"Topsy-turvy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... potential, none can doubt, As it sent Harry Brougham to the right about— The condition in which the patient has been Is a thing quite awful to be seen. Not that a casual eye could scan This wondrous change by outward survey; It being, in fact, the interior man That's turned completely topsy-turvy:— Like a case that lately, in reading o'er 'em, I found in the Acta Eruditorum, Of a man in whose inside, when disclosed, The whole order of things was found transposed; By a lusus naturae, strange to see, The liver placed where the heart should be, And the spleen (like Brougham's, since ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... fist on the table. "Why, it takes a man all his time to find out where he stands in this topsy-turvy city. Just tell me what this commotion is about, will you? It may be easy enough for a Frenchman to understand, but for me—it ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... that in my absence you could have behaved badly! Another in your place would have turned the house topsy-turvy, but you have only broken a pane of glass! God bless you for your considerateness. Go on in the same way and you ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... another look round," suggested Fisher. So once more the study was turned topsy-turvy, and every nook and cranny searched. But no money was there, nor ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... four numbers they used an I, which naturally represents them. To mark the fifth, they chose a V, which is made out by bending inwards the three middle fingers, and stretching out only the thumb and the little finger; and for the tenth they used an X, which is a double V, one placed topsy-turvy under the other. From this the progression of these numbers is always from one to five, and from five to ten. The hundred was signified by the capital letter of that word in Latin, C—centum. The other letters, D for 500, and M for a 1000, were afterwards added. They subsequently abbreviated ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... mischief.[62] She hath been known to come at the head of these rascals, and beat her lover until he was sore from head to foot, and then force him to pay for the trouble she was at. Once, attended with a crew of ragamuffins, she broke into his house, turned all things topsy-turvy, and then set it on fire. At the same time she told so many lies among his servants, that it set them all by the ears, and his poor Steward was knocked on the head;[63] for which I think, and so doth all the Country, that she ought to be answerable. To conclude her character; she is of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... TOPSY-TURVY.—Well, of all the funny pictures in this droll book I think this the drollest—a big letter T resting on its top on the ceiling, like in an overturned doll's house, or a view taken by an artist standing upon his head. Turn ...
— The Royal Picture Alphabet • Luke Limner
... things are going topsy-turvy, and with us here the crisis will come today or tomorrow. The Hereditary Forester has already barricaded himself in ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... square was occupied by swings, where some eight or ten boat-loads of persons were flying topsy-turvy into the air, making one giddy to look at them, and constant fearful shrieks arose from the lady swingers, at finding themselves in a horizontal or inverted position, high above the ground. One of the machines ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... Here's Topsy-Turvy, upside down, The ceiling seems the base; Reverse the ground and 'twill be found The things ...
— Fire-Side Picture Alphabet - or Humour and Droll Moral Tales; or Words & their Meanings Illustrated • Various
... like a shepherd on the hill. But these little occasional disarrangements serve but to preserve the spirit of permanent arrangement, without which the very virtue of domesticity dies. What sacrilege, therefore, against the Lares and Penates, to turn a whole house topsy-turvy, from garret to cellar, regularly as May-flowers deck the zone of the year! Why, a Turkey or a Persian, or even a Wilton or a Kidderminster carpet, is as much the garb of the wooden floor inside, as the grass is of the earthen floor outside of your house. Would you lift and lay down the greensward? ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... my brother has ever followed his fancies, allowed his passions to run riot, and never done a thing to exercise any check over himself? His temperament is such that he some time back created, all on account of that fellow Ch'in Chung, a rumpus that turned heaven and earth topsy-turvy; and, as a matter of course, he's now far worse than ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... comes from the hand of the Creator; all degenerates under the hands of man. He forces one country to produce the fruits of another, one tree to bear that of another. He confounds climates, elements, and seasons; he mutilates his dog, his horse, his slave; turns everything topsy-turvy, disfigures everything. He will have nothing as nature made it, not even man himself; he must be trained like a managed horse, trimmed like ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... 708; clashing, repugnance. inversion &c 218; the opposite, the reverse, the inverse, the converse, the antipodes, the antithesis, the other extreme. V. be contrary &c adj.; contrast with, oppose; diller toto coelo [Lat.]. invert, reverse, turn the tables; turn topsy-turvy, turn end for end, turn upside down, turn inside out. contradict, contravene; antagonize &c 708. Adj. contrary, contrarious^, contrariant^; opposite, counter, dead against; converse, reverse; opposed, antithetical, contrasted, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... little brown house turned all topsy-turvy in the whirl of preparation that followed, and the next thing, she was standing on the platform at the station, with her new steamer trunk beside her. Half the town was there to bid her good-by. In the excitement of finding herself a person of such importance she ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... quiet village of Cyrus, with its whimsical villagers, is abruptly turned topsy-turvy by the arrival in its midst of an actress, distractingly feminine, Lila Laughter; and, at the same ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... be some excuse for his folly. No; all this dirt and confusion, which once a week drives me nearly beside myself, is what K—— calls clearing up the ship; when he and his man Friday, as he calls Kelly, turn everything topsy-turvy, and, to make the muddle more complete, they always choose my washing-day for their frolic. Pantries and cellars are rummaged over, and everything is dragged out of its place, for the mere pleasure of making a litter, and dragging it ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... of scolding. She was not a stupid woman by any means, but there was one thing in the world she never could understand, and that was Austin himself. He wasn't like other boys one bit, she always said. He had such a queer, topsy-turvy way of looking at things; would express the most outrageous opinions with an innocent unconsciousness that made her long to box his ears, and support the most arrant absurdities by arguments that conveyed not the ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... when he had first driven Norah's mother over the Billabong track; little and dainty and merry, while he had been as always, silent, but unspeakably proud of her. The little mother's grave had long been green, and the world had turned topsy-turvy since then, but the old track was the same, and the memory, and the ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... o' that, When everything's been said— May I offer this mat If you will stand on your head? I suppose I look to be upside down From your present point of view. It's a giddy old world, from king to clown, And a topsy-turvy, too. But, worthy and now uninverted old man, You're built, at least, on a normal plan If ever a truth I spoke. Smoke? Your air and conversation Are a liberal education, And your clothes, including the metal hat And the ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... of M. Ferry. M. Ferry is the true, though more or less occult, head of the present Administration in France. 'M. Ferry,' said a caustic French Radical to me in Paris, 'ought to be the mask of M. Carnot. Nature gave him a Carnival nose for that purpose. Everything is topsy-turvy now in France, and so M. Carnot is the mask of M. Ferry. But the nose will come ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... more money than he owned to, and he managed to send his sister Elodie—and that was a stage name he gave her—to send her to be a workwoman at our place, without my daughter's knowing who she was; and, gracious goodness! but that girl turned the whole place topsy-turvy; she got all those poor girls into mischief—impossible to ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... old Seer made answer playing on him And saying, 'Son, I have seen the good ship sail Keel upward, and mast downward, in the heavens, And solid turrets topsy-turvy in air: And here is truth; but an it please thee not, Take thou the truth as thou hast told it me. For truly as thou sayest, a Fairy King And Fairy Queens have built the city, son; They came from out a sacred mountain-cleft Toward the sunrise, each with harp in hand, And built it to the music ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... Socratic every dining-room was Attic (Which suggests an architecture of a topsy-turvy kind), There they'd satisfy their twist on a RECHERCHE cold [Greek text which cannot be reproduced], Which is what they called their lunch - and so may you, if you're inclined. As they gradually got on, they'd [Greek text ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... broomstick, perhaps you will say, is an emblem of a tree standing on its head; and pray what is man but a topsy-turvy creature, his animal faculties perpetually mounted on his rational, his head where his heels should be, groveling on the earth! and yet, with all his faults, he sets up to be a universal reformer and corrector of abuses, a remover of grievances, * * sharing deeply all the while in the ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... far. I, rather, of his absence make this use: It lends a lustre and more great opinion, A larger dare to our great enterprise, Than if the earl were here; for men must think, If we, without his help, can make a head To push against the kingdom, with his help We shall o'erturn it topsy-turvy down. Yet all goes well, yet all our ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... what they wanted—they had finished the door on the birthday, and proud enough they were of it. The griffins, cupids, and so on, were, I must own, most beautiful to behold; though so many in number, so entangled in flowers and devices, and so topsy-turvy in their actions and attitudes, that you felt them unpleasantly in your head for hours after you had done with the pleasure of looking at them. If I add that Penelope ended her part of the morning's work by being sick in the back-kitchen, it is in no unfriendly spirit towards the vehicle. ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... any one so foolish as to believe that there are antipodes with their feet opposite to ours; that there is a part of the world in which all things are topsy-turvy, where the trees grow with their branches downward, and where it rains, ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... be full glad that her heart had strayed away—as it must needs stray somewhere—to the son of the third greatest man in England. As for his being an outlaw, that mattered little. He might be inlawed, and rich and powerful, any day in those uncertain, topsy-turvy times; and, for the present, his being a wolf's head only made him the more interesting to her. Women like to pity their lovers. Sometimes—may all good beings reward them for it—they love merely because they pity. And Torfrida found it pleasant ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... was the voice of Ilya Petrovitch. Ilya Petrovitch here and beating the landlady! He is kicking her, banging her head against the steps—that's clear, that can be told from the sounds, from the cries and the thuds. How is it, is the world topsy-turvy? He could hear people running in crowds from all the storeys and all the staircases; he heard voices, exclamations, knocking, doors banging. "But why, why, and how could it be?" he repeated, thinking seriously that he had gone mad. But no, he heard too distinctly! ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... possessed by the illusion that his dreams are the real thing and his waking hours are imaginary. Just think what a topsy-turvy state that must ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... though," he murmured. "How can you possibly manage to maintain an institution like this, with all the space and the luxuries? The inmates seem to lead a better life than the adjusted individuals outside. It's topsy-turvy." ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... I said; "everything seems topsy-turvy up here. Why, to-day I saw a man come in with a box of apples which the crowd begged him to open. He was selling those apples at a dollar apiece, and the folks were ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... interruption. Nothing escaped the old man's observation; whatever was shut or tied up, he requested to have opened; and in this way he rummaged the midshipmen's chests, and the sailors' bags, all along the lower deck. He looked into the holds, took the lid off the boilers, and turned every thing topsy-turvy. Seeing a cutlass tied to the deck, overhead, he took it down, and on drawing it from the scabbard, its lustre, and the keenness of its edge, surprised and delighted him so much, that I asked him to accept ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... on the fire, quietly, and took no notice of the request. "People's heads," continued the medical gentleman, "seem turned topsy-turvy. Dear me, how different it was in my time! What men are about, I can't think. The very last newspaper I read had an advertisement that I should as soon have expected to see there when my father was alive, as a ship sailing along this coast keel upwards. You saw it, Fairman. It was just under the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... it substantial, as nothing else did, was the girl—the girl and all she meant to him. It must be a very genuine emotion to turn the world topsy-turvy for him as it had. This afternoon for instance, it was she who filled the sunbeams with golden light, who warmed the blue sky until it seemed of hazy fairy stuff, who sang among the leaves, who urged him on with a power that placed no limit on distance or time. Within less than a day ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... awakening of love's young dream showed in the hasty nature of her departure for the ice-box was lamentably odorous of forgotten food, the kitchenette needed scrubbing with hot water and lye, the modest fittings of the whole place were in topsy-turvy neglect. When Lorelei's trunks were dumped inside, the chaos appeared complete. She was not accustomed to rely upon her own hands, and at this moment she felt none of the pride that comes of independence. ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... two score years since CARROLL'S art, With topsy-turvy magic, Sent ALICE wondering through ...
— Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. With a Proem by Austin Dobson • Lewis Carroll
... him to return home with the rich prize he had brought from the Indian seas and the coast of Africa, and meantime he lay there in the Delaware Bay waiting for a reply. Before he left he turned the whole of Tom Chist's life topsy-turvy with something that he ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... Everything was topsy-turvy in the excitement of getting the injured father, and weary, distracted mother started on their brief journey; but finally they were off, and a row of sober-faced children stood on the bluff overlooking the flats below, watching the train puff its way slowly ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... mantles; men with every kind of headgear, turbans, handkerchiefs, cowls; men with hair and beard matted and flying; now one helped himself to a louder yell by tossing in air the dirty garment he had torn from his body, hirsute as a goat's; now one leaped up agile as a panther; now one turned topsy-turvy; now groups of them swirled together like whimsical eddies in a pool. Some went slowly, their arms outspread in silent ecstasy; some stalked on with parted lips and staring eyes, trance-like or in dead ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... the eye took in a half mile of it, from the beginning to the point where another turn intervened. The two friends were galloping over this exact section and speculating as to how soon they would strike the open prairie, when all their calculations were knocked topsy-turvy. A party of horsemen charged around the bend in front, all riding at a sweeping gallop directly toward the alarmed Mickey and Fred, who instantly halted and surveyed them. A second glance showed them to be Indians, undoubtedly Apaches, and very probably ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... but charity, for which we, who have everything, expect them to be grateful; and when I know that every one of them has done more useful work in a year of their life than I shall ever do in the whole of mine, then I feel that the whole state of things is somehow wrong and topsy-turvy and wicked." Her voice rose a little, every emphasis grew more passionate. "And if I don't do something—the little such a person as I can—to alter it before I die, I might as well ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... they said, "everything gone clean topsy-turvy! And the deep meaning of it is to rob our fishing, under pretence of the Nationals. It may bring a good bit of money to the place, for the lining of one or two pockets, such as John Prater's and Cheeseman's; but I never did hold so much with money, when shattery ways comes along of it. No daughter ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... down which I thought it would be possible to climb to the nearest timber. Nothing definite could be seen. The clouds on the snowy surface and the light electrified air gave the eye only optical illusions. The outline of every object was topsy-turvy and dim. The large stones that I thought to step on were not there; and, when apparently passing others, I bumped into them. Several times I fell headlong by stepping out for a drift and ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... a privileged throng of near kin, every one calling over every one's head, "Good-by!" "Good-by!" "Here's your mother, Johnnie!" and, "Here's your wife, Achille!" Midmost went the Callenders, the Valcours, and Victorine, willy-nilly, topsy-turvy, swept away, smothering, twisting, laughing, stumbling, staggering, yet saved alive by that man of the moment Mandeville, until half-way down the shed and the long box-car train they brought up on a ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... in the mildly deprecating tone in which the elder sometimes do answer the younger in these topsy-turvy days:— ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... uncannily that Jolyon would rather like to pay them—the chap was so loose. Besides, to claim damages was not the thing to do. The claim, indeed, had been made almost mechanically; and as the hour drew near Soames saw in it just another dodge of this insensitive and topsy-turvy Law to make him ridiculous; so that people might sneer and say: "Oh, yes, he got quite a good price for her!" And he gave instructions that his Counsel should state that the money would be given to a Home for Fallen Women. He was a long time hitting ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... in the water, and let it come out with the cut cicatrised. The miracle will be quite as great, and I shall bow to it respectfully." Then he added: "If I possessed a source which could thus close up sores and wounds, I would turn the world topsy-turvy. I do not know exactly how I should manage it, but at all events I would summon the nations, and the nations would come. I should cause the miracles to be verified in such an indisputable manner, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... operations on the River Seine are the wonder and amusement of the idle. It is true that through some miscalculation they have chosen the wrong branch of the river. As for the Prince, that sublime person, having now served his turn, may go, along with the Arabian Author, topsy-turvy into space. But if the reader insists on more specific information, I am happy to say that a recent revolution hurled him from the throne of Bohemia, in consequence of his continued absence and edifying neglect ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Night's Dream reasoning, turning common-sense topsy-turvy, and treating the words of God in the very reverse way from that in which all sane people agree to ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... Mrs. Fazakerly's neck and cry like a child, he felt that he was capable of any or all of these things. As it was, his behavior must have been sufficiently ridiculous, since it amused Mrs. Fazakerly so much. The two had reached that topsy-turvy height of anguish that is only expressible by laughter. Theirs had a ring of insanity in it; it sounded monstrous and immoral, like the mirth of victims under the shadow of condign extinction. As for his play, he knew it was the play of a madman. And ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... went to my heart. A great lump rose in my own throat. My brain seemed to be turning topsy-turvy. A moment before it had been filled with bitterness and resentment and vengeful thoughts. Now these had vanished and in their place came crowding other and vastly different feelings. She was crying, sobbing there alone in the dark ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... do-nothing policy. If something is not done pretty soon, decisive, either evacuation or expulsion, the whole country will become so disgusted with the sham of Southern independence that the first chance the people get at a popular election they will turn the whole movement topsy-turvy so bad that it never on ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... to call any one, he ran into the room, dragged the boys from the blazing bed, and splashed all the water he could find at hand on to the flames. It checked but did not quench the fire, and the children wakened on being tumbled topsy-turvy into a cold hall, began to roar at the top of their voices. Mrs. Bhaer instantly appeared, and a minute after Silas burst out of his room shouting, "Fire!" in a tone that raised the whole house. A flock of white goblins with scared faces crowded into the hall, and for a minute every ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... and heroic purposes "to do or die,"—perhaps both; and the heart under the fuzzy brown coat felt very tender with the memory of the dear old lady, probably sobbing over her army socks and the loss of her topsy-turvy Trib. ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... the boys of Cliffwood were a wild set and how, on Hallowe'en, they turned the home town topsy-turvy. This led to an organization of a boys' department in the local Y. M. C. A. When the lads realized what was being done for them, they joined in the movement with vigor and did all they could to help the good cause. To raise funds they gave a minstrel show and other ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... him, it was said, had had dealings with the Bourbons, while many a great family of the Emigration would have lost more than the esteem of their fellows in their panic-stricken flight, had it not been that one cool-headed and calm man of business stayed at his post through the topsy-turvy days of the Terror, and did his duty by the clients ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... see?" said Ellen; "it shuts with a spring, and nothing can possibly come out; do you see, mamma? You can turn it topsy-turvy." ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... it rightly is to faint, but I do know that for the next little while the whole world swam away from before me in a whirling mist; Silver and the birds, and the tall Spy-glass hilltop, going round and round and topsy-turvy before my eyes, and all manner of bells ringing and distant voices shouting ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... house turned topsy-turvy!" said Lucy. "Really and truly, mother, I wish we had thought it over before we did anything ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... topsy-turvy in her zeal to sail by the next boat, the very next day. She succeeded; and when she left the house I left it, too; to come here; to the General; to a house that would two months ago have seemed a palace such as I could never dream of living in. ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... or you'll be judging by appearances, and says you, 'Lor', what a thousander fellow this is!' and 'What a millioner fellow that is!' You'll be giving your millions and your thousands to the wrong people, when they haven't got a penny. All London 'll be topsy-turvy to you, unless you've got a guide, and he'll show you a shabby-coated, head-in-the-gutter old man 'll buy up the lot. Everybody that doesn't know him says—look at him! but they that knows him—hats off, I can tell you. And talk about ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... one of those dreamy periods of existence in which people doubt whether they are awake or asleep. The world seemed all turning topsy-turvy. I was filled with curiosity, which I could with difficulty keep within the limits of ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... holding on to the rim of the spout, turned himself topsy-turvy and surveyed the street. From where I was standing behind the laurel bushes I could see ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... stepladder. He and Yardsley go out. The pictures are piled up on the floor, the furniture is topsy-turvy, and the portieres lie in ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... of little Jeanne's father from a sea voyage interested me greatly. For several days her house was topsy-turvy with preparation, and one could guess the joy they felt over his approaching arrival. The frigate that he commanded reached port a little earlier than his family expected it, and from my window I saw him, one fine evening, hurrying ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... had so seldom honored them with her presence, and who always tried so hard to impress them with a sense of her superiority and the mighty favor she conferred upon them by occasionally condescending to bring her aristocratic presence into their quiet, plain household, and turn it topsy-turvy. Still, she was Anna's aunt, and then, too, it was a distinction which Aunt Ruth rather enjoyed, that of having a fashionable city woman for her guest, and so she submitted with a good grace to the breaking ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... gossip as bystanders or sit down: often they are shown actually leaving the place. It is singular how ill-designed many of the classical crowds are, especially the battle-scenes: they are constructed without regard for the human necessity of standing on something; and we have grotesque topsy-turvy compositions, the individual parts of which are unrivalled in technique.[197] Michael Angelo's first and last representation of a crowd in sculpture shows the same fault, which, indeed, was far from uncommon.[198] It arose from a desire to show more of the crowd than ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... tumbled the bed topsy-turvy. I am glad to see thou hast yet some grace and manners in thy vocation. Now, Sir Messenger, to requite thee for this thy courtesy and forbearance, I will show thee a secret tabernacle, which all thy prying has not been ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... might be romantic or classic, according as the humor took it. When we received this intelligence, we could not close our eyes all night. Two years of peaceful conviction had vanished like a dream. All our ideas were turned topsy-turvy; for it the rules of Aristotle were no longer the line of demarcation which separated the literary camps, where was one to find himself, and what was he to depend upon? How was one to know, in reading a book, which school it belonged to? . . . Luckily in the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... fool," added the honest man; "here have I lived ever since master came here, and most of these trees did I plant and graff with my own hands, and made the sparrow-grass beds and all, and now this woman is to come with her nonsense, and turn everything topsy-turvy." ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... not with words, witty sayings, funny observations and topsy-turvy language alone that the writer works, when he constructs a vaudeville two-act. It is with clever ideas, expressed in laughable situations and actions, that his brain is busy when he begins to marshal to his ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... tongue, too nimble for your sense, Is guilty of a high offence; Hath introduced unkind debate, And topsy-turvy turn'd our state. In gallantry I sent the ring, The token of a love-sick king: Under fair Mab's auspicious name From me the trifling present came. You blabb'd the news in Suffolk's ear; The tattling zephyrs ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... the war would knock some of this topsy-turvy nonsense out of us. Maybe it has. Sometimes I see on the faces of our commuters the unaccustomed agitation of thought. At least we still have the grace to call ourselves a suburb, and not (what we fancy ourselves) a superurb. But I don't like the pretense that runs like a jarring note through the ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... of the past was dead, even death itself.... So be it! Life was going on: perhaps other little Christophes were dreaming, suffering, struggling, in the shabby houses in the street that was called after him.—At a concert in the gigantic Tonhalle he heard some of his music played, all topsy-turvy: he hardly recognized it.... So be it! Though it were misunderstood it might perhaps arouse new energy. We sowed the seed. Do what you will with it: feed on us.—At nightfall Christophe walked through the fields outside the city; great mists were rolling over them, and he thought ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... corners of the rooms; she does not rummage the bed, but restricts herself to patting it with the tip of her fingers, stroking the creases out of the sheets, puffing up the pillows and coaxing them out of their hollows. The man turned everything topsy-turvy; she moves nothing." ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... sharp-cut, though they were not very high, and were heavily wooded to their summits. The westernmost peak of this range was separated from the rest by a wide river, which had cut its way through in some of those forgotten ages when, if we are to believe the geologists, every thing was topsy-turvy on this now meek and ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... and the educated. One is inclined to remark, at once, that a social change initiated by its best social classes is scarcely likely to be pernicious. Where, it may be asked, if not among the most educated classes, is any process of amelioration to be initiated? We cannot make the world topsy-turvy to suit the convenience of topsy-turvy minds. All social movements tend to begin at the top and to permeate downwards. This has been the case with the decline in the birth-rate, but it is already well ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... sir," said Rowles doubtfully, "it is very kind of you to think of doing such kindness to a stranger. But I'm much afeard that Thomas Mitchell is so used to his topsy-turvy way of living, that he will not fit in with the morning for getting up and the night for going ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... ideals were all topsy-turvy. He burlesqued his own religion as the most earnest constantly do, for we all revolve around ourselves as ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... bones, and relics, and miracles, and icons, and calvaries, and cells, and celibacy, and horsehair shirts, and blood, and dirt, and tears, was true after all! What if the world of beauty I had been content to live in was a Satanic show, and the real thing was that dead, topsy-turvy world down there in the cold, gray lake under the reeking mists? I sneaked back into the house to see if the streak hadn't dried yet; but no! it loomed in tell-tale ghastliness, a sort of writing on the wall announcing ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... enlarged sense of the word, for all slowness of apprehension, shortness of sight, or imperfect sense of things. It includes (as we see by the poet's own words) labour, industry, and some degree of activity and boldness—a ruling principle not inert, but turning topsy-turvy the understanding, and inducing an anarchy or confused state of mind. This remark ought to be carried along with the reader throughout the work; and without this caution he will be apt to mistake the importance of many of the characters, ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... to the Chinese equivalent of the peerage. Henceforth he belonged to the distinguished company of Iron Hatted Dukes—at least not he but his ancestors did, for this was no ordinary father-to-son patent of nobility. The topsy-turvy honour reached backward instead of forward, diminishing one rank with ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... this, as many an Englishman would not hesitate to do, a topsy-turvy morality, let us realize that sayings such as these really give us the true values of things as nothing else could. For there are more sins "in heaven and earth than are dreamt of" in a nation's classified immoralities. Stealing ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... game of me and escape, whoever he is! I'll go straight to the king this moment and tell him all as it happened. I swear I'll have my revenge this day on that Thessalian sorcerer who has turned the wits of my household topsy-turvy. (looking around) Where is he, though? Good God! He's gone inside—to my wife, ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... sigh of perplexity. There rose up in his mind a sort of uncomfortable feeling that everything was going topsy-turvy. Somehow or another he seemed to see Robbie's mother sitting by the side of Elsie's bed when she had the fever last winter, and bustling about to get nice things for her, hushing the others with a strange look in her ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... country in the form of firebacks; evidently the founders considered the design convenient. Perhaps they might have made a better job if they had been severer scholars; for some of the lettering on it is quaint and topsy-turvy, the S's being twisted the wrong way round and the F's lying unhappily feet uppermost. Yet it fits well with the other old Gainsford and Angell monuments, and is also a memorial of a dead and gone industry, the iron-smelting ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... frequently, in a state of pallor and desperation, but she departed neither from her taciturnity, nor her stiff, lifeless expression. She knew nothing of the fears which were throwing the pent-up town topsy-turvy, she was a thousand leagues away from Plassans, soaring into the one constant fixed idea which imparted such a blank stare to her eyes. Now and again, however, at this particular moment, some feeling of uneasiness, some human anxiety, occasionally made her blink. Antoine, unable to resist ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... say, they no obedience paid of late; But would new fears and jealousies create; Till topsy-turvy they had turn'd ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... impossible to be executed, so frightful is the strain on the energies of her who is to present the heroine. Compared with this character, Beethoven's Leonora, Weber's Euryanthe, are only so much child's play." This is topsy-turvy reasoning, of course, but at the same time ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... Letters" in which two distinguished Persian travellers turn the whole existing society of France topsy-turvy and poke fun at everything from the king down to the lowest of his six hundred pastry cooks, the book immediately went through four editions and assured the writer thousands of readers for his famous discussion of the "Spirit of the Laws" in which the noble ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... is past eleven," replied Miss Nora, with a giggle. "Do you suppose they pay any attention to clocks in this house? Everything here is topsy-turvy." ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... But everything remains moveless and placid. The bedroom is like a show. It might be the bedroom of some famous man exposed to worshipping tourists at sixpence a head. A few chairs have fallen out of the house, and they lie topsy-turvy in the street amid the debris; no one has thought to touch them. In all directions thoroughfares branch forth, silent, ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... was one of the humors of the camp—a practical manifestation of the facetious spirit that had found literary expression in the topsy-turvy obituary notice from the pen of Hurdy-Gurdy's great humorist. Perhaps it had some occult personal signification impenetrable to understandings uninstructed in local traditions. A more charitable hypothesis is that it ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... Hymettus, with its paradoxical antitheses: of flowers and flannels; strawberries and sealskin sacks; open fires with open windows; snow-capped mountains and orange blossoms; winter looking down upon summer—a topsy-turvy land, where you dig for your wood and climb for your coal; where water-pipes are laid above ground, with no fear of Jack Frost, and your principal rivers flow bottom side up and invisible most of the time; where the boys climb up hill on burros and ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... ledgers grow in size, to the tune of added cash to fall jingling into enlarged tills. In fact, the choice of the Capital had turned a society, provincially content to run in accustomed grooves, quite topsy-turvy; and, perhaps for want of some other escape-valve under the new pressure, the townspeople ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... is a bit topsy-turvy,' whispered the latter. 'He had got it in his mind that 'twere a funeral, and I found him wandering about the cemetery a-looking for us. However, all's well as ends well.' And the clerk wiped ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... led to a corner of the corral, or stable yard, and tied. Then the foreman made ready to try to stay in the saddle longer than had any of his men, for when a bronco bucks it is like trying to hold on to a swing that is turning topsy-turvy. ...
— The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch • Howard R. Garis
... were not wanted, were sent whirling on the floor. It was a caution to see them go in, paying no respect for anybody or anything. Beautiful damsels and affectionate dames stood around with eyes suffused with tears, pleading in vain. Negro houses met the same fate, for they too were turned topsy-turvy from one room to another. There was always some mean enough to do it, in the hope to find a fortune, and often his hopes were fulfilled, as the whites sometimes hid their money with the negroes, in the belief it would not be disturbed. Out of one fine dwelling, on the Broad river, a soldier ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear
... history. I see you have thrived, and that is enough for the present. Very odd; but just now I can only think of myself. I'm in a regular fix, sir. Screwstown is not the respectable Screwstown that you remember it—all demoralized and turned topsy-turvy by a demoniacal monster capitalist, with steam-engines that might bring the falls of Niagara into your back parlour, sir! And as if that was not enough to destroy and drive into almighty shivers a decent fair-play Britisher like myself, I hear he is just in ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... boisterous and mischievous that they not only handled the dogs too roughly, but when the old Indian and his wife left camp at any time, they went on the rampage: chasing the dogs about, ransacking the larder, turning the camp topsy-turvy, and scattering everything in confusion. So the old couple decided that it was now high time to put their skins upon the skin-stretcher in readiness to sell ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... humorists is the opposite of Addison's or Irving's or Thackeray's. It does not amuse by the perception of the characteristic. It is not founded upon truth, but upon incongruity, distortion, unexpectedness. Every thing in life is reversed, as in opera bouffe, and turned topsy-turvy, so that paradox takes the place of the natural order of things. Nevertheless they have supplied a wholesome criticism upon sentimental excesses, and the world is in their debt for ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... Mr. Vanstone, entering the room while Miss Garth was making her quotation, with the dogs at his heels. "Well; live and learn. If you're all rakes, Miss Garth, the sexes are turned topsy-turvy with a vengeance; and the men will have nothing left for it but to stop at home and darn the stockings.—Let's ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... nonsense for us to attempt to keep up the Miss Moore and Mr. Sanderson business. I used to scoff at love at first sight and say it was all the idle fancy of the poets. Then I met you and remained to pray. You've turned my world topsy-turvy. I can't think without you, and yet it would be folly to tell this to my Governor, and ask his consent to our marriage. He wants me to finish college, take the usual trip around the world and then go into the firm. Besides, he wants me to eventually ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... Hotel at which The Twelve True Fishermen held their annual dinners was an institution such as can only exist in an oligarchical society which has almost gone mad on good manners. It was that topsy-turvy product—an "exclusive" commercial enterprise. That is, it was a thing which paid not by attracting people, but actually by turning people away. In the heart of a plutocracy tradesmen become cunning enough to be more ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... Chelford chose to patronise Mr. Page, the Dollington professor, and partly, I fancy, to show that she could turn things topsy-turvy in this town of Gylingden, had made a point, with the rulers of the feast, that her client should sing half-a-dozen songs in the ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... steeple wants a spire, The grey old fellow, Poet Joe,[1] The philosophic cause will show. Once on a time a western blast, At least twelve inches overcast, Reckoning roof, weathercock, and all, Which came with a prodigious fall; And, tumbling topsy-turvy round, Lit with its bottom on the ground: For, by the laws of gravitation, It fell into its proper station. This is the little strutting pile You see just by the churchyard stile; The walls in tumbling gave ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... novel Virginie. In the present chapter he incidentally gives a description of the service of Mass in the good Abbe Leroux's parish church, which is a triumph of imagination and subtle humour. No wonder "the Abbe Leroux was scandalised," when the service had been turned topsy-turvy, the credo put before the gloria, and a young person among his congregation, topping all other voices, was singing a solo! Where was the Beadle? or a Churchwarden? or an Aggrieved Parishioner? Three ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... in the matter of your visit to us you cannot alter your plans, which have already been turned topsy-turvy once to suit ours, we will go at some other time to Belvoir, and my sister must e'en give it up, as in my professional days I had to forego Stoke, Chatsworth, and, hardest ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... sun shone. If Neil Stewart had not been an odd mixture of manly strength and child-like simplicity, exceptional executive ability and credulity, kindliness and quick temper, he would never in the wide world have become responsible for the state of affairs at present turning his old home topsy-turvy, and in a fair way to undo all the good works of others, and certainly ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... men—Dickens, Carlyle, Ruskin and Morris. They differed in much; but, like great mountains lying apart in the base, they converge high up in the air." The landscape suggested in these sentences is more topsy-turvy than the imagination likes to dwell upon. And the criticisms in the book are seldom lightning-flashes of revelation. ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... the fraction of a second before the knock had sounded at the door Dave had made a fine handspring that brought him from his topsy-turvy attitude to a position of standing on his feet. And, at the same time, he held the washbowl in his hand without having spilled a drop of the water. Like a flash Dave few across the room, depositing the bowl where it belonged. With ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... of type battered and thrown into the adjacent bay. The contents of some of the cases were "pied" and scattered around the floor. Frames, chases, galleys, composing-sticks and office furniture were thrown together in one confused heap. In a word, the entire office was turned topsy-turvy. Mr. Mackenzie's mother, who was then in her seventy-eighth year, stood and watched the proceedings in a state of great fear and agitation from a corner ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... say the whole question demands much more anxious thought than you seem to have given it. You say that he is a gentleman. He knows how to behave, I admit; but if his morals are as topsy-turvy as his tastes and—er—politics, as I've no doubt they are, then—er—In short, I do not approve of Brian Strange as a husband for my ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... that only he, that is, in spite of Hesiod, Homer, nay and Jupiter himself, divum pater atque hominum rex, the father of gods and men, at whose single beck, as heretofore, so at present, all things sacred and profane are turned topsy-turvy. According to whose pleasure war, peace, empire, counsels, judgments, assemblies, wedlocks, bargains, leagues, laws, arts, all things light or serious—I want breath—in short, all the public and private business of mankind is governed; without whose ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... you see?" said Ellen. "It shuts with a spring, and nothing can possibly come out. Do you see, Mamma. You can turn it topsy-turvy." ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the cabin to rights—thoroughly to rights. I give you my word of honor, I turned every blessed thing topsy-turvy. And my friend there came off in a shore-boat and helped me. Talking of boats, I have never asked you yet whether your boat came to any harm last night. If there's any damage done, I insist on being allowed to ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... topsy-turvy contrariness!" he protested. "You've got it all wrong; I declare you have! But I'll put you right, if it's possible to do it." And he launched into a lengthy explanation of the wonders she had seen, at the end of which he inquired, "Now do you understand ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... thieves in the dusk, and a mighty host of clouds had followed them; and when the wind did come, it came in no moderate measure, but brought this awful storm upon its wings, which now raged as if all the powers of mischief had got loose, and were bent on turning every thing topsy-turvy ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... know the law of reflection, it is simply this: Suppose all the objects above the water actually reversed (not in appearance, but in fact) beneath the water, and precisely the same in form and in relative position, only all topsy-turvy. Then, whatever you can see, from the place in which you stand, of the solid objects so reversed under the water, you will see in the reflection, always in the true perspective of the ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... half an hour he had caught up with the topsy-turvy caravan. It had stopped at a large well, which was filled with clear, cool water. The people were laughing and talking as if they were at home. They were all as happy as ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini
... their rightful wielder, his Highness Eberhard Ludwig of Wirtemberg; in having kept back from his knowledge many facts in the administration of the country, and destroying documents addressed to him. Also in having been untrue to him in word and deed. Almost comic this last—a sort of topsy-turvy adultery charge! ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... head so that his eyes should miss the glare of light, he gazed about him. He was alone, and as he realized this he scrambled to his feet, and, for the moment, the room—everything about him—seemed to be turning topsy-turvy. He placed his hand against the post which supported the ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... him up-stairs, and his father was sent for, and the neighbours came running in as soon as the boys had scampered home with the news. For awhile it seemed to me that the whole world was topsy-turvy. Miss Patricia was so frightened she couldn't do a thing. I really pitied her, for her hands trembled and her voice shook, and even the little bunches of gray curls bobbed up and down against her pale cheeks. I have had the shivers so often that I can sympathise with any one whose ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... home, et with the right forks, joshed the waiters, an' when my friends began to drop over an' pass the season's greetings, an' I presented 'em to Bill an' Jessamie, an' Bill saw that they was nothin' at all but cream, I bet you a tip that he was the worst locoed man in topsy-turvy Frisco. ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... a club of hearty fellows, who kept 'Bachelor's Hall' in fine style at the Ti. I had no doubt but that they regarded children as odious incumbrances; and their ideas of domestic felicity were sufficiently shown in the fact, that they allowed no meddlesome housekeepers to turn topsy-turvy those snug little arrangements they had made in their comfortable dwelling. I strongly suspected however, that some of these jolly bachelors were carrying on love intrigues with the maidens of the tribe; although they did not appear publicly to acknowledge ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... from the fertile country behind them, and to cooeperate against the troops of Savoy and Austria, which had occupied the passes of lower Piedmont, and blocked the way into Lombardy. By this time the law for compulsory enlistment had been enacted, but the general excitement and topsy-turvy management incident to such rapid changes in government and society, having caused the failure of the Sardinian expedition, had also prevented recruiting or equipment in either of these two divisions of the army. The outbreak ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... the cafe to the motor. The whole thing, incredible at any other hour, seemed to the woman like events happening in a dream or in some topsy-turvy country which ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... of the many topsy-turvy things in topsy-turvy China that this prosaic people is so addicted to picturesque and significant terms. I found the names of some of the monasteries quite as interesting as anything else about them. From the "Pinnacle of Contemplation" you ascend to the "Monastery ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... replies; "he improves on his art: he does not turn it topsy-turvy. He does not work on abstractions. His power is not that of the recluse. He wants human beings with their approbation and their sympathy, and his Athens, to be pleased in her own way. He leaves the rest to Euripides. Real life is the grist to his mill. ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... lease. taed, toad (used affectionately or otherwise of a person). tapsalteerie, head over heels, topsy-turvy. tastin', small quantity. tatties, potatoes. tauld, told. tel't, told. teuch, tough. thae, those. thee, thigh. thocht, thought, worry, care. thole, endure. thowless, thewless, inactive, feeble. ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... don't understand all your modern notions. Everybody seems to be getting discontented. The poor want to be rich, and the rich want to be millionaires; men want to do their master's work, and women want to do men's; everything is topsy-turvy!" ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... announced. The Bird Room was the theatre, being very large, with four doors conveniently placed. Ralph was in his element, putting up a little stage, drilling boys, arranging groups, and uniting in himself carpenter, scene-painter, manager, and gas man. Mrs. Minot permitted the house to be turned topsy-turvy, and Mrs. Pecq flew about, lending a hand everywhere. Jill was costumer, with help from Miss Delano, who did not care for balls, and kindly took charge of the girls. Jack printed tickets, programmes, and placards of the most imposing sort, and the ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... Tak, take. Tald, told. Tane, one in contrast to other. Tangs, tongs. Tap, top. Tapetless, senseless. Tapmost, topmost. Tappet-hen, a crested hen-shaped bottle holding three quarts of claret. Tap-pickle, the grain at the top of the stalk. Topsalteerie, topsy-turvy. Targe, to examine. Tarrow, to tarry; to be reluctant, to murmur; to weary. Tassie, a goblet. Tauk, talk. Tauld, told. Tawie, tractable. Tawpie, a foolish woman. Tawted, matted. Teats, small quantities. Teen, vexation. Tell'd, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... in that boat, dear," she said sweetly, "you would realize the topsy-turvy condition of our brains. Even Mr. Gray himself, the coolest man on board, imagined we might sink any moment. So what can you expect of those excitable Chileans? Besides, the thing was done so quickly that we were swept away by the tide before any one fully understood what was happening. ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy |
