"Plummet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... over, my lady," he said, "and it seems to me that, if your uncle heard the noise of our plummet so near, the chimney can hardly rise from the floor you searched; for that room, you know, is half-way between the ground-floor and first floor. Still, sound does travel so! We must betake ourselves to ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... shall sound that deep?— Too short the plummet, And the watchmen sleep. Some dream of effort Up a toilsome steep; Some dream of pasture grounds ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... distinct and clear, yet strangely distorted. The miles of soft blue distance that stretch invitingly upward to the withdrawn stars of the zenith, stretch as soft and blue, but fearsomely deep beneath my feet to the nadir. Standing at the water's rim I am on the verge of a vast, deep gulf that no plummet might fathom, into which at another step I shall begin to fall, and once falling fall forever, for there is no bottom. It is all very well to say to one's self that an inch below the mirroring surface lies the good ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... they held to be an omen, since should the body turn over in its descent it was taken as a sign that the judgment of mortal men had been refused in the Place of the Immortals. It did not turn; it rushed downwards straight as a plummet and plunged into the fire hundreds of feet below, and there for ever vanished. This indeed was not strange since, as we discovered afterwards, the ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... taught him to fall back a step while she said, "So!" the plummet word of our mysterious deep fathoms; and he fell back further saying, "Madam?" in a tone advising her to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... which followed, old Jombatiste, exploring at last Cousin Tryphena's mind, leaned giddily over the abyss of her ignorance of political economy and sociology, dropping one exploring plummet after another into its depths, only to find them fathomless. He went shakily back to his own house, ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... the matter?" I asked sympathetically, though rather ashamed to drop a plummet into so shallow a brook. "If you love his mother so dearly, and love him too, and are sure of his affection, why don't you marry ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... another. The Spirit of Life seeks to express itself in our individuality, through the three avenues of reason, feeling, and will; but as in the Masonic legend of the murder of Hiram Abif, the architect of Solomon's Temple, it is beaten back on the side of reasoning, by the plummet of a logic based on false premises; on the side of feeling, by the level of conventional ideas; and on the side of will, by the hammer of a short-sighted self-will, which gives the finishing blow; and it is not until the true perception of the Principle of Life is resurrected ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward
... him all of the work from the ground up. On the other hand, a boy who has been grounded well in algebra, geometry and trigonometry may then easily enter the office of a practicing civil engineer and begin with the tools of the profession. Transit manipulation and readings, the use of the plummet line, the level, compass, rod, chain and staking work may all be learned thus and a knowledge of map drawing imparted to a boy who has a ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... a hundred hitherto unsuspected graces of mind and heart and speech. A sly sense of humour woke into life, and a positive talent for conversation, latent hitherto because she had never known any one who cared to drop a plummet into the crystal springs of her consciousness. When the violin was laid away, she would sit in the twilight, by Davy's sofa, his thin hand in hers, and talk with Anthony about books and flowers and music, and about the meaning ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... other divisions of this precipice, below the ledge which stops the plummet, give it altogether a height of about five hundred feet,[81] the whole looks a mere step on the huge slope of the Breven; and it only deserves mention among Alpine cliffs as one of singular beauty and decision, yet perfectly approachable ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... him, drawn by the mere blind elemental force, as the plummet was attracted to the side of Schehallien. Her lips were parted, and she breathed a little faster than so healthy a girl ought to breathe in a state of repose. The steady nerves of William Murray Bradshaw felt unwonted thrills ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... published reports of experiments made in that country under one or another "certificate," are practically of no value whatever except to show the constant increase of such experiments every year. The plummet must sink to deeper depths. If Society is to grant to the physiological laboratory that isolation and freedom from interference which it craves, THEN SOCIETY HAS THE RIGHT TO ASK IN RETURN THE COMPLETEST DISCLOSURE THAT CAN BE GIVEN OF ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... One of the royal esquires, named Gilbert Harper, wearing the surcoat of his master, was mistaken for him, and slain; but the true leader was at length found by de Maupas, and struck down with the blow of a leaden plummet or slung-shot. After the battle, when the field was searched for his body, it was found under that of de Maupas, who had bravely yielded up life for life. The Hiberno-Scottish forces dispersed in dismay, and when King Robert of Scotland landed a day or two afterwards, he was met by the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... Atlantic then, as now, had a depth, as I said before, of two thousand fathoms; indeed, in some parts between the group and Portugal the plummet of your human navigators finds no bottom, I have often heard them say, till it reaches 2,500; and out of this profound sea-bed the volcanic energies pushed up my islands as a small submarine mountain range, whose topmost summits alone stood out bit by bit above the level of ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... hung against a wainscot, a small plummet affixed to it, and a line drawn at the precise spot it falls to. The plummet will be found to rise before rain, and fall ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... quite so good as the right yet, although very nearly so. I will come down once a week or so and throw up a ball to you or spin a penny in the air; there is nothing like getting to hit a moving object. In the meantime you can go on practising at that plummet swinging from the string. You can do that as well by yourself as if I were with you, for when you once set it going it will keep on for five minutes. It is not so good as throwing up a penny, because it makes a regular curve; but shooting, ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... chosen for me," Lone Chief was saying. His voice, shrill and piping, ever and again dropped plummet-like into a hoarse and rattling bass, and, just as one became accustomed to it, soaring upward into the thin treble—alternate cricket chirpings and bullfrog croakings, ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... an exaggerated sense of justice. This is the abuse of a right feeling, and requires to be kept in vigilant check. Nothing is easier than to be one-sided in judging of the actions of others. How agreeable the task of applying the line and plummet! How quiet and complete the assumption of our own superior excellence which we make in doing it! But if the task is in some respects easy, it is most difficult if we take into account the necessity of being just in our decisions. In domestic life especially, ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... race-card never thinks that the time of weakness and sadness and weariness is coming on; that gray and tremulous old man who bends over the roulette-table never thinks that he will speedily drop into a profundity deeper than ever plummet sounded. The gliding ball does not swing round in its groove faster than the old man's soul fares towards the darkness; and yet he clenches his jaw and engages in the most trivial of pursuits as if he had an eternity before him. The youth and ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... TITO had pushed the development of military industries in the republic with the result that Bosnia hosted a large share of Yugoslavia's defense plants. The bitter interethnic warfare in Bosnia caused production to plummet by 80% from 1990 to 1995, unemployment to soar, and human misery to multiply. With an uneasy peace in place, output has recovered in 1996-97 at high percentage rates on a low base, but remains less than half the 1990 level. The country, especially in the Muslim-Croat ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... of heaven To fill thy lungs, and send the warm, red blood Along thy veins. But thou shalt pass the hours In dances with the sea-nymphs, or go forth, To look into the mysteries of the abyss Where never plummet reached. And thou shalt sleep Thy weariness away on downy banks Of sea-moss, where the pulses of the tide Shall gently lift thy hair, or thou shalt float On the soft currents that go forth and ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... also, thank God, divine desires and discontents, and certain rudimentary wings. And neither school alone is competent to paint him as he is. The author of "La Bete Humaine" fails as completely as the visionary A Kempis. Neither realism nor romance alone will ever with its small plummet sound to its depths the human heart or its mystery; yet from the union of the two much ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... set in motion all our troubles. "He who fully understands this, by storing it within enlarges the heart, and with this enlargement brings all creation to himself. Such a man will bury gold on the hillside, and cast pearls into the sea."— sink a plummet into that, I beseech you; it is one of the grand utterances of wonder and wisdom.—"He will not struggle for wealth or strive for fame; rejoice over longevity, or grieve at an early death. He will get no elation from success, nor chagrin from failure; he will not account the throne ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... felt the horrible depth of this Well, "Tell me, Progers," cried Charlie, "where am I? oh tell! Had I sought the world's centre to find, I had found it, But this Well! ne'er a plummet was made that could ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... seer-like power to show The secrets of the hear and mind; To drop the plummet-line below Our common world of joy and woe, A more intense despair or ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... found it. No faintest suspicion of it had ever crossed the mind of the most recent, and clear-sighted, and able investigator of the Baconian remains. It was buried in the lowest depths of the lowest deeps of the deep Elizabethan Art; that Art which no plummet, till now, has ever sounded. It was locked with its utmost reach of traditionary cunning. It was buried in the inmost recesses of the esoteric Elizabethan learning. It was tied with a knot that had passed the scrutiny and ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... Advocate, or some modern counterpart of Braxfield, the hanging judge, would summon Susanna Crum as a witness in an important case. He would need his longest plummet to sound the depths ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... we learned to use the plummet, take levels, hew the stone, wield the axes! And what a delight it was when the work was finished and we saw our own building! Perhaps we might not have accomplished it without the sapper, but every boy believed that if he were cast, like Robinson Crusoe, on a desert island, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Harmony, and Love, Unite you in the grand Design, Beneath th' Omniscient Eye above, The glorious Architect Divine, That you may keep th' unerring line, Still rising by the plummet's law, Till Order bright completely shine, Shall be my ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... one reflection of the socialist economic structure of Yugoslavia. TITO had pushed the development of military industries in the republic with the result that Bosnia hosted a number of Yugoslavia's defense plants. The interethnic warfare in Bosnia caused production to plummet by 80% from 1992 to 1995 and unemployment to soar. With an uneasy peace in place, output recovered in 1996-99 at high percentage rates from a low base; but output growth slowed in 2000-02. Part of the lag in output was made up in 2003-04. National-level statistics are limited. Moreover, official ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... centre of that sea of blackness, like the plummet of an engineer, like the lead of a storm-tossed sailor, shot a drop of rain. Down it came with unerring swiftness, right through one of the spectacled gentleman's improvised "sky-lights" in the roof, and splashed in the Cuban's face. Half-dreaming ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... a plummet falls. Each of us had his right hand in his overcoat pocket. I can't swear to what was in his fingers, but I felt a good deal safer for what was in mine. My back was still toward the bay, for I had a vision of ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... valleys of the Conon and the Peffer, and which—remarkable for its picturesque cliffs, abrupt eminences, and narrow steep-sided dells—bears in its centre a pretty wood-skirted loch, into which the old Celtic prophet Kenneth Ore, when, like Prospero, he relinquished his art, buried "deep beyond plummet sound" the magic stone in which he was wont to see both the distant and the future. Immediately over the pleasure-grounds of Brahan, the rock forms exactly such cliffs as the landscape gardener would make, if he could—cliffs with their ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... has reperused the story of the Pilgrim at a maturer age, and felt the plummet of its truth sounding in the deep places of the soul, has not reason to bless the author for some timely warning or grateful encouragement? Where is the scholar, the poet, the man of taste and feeling who does not ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... at home could not extinguish the divine fire of genius in the youthful Murgatroyd. Exhausted and hungry as he often was at the end of the day's work, he devoted his leisure to the study of bricks and mortar, and out of his scanty pocket-money he bought for himself first a trowel and later a plummet. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various
... unfading laurel. I rehearsed at all times, seasons, and places, until I was a perfect nuisance to everybody, and my acquaintance, I am sure, to a man, wished both me and her bloodthirsty ladyship, deeper than plummet ever sounded, at the bottom of the sea. Even the brute creation did not escape the annoyance. One morning my English pointer "Spot" ran yelping out of the room, panic-stricken by the vehement manner with which I exclaimed, "Out damned spot, out, I say!" and with the full conviction, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... N. depth; deepness &c adj.; profundity, depression &c (concavity) 252. hollow, pit, shaft, well, crater; gulf &c 198; bowels of the earth, botttomless pit^, hell. soundings, depth of water, water, draught, submersion; plummet, sound, probe; sounding rod, sounding line; lead. bathymetry. [instrument to measure depth] sonar, side-looking sonar; bathometer^. V. be deep &c adj.; render deep &c adj.; deepen. plunge &c 310; sound, fathom, plumb, cast the lead, heave the lead, take ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... a stiff dive position. He began to plummet down, picking up speed. His mailed hands glittered like arrowheads out in front. They pointed to a particular window in one of the towers. A predatory excitement rippled through him as he sailed down through the air. It was like going into battle again. A little red-white-and-green ...
— Mutineer • Robert J. Shea
... he stopped, took the cork out of his bottle, and tossed it away. Light as it was, I heard it fall like a plummet. He swallowed slowly, tilting up the bottle by little and little, and now he looked at me no more. The last few drops of liquor he poured into the palm of his hand, and licked up. Then, with a sudden hurry of violence ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... so close to him it was too late. I fired quite calmly. After about 150 shots I saw his left engine smoke fiercely and then burst into flame. The machine turned over, buckled, and burned up. It fell like a plummet into the French second line trenches, and continued to ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... real emancipation. Historically, it was the vital element in all other emancipating movements; it was their logical antecedent: the hidden spring feeding all their rivers with the water of life. It enables us to analyze them and gauge their values; it is their measure and plummet. And this, not because it is the final or the highest word justifying the ways of God to man—for it has not proved to be so: but because it indicated, once for all, in what direction the real solution of the riddle of man was to be sought: ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... to the first avant-courier trace of purple twilight flushing the eastern sky-rim—yes, as if it were the very butment of the eternally blue Californian heaven—ran that wall, always sheer as the plummet, without a visible break through which squirrel might climb or sparrow fly,—so broad that it was just faint-lined like the paper on which I write by the loftiest waterfall in the world,—so lofty that its very breadth could not dwarf it, while the mighty pines and Douglas firs which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... over the water. He is gazing so intently at the swift rushing waters below him that you almost fancy he is attracted by the view. Suddenly he darts from his perch and, holds himself poised in mid-air until he sights a fish. He drops like a plummet and disappears. He quickly reappears and flies to a near- by rock with a fish, where he beats it to pieces and ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... his chair, burying his face in his hands. He plunged into a reverie so deep and so self-searching that it could have been fathomed by no plummet. ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... brightest word at night in this galaxy of ultra signs is the gracious word "Photo Play House." Deep beyond plummet's sound is the interest of this part of town in the human story, as revealed upon the "screen." Grief and mirth, good and evil, danger and daring, and the horizon from Hatteras to Matapan may be scanned ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... centuries of experiment and aspiration, can do for a congregation what no man alone can ever hope to accomplish. The well of human needs and desires is so deep that, without these aids, we have not much to draw with, no plummet wherewith to sound its dark ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch |
