"Verge" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... could reach our proposed halting place at the village of Uart. We soon entered the mouth of the pass, which was girt on either side by magnificent precipices; the road was narrow and slippery—of course without even an apology for a parapet—running along a natural ledge on the verge of a perpendicular cliff, and so sheer was the side, that from a horse's back you might sometimes have dropped a stone into the apparently bottomless ravine—bottomless, for the rays of a noon-day sun have never broken the eternal darkness of the awful chasm beneath. Had horse, ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... sees miracles but misery," perhaps because to misery alone, save it be to the great unselfish joy, is it safe to show miracles. Those who must see ere they will believe, may have to be brought to the verge of the infinite grave that a condition fit for seeing may be effected in them. "Blessed are they who have not seen and ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... author tells us, has eaten into the very core of Afghan life. At present some of the best and noblest families in Afghanistan are on the verge of extermination through this wretched system. Even the women are not exempt. In a village which the missionary visited he noticed that the houses communicated laterally by little doors all down one long street; and on inquiry ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... around table at which he sat. Hardly left him time to reply. Having politely conducted Ulster to door, enter the City Fathers, fresh and eager for fray. Told him over again in varied phrase how he was bringing country to verge of ruin; listened with perfect courtesy, as if they'd been discussing someone else—say, his next-door neighbour, SQUIRE of MALWOOD and Junior Lord of Downing Street. Up again when last in list of City speakers ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 8, 1893 • Various
... resolute manner, the baffled driver muttered and swore, while he applied the whip to his horse's flanks, and pursued the route indicated by May until they came to the very verge of the city limits, where grand old oaks still waved their broad limbs in primeval vigor over sloping hills and picturesque declivities. Near a rustic bridge, which spanned a frozen stream, stood a few scattered huts, or cottages, towards the poorest ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... had attacked Mrs. Cox, together with a long list of the remedies prescribed and the effects of each, and wound up in an out-of-the-way corner, in a vein of cheery optimism which reduced both readers to the verge of madness. ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... Though ever the sight that salutes them again and adores them awhile is blest, And the heart is a hymn, and the sense is a soul, and the soul is a song. Alone on a dyke's trenched edge, and afar from the blossoming wildwood's verge, Laughs and lightens a sister, triumphal in love-lit pride; Clothed round with the sun, and inviolate: her blossoms exult as the springtide surge, When the wind and the dawn enkindle the snows of the ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... see how it is? The dormant intelligence of my curious cousin is like the dormant sound in a musical instrument. I play upon it—and it answers to my touch. She likes being played upon. But her great delight is to hear me tell a story. I puzzle her to the verge of distraction; and the more I confuse her the better she likes the story. It is the greatest fun; you really must see it some day." He indulged himself in a last look at the mirror. "Ha!" he said, complacently; "now ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... had scaled the steep, slippery rock which led to the precipitous edge of the crag. Not a sign could he see of his brothers or the child, but the hounds led right on to the very verge of the precipice, and for a moment the boy's heart stood still. What if they had grown afraid of the consequences of their own act, and had resolved to get rid of the child in a sure ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... old romance. In New York he would certainly have been in danger of a Barnum's museum, beside Washington's nurse and the woolly horse. It is a triumph of art that a being whose nature trembles on the very verge of the grotesque should walk through Hawthorne's pages with such undeviating grace. In the Roman dreamland he is in little danger of such prying curiosity, though even there he can only be kept out of harm's way ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... M. des Prez. He was anxious to see his friend, and to hear the manner in which his success had been obtained, and, we might add, to remonstrate with Bluewater on a course that had led the latter to the verge of ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... opened and left gaping wounds, next made their appearance. It was said that in earlier years he had taken the place of an unfortunate man who had been condemned to the galleys and who was in consequence on the verge of despair, and that the malady from which he suffered had been caused by the heavy fetters with which his legs had been chained to the rowers' bench. It was several months, ran the tale, before his heroic action had been discovered and he was set at liberty, to bear for the rest ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... right of youth. I gave him every opportunity to tell me what caused his moods. I showed him by my interest and sympathy that I wanted to believe in him and would stand by him at any cost. There were times when he seemed on the verge of making a confidant of me, but his lips refused ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... moment as if he were on the verge of rebellion, then abruptly he raised the cup to his lips and drained it. He set it down with a shudder ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... task of watching her; it filled me with peevish disgust. But in proportion as I hated it I was eager to have it done and be done with it, and succeed, and stuff my ears and begone from the scene. When she presently came to the verge of the beech wood, and, entering a little open clearing, seemed to loiter, I went cautiously. This, I thought, must be the rendezvous; and I held back warily, looking to see him step out ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... land in flowery squares, Beneath a broad and equal-flowing wind, Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud Drew downward; but all else of heaven was pure Up to the sun, and May from verge to verge, And May with me ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the effectiveness of these spiders, glaring in the chinks of bed-curtains, or moving like shadows upon the chamber wall or around the windows, and I can guess my father's amusement over them. They were as large as plums, with numerous legs that spread and brought their personality out to the verge of impossibility. I suppose they stopped there, but I am not sure. No wonder the romancer humorously added a touch that made a spider of the doctor himself, with ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... I was glad. I luxuriated in my gladness, lying there in my room under the wavering, uncertain light of two candles, hearing the church bells clanging and echoing mysteriously beyond the wall. I lay there with a consciousness of being on the very verge of some adventure, with the assurance, too, that I was to be of use once more, to play my part, to fling aside, thank God, that old cloak of apathetic disappointment, of selfish betrayal, of cynical disbelief. Semyonov had brought ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... schools, but he repeatedly urged the teaching of the elements of religion common to all of the Christian sects. He took a firm stand against the idea of a purely secular education, and on one occasion said he was in favor of religious instruction 'to the extremest verge to which it can be carried without invading those rights of conscience which are established by the laws of God, and guaranteed to us by the Constitution of the State.' At another time he said that he regarded hostility to religion in the schools as the greatest ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... there was nothing left that could keep other interests at bay. Radical and Socialist oratory was resounding on every side. Doctrines with regard to Labor were again being promulgated in forms so extreme that they reached the verge of delirium, and were yet received with acclamations. Old statistical errors, for the complete refutation of which unimpeachable evidence abounded, were shouted afresh, as though they were not open to question. But in respect of all facts and principles which lie really at the basis of things, ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... Norman encountered his wife's eye and he fell back with a thud on Holy Writ. "You whited sepulchre!" he bellowed, with a final shake, and cast Whiskers-on-the-moon from him with a vigour which impelled that unhappy pacifist to the very verge of the choir entrance door. Mr. Pryor's once ruddy face was ashen. But he turned at bay. "I'll have the law on you for ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... implore the gracious intercession of my royal cousin, but we have come for the purpose of repeating to your majesty Prussia's cry of anguish and distress, and of beseeching you to assist us in saving her from the ruin on the verge of which she is tottering at the ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... grew. Most of them dragged themselves forward with stumbling footsteps. Their faces were haggard, their hands moving restlessly and their features twitching. They looked like men who had been for days undergoing severe mental and physical strain and were on the verge of collapse. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Kallikrates, will I once more wash and make me pure and clean, and yet more fit for thee. Therefore also, when thou dost in turn stand in the fire, empty all thy heart of evil, and let soft contentment hold the balance of thy mind. Shake loose thy spirit's wings, and take thy stand upon the utter verge of holy contemplation; ay, dream upon thy mother's kiss, and turn thee towards the vision of the highest good that hath ever swept on silver wings across the silence of thy dreams. For from the germ of what thou art in that dread moment shall grow the fruit of what thou shalt be for ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... longer control himself. His pupil had become his master. The fact itself did not surprise him. Woman is more exalted than man in morality. There is no virtue, no devotion, no heroism in which she does not surpass him; but once impelled to the verge of the abyss, she falls faster and lower than man. This is attributable to two causes: she has more passion, and she has no honor. For honor is a reality and must not be underrated. It is a noble, delicate, and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... often on the verge of hysterics, is unfit to care for children; it ruins a child's disposition and reacts upon herself. The trouble between children and their mothers too often is due to the fact that the mother has some ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham
... sword. Doth Satan tell thee thou prayest but faintly and with cold devotions? Answer him, I am glad you told me, I will trust the more to Christ's prayers, and groan, sigh, and cry more earnestly at the Throne of Grace." To such readers as have been driven to the verge of despair by a fear of having committed the unpardonable sin, here is strong consolation, and a very explicit scriptural definition of that awful crime. Want of space prevents me adding more than my earnest desire that the reading of this treatise may be productive ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... but big letter, on large foolscap paper, urging him and Asquith, as the two strong men of the Government, to take over at once the management of the railways of the entire country, by Royal Proclamation—on the ground of mismanagement for seventy years, and having brought the country to the verge of starvation and civil war; to grant an amnesty to all strikers (except for acts of violence), also grant all the men's demands for one year, and devote that time to a deliberate and impartial inquiry and a complete scheme of reorganisation of the railways in the interest, ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... necessity of preserving calmness; it is requisite to the evasion of any ulterior consequence that may be brought upon him. Every-thing hangs upon a thread-a political thread, a lawful thread-a thread that holds the fate of thirty, forty, or fifty human beings-that separates them from that verge of uncertainty upon which a straw may turn the weal or woe of their lives. "When I get them comfortably cared for, Clotilda, I will send for you. Nicholas's mother has gone, but you shall be a mother to them both," he says, looking upon her seriously, as ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... which he was desirous to keep within touch. Stealthily crossing one of these riverward alleys the young fellow came upon his ambuscade, and was struck motionless with amazement at the form it took. Silhouetted against the shining water beyond was a young girl. She knelt at the very verge of the low, crumbling cliff above the water; her left hand, outspread, was on the ground, her right rested against the rough trunk of a palm-tree, and counter-balanced the weight of her body, which leaned far forward ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... from the diary of Mr. Adams, in March, 1841, in which he declares that "The world, the flesh, and all the devils in hell are arrayed against any man who now, in this North American Union, shall dare to join the standard of Almighty God to put down the African slave trade; and what can I, upon the verge of my seventy-fourth birthday, with a shaking hand, a darkening eye, a drowsy brain, and with all my faculties dropping from me one by one as the teeth are dropping from my head, what can I do for the cause of God and man, for the progress of human emancipation, for the suppression ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... my attention to the point indicated, and there I saw what looked like a long thin black cloud, hanging just above the water on the verge ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... the end of the shadowy road that leads like a causeway to the desert, and on the verge of the golden, billowing sea which flows round the Pyramids and engulfs the distant Sphinx. Oriental life encircled us, in the foreground of the picture—a long row of waiting camels gaily saddled and tasselled, delicately nibbling bersim green as heaped emeralds—donkeys ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... had he heard that name before? What faint cord of memory did it strike? He sought in vain for the answer. Yet somehow, at sometime, surely he had heard it! Again and again he seemed on the verge of discovering the clue, and again and again it escaped him, slipping elusive from him. It was tantalizing, annoying. With a slight mental effort he abandoned the search. Unpursued, the clue might presently ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... talk a great coil had fallen down over her shoulders. It was the sort of thing that happens to the heroine of a melodrama, if she has plenty of hair; but Stephen did not think of that then. He thought of nothing except his sympathy for a beautiful girl brought, through no fault of her own, to the verge of starvation and despair, and of how he could ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... gusts of wind and large pattering drops. It was a dreary moment. The dogs were fast drawing on their victim, and nothing but despair and death stared him in the face. The ground now began to get irregular and varied, and a hope arose in his heart that he was getting on the verge of the moors. Still he was entirely ignorant as to the direction. The clouds then burst with a violence which their threatening aspect had long foretold, and in an instant Smyth was drenched to the skin; the ground became slippery, and the footing was precarious. Still he burst ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... surely it is better to die comfortably at home, avoiding the thousand discomforts of travel, at a time when they are so heard to bear. It is indeed pitiful to see so many invalids, already on the verge of the grave, making a painful way to quack climates, hoping to change age to youth, and the darkening twilight of their day to morning. No such health-fountain has been found, and this climate, fine as it is, seems, like most others, to be adapted for well people only. From all I could find ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... great dynamic force that lies back of all industry and progress. Return to the old standards of wage and industry in employment are unthinkable. The terrible tragedy of war which has just ended and which has brought the world to the verge of chaos and disaster would be in vain if there should ensue a return to the conditions of the past. Europe itself, whence has come the unrest which now holds the world at bay, is an example of standpatism in these vital human matters which America might well accept as an example, not ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Woodrow Wilson • Woodrow Wilson
... worthy of his caste. Having laid his head upon the block, the executioner brandished his axe in the air, and then set it quietly down at his feet. Raising his head, Lord Stafford inquired the cause of delay; the executioner replied he awaited a sign. "Take your time," said he who stood at the verge of eternity; "I shall make no sign." He who held the axe in his hand hesitated a second, and then said in a low and troubled voice, "Do you forgive me, sir?" To which Lord Stafford made brief answer, "I do." Then he laid his head ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... pleased with the ingenuity that Goodyear had shown in manufacturing these tubes, that he talked very freely with him and confessed to him that the business was on the verge of ruin, that the goods had to be tested for a year before they could tell whether they were perfect or not, and to their surprise, thousands of dollars worth of goods that they had supposed were all right were ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... the letter, and studied it. Many a man, capable of murder in heat of passion, could not have resisted the pathos of this letter. Many a Newgate thief, after reading it, would have felt such pity for the loving husband who had suffered to the verge of death, and then to the brink of madness, and for the poor bereaved wife, that he would have taken the letter down to Gravesend that very night, though he picked two fresh pockets to defray the expenses ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... which afterwards converts the generic name of Gave into one peculiar to itself. The sides of the mountains are thickly clothed with box, which grows to a great height; and at this season the Autumn tint had given to it the loveliest hues, contrasting well with the dark pines which climb to the verge of vegetation on the far-off slopes. Suddenly, the character of the scene is altered,—the road descends—the foliage disappears, or shows itself only in patches in the ravines, and masses of dark grey rock usurp its place; the noisy waters ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... Even as he spake, he lifted up the goad And smote; and the steeds sprang. And down the road We henchmen followed, hard beside the rein, Each hand, to speed him, toward the Argive plain And Epidaurus. So we made our way Up toward the desert region, where the bay Curls to a promontory near the verge Of our Trozen, facing the southward surge Of Saron's gulf. Just there an angry sound, Slow-swelling, like God's thunder underground Broke on us, and we trembled. And the steeds Pricked their ears skyward, and threw back their heads. And wonder came on all men, and affright, Whence ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... and consolidating into a body of nebulous matter which followed in the same path, generally forming rings which became by the same process the moons or satellites of the sphere. In this way the sun produced eight planets which are known, and possibly others of small size on the outer verge of the system which have eluded discovery. According to this view, the planetary masses were born in succession, the farthest away being the oldest. It is, however, held by an able authority that the mass of the solar system would first form a rather flat ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... of stimulating those who may have been for years "pulling hard against the stream," unable, perhaps, to ascertain where they properly belong, and possibly on the verge of giving up all hope, because of failure, after making ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... feet, as straight as a flagstaff, from the centre. After a severe scramble up the steeps, in some places almost perpendicular, they at length reached the summit, and commenced leisurely walking round the verge, looking down on the variegated wilderness, which, with its thousand dotted hills and undulating ridges, lay stretched in cold solitude around them. With only a general glance, however, over the surrounding forests, the gaze of the hunter was anxiously lifted upwards, to study the omens of the ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... alone. He said, though, that for me he would make an exception. He spoke of the rapids with such intense passion that I felt rather uneasy, and began to wonder whether the man was not mad. I grew alarmed, for he was driving along over the very verge of the precipice, jumping the stone heaps. I glanced at him sideways: his face was calm, but his under-lip twitched slightly; and I had noticed this particularly ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... at Endsley Gardens, Miss Gibson was at home, and to my unspeakable relief, Mrs. Hornby was not. My veneration for that lady's moral qualities was excessive, but her conversation drove me to the verge of insanity—an insanity not entirely free from ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... ruddy star is seen on the sea-verge and the ruffians leave their revelling to look at it, for it is growing into sight fast. It speeds toward them and they can now see that it is a ship—their shipwrapped in flames. It stops off shore, and out of the ocean at its prow emerges something white that they say at first is a ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... lack intelligence and when in a group was conscious of its strength. As that yell ascended, the startled beasts first rushed deeper into the grove and then, as the slope beyond was revealed to them, turned and charged blindly, all save one, the great tusker, who was feeding at the grove's outer verge. They came on, great mountains of flesh, but swerved as they met the advancing line of fire and weaved aimlessly up and down for a moment or two. Then a huge bull, stung by a spear hurled by one of the hunters ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... was on the verge of giving him the lie in a terrible fashion. The miracle is everywhere, like fire in stone: friction brings it forth. We have little notion of the demons ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... go through. A year passed by. Experiment after experiment had been made. All had proved failures. Twenty-three thousand dollars of the money had been spent. Only seven thousand remained. The inventor was on the verge of despair. ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... in the plain below their feet, and they were standing upon its very verge where it came in close to the mountain, whose top was some seven hundred feet above their heads, while here its perpendicular side went down for fully another thousand to where, in the solemn dark ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... thoughts become bright like yon edging of Pines On the steep's lofty verge—how it blackened the air! But touched from behind by the sun, it now shines With threads that seem part ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... on the very verge of the cut-bank, now, and it seemed inevitable that both must go crashing into the creek. "Serve 'em right if they would," muttered Patty, "I'd like to give 'em a push." With the words on her lips, she saw a blur of motion, one ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... the verge of the December sky, the wintry sun is trembling and about to set as if for ever, then is the Minstrel's voice heard sobbing amidst the sobs of his hearers, as he tells how his hero's sun went down ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... the affair, and rarely laughed. Corona, with serene good humour did her best to make conversation, and a shade of animation occasionally appeared at her end of the table; but Sant' Ilario was bored to the verge of extinction and talked of nothing but archaeology and the trial of the Cenci, wondering inwardly why he chose such exceedingly dry subjects. As for Orsino, the two old princesses between whom he was placed paid very little attention to him, and talked across him about the merits of their ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... Kentucky to Illinois, about the year in which the latter was erected into a state, and passing to the northwest of the regions then occupied by the French and Virginians, pitched his tent upon the very verge of the frontier. He was a man of violent passions, impatient of the restraints of law—arrogant, overbearing, and inclined to the use of "the strong-hand." His removal had been caused by a difficulty with one of his neighbors, in which he had ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... using a skill born of agony, had found somewhere a solid verge and scrambled up, knee-deep, well out from the bank. With a splash, Rudolph stood beside him among the tufts of salad green. As he patted the trembling flanks, he heard ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... boat, and pocket a few cakes, brought along as a kind of scattering lunch. C. was descried, at length, climbing the broad, rocky ridge, the eastern point of which we had doubled on our passage from Torbay. Making haste up the crags by a short cut, I joined him on the verge of the promontory pretty well heated and out of breath. The effort was richly rewarded. The mist was dispersing in the sunny air around us; the ocean was clearing off; the surge was breaking with a pleasant sound below. At the foot of the precipice were four or five whales, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... upon these little ones. By bribes of gingerbread of her own making, stamped with a royal crown, she tempted their sunny sportiveness beneath the gloomy portal of the province-house, and would often beguile them to spend a whole play-day there, sitting in a circle round the verge of her hoop-petticoat, greedily attentive to her stories of a dead world. And when these little boys and girls stole forth again from the dark, mysterious mansion, they went bewildered, full of old feelings that graver people had long ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... hands of the Imperial vicegerent is so rarely used as to be almost dead. Veto is avoided by the Governor-General working in close conference with the prevailing Cabinet, or party in power; and a party on the verge of enacting laws inimical to Imperial interests can be disciplined by dismissal from office, in which case the party must appeal to the country for re-election. That means time; and time allows passion to simmer down; and ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... the torrent; and in half a minute found himself comfortably lodged in an elevated corner. From this he overlooked the court, and he could perceive that the captain had well performed his promise of driving Mr. Dulberry home: the reformer was advanced to the very utmost verge of the privileged space, and obliged to support himself against the pressure behind by clasping a pillar: as the captain in turn clasped Mr. Dulberry, and enfolded him, as one box in a 'nest' of boxes is made ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... and taunts when he endeavoured to win the franchise by which he might peaceably set right the wrongs from which he suffered. He was not an unreasonable person. On the contrary, he was patient to the verge of meekness, as capital is likely to be when it is surrounded by rifles. But his situation was intolerable, and after successive attempts at peaceful agitation, and numerous humble petitions to the Volksraad, he began at last to realise that he would never obtain redress unless he ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that could harm particular persons had to be kept out of the way, society couldn't go on. We ought to consider the greatest good of the greatest number." She looked round from one to another for support. No one said anything, and Mrs. Munger, trembling on the verge of a collapse, made a direct appeal: "Don't you think ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... through, leaping on his crutch till the muscles of his chest were fit to burst, was work no sound man ever equalled; and so thinks the doctor. As it was, he was already thirty yards behind us and on the verge of strangling when we reached the brow of ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... awkward receding from pretensions which could not be maintained by the Executive of the nation, have passed into oblivion. But a striking and useful lesson would be lost if it should be forgotten that the country was brought to the verge of war by the proclamation of a policy which could not be, and was not intended to be, enforced. It was originated as a cry to catch votes; and except with the ignorant, and the few whose judgment was carried away by enthusiasm, it was from the first thoroughly insincere. If ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... spiral staircase to a lofty terrace, and found Rome at our feet, and, far off, the Sabine and Alban mountains, some of them still capped with snow. In another direction there was a vast plain, on the horizon of which, could our eyes have reached to its verge, we might perhaps have seen the Mediterranean Sea. After enjoying the view and the warm sunshine we descended, and went in quest of the gardens of Sallust, but found no satisfactory remains ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the streets that possessed of themselves, no sufficient barriers to the advance of the flame. Led by their officers, these gallant fellows, carrying in their arms the means of destruction, moved up steadily to the verge of the torrents of fire, and planted their kegs; laying their trains with the hardy indifference that practice can alone create, and with an intelligence that did infinite credit to their coolness. This deliberate courage was rewarded with complete success, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... entered upon his duties at a crisis in public affairs which required the utmost foresight, resolution and prudence. Great Britain and the United States were on the verge of war. In 1807 the long series of wrongs inflicted by England upon the commerce of America, and the rights of her seaman, had been consummated by the affair of the Leopard and Chesapeake. This wanton insult had thrown the country into violent commotion, and occasioned the embargo act, which had ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... Roman colony we do not know, for though Strabo states this fact, he does not tell us when it occurred and we have no other means of knowing. All we can be reasonably sure of is that this Umbrian city on the verge of Cisalpine Gaul, hemmed in on the west by the Lingonian Gauls, received a Roman colony certainly not before 268 B.C. when Ariminum was occupied. The name of Ravenna, however, does not occur in history till a late period of the Roman ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... too must think of adopting," replied Fitzroy, "else I shall sink into the gulph of ennuit to the verge of which I am fast approaching. Independent of the frequent ruinous consequences of the gaming-table, I have taken a dislike to its associates, and therefore abandoned their society; nor will you be surprised at my having adopted this resolution, when I inform you, that at my last ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... is calm, but dim, and ominous of storms that may arise. A cloud hangs heavy o'er the horizon's verge, and veils the future. Even now a star appears, steals into light, and now again 'tis gone! I hear the proud swell of the growing waters; I hear the whispering of the wakening winds; but reason lays her trident on the cresting waves, ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... certain words which have been singled out and misused by the undiscriminating until their value is destroyed. Long ago "elegant" was turned from a word denoting the essence of refinement and beauty, into gaudy trumpery. "Refined" is on the verge. But the pariah of the language is culture! A word rarely used by those who truly possess it, but so constantly misused by those who understand nothing of its meaning, that it is becoming a synonym for vulgarity and imitation. To speak of the proper use of a finger bowl or the ability ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... privateer that sailed out of France. For a short time, as the ship came up with the west end of Elba, it was a serious question whether she would be able to weather it, the lugger having gone past, within a cable's length of the cliffs, on the very verge of the breakers and much closer in than the frigate would dare to follow. But the last had taken the breeze further off the land than the first, and might possibly fetch past the promontory on the tack she was then steering. To have gone about would have been to ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... been the gradual progress of knowledge, that a story, of which Cardinal Baronius (Annual Ecclesiast. A. D. 324, No. 43-49) declared himself the unblushing advocate, is now feebly supported, even within the verge of the Vatican. See the Antiquitates Christianae, tom. ii. p. 232; a work published with six approbations at Rome, in the year 1751 by Father ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... a time of great scarcity of food. The people were on the verge of famine, to relieve which shiploads of corn were sent from Sicily to Rome. The Senate resolved to distribute this corn among the suffering people, but Coriolanus opposed this, saying: "If they want corn, let them promise to obey the Patricians, as their fathers ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... Never knew there was a hell! Nothing that glitters is gold Profound respect for chastity—in other people Scenery in California requires distance Slept, if one might call such a condition by so strong a name Useful information and entertaining nonsense Virtuous to the verge of eccentricity ...
— Quotations from the Works of Mark Twain • David Widger
... Rochester castle, blocked the passage of the Dover road over the Medway. Accordingly Montfort marched with a large following of Londoners to Rochester, captured the town, and assaulted the castle with such energy that it was on the verge of surrendering. The news of Warenne's peril reached Henry in the midlands. In five days the royalists made their way from Nottingham to Rochester, a distance of over 160 miles. On their approach ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... pledges for the future. Agreements not to annex territory might be reasonable in treaties between European powers, but they were contrary to the spirit of American civilization. "Europe," he said, "is antiquated, decrepit, tottering on the verge of dissolution. When you visit her, the objects which excite your admiration are the relics of past greatness: the broken columns erected to departed power. Here everything is fresh, blooming, expanding, and advancing. ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... moment when she had voluntarily revealed a portion of her past to him. The more he thought upon the matter the more evident it became to him that he had given her his love—that he had been upon the verge of offering her his honorable name. He trembled a little at the narrowness of his escape. Yet, he still loved her. There was no objection to that according to the ethics of the Hon. Morison Baynes and his kind. She was a meaner clay than he. He could no more have taken her in marriage ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the parties who started by putting in $20,000, put in ten times that amount, and Field much more. The first cable across the Gulf of St. Lawrence was a failure. The second one held; and at last there rolled two thousand miles of tempestuous ocean, with a bottom that was a mystery, between the verge of the American soil and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... marquis had been relieved in his mind after a consultation with a distinguished barrister, and, moreover, was pleased at the prospect of leaving this island of fogs for the sunny shores of France. The times were exciting; the country, on the verge of proposed electoral reforms. But in France the new social system had sprung into existence and—lamentable fact!—duty towards one's country had assumed an empire superior ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... and between us and the escarpment there is not a village or gentleman's house, but only great woods and arable fields (the latter in sadly preponderant numbers) so that we are absolutely at the extreme verge of the world. The whole country is intersected by foot-paths; but the surface over the chalk is clayey and sticky, which is the worst feature in our purchase. The dingles and banks often remind me of Cambridgeshire and walks with you to Cherry ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... condescension, and then, changing his manner suddenly, he spoke of the rise and fall of Stratford-upon-Avon in such mournful tones that any one who did not know him might have imagined that he was on the verge of tears. ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... landscape are of various kinds of green, inasmuch as some verge towards blackness, as firs, pines, cypresses, laurels, box and the like. Some tend to yellow such as walnuts, and pears, vines and verdure. Some are both yellowish and dark as chesnuts, holm-oak. Some turn red in autumn as the service-tree, ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... adopted the sounding language of Johnson and Darwin, unenlivened by the vigorous thought of either; and the "dead-sea apes" of that inflated, sentimental, revolutionary style which Diderot had unconsciously originated, and Kotzebue carried beyond the verge of caricature. The right feeling and manly thought of Wordsworth were disgusted by these shallow word-mongers, and he flew to the other extreme. Under the influences—repulsive and attractive—we have thus attempted ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... Church. In 1746 he sold the house to Robert Ludgater and it passed completely out of the Paycocke-Buxton connexion, and in the course of time fell upon evil days and was turned into two cottages, the beautiful ceilings being plastered over. It was on the verge of being destroyed some years ago when it was bought and restored to its present fine condition by Mr Noel Buxton, a direct lineal descendant of the Charles Buxton who sold it. See Power, ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... to keep close quarters, from the slipperiness of the stone beneath me with the water sliding over it. My foe came quite to the verge of the fall, where the river began to comb over; and there he stopped for a minute or two, on the utmost edge of dry land, upon the very spot indeed where I had fallen senseless when I clomb it in my boyhood. I could hear him breathing hard ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... dirge, The wild winds trumpet over Skye; Shrill around Arran's cliff-bound verge The ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... no attempt to conceal my satisfaction. "Then we are upon the verge of some discovery; Providence has interfered, and Eleanore will be saved! But when did you ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... was a bastide for every arpent. The plain-lands sell for one hundred louis the carterelle, which is less than an acre. The ground of the arsenal in Marseilles sold for from fifteen to forty louis the square verge, being nearly the square yard English. In the fields open to the sea, they are obliged to plant rows of canes, every here and there, to break the force of the wind. Saw at the Chateau Borelli ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... verge of setting out he hesitated. There was more than one reason why he should do so. In the first place, it was exceedingly dangerous to attempt to make his way up the canyon even by daylight, and the sun had already disappeared. ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... was rather pleased with the situation. As he read it, it struck him as possessing strong dramatic possibilities: Carroll was the struggling author on the verge of starvation: Marion, his sweetheart, flying to him gave him hope; and he was the good fairy arriving in the nick of time to set everything right and to make the young people happy and prosperous. He rather fancied himself in the part of the good fairy, and as he seated himself ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... not once visited by the old spirit. The perfect peace abode with him. He prayed simply that the end might be hastened. He knew the condition of Simonides' mind—that he was hesitating on the verge of belief. He could see the massive face weighed down by solemn reflection. He noticed him casting inquiring glances at the sun, as seeking the cause of the darkness. Nor did he fail to notice the solicitude with which Esther clung to him, smothering her ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... company took an honest view of its obligations—but only for a time. Within a year or so, Quebec was again on the verge of starvation; and in the spring of 1629 the famished inhabitants were eagerly awaiting the Company's ships from France. By July their patience was almost worn out, when at last the watchers at Cap Tourmente brought the news that a fleet of six ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... holidays alone with my uncle had been almost as cheerless as my schooldays at Stonebridge House with Miss Henniker. If it hadn't been for Smith I do believe I should have lost every vestige of spirit. But happily he gave me no chance of falling into that condition. He seemed always on the verge of some explosion. Now it was against Hawkesbury, now against the Henniker, now against Mr Ladislaw, and now against the whole world generally, myself included. I had a busy time of it holding ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... restrained except by force. If the League of Nations had been established upon a firmer and less selfish basis, it certainly might have kept the peace for another thirty or forty years. As it is, I believe that we are on the verge of a serious crisis." ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... were appointed on the Carolina Committee of Correspondence which wrote to the other colonies that North Carolina was ready to join them against the King and Parliament. When England put into operation the famous Boston Port Bill and that sturdy little New England City was on the verge of starvation, Joseph Hewes, a merchant of Edenton, who was later to play a prominent part in Revolutionary events in North Carolina, joined with John Harvey, of Perquimans, in collecting supplies and provisions from the patriotic people of Albemarle, which ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... howling from their dens, and gigantic goblins, arising from the earth, extended their fleshless arms towards Ananda, and strove to drag him from his seat. Urged by frantic terror, and the example and exhortations of his companion, he battered, banged, and vociferated, until on the very verge of exhaustion; when, as if by enchantment, the tempest ceased, the spectres disappeared, and joyous shouts and a burst of music announced the occurrence of something auspicious ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... you're a selfish pig," she said, as she climbed the stairs to her room. "Of course, he cares more about his son—why not?" But nevertheless she sighed, and then went down to make tea for her mother, who was tired and on the verge of tears. ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... his gun before venturing into its recesses, where, the prospect was, that he would have to pass the night. This occasioned some delay, and it was not until the twilight of the summer evening had faded, and stars were beginning to twinkle in the sky, that he found himself on the verge of the woods. ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... that roaring of a great water, and they said to each other that it must be the voice of the Sea, and they rejoiced thereat, for they had learned by the Sage and his books that they must needs come to the verge of the Ocean-Sea, which girdles the earth about. So they arose betimes on the morrow, and set to work to climb the mountain, going mostly a-foot; and the way was long, but not craggy or exceeding steep, so that in five hours' time they were at the mountain-top, and coming over the brow ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... was on the verge of the precincts of the parish church, dedicated to Saint Remi, the apostle of Gaul.[158] There was only the graveyard to cross when the child was carried to the font. It is said that in those days and in that country the form of exorcism pronounced ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... of Heaven. 'A Lamb for Supper' is the name of one of his designs, 'Their Glorious Entry' of another. He has the same disregard for the ridiculous, and enjoys somewhat of the same privilege of style, so that we are pleased even when we laugh the most. He is literal to the verge of folly. If dust is to be raised from the unswept parlour, you may be sure it will 'fly abundantly' in the picture. If Faithful is to lie 'as dead' before Moses, dead he shall lie with a warrant—dead and stiff like granite; nay (and here the artist must enhance ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... direct influence of tile, and you will have a garden spot instead of a field periodically flooded. Your sleep will not then be disturbed by fears that the morning will reveal your tiled field covered with water, and your corn crop on the verge of ruin. We often see a single line laid through a pond containing from one half to three acres. Ponds with such drainage always get flooded. Put in an abundance of laterals and the ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... administered, were alike remarkable. The granting of it was facilitated by the threatened encroachments of other than Englishmen upon the New England domain; it was represented to Charles that it was necessary to be beforehand with these gentry, if they were to be restrained. Charles was on the verge of that rupture with law and order in his own realm which culminated in his dismissal of Parliament, and for ten years attempting the task of governing England without it. He approved the charter without adequately realizing the full breadth and pregnancy ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... until both were covered with blood, then, finding that he was about to be forced over the brink, Lotu clasped his brother-in-law and enemy about the neck and both went to their death together. The wife and sister of the two combatants either fainted at the verge and fell or wilfully cast herself from the same cliff. It is not recorded whether these victims of an unruly passion were interred in earth or conveniently disposed of otherwise, but the affair created such a gloom in the neighborhood that the cannibal colony ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... ships that, on the flood and ebb tides, sail up and down the Avon. From the opposite shore the richly cultivated lands of Somersetshire present themselves in a very beautiful landscape, rising gradually four or five miles from the verge of the river to the top of Dundry Hill, whereon is a high tower, esteemed the Proteus of the weather, as being commonly enveloped with mist, so as scarcely to be visible, against rain; but, on the contrary, if it be seen clear and distinct ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 390, September 19, 1829 • Various
... so variously malformed in its healed brokenness that there was no bridge, while one nostril, the size of a pea, opened downward, and the other, the size of a robin's egg, tilted upward to the sky. One eye, of normal size, dim-brown and misty, bulged to the verge of popping out, and as if from senility wept copiously and continuously. The other eye, scarcely larger than a squirrel's and as uncannily bright, twisted up obliquely into the hairy scar of a bone-crushed eyebrow. And ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... them, Lord, unmeet To profit by Thy chastenings sweet, For Thou wouldst have us linger still Upon the verge of good or ill. That on Thy guiding hand unseen Our undivided hearts may lean, And this our frail and foundering bark Glide in the narrow wake of ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble
... saw this auspicious beginning, baffled and frustrated as I am, yet on the very verge of a timely grave, abandoned abroad and desolate at home, stripped of my boast, my hope, my consolation, my helper, my counsellor, and my guide, (you know in part what I have lost, and would to God I could clear myself of all neglect and fault ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... probable that he altogether underrated the ability and bravery of the Iroquois who, in later years, so often threatened the security of Canada, and more than once brought the infant colony to the very verge of ruin. ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... incidents of a less tragic nature, an amusing story is told of the Earl of Hopetoun, who, when he could not induce a certain Scottish laird, named Dundas, to sell his old family residence known as "The Tower," which was on the very verge of his own beautiful pleasure grounds, tried to lead him on to a more expensive style of living than that to which he had been accustomed, thinking thereby he might run into debt, and be compelled to ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... amusement, for it usually consisted in nothing more riotous than meeting my friends and talking with them. But I confess that the talk and the quality of it, the meeting and its informality did strike me as so singularly stimulating as to verge upon the riotous. The manner of playing was entirely new to me in the beginning. All conventions bind with a heavy chain, but none with a heavier than the Philadelphia variety. Spruce Street nights had never been so free and so vociferous and so late, and, being a good Philadelphian, ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... always lays its eggs on that particular plant upon which the caterpillars, when they hatch out of these eggs, must feed. The study of the Life History of Insects has always been of great interest to me, as I firmly believe that we are on the verge of a great discovery, and that the first indications are being revealed to us through the investigation of the Biology of Insects. Some of you may, perhaps, have watched this progress of ovipositing, as ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... parts, and some holes. Here a whale being heard blowing, a harpoon, with a line fastened to it, was conveyed across the ice, from a boat on guard, and the harpooner succeeded in striking the whale, at the distance of three hundred and fifty yards from the verge. It dragged out ten lines, (2400 yards,) and was supposed to be seen blowing in different holes in the ice. After some time it made its appearance on the exterior, and was again struck, at the moment it was about to go under the second time. About an hundred yards from ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... that the two old friends were again on the verge of one of their distressing fallings-out; but Jane Hubbard intervened once more. This practical-minded girl disliked the introducing of side-issues into the conversation. She was there to talk about burglars, and ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... wealth a universal pressure for money was felt; not enough for common expenses; the price of all property down; the country drooping and languishing; towns and cities decaying, and the frugal habits of the people pushed to the verge of universal self-denial for the preservation of their family estates." What was the cause of all this misfortune and misery? Benton found it, and other Southern leaders also, in the unequal action of federal fiscal legislation. "Under this ...
— Modern Industrialism and the Negroes of the United States - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 12 • Archibald H. Grimke
... abrupt manner of proceeding, Louis followed Casson to the verge of the lane, and waited there ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... it is you to whom we are indebted for this scandal. [Angrily.] Do you fully realize what you have accomplished? How many respectable fathers of families you have brought to the very verge of despair? ...
— Moral • Ludwig Thoma
... happier shore, If he be safe, Euphrasia dies content. Till that sad close of all, the task be mine To tend a father with delighted care, To smooth the pillow of declining age, See him sink gradual into mere decay, On the last verge of life watch ev'ry look, Explore each fond unutterable wish, Catch his last breath, and close his eyes ...
— The Grecian Daughter • Arthur Murphy
... his Majesty is of the Louis Treize Belvedere, and the telescope erected by this monarch,—one of the best ever made hitherto. As if by inspiration, the King turned this instrument to the left towards that distant bend which the Seine makes round the verge of the Chatou woods. His Majesty, who observes every thing, noticed two bathers in the river, who apparently were trying to teach their much younger companion, a lad of fourteen or fifteen, to swim; doubtless, they had hurt him, for he got ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... harsh accusation! I promised not to come to the verge of a compliment. Do you think that was ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... walked this same way with Donald Ward. Still keeping close to the sea, he avoided the high road near the Causeway, plodded along the stony track past the Rocking Stone and the Wishing Well, climbed the Shepherd's Path, and once more walked along the verge of the cliff above Port na Spaniard and the Horse Shoe Bay and Pleaskin Head. He reached Port Moon, and saw far below him the glimmer of a light in the rude shelter where fishermen lodge in summer time. Avoiding the farmhouse near him on his right, and the lane which led past it ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... casualties have we had?" I asked Stoner as we passed out of the village and halted for a moment on the verge of a wood, (p. 210) waiting until the men formed up ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill |
