writer just mentioned was acquainted. Now and then I can trace in the turn of a phrase, in the twinkle of an epithet, a faint reminiscence of a certain satirical levity, airiness, jauntiness, if I may hint such a word, which is just enough to remind me of those perilous shallows of his early time through which his richly freighted argosy had passed with such wonderful escape from their dangers and such very slight marks of injury. That which is pleasant gayety in conversation may be quite out of place in formal composition, and Motley's wit must ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... most romantic in mood of all the Greek poets. One is conscious that in his work, as in the sculpture of Praxiteles, the calm beauty of the Apollonian temper is touched by the wilder rhythm of the perilous music of Dionysus. ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... English recommenced the battle. It was again obstinately contested. Admiral Van Tromp threw himself into the midst of the British line, and suffered so heavily that he was only saved by the arrival of Admiral de Ruyter. He, in his turn, was in a most perilous position, and his ship disabled, when fresh reinforcements arrived. And so the battle raged, until, in the afternoon, as if by mutual consent, the Fleets drew off from each other, and the battle ceased. The fighting had been extraordinarily obstinate and determined on both sides, many ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... effort to capture him, and as a last resort I was compelled to shoot him. This was a signal, notwithstanding our perilous condition, for the intimate associates of the master to range themselves against us, for we now had only four men against the ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... this perilous ascension, absorbed in the difficulties of the undertaking, attentive to himself alone, staggering, with a buzzing sound in his ears, he has not heard a sorrowful, lamentable moaning, ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... height. The parliament had just been exiled; the fermentation was general; everything announced an approaching insurrection. The pamphlet appeared: from that moment every other quarrel was forgotten; the perilous state of French music was the only thing by which the attention of the public was engaged, and the only insurrection was against myself. This was so general that it has never since been totally calmed. At court, the ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... Martin and Wright. But crumbs of the poison—"Woorali," or "Ourali"—perfectly dry, remained in this receptacle. It was thus clear that Cranley, himself a great traveller, was possessed of the rare and perilous drug. ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... known the things that from the weak are furled, Perilous ancient passions, strange and high; It is something to be wiser than the world, It is something to be older than ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... When he himself was transferred to the beach by the same means that his skill had contrived for others, but three persons remained on board, officers of the ship, who eased him on shore. The injuries he had received in his perilous passage out, and which confined him to his bed for a week, forbade his being last. To the end of his life, this saving of the crew of the Dutton was the action in which he took ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... stands somewhat out of the way, but temptingly near. They that will profit by the mine must turn aside for it (Prov. 28:20, 22). Sir J. Mandeville, in his Travels, says, that in the Vale Perilous is plenty of gold and silver, and many Christian men go in for the treasure, but few come out again, for this are strangled of the devil. But good Christian men, that are stable in the faith, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... had been collecting, from St. Louis and Chicago, yawls and barges to be used as ferries when we got below. By the 16th of April Porter was ready to start on his perilous trip. The advance, flagship Benton, Porter commanding, started at ten o'clock at night, followed at intervals of a few minutes by the Lafayette with a captured steamer, the Price, lashed to her side, the Louisville, Mound City, Pittsburgh ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... their mother, as Bobus began to relight the lamp. "You two explosives are quite perilous enough by day ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... there seemed to be nothing peculiarly perilous about the adventure. We crossed the cobble-paved courtyard and mounted an evil-smelling stone staircase, blackened here and there by the occasional gas jets. On the third landing we halted. Anastasius put up ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... of his majesty to confirm the same under his great seal, which he was graciously pleased to grant. Then departing from Lisbon, with the passport and safe conduct of the king, I returned at length, after these my long and perilous travels, to my long-desired native home, the city of Rome, by the blessing of God, to whom be all ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... beautiful little Sacred Conversation at the Uffizi, the mysterious illumination of the late Baptism of Christ in the Church of S. Corona at Vicenza. To attempt a discussion of the landscape of Giorgione would be to enter upon the most perilous, as well as the most fascinating of subjects—so various is it even in the few well-established examples of his art, so exquisite an instrument of expression always, so complete an exterioration of the complex moods of his personages. Yet even the landscape ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... begun, and the intent appeared to be to do him grievous bodily harm. Wildeve had looked upon Venn's first attempt as a species of horse-play, which the reddleman had indulged in for want of knowing better; but now the boundary line was passed which divides the annoying from the perilous. ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... a tolerable month with a fair proportion of sunny, moderately calm days. A year later, the first eight days of this month were signalized by the blizzard in which the 'Aurora' had such a perilous experience. While the winter began in 1912 with the advent of March, now in 1913 it came on definitely in early February. Autumn was a term which applied to a few brilliant days which would suddenly intervene in the ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... therefore not, on the whole, so essential to her as to him. Few women mean it as a way towards medicine, or even the upper ranks of teaching; and if they do, the least doubt as to health ought to make us especially unwilling to start an unseaworthy or uninsurable vessel upon an ocean of perilous possibilities. I wish that every woman could attain to the best that men have. I wish for her whatever in the loftiest training helps to make her as mother more capable, as wife more helpful; but I would ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell |
