"Ripping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... men who held secret meetings somewhere in the woods. That was good news enough for one night, and Marcy was sorry that he was obliged to keep it from his mother. It was long after midnight when the boys went upstairs, and there they passed another half hour in ripping up one of Marcy's bed quilts to get at the flags that had been ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... steel barrier between them, it is hard to say which would have triumphed in the end, the ponderous weight and fury of Last Bull, or the ripping prongs and swift wrath of the moose. The buffalo charged down the knoll at a thundering gallop; but just before reaching the fence he checked himself violently. More than once or twice before had those elastic but impenetrable meshes given him his lesson, hurling him ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... "Isn't it ripping?" said Dicky. "It wasn't easy to do, but it only wanted a little management. I mean to go in for engineer— Hullo, what's that rummy stone out there? or is it a stone, or a fish, or— I say, Tom," he added, clutching my arm, "I'm bothered if that's ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... doing a dance with the comedian, exchanging lines with him. Then a little individual song-and-dance specialty was introduced. At the close of the engagement on Broadway she announced that she would not sign for the next season unless given a "ripping" part and the ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... patriotic soul—oh dear, no!" La Faloise blurted out. "I'm all for the Englishman. It will be ripping if the Englishman gains! The French may ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... close together beneath the tent—would have enjoyed the change had it not been for the thought of the Supervisor. "I hope he took his slicker," the girl said, between the tearing, ripping flashes of the lightning. ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... fierce gust of wind, followed by a second and then a third. Around spun the biplane and then tilted up as if about to go over. Then came an unexpected ripping ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... been ripping into the country stores in these parts," began Hood volubly; "found his mark on the barn, all right. Amusing cuss, Fogarty. Sawed himself out of most of the jails between here and Bangor. We'll probably meet up with him somewhere. It's about time to go back for that snooze, ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... intention of that proverb, usually smarts for it. The fool is wise in his own conceit; wherefore there is a double difficulty attends him before he can be wise indeed. Not only his folly, but his wisdom, must be removed from him; and how shall that be, but by ripping up of his heart by some sore conviction, that may show him plainly that his wisdom is his folly, and that which will undo him. A fool loves his folly; that is, as treasure, so much is he in love with it. Now then, it must be a great thing that must make a fool forsake his folly. The foolish ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... him? She also relates that during the short occupation of Queenston by the invaders, their soldiery were very tyrannical, entering the houses and stores to look for money and help themselves to plunder, and even destroying the bedding, by ripping it up with their swords and bayonets, in the search. Mrs. Secord who had a store of Spanish doubloons, heirlooms, saved them by throwing them into a cauldron of water which hung on a crane over a blazing fire. In this she unconsciously emulated the ready wit of one of her husband's Huguenot progenitors, ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... there was no Premier in the pack who already had so much, with so little to ask, from Federalism as he. His was the pivotal province of Confederation, the grand compromise of Old Macdonald with Cartier; the basic sixty-five members of Parliament, unchangeable except by ripping up the B.N.A. Act, an instrument of Empire. He could wink the other eye and reflect that from the political concessions of the Act in official bilingualism and a fixed representation, in the outlet of the St. Lawrence, in the ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... look better. Nor in blue before. You look like a lily in a blue vase, or a snow maiden rising from a blue mist. Not that I'm feeling poetic today, but you do look ripping. What gave you a headache? I thought you scorned ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... shifting from one foot to the other, fingered the plump black pearl in his tie, and gave a nervous twist to his moustache; then, running his eye over her, he drew back, and said, with a side-glance at Selden: "Upon my soul, I never saw a more ripping get-up. Is that the last creation of the dress-maker you go to see at the Benedick? If so, I wonder all the other women don't go to ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... with some astonishment at the number of cases, shortly after went away to the kiln; whereupon Jim shut himself into his rooms, and there he might have been heard ripping up and opening boxes with a cautious hand, afterwards appearing outside the door with them empty, and carrying them off ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... Something was wrong with it. The skeleton tower looked out of the perpendicular; and on his second glance its inclination seemed to have increased. The snow, however, was clogging the front of his sled and he set to work to scrape it off. While he was thus engaged there was a sharp, ripping sound, and then a heavy crash, and swinging around he saw that the tower had collapsed. Where it had stood lay a pile of broken timber, and planks and beams were ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... well-defined kinds. First, a long, flat saw, for cross-cutting. Second, a slightly larger saw for ripping purposes. Third, a back saw, with a rib on the rear edge to hold the blade rigid, used for making tenons; and, fourth, ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... sort of land-agent, as he wanted a chap who could play cricket, because he was keen on the game himself, and always had a lot going on in the summer up there. So he says that, if I go up to the 'Varsity for three years, he can guarantee me the place when I come down, with a jolly good screw and a ripping open-air life, with lots of riding, and so on, which is just what I've always wanted. So, can I? It's the sort of opportunity that won't occur again, and you know you always said the only reason I couldn't go up to the 'Varsity was, that it would be a waste of time. But in this case, you see, it ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... low dark bank of clouds lay for miles, piled, serrated, steadily rising opposite to the course of the wind that had driven the fire. Along it more and more visibly played almost incessant sheet lightning, broken with ripping zigzag flames. A hush had fallen close at hand, for now even the frightened breeze of evening had fled. Now and then, at first doubtful, then unmistakable and continuous, came the mutter and rumble and at length the steady ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... been executed. There was not one, but many machines in the series, each devoted to a special operation in the formation of a block. Thus there were various sawing-machines,—the Straight Cross-Cutting Saw, the Circular Cross-Cutting Saw, the Reciprocating Ripping-saw, and the Circular Ripping-Saw. Then there were the Boring Machines, and the Mortising Machine, of beautiful construction, for cutting the sheave-holes, furnished with numerous chisels, each making from 110 to 150 strokes ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... consequences of her deed, the woman approached and for a moment gazed down, horror-stricken, into Circuit's face. Then suddenly, with a shriek of agony, she dropped beside him, drew his head into her lap, wiped the gathering foam from his lips, fondled and kissed him. Ripping his shirt open at the neck to find his wound, she uncovered Circuit's buckskin bag and memorandum book, showing through its centre the track of a bullet that had finally spent itself in fracturing a rib over Circuit's heart, the ticket-seller's shot, that would ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... aching to close in a death grip, Upweekis waited impatient as a fury for the rush. He is an ugly fighter; but he must always get close, gripping his enemy with teeth and fore claws while the hind claws get in their deadly work, kicking downward in powerful spasmodic blows and ripping everything before them. A dog would rush in now and be torn to pieces; but not so the wolves. Dancing lightly about the big lynx they would watch their chance to leap and snap, sometimes avoiding the blow of the swift paw with its terrible claws, and sometimes catching it on ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... constituted a desertion of Cleopatra, but in any case it seemed to give Leonetta the necessary hint, for she went quite close to her mother and began smoothing her hair. "You must tell me all about the Inner Light some time," she said, "it sounds ripping." ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... attempts to ridicule the blackest villanies, and, what is yet worse, the most dreadful calamities? What could exceed the absurdity of an author, who should write the comedy of Nero, with the merry incident of ripping up his mother's belly? or what would give a greater shock to humanity than an attempt to expose the miseries of poverty and distress to ridicule? And yet the reader will not want much learning to suggest such ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... with ripping, roaring storms, flurries of ice, snow and sleet, shot through and through by balls of lambent flames in unguessable numbers. Eery lights which struck the surface of the Earth, bounded away and, half a mile or so from the surface again, burst into flaming pin-wheels, like skyrockets of ancient ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... habit, lad," he said when the first scene ended and the clown began his dance. With a few deft touches, ripping down one side of the tunic and wreathing a girdle of ivy and bracken, he changed the whole outline of the figure. With the hairy tunic draped as a cloak, and the ungainly plumed head-dress arranged as a warrior's crest, the character which had been almost ridiculous became heroic, as the ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... secrets of no man's land, but he knew well enough of the huddled figures lying in clusters in that green scrub, which hid much. But in parts the scrub had been worn from the earth by the constant ripping of the bullets. There, partly shielded by withering branches lay withering bodies, mostly in strange postures, sometimes one above the other with rusting rifles, discarded equipment, and odd bits of wire. Often scraps of torn cloth clung to the ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... somewhere. A rushing mud and boulder-filled torrent tore down stream beds adapted to a tenth of their volume. It wrecked much of the country below, ripping out the good soil, covering the bottomlands many feet deep with coarse rubble, clay, mud, and even big rocks and boulders. The farmers situated below such operations suffered cruelly. Even to this day the devastating results may be seen ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... out of control, but they didn't get her. They've only sprung the door-ports a crack, releasing the internal pressure." He told himself this was true; he would not admit for an instant the possible truth of the vision that flashed through his mind—a ripping of doors—a thrusting snout that writhed in ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... publicly name the rare joys, the infinite delights, that intoxicate me on some sweet June morning, when the river and bay are smooth as a sheet of beryl-green silk, and I run along ripping it up with my knife-edged shell of a boat, the rent closing after me like those wounds of angels which Milton tells of, but the seam still shining for many a long road behind me. To lie still, over the Flats, where the waters are shallow, and see the crabs crawling and the sculpins ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... be Sir George Staunton's feelings in ripping up this miserable history, and listening to the tragical fate of the unhappy girl whom he had ruined, he had so much of his ancient wilfulness of disposition left, as to shut his eyes on everything, save the prospect which seemed to open itself of recovering his son. It was true, it would be difficult ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... it did not surpass, the severest gales they had yet experienced. It set the great bergs of the Polar Seas in motion, and these moving mountains of ice slowly and majestically began their voyage to southern climes, crashing through the floes, overturning the hummocks, and ripping up the ice-tables with quiet but irresistible momentum. For two days the war of ice continued to rage, and sometimes the contending forces, in the shape of huge tongues and corners of bergs, were forced into the Bay of Mercy, and threatened swift destruction ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... you as if they thought you weren't truly religious. One of their yarns was about El Diablo de Fuego, 'The Devil of Fire,' which Miguel said ran in his family. Seems that when anything wrong was about to happen, this blazing, ripping monster showed up as a warning. I told Mee that I thought the monster was misfortune enough, without anything else, but ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... particular seat, so I had taken the next one. What happened now was that I began, as it were, to drink her in. I wished they would turn the lights up so that I could see her better. She was rather small, with great big eyes and a ripping smile. It was a shame to let all that run to seed, ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... reined up with violence enough to set his horse rearing. Then, dropping his hold on the leading rope of Ross's mount, he whirled and set off in a wild dash for the trees to the left. A spear lanced across Ross's shoulder, ripping at the blue fabric, but his horse whirled to follow the other, taking him out of danger of a second thrust. Having lost his opportunity, the man who had wielded the spear dashed by ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... by the little gate at the top of Croom's Hill. It is the postern gate that things always happen at in stories. It was dusty walking, but when we got in the Park it was ripping, so we rested a bit, and lay on our backs, and looked up at the trees, and wished we could play monkeys. I have done it before now, but the Park-keeper makes a row if ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... roaring explosion from the wide mouthed weapon and a cloud of smoke filled the air. But simultaneously there came a sound of ripping, tearing and splintering and the lock of the door, shot clean out by the heavy charge, clattered down to the floor on the inside of ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... without noise, to Griffin's Wharf; have put sentries all round there; and, in a great silence of the neighborhood, are busy, in three gangs, upon the dormant Tea Ships; opening their chests, and punctually shaking them out into the sea. 'Listening from the distance, you could hear distinctly the ripping open of the chests, and no other sound.' About 10 P.M. all was finished: 342 chests of tea flung out to infuse in the Atlantic; the fifty Mohawks gone like a dream; and Boston sleeping more silently even ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... high speed of the two vessels, and the rolling of the torpedo-boat, not much execution was done at first; but, as the distance diminished, shell after shell crashed through the bulwarks of the Lurline, ripping them longitudinally, and tearing up the deck-planks with their jagged fragments. The wheel-house and the funnel escaped by a miracle, and the yacht being end on to her pursuer, the engines ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... thought of gratitude for Aubrey's training, and twisting and writhing she managed to slip through his grasp until her feet rested on the ground. But his grip on her never relaxed; he dragged her back to him, resisting fiercely, ripping the thin shirt from her shoulders, baring her white, heaving bosom. Gasping, she struggled, until, little by little, his arms closed round her again. She braced her hands against his chest, fending him from her till she felt ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... really know at Burlingame except Mrs. Hunter are those of the old set, what you would call the pick of the bunch, if you were one of us. They went there to live because they were tired of being moss-backs. Why don't you follow their example and go the whole hog? They—and their girls—have a ripping time." ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... her belly, Chu[u]dayu; the lord's order." Chu[u]dayu hesitated. Then looking away he thrust—once, twice. There was a squishing sound, as of steel entering something soft. A heart rending scream rang through the air. It was like the ripping apart of silk. Shu[u]zen stepped to the curb, looked into the agonized staring eyes. Then he gave the final thrust of his dagger into the windpipe, and cast the weapon to Chu[u]dayu to cleanse. As if an automaton the man went through his task: brought the heavy stone to bind ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... too: from the roof came a ripping, splintering sound, as though people on the slates were prying up the bolted scuttle. The three men on the stairs hesitated a moment longer; then turned to flee, too late; a hail of pistol shots swept the attic stairs; ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... buckets. The prudent Hod would have brought a veil had Jess not laughed him out of it—for Jess, secure within himself, would have the fun go as far as it could be stretched. An hour later the black-gum tree came ripping, ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... and worn, was ripping apart the dress for Mrs. Green that she had just finished at noon. Baby Kathleen sat at her feet, playing with the old rag doll that had once been Nora's and was now ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell
... out back of the Westcote express office. The Westcote Land and Improvement Company was ripping the whole top off Seiler's Hill and dumping it into the swampy meadow, and Mike Flannery liked to sit at the back door of the express office, when there was nothing to do, and watch the endless string of waggons dump the soft clay and sand there. Already the swamp ...
— Mike Flannery On Duty and Off • Ellis Parker Butler
... because my sister had a ripping writing case sent to her, and I gave her a rotten old book in exchange, and she ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... Back and forth through the plaza, in front of the church where hung the image of the Prince of Peace, the maddened people surged, fighting like demons, raining blows with clubs, fists, and machetes, stabbing with their long, wicked knives, hurling sharp stones, gouging, ripping, yelling, shrieking, calling upon Saints and Virgin to curse their enemies and bless their blows. Over the heads of them all towered the mighty frame of Rosendo. Back before his murderous machete fell the terrified combatants. His course ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... you," he said, turning back to Brion. "Privately," he added, bending over and ripping out the communicator with a sweep ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... nothing, hearing no word. The gale roared above us with that peculiar tearing sound that accompanies the body of a typhoon; a sound suggestive of unearthly anger and violence, as if elemental forces were ripping up the envelope of the universe. The wind gained steadily in volume; it picked up the sea in steep ridges of solid water that flung us like a chip from crest to crest, or caught us, burst above us and swallowed us whole, as if ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... remarked. "How ripping the almond blossom looks in the sunshine. We've got an almond tree in our backyard, and once there ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... the Board of National Defences, Miss Lorne, that enthusiastic old patriot, that rabid old spitfire whose one dream is the wresting back of Alsace-Lorraine, the driving of the hated Germans into the sea? Do you mean that ripping old firebrand?" ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... me of Pete Walker," said the old man, as we shot away up the channel, our canoe ripping up the matted surface like the cue of a novice, when he runs a fatal reef along the sere and yellow cloth of some billiard-table erewhile in verdure clad. "You are as bad as Pete Walker, who thought one sister must be as good as another, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the appetite of the Nightingale was getting spoiled—she looked suspicious, and, just in time to prevent the female orator—who was no other personage, of course, than Aunt Nabby Folsom, from ripping into a regular caucus fanfaronade of gamboge and gas, a knock upon the door announced a "call" for Miss Lind, to dress and appear to a fresh lot of bores—yclept the Mayor and his suit of Deacons, ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... tide was about to submerge the ledge on which I stood, I tried in my fright to climb the cliff. But hardly had I taken three steps when my foot slipped and I clutched the seaweed to save myself from falling, with the result that the boat's rope slid from my arm, and went rip-rip-ripping down the rock until it fell with a ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... exclaimed, "the most ripping piece of luck. We can get hold of a steam yacht with four cannon—toys, but fit for work—only you'll have to buy, ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... enters his mind. The future looks bright and cheerful enough just at present, and ripping open the end of the envelope without breaking the seal, he pulls out a folded ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... got it ashore he would have taken care to warn the Brazilian authorities and they would have been on watch and prevented the ship from leaving. As I view the situation, Mike went aboard, deciphered your message and got ripping mad. Von Staden and Ulrich were probably aboard, and hot-headed Mike probably undertook to throw them overboard single-handed—and failed. His body is doubtless feeding the fishes in Pernambuco harbor this minute, and ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... not enough, good woman, unless there is money in this bed." Thrusting his bayonet through the ticking and ripping it for some distance, he took a malicious satisfaction in scattering its ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... up to a stake, and make him tell who sent him here to stick a knife through our shell, ripping her wide open!" declared Dick ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... least one machine-gun was pelting, at very close range, the barricade blocking the northern end of the stretch of F12 held by us—the very barricade behind which one of our patrols was waiting to slip out into the open. Others were ripping up our sandbags here and there along the line. No patrol could possibly venture out into such a storm. This was reported to the General, who asked the C.O. to ring him up ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... of consequence enough to forbear carrying the badge of his rank upon his back." And in answer to the arguments urged by Puritans, Quakers, etc., against showy decorations of the human figure, I once heard him exclaim, "Oh, let us not be found, when our Master calls us, ripping the lace off our waistcoats, but the spirit of contention from our souls and tongues! Let us all conform in outward customs, which are of no consequence, to the manners of those whom we live among, ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... laughed, and took the kerchief. She and Mandy bent apart, and I heard the ripping of the handkerchief torn across. The girl turned back to the fire and put out a little foot for us to see, muffled now in the red folds of the kerchief. Her thin garments by this time were becoming dry, ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... the Chinese fired in return, but their shot scarcely reached the brig. The pirate admiral or commodore, on seeing this, threw out signals to close in still more, and as the junks began to move the Blenny let fly both her broadsides at the same moment, several of the shot striking the junks, and ripping ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... home. Then the curse of his house gripped him. In two centuries, since the brief union between the three Scandinavian kingdoms was broken by the secession of Sweden, only two of sixteen kings in either country had gone to their rest without ripping up the old feud. It was now Christian's turn. The pretext was of little account: there was always cause enough. Gustav Adolf, whose father was then on the throne of Sweden, said in after years that there was no one he had such hearty ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... who was busy with a pleasanter task was correspondingly cheerful. She altered father's "Prince Albert" into a stately full-dress coat, ripping up its waist-seams, and pinned back the skirts of the coat into ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... said Osborn, "that's all I want. You liked the old clock, and it will look ripping ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... length succeeded in slaying him with poisoned arrows. One of these notoriously ghaut-frequenting alligators is well nigh as rich a prize to the poor native who is fortunate enough to capture him, as a Spanish galleon is to a British frigate; for on ripping open his stomach, and over-hauling its freight, it is not unfrequently found to contain 'a choice assortment'—as the Calcutta advertisers have it—of gold, silver, or brass bangles and anklets, which have not been so expeditiously digested as their fair owners, victims of the monster's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 549 (Supplementary issue) • Various
... disappointment, and the silence which had been maintained as the two vessels met was just breaking up in various ways of lamentation at their bad luck, when the broadside was poured in, thundering in their ears, and the ripping and tearing of the beams and planks astonished their senses. Many were carried down below, but it was difficult to say whether indignation at the enemy's ruse, or satisfaction at discovering that they were not called to quarters in vain, most ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... a perfectly ripping dinner, with everything I like—including tons of jelly, at sight of which I grinned at Mother and she grinned back—if you can call her gorgeous smile a grin. After dinner the lights were put on and we had some music, as we always do when I'm home—little family orchestra with two fiddles, ...
— The Whistling Mother • Grace S. Richmond
... army sweeps away the routed skirmishers and outposts of the enemy. Away went the night wind on its wild errand, reaching at last a solitary cottage on the outskirts of the village. Here it revelled in unwonted fury, ripping up the loose shingles from the moss-grown rooftree, and forcing an entrance ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... abomination which we find them charged with. Then was not the cruelty exercised by Pagans, or Papists, or Mahometans all ordained?—also all the massacres, treacheries, plundering, burning of towns and cities, dashing poor infants to pieces, or starving them to death, ripping up their mothers, together with all the rapes, murders, and sacrileges which have ever come or shall come to pass? I say, this doctrine charges the blessed, the merciful God with it all, by ordaining from all eternity whatsoever shall come ...
— A Solemn Caution Against the Ten Horns of Calvinism • Thomas Taylor
... morning. Then we had breakfast, and the ladies got downstairs before the meal was over. The Douglas-Frazier train couldn't pull out until three thirty this afternoon. So, after they'd gone to so much trouble to see me, and had put up such a ripping time for me, of course I had to stay in town to see ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... decks covered with hides and bodies, slippery with fat and blood, the scuppers running red; masts, ropes, and rails spattered with the sanguinary colour; and the men, like butchers plying their trade, naked and red of arm and hand, hard at work with ripping and flensing-knives, removing the skins from the pretty sea-creatures they ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... comedy-tragedy, entitled "Looking Glass of London," in three rambling acts, and while Burbage was disposed to take the play and pay for it, he desired that Shakspere should give it such ripping corrections as ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... be jiggered," observed the Oxbridge President, Sir WELFORARD LONGSTROKE, as he selected his fourth regalia from the Duke's pearl- encrusted box, and lit it with all the abandon of a Society darling, "may I be jiggered if this is not ripping! What say you?" he continued, addressing young PULYER WRIGHT, the Coxswain, and tossing him playfully four times to the raftered ceiling—"shall we not beat the dastard foe from Camford to-morrow?" A roar of applause sprang from the smoking mouths ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 9th, 1892 • Various
... drearily. It must be hard times for that turbulent spirit. It will be a long time before she is on her feet again. It is a most pathetic case. I wish I could transfer it to myself. Between ripping & raging & smoking & reading I could get a good deal of holiday out of it. Clara runs the house ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... and also many women, as well of the order of Poissardes (which are a class almost of the same species and rank with our fishwomen, and who are easily distinguished by their red cotton bibs and aprons) as others, ran about the gardens, ripping open the bellies, and dashing out the brains of several of ...
— A Trip to Paris in July and August 1792 • Richard Twiss
... than he. With a sudden movement he cleared himself of the blow; and as Jan's arm went past him, the point of the knife ripping his coat-sleeve, he shot out a powerful fist and sent the boy reeling ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... talk of a thousand different things and exchange impressions; money, women, plans for the future formed everlasting themes of their chats. To both it seemed a great sacrifice, something in the nature of a crowning misfortune in their bad luck, to have to spend day after day cooped up in a corner ripping ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... no matter how desirous he might be of saving Ruth from hurt, could not possibly have got around the table in time. With a snarling, ripping noise the heavy patch of plaster tore away from the ceiling and fell directly upon the spot where the chairs of Ruth and Chess Copley ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... love-smitten hops when I wouldn't listen! My dear, the creature managed to plant both feet on my gown as I fled, and the parquet is so slippery and the gown so flimsy and, oh, there was a dreadful ripping sound and ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... and to attack immediately. We were supporting an Alabama brigade. The fire opened—bang, bang, bang, a rattle de bang, bang, bang, a boom, de bang, bang, bang, boom, bang, boom, bang, boom, bang, boom, bang, boom, whirr-siz-siz-siz—a ripping, roaring boom, bang! The air was full of balls and deadly missiles. The litter corps was carrying off the dying and wounded. We could hear the shout of the charge and the incessant roar of the guns, the rattle of the musketry, and knew that the contending forces ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... "Ripping little car, eh?" said the boots, chewing vigorously at his straw as he stood, his hands deep in what are graphically known as "go-to-hell" pockets and his legs well straddled. "Hop over anything, what? Topping weather we're having—been like this for weeks. ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... British workman of all adjectives but one is due to the same imaginative poverty which makes the adjective "nice" supreme in refined circles, and which limits the schoolgirl to "ripping" and her more self-conscious brother to the tempered "decent." But dozens of useful adjectives, now either obsolete or banished to rustic dialect, are found among our surnames. The tendency to accompany ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... door—they could have smashed in the windows, shutters, latches, glass, and all, but their small size and height from the ground made them most dangerous to enter by when there were defenders within went round to the back of the house, and presently I heard a great ripping and banging of boards there, and Mr Clare's ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... well, but all them preparations was bound to delay the thing more or less, and he didn't wish to be kept layin' around. You never see such a clear head as what he had—and so ca,'m and so cool. Jist a hunk of brains—that is what he was. Perfectly awful. It was a ripping distance from one end of that man's head to t'other. Often and over again he's had brain-fever a-raging in one place, and the rest of the pile didn't know anything about it—didn't affect it any more than an Injun Insurrection in Arizona affects ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... with consummate genius planned his attack and flung his gray lines on McClellan with savage power. The two armies fought in dense thickets often less than fifty yards apart. Their muskets flashed sheets of yellow flame. The sound of ripping canvas, the fire of small arms in volleys, could no longer be distinguished. The sullen roar was endless, deafening, appalling. Over the tops of oak, pine, beech, ash and tangled undergrowth came the flaming thunder of two great armies equally fearless, ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... horizon was lurid with the bonfires of rail-ties, and groups of men all night were carrying the heated rails to the nearest trees, and bending them around the trunks. Colonel Poe had provided tools for ripping up the rails and twisting them when hot; but the best and easiest way is the one I have described, of heating the middle of the iron-rails on bonfires made of the cross-ties, and then winding them around a telegraph-pole or the trunk of some convenient ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... on board a schooner which is ripping through the water at a great rate and leaving a ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... things, like mittens, without the thumbs. Look here. Where shall we go? Isn't it a shame that all the nice shops close early on Saturday? We might have had such sport walking along Knightsbridge, choosing what we'd like best from every window. Have you ever done that? It's ripping fun. What about Museums? Do you like Museums? Rather cold for the feet, don't you think? What can we do that's warm and interesting, and exciting, and doesn't ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... secretary of legation, was wounded severely, Mr. Morrison (consul, a son of the celebrated missionary) and two servants slightly. Of the Tycoon's guard two were killed and fourteen wounded. On the part of the assailants three were killed on the spot, two, who were captured, committed suicide by ripping themselves up, and several of those who escaped ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... a little knife that hung at his side and, ripping up the lining of his coat, drew thence ten bright golden pounds, which he laid upon the ground beside him with a cunning wink at Robin. "Now thou mayst have my clothes and welcome," said he, "and thou mightest have had them in exchange for ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... little gold, and he put up his pistol and waited for them, smiling, secure in his identity; and when they drew nearer he asked them how many people he had killed already. They came up and caught him and found the gold in a moment, ripping it from his pocket; and the yell they gave at that stopped his smiling entirely. When he found himself in irons and hurried along, he began to explain that there was some mistake, and was told by the chatty neighbor that maybe killing a woman was ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... the ground, and as the boy leaped for it the lioness leaped for him. Like a monkey he pulled himself up and to one side. A great forepaw caught him a glancing blow at the hips—just grazing him. One curved talon hooked itself into the waist band of his pajama trousers, ripping them from him as the lioness sped by. Half-naked the lad drew himself to safety as the beast turned and leaped ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... back and forth in his enclosure. Then he reared up on his hind legs and clawed at the pine planks which shut him in. He had not long continued this performance when his claws caught in the crack of a loosened board. There was a ripping creak and a crash, and down came the board. Another followed, and Solomon, ceasing his violent threats for the instant, peered through a wide gap into another domain. His hesitation was brief; he scrambled through, walked out of the open door of ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... "that we didn't think of putting in some sea water. Potatoes are ripping when boiled in sea water and don't need any salt Peter Walsh told me that once and I expect he ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... answered, "quite ripping," and he went on to tell me the number of beasts he had slain, particulars about them and the way he had outwitted them. I managed to listen for ten minutes or so without yawning, and ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... giant he would show him a trick, taking a knife, Jack ripped open the bag, and out came all the hasty pudding. Whereupon, saying, "Odds splutters hur nails, hur can do that trick hurself," the monster took the knife, and ripping open his belly, ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... to have a billet at Coxon & Woodhouse's, of Draper's Gardens, but they were let in early in the spring through the Venezuelan loan, as no doubt you remember, and came a nasty cropper. I had been with them five years, and old Coxon gave me a ripping good testimonial when the smash came, but of course we clerks were all turned adrift, the twenty-seven of us. I tried here and tried there, but there were lots of other chaps on the same lay as myself, and it was a perfect frost for a long time. ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... fancy. I've had a ripping time of it myself. Sorry I couldn't communicate with you safely before you left Calcutta. But we've not a minute to waste. Get into your yarn, please; explanations later, if we can ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... call this absolutely ripping," said Miss Penny exuberantly, as they sat by the fire of many-coloured flames, after a slender cup of tea and as hearty a meal as Graeme would allow them in view of possible contingencies. "Do please smoke, Mr. Graeme. ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... thing I ever saw in my life. By George, it's ripping!" cried Wilson, who had been left in a kind of ecstasy by the events of the day. "There's a chap over Barnsley way who fancies himself a bit. Let us spring you on him, and let him see what he can make of you. We'll put up ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... one that seemed to suit him. It was a large can. He knelt with it, pressing a part of it to the hot metal of the satellite's hull. A moment later he was ripping it apart. The solder had softened. He unrolled a sort of cylinder, then bent again, using the curved inner surface ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... the Cork South United Pack of fox-hounds that I first met with a serious accident. I was riding a ripping mare, which I had named Kate Dwyer, and which, up to the day of this accident, had not given me a fall. The hounds were running up a long gully. The fox did not seem to have made up his mind as to which side of the gully he would break. Some of us thought it would be to the right, and ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... slitting sound was clear as they burst into the hall. On the fur rug by the couch lay the writing-desk. Its lid was thrown back and by it crouched Satan industriously ripping the remnants of lining from its interior. As Rupert came up, the cat drew back, his ears flattened and ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... upon him. More than that, it was over him, for, trusting to his agility—for which he was famed—he tried to leap to one side, intending to make a vigorous thrust at the same moment. In doing so his foot slipped; he fell flat on his side, and the boar, tripping over him, just missed ripping him with its fearful tusks. It fell, ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... tearfully afraid of spoiling the gown. But when Patty's zeal in any cause was roused, all other considerations were swept aside. The new frock was fetched from the closet, and the ripping began. ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... Tad Butler's life. At least, two bullets went ripping through the foliage over his head. The move served the further purpose of hiding him from the man who was shooting at him. The mountaineer had not even caught a sight of Butler, quick as had been his turn about. The fellow swung ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin
... that," Sissie replied seriously. "What I do know is that now I can find a hundred pounds, I have a ripping chance of taking over a studio—at least part of one; and it's got quite a big connection already,—in fact pupils ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... Tilly, as we went ripping down the centre in a reel. And as soon as she told me their names I remembered all about them from Happy Jack. Had their pedigree down fine—several things he'd told me that not even their own tribe knew. But I held my hush, and went on courting Tilly, ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... him, these three-dimensional wall pictures were made out of glaseine, and when he tried setting fire to it he nearly burned down the house. Upon feeding it to the old-fashioned fireplace nothing grew hot except his temper. Ripping the picture to shreds would have been the next step, but ...
— Spacemen Never Die! • Morris Hershman
... "Had a ripping run, Dad. You ought to have been there," she said. "Good morning!" She paused and kissed him, then turned to her step-mother. "Good morning, Madam! I hope the keys have been duly handed over. I told Mrs. Hadlow ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... turrets and sent them to attack the Merrimac, a cut-down wooden frigate which had been armoured and provided with a ram. The Merrimac steamed up to the Congress, delivering her fire with awful effect, and then proceeding towards the Cumberland, ran into her near the bow, ripping an enormous rent in her side, and hung on by her own sharp prow while she fired into the fractured chasm. She then backed out and repeated her tremendous onslaught, suffering little from the fire of her enemy, till the latter went down. She next ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... Daddy," he explained later, "you might have known I wouldn't have let Roger down. But wasn't it a ripping sell?" ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... by artillery; those making it had no bayonets, and the Spanish fire, ripping, crackling, and blazing in vivid sheets from block-house and rifle-pit, was doubling and trebling in fury; but there was no hesitation on the part of the ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... around went the two opponents, guns growling, men cheering, sails slapping and ripping with the chain and solid shot. Again and again Jean Bart endeavored to get a favorable position for boarding and again and again he was forced to tack away by the quick manoeuvres of ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... appears when it is most needed. The terns (sea-swallows) are rearing their families, and ever need fresh food in unstinted quantities. The small fry come to an excited and enthusiastic market. Slim, silvery kingfish, grey sharks, and blue bonito, harry the shoals, ripping through them with steel-like flashes, and as the little fish ruffle the surface of sea or emerge therefrom in living silvery spray, in frantic efforts to escape, the terns take all they want, screaming with satisfaction. Then, too, the blacks join ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... and then, resuming their headlong course, swept across the flat land bordering the river, hurtled across the swollen Rio Grande itself, and so on up the gentle rise of ground to the town, where they swung through the streets in ruthless strides—banging signs, ripping up roofings, snapping off branches—and then lurched out over the mesa to the east. Here, as if in glee over their escape from city confines, they redoubled in fury and tore down to earth—and enveloped Felipe Montoya, a young and ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... next morning, we gave the ship a good heel to port, in order to come at, and stop the leak. On ripping off the sheathing, it was found to be in the seams, which were very open, both in and under the wale, and, in several places, not a bit of oakum in them. While the carpenters were making good these defects, we filled all our empty water-casks, at a stream hard by the ship. The wind was ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... time Ned came to the picture of a man with the head torn off! In destroying the print the outlaws had contented themselves by merely ripping it into two pieces. The head part was ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... they heard a fearful roaring and saw rushing upon them an animal the like of which they had never seen before. It was Buck, a live hurricane of fury, hurling himself upon them in a frenzy to destroy. He sprang at the foremost man (it was the chief of the Yeehats), ripping the throat wide open till the rent jugular spouted a fountain of blood. He did not pause to worry the victim, but ripped in passing, with the next bound tearing wide the throat of a second man. There was no withstanding him. He plunged ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... thunder—a ripping, rending roar of swift, unknown disaster—filled the air, and shook the quiet houses around our Lady of the Victories with nameless terror. After it, ten seconds of thrilling silence, and then the distant sound of shrieking ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... later giants, Tennyson had a sense of magnificence, a childlike self-absorption. He said once in the same breath that the desire of the public to know the details of the artist's life was the most degrading and debasing curiosity,—it was ripping people up like pigs,—and added with a sigh that he thought that there was a congestion in the world about his own fame; he had received no complimentary letters for ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... operator turned to his key. The long ripping crashes of the wireless sender followed ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... and saw that Larry, seeing my danger, had run into the open, dangerously close, and hurled a rock. It struck Tugh upon the shoulder and deflected his aim, so that his flash went over me. I saw Tugh whirl toward Larry, and I rushed forward, ripping loose the cylinder of the ray projector from its restraining battery cord. In the instant the cripple was turned half way from me I landed upon him, and with all my strength brought the point of the small heavy ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... a chap I saw once get into a coffin at the Cabaret de l'Enfer—that shady restaurant place in the Boulevard de Clichy. When they turned on the lights ..." He shrugged. "The women of the party thought it simply ripping. I wanted to ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... more steps. Something inside me was screaming, was ripping at my guts, was roaring with all the cacaphony of all the giant discords of all eternity. Something inside my brain was sucking all my strength in one tremendous, surging power-dive of wish fulfillment. I was willing the black mucous mass of ...
— The Very Black • Dean Evans
... considered, and I'm just common, every-day stuff like everyone else. This is just a flyer I'm taking in the company of my betters," and she gave a whimsical glance at Elinor with the insight that was occasionally hers in brief glimpses. "I can't fly far, I warn you, but it's simply ripping while I'm on ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... door which Bunny opened, drawing her impetuously forward. "This is Charlie's own particular sanctum. Rather a ripping place, isn't it? He's got a secret den that leads somewhere out of it, but no one knows how ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... "Ripping, old chap, of you to have me down here," the young man remarked amiably, his hand stretching out to a tumbler which stood by his side. "The country, when you can get ice, is a paradise in this weather, especially when London's ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... out my task and little more. At twelve o'clock I went to poor Lady J.S. to talk over old stories. I am not clear that it is right or healthful indulgence to be ripping up old sorrows, but it seems to give her deep-seated sorrow words, and that is a mental bloodletting. To me these things are now matter of calm and solemn recollection, never to be forgotten, yet scarce ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... the kind used by professional players. It is covered with horsehide, and is warranted to last an entire game without ripping or getting out of shape. Baseball bats are made of a variety of woods, the common materials being ash, willow, and hickory. A bat must not exceed 2-3/4 inches in thickness at its thickest part. There are a great many shapes and models named after the professional ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... was handed to him, and ripping the space gloves off his hands, the big cadet began cutting into the tough ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... and diamonds were sent here this morning, which we have been hiding in different parts of the house; but they say that in cases of pillage the plunderers always search the most impossible places, pulling up the boards, brick floors, etc., ripping up the mattresses, and so on; so I believe there is no use in concealing anything. Near us lives a celebrated general, on whose political opinions there seems much doubt, as he has joined neither party, and has become invisible ever since this affair ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... the flat, there was Mrs. Bobbie looking—well, I tell you, it staggered me. Her gold hair was all piled up in waves and crinkles and things, with a what-d'-you-call-it of diamonds in it. And she was wearing the most perfectly ripping dress. I couldn't begin to describe it. I can only say it was the limit. It struck me that if this was how she was in the habit of looking every night when they were dining quietly at home together, it was no ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... in the world of women they will not neglect this art, so ripping in itself, in its result so wonderfully beneficent, I am sure indeed. Much, I have said, is already done for its full revival. The spirit of the age has made straight the path of its professors. Fashion has made Jezebel surrender her monopoly ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm |
