"Zig-zag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... infinitely is thy puddle-headed, rattleheaded, wrong-headed, round-headed slave indebted to thy super-eminent goodness, that from the luminous path of thy own right-lined rectitude, thou lookest benignly down on an erring wretch, of whom the zig-zag wanderings defy all the powers of calculation, from the simple copulation of units, up to the hidden mysteries of fluxions! May one feeble ray of that light of wisdom which darts from thy sensorium, straight as the arrow of heaven, ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... party numbered about four hundred men. The line of march was about ninety miles in length, as estimated by the zig-zag ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... proceeded only about a quarter of a mile, when the float suddenly dipt. My brother and Hall threw the loose coil of ropes they carried on the water, along with the inflated skins. These made it soon evident by their motion that the Mugger had seized the kid. He was dashing across, in a zig-zag direction, down the stream. I ran after him as fast as I could; and paying out the cord from the reel, when I found it impossible to keep up with him. On reaching a place where the banks were steeper than usual, he came to a stand still. I got ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... That flood is flowing stronger; The reigning mode in failure ends, Wait a little longer! Fashion is ever on the wing, Arch-enemy of Beauty. Now, when we get a first-rate thing, To stick to it's our duty. But no, the whirling wheel must whirl, The zig-zag go zig-zagging; The wig to-day must crisply curl, That yesterday was bagging. But good things do come "bock agen." For banishment but stronger (With bonnets or with Grand Old Men), Wait ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 8, 1890 • Various
... gay flowers stretched the rich green of the water-meads, glowing yellow in the sunlight. The little river hardly seemed to move in its zig-zag path, though the evening breeze was strong enough to show the silver side of the willows that drooped over it. Jan wondered if he could match all these tints in the wood, and whether Master Swift would be willing to have leaf- pictures painted on that table in the window. ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... like your humble servan', Poor wights! nae rules nor roads observin, To right or left eternal swervin, They zig-zag on; Till, curst with age, obscure an' ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... the road turned in zig-zag to the east, was the marvellous town which the traveller who has seen Palestine likens to Jerusalem, so steep and high and straight is the crest of warm brown and orange precipice on which it stands, so deep the valleys round it, so strange and complete the fusion between the city and ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... villages, flourishing towns, cultivated farms, and extensive downs, so thickly covered with flocks and herds. Here the bold forests of oak, beech, maple, and bass-wood, with now and then a grove of dark pine, cover the hills, only enlivened by an occasional settlement, with its log-house and zig-zag fences of split timber: these fences are very offensive to my eye. I look in vain for the rich hedge rows of my native country. Even the stone fences in the north and west of England, cold and bare as they are, are less ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... good!' she answered, feeling a diffidence which was new to her. At that moment the crowd carrying the senseless man began to appear over the cliff, coming up the zig-zag. The Doctor hurried towards him; she followed at a little distance, fearing lest she should hamper him. Under his orders they laid the patient on the weather side of the bonfire so that the smoke would not reach him. The Doctor knelt by ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... the trenches together, and sometimes these trenches are a mile long reaching from the front line to some part behind the line where it is comparatively safe to walk around. They are very deep and zig-zag in shape so ...
— Over the top with the 25th - Chronicle of events at Vimy Ridge and Courcellette • R. Lewis
... substance, or the juice of yeast, or perhaps some other artificial preparation, and filled a vessel having a long tubular neck with it. He then boiled the liquid and bent that long neck into an S shape or zig-zag, leaving it open at the end. The infusion then gave no trace of any appearance of spontaneous generation, however long it might be left, as all the germs in the air were deposited in the beginning of the bent neck. He ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... came down in torrents, the thunder echoed clap on clap, each detonation preceded by an awful zig-zag of fire. The tempest grew in fury, and, scarce able to ride on the shifting wind, the plaintive voices of the bells ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... practised by the natives on the Coromandel coast, by help of a hoop passing round the tree and the body of the climber—and a ligature so connecting the feet as will enable him to clasp the tree with them—the Malays cut deep notches or steps in the trunk, in a zig-zag manner, sufficient to support the toes or the side of the foot, and thus ascend with the extra, aid only of their arms. This mode is also a dangerous one, as a false step, when near the top of a high tree, ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... scientifically; but that's not to be expected from the like of me, that have followed no other way of life than the shaping and sewing line. It behoves me, therefore, to beg pardon for not being able to carry my history aye regularly straight forward, and for being forced whiles to zig-zag and vandyke. For instance, I clean forgot to give, in its proper place, a history of one of my travels, with Benjie in my bosom, in search of a cure ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... at which they were camped was the sheer, or cliff side of the mesa. At the other side they knew, from Coyote Pete's description, were numerous openings and a zig-zag pathway leading up to the very summit. It was on this summit, which according to the most accurate information obtainable had once been used for the sacrificial rites of sun worship, that the professor expected to find the relics for ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... breathlessly, peering into the dark interior whence there was borne to their nostrils a musty odor. A large bat whisked across the opening, and as they started back alarmed he returned with swift zig-zag cuts and vanished ghostlike into ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... the hill is surmountable by a zig-zag path, up which a loaded mule can climb with some difficulty. On the west, or seaward, side, is a strip of flat land, of considerable width, on which formerly stood the royal arsenal, rope-walks, and warehouses, the ruins of which were standing in 1822, when I visited the place. On ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... the road, not far from the house, a gulch ran zig-zag up among the rugged hills. It was no mere ragged and unsightly drain for water from the higher land. Flower-brightened and vine-hung, it was deliciously cool, and gorgeous at every turn. At the bottom ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... in the last rays of the warm sun, sat a bulldog, toothless and old. Now and then a sear leaf, falling in a zig-zag course, rustled past his ears, and he would shake his head as if he, too, were dreaming and the leaves disturbed him. All at once he sniffed, his ears stood forward, and a low growl broke the enchantment. The girl, on discovering ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... appeared to him that there were two figures away down there, crossing the burn at the foot; and then one of them, in gray—unmistakably the fisher-maiden herself—began the ascent. How she managed to obtain a footing he could not make out; for the path was no path, but merely a zig-zag track on the surface of the loose shingle—shingle so loose that he could see it yield to her every step, while the debris rolled away down to the bed of the burn. But still she fought her way upward, and at last she stood ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... indeed for Tor Glen, and one that might well distract the whole school's attention. Two discreet ponies were picking their way down the zig-zag path, while behind walked a man. But greatest wonder! on each pony was seated a real lady. Erect and gracefully, too, did they keep their seats, as the patient beasts let themselves slip ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... dinner hour when he stood on the top of the hill he had seen that morning from his window, and looked across the wide view of woods and cornfields to where a distant cloud of smoke marked the city of Liege. Thence descending by a steep zig-zag path, with a bench at every angle, he crossed the road and the little rivulet, and found himself once more in the garden at the ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... earth in sharp contrast with the intense yellow sunlight which fringed them where the leafage ceased. An attempt had been made to create formal garden paths and garden beds by sticking rushes into little holes drilled in the ground, but the paths were zig-zag as a drunkard's walk, and the round and oblong beds contained no trace of plants. On either hand rose steep walls of earth, higher than a man, and crowned with prickly thorn bushes. Over them looked palm trees. At the end of the garden ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... presence of mind quite deserted her. The whole of her note-book seemed to zig-zag vainly across her brain—her note-book where she had carefully written down antidotes for any poisons the children might swallow, remedies for scalds, burns, cut fingers, sprains, snake-bites. There was nothing about ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... of ink in the bottle. There were two coarse china ornaments of the commonest kind; and there was a square of embossed card, dirty and fly-blown, with a collection of wretched riddles printed on it, in all sorts of zig-zag directions, and in variously coloured inks. He took the card, and went away, to read it, to the table on which the candle was placed; sitting down, with his back resolutely turned to ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... the boiling zig-zag current, now avoiding great, jagged rocks by a hair's-breadth, now bounding like a deer over a smooth incline, now plunging into a seething white billow; and, when at last they swept round into the quiet bay at the foot of the cataract, Dan leaped up, and waving his paddle on ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... and down, in a very zig-zag course, now looking forward towards the Cheese-Wring from the top of a rock, now losing sight of it altogether in the depths of a hollow. By the time we had advanced about half way over the distance it was necessary for us to walk, we observed, towards the left hand, a wide ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... early, is almost priceless. It is not only lovely in itself, but an obvious attempt to recover the zig-zag outline and varied cadence of seventeenth century born—the things that Shelley to some extent, Beddoes and Darley more, and Tennyson and Browning most were to master. I subscribe (most humbly) to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... and the Elmers came on deck, they found the schooner running rapidly up a broad river, between wide expanses of low salt-marshes, bounded by distant pine forests, and studded here and there with groups of cabbage palms. The channel was a regular zig-zag, and they ran now to one side and then far over to the other to escape the coral reefs and oyster bars with which it is filled. This occupied much time; but the breeze was fresh, and within an hour they had run eight miles up the river, and ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... road, and saw him mount his bicycle and zig-zag like a snipe down the hill towards Achranich. Then I set off briskly northward. It was clear that the faster I ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... young black heifer and the raw-ribbed mare, And scorn to move for tumbril or for dray, And feel themselves as good as farmers there. From the young corn the prick-eared leverets stare At strangers come to spy the land—small sirs, We bring less danger than the very breeze Who in great zig-zag blows the bee, and whirs In bluebell shadow down the bright green leas; From whom in frolic fit the chopt straw ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... first two and a half months of the war I was a wanderer in France, covering many hundreds of miles in zig-zag journeys between Nancy and the west coast, always on the move, backwards and forwards, between the lines of the French and British armies, and watching with a tireless though somewhat haggard interest the drama of a great people engaged in a life-and-death struggle ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... for any first-aid nor to pick up the casualty—excellent problem and demonstration. That oont[28] will simplify it, though. Look here—I'll drop down and land you by it, and then come here again and hover. You bring the beast up—you'll be able to ride most of the way if you zig-zag, and lead him most of the rest. Then you'll have to carry the casualty to the oont ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... older Saxon church that preceded the Norman. The first one was of wood, and was totally destroyed. The Saxon remains are a fragment of stone staircase and a piece of wall built in the ancient herring-bone fashion. The Norman remains are four clustered columns, embellished in the zig-zag style. There is not much of commemorative statuary at York, and what there is of it was placed chiefly in ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... other. Mournful complaint is as impotent as an infant crying against the fury of the wild wind. History has taught you that the path of moral progress has never taken a straight line, but has ever been a zig-zag course amid the conflicting forces of right and wrong, truth and error, justice and injustice, cruelty and mercy. Do not be discouraged, then, that all the wrongs of the universe are not righted at your bidding. The great humanitarian movement which has been sweeping ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 3, September, 1898 • Various
... from predators differ from movements made while foraging. The gait is a full run, often eight to ten feet between footprints in snow; the trail is either straight or slightly zig-zag. If possible, the individual will take refuge in a hiding place such as a rock outcrop, brush pile, or thicket. Eight cottontails emerged from such hiding places an average of 22 minutes after the ...
— Home Range and Movements of the Eastern Cottontail in Kansas • Donald W. Janes
... bee comes and goes irregularly from flower to flower; as the butterfly flutters in a zig-zag course from one sunny place on the garden wall to another—or, as an old woman runs from wrong omnibus to wrong omnibus, at the Elephant and Castle, before she can discover the right one; as a countryman blunders up one ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... is excellent, wild lavender scenting the way. As we wind slowly upwards we see an old, bent woman filling a sack with the flowery spikes for sale. Thus the Causse, not in one sense but many, is the bread-winner of the people. We follow this zig-zag path westward, leaving behind us sunny slopes covered with peach-trees, vineyards, gardens and orchards, till flourishing little Le Rozier and its neglected step-sister, Peyreleau, are hidden deep below, dropped, as it seems, into the depths of ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... checking and countering and refrains and responses of them. But, before I woke, the parts were merged in full chorus. With that unison music in my ears I rose and knelt and rose again hastily. Then I ran round to the eastern wall under the zig-zag patterns. I came only just in time to see the sunrise ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... to the west—beyond which was the rock country—and into which he had rarely ventured, so treacherous its ways. What cared he now! He made great leaps and his muscles and sinews responded to the thought of him. To cross that morass safely required a touch on tussocks and an upbounding aside, a zig-zag exhibition of great strength and knowingness and recklessness. But it was unreasoning; it was the instinct begotten of long training and, now, of the absence of all nervousness. Each taut toe touched each point of bearing just as was required above the quagmire, and, all ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... bloodshed, and immediately marched off for Wilmington, Macneil and his party travelling by night, and concealing themselves in swamps and woods by day. However, the country was alarmed, and a hostile force collected. He proceeded in zig-zag directions, for he had a perfect knowledge of the country, but without any provisions except what chance threw in his way. When he had advanced two-thirds of the route, he found the enemy occupying a pass which he must open by the sword, or perish in the swamps for want of ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... upon the steps as pale as death, looking as "creamed faced" as the messenger to Macbeth; and when the shock was over, he was so sick, that he ran out of the house without making any remarks. The scarlet hucamaya, with a loud shriek, flew from its perch, and performed a zig-zag flight through the air, down to the troubled fountain in ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... began to blink more fiercely, a faint wild light overspread for a minute the bleak landscape, and he saw approaching from the moor a figure at a kind of swinging trot, with now and then a zig-zag hop or two, such as men accustomed to cross such places make, to avoid the patches of slob or quag that meet them here and there. This figure resembled his father's, and like him, whistled through his finger by way of signal as he approached; but the whistle sounded ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... narrow and rapid. About eight o'clock he arrived at a little village and was informed that it was Nagy, about forty miles above Buda Pesth. Here he got some refreshments and started on his last run. A few miles below he saw a very high mountain, surmounted by a cross, up which ran a zig-zag road. At each bend of this road was erected a grotto containing some scene from the Passion of Our Lord. This Way of the Cross is a celebrated place of devotion to the pious people of Buda Pesth. As he passed the mountain he saluted a party of ladies and gentlemen standing ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... in innocent sleep. Jovial voices are chatting round the fire. What has he to do with youth, and health, and joy? Lower, lower, ye clouds!—Shut out that insolent and intruding spark, till nothing be seen but the silver sheet of Cwm Fynnon, and the silver zig-zag lines which wander into it among black morass, while down the mountain side go, softly sliding, troops of white mist-angels. Softly they slide, swift and yet motionless, as if by some inner will, which needs ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... chestnut-coloured head, a shining black breast, while the greater part of its body is of a greyish colour; but upon close examination this grey is found to be produced by a whitish ground minutely mottled with zig-zag black lines. I believe it is this mottling, combined with the colour, which somewhat resembles the appearance and texture of ship's canvass, that has given the bird its trivial name; but there is some obscurity about ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... impossible on that wild mountain road, especially with the rear guard of the camp coming a few miles behind them. And, indeed, if such an idea had entered the heads of any of the party it must soon have fled before the difficulty of getting along at all. It was a steep zig-zag path, and looking upwards you could see it zigging and zagging right away to the sky line. Poor Foster-mother, who came last, could not take her eyes off it, for the bends immediately above her were filled with the most terrifying sights. First her stout husband, who seemed ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... good fifteen feet below the level of the roadway, and gazing down through the bushes lining the water's edge, the students beheld Nat Poole's motor-boat gliding along in a zig-zag fashion. Nat was not in the craft, which was evidently ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... train him—a child—and what then—what result may you anticipate? Why, the royal preacher says that when he is old—of course, then, during youth, manhood, into old age, through life he means, as long as he lives he will not—what? He will not depart from it, he will neither go back, nor go zig-zag, but forward, in that way in which he ought to walk, as a moral and accountable being of God, and a member of society, bound to do all the good he can. And thus he will come under the conditions of a just or honest man, ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... up the cliff. Sometimes the ascent was more natural, more often it was a zig-zag roadway cut, no doubt, in the first instance by the old inhabitants of Kor. The Amahagger say they drive their spare cattle over it once a year to pasture outside; all I know is that those cattle must be uncommonly active on their feet. Of course the litters were useless ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... was beginning to hope the major had contrived a new approach to the place, the carriage took an unexpected turn, and he found presently they were climbing, by a zig-zag road, the height over the Lorrie burn; but the place was no longer his, and to avoid a sense of humiliation, he avoided taking any interest in ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... its banks by the convulsive motion of the earth; it is certain at least the shore was considerably enlarged, and several sea animals were left upon it. On the other side, a black and dreadful cloud, broken with rapid, zig-zag flashes, revealed behind it variously shaped masses of flame: these last were like sheet lightning, but much larger. Upon this our Spanish friend, whom I mentioned above, addressing himself to my mother and me with great energy and urgency: "If your brother," ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... feet up and it was moving in erratic, unpredictable darts and dashes here and there, like a dragon-fly's movements, but a hundred times more swift. Proximity-fused shells burst everywhere about it. It burst through a still-expanding puff of explosive smoke, darted down a hundred feet, and took a zig-zag course of such violent and angular changes of position that it looked more like a streak of ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... railroads compels us to abandon the plan of describing, as we pass, the more celebrated towns, mansions, or castles, because it would be impossible to follow out such a zig-zag of topography. It is better to take it for granted that the traveller will stop at certain places, and from them make excursions to everything worth seeing in ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... disappeared, the carriage again went through the wood, descending by zig-zag roads where the foliage ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... trail which Enoch believed dropped to the cliff dwelling. Before descending it, they ate their lunch, Enoch and Diana sharing with Na-che. This done, they began to work carefully down the faint old trail. For ten or fifteen minutes, they wormed zig-zag downward, the angle of descent so great that frequently they were obliged to sit down and slide, controlling their speed by clinging to the rocks on either side. They could not see the cliff dwelling; only the river winding so remotely below. But at the end ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... all as steep as it is here. I believe we might sort of zig-zag down if we were careful. You hold on here just as you are; I'm going to see what it looks like ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... flexure or faults: that is, the strata on both sides dip in the same direction, but with different, though often only slightly different, inclinations. As most of the nearly parallel ridges which together form the Cordillera run approximately north and south, the east and west valleys cross them in zig-zag lines, bursting through the points where the strata have been least inclined. No doubt the greater part of the denudation was affected at the periods when tidal- creeks occupied the valleys, and when the outer flanks of ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... had arrived. The exterior of the spacious edifice was illuminated from end to end by nunerous torches, and the capacious staircase was lighted by a double rank of torch-bearers, in splendid apparel. In the interior of the vast apartment huge waxen tapers were fixed above the chevron, or zig-zag moulding, which ran round the walls, and connected the casement of each window. Large crystal lamps, pendant from the point of each inverted pinnacle on the lofty roof, diffused a flood of brilliant light, and imparted life and colour to the rich tapestries, portraying stirring ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... Enjolras, Courfeyrac, and Combeferre were among those who had taken to the Rue Bassompierre, shouting: "To the barricades!" In the Rue Lesdiguieres they had met an old man walking along. What had attracted their attention was that the goodman was walking in a zig-zag, as though he were intoxicated. Moreover, he had his hat in his hand, although it had been raining all the morning, and was raining pretty briskly at the very time. Courfeyrac had recognized Father Mabeuf. He knew him through having many times accompanied Marius as far as his door. As he was ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... same applies to the muskrat, mink, and otter. Muskrats and beavers swim much alike, as they are usually going in search of roots, and, knowing exactly where to find them, they swim straight; but minks and otters swim a zig-zag course for the reason that they are always looking for fish and therefore are constantly turning their heads about; and that rule applies whether their heads are ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... besides horses," thought I; but the thought had barely passed through my brain when Lizzie went off like an arrow. Kenneth sprang forward like a thunderbolt, and Gildart followed—if I may so speak—like a zig-zag cracker. Now, it chanced that Lizzie's horse was in a bad humour that morning, so it ran away, just as the party came to a grassy slope of half a mile in extent. At the end of this slope the road ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... that when the Gavr'innis monument was erected the island was connected with the mainland. Three of the supports, forming the walls of the crypt, and all those of the gallery are covered with chevrons or zig-zag ornaments, circles, lozenges, and scrolls of which Fig. 68 will give some idea, and which Merimee compares to the tatooing of the inhabitants of New Zealand. Megalithic monuments of Ireland and certain ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... at a gap in the firs and walked to the brink of the plateau. Just under us lay a rock-rimmed lake. More zig-zag earthworks surmounted it on all sides, and on the nearest shore was the branched roofing of another great mule-shelter. We were looking down at the spot to which the night-caravans of the Chasseurs Alpins descend to distribute supplies to ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... the gum, and ran on until he reached the goal. There was a great shout that echoed over the earth, but in the heavens there was muttering and grumbling. The referee declared that the winner would live to a good old age, and Zig-Zag Fire promised to come at his call. He was indeed ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... rocks only just beneath the surface, but still sufficiently covered to hide them from view, which made it very difficult to take a boat safely through them, even when the water was smooth, but how much more so, now that a rough swell was foaming over them. Indeed it was only by taking a zig-zag course, that any boat could be guided in safety through the labyrinth of rocks. As Everard was quite unacquainted with the perilous nature of the reef, it was well that Isabel had taken particular notice of the only passage ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... nigh to perpendicular. Huge forests clothe its rugged face; out of which bold rocks protrude; indeed, such is the nature of the country, that the road is carried backwards and forwards almost in a zig-zag, in order to render it accessible. This mountain, in a military point of view, all but impassable, Vandamme placed behind him; leaving, however, a strong division to guard it, and nothing doubting of his own success. But he had miscalculated ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... Peacock. Who does not know this superb moth, the largest of all our European butterflies[3] with its livery of chestnut velvet and its collar of white fur? The greys and browns of the wings are crossed by a paler zig-zag, and bordered with smoky white; and in the centre of each wing is a round spot, a great eye with a black pupil and variegated iris, resolving into concentric arcs of black, ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... answered, springing after her up the rugged stair. Narrow loopholes, almost concealed without by trees and brushwood, dimly lighted the staircase, as also a low, narrow passage, which branched off in zig-zag windings at the top, and terminated, as their woody path had done, in a solid wall. But again an invisible door flew open, closing behind them; and after walking about a hundred yards through prickly shrubs and entangled brushwood that obscured his sight, ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... young men had been using sacred things in a profane and unlawful way, when the occurrence, which was variously explained, took place. The story of the Appearance in the chamber was, I suppose, invented afterwards; but of the injury to the building there could be no question; and the zig-zag line, where the mortar is a little thicker than before, is still distinctly visible. The queer burnt spots, called the "Devil's footsteps," had never attracted attention before this time, though there is no evidence that they had not existed previously, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... the house; Fairthorn sunk upon the ground, and resigned himself for some minutes to unmanly lamentations. Suddenly he started up; a thought came into his brain—a hope into his breast. He made a caper—launched himself into a precipitate zig-zag—gained the hall-door-plunged into his own mysterious hiding-place—and in less than an hour re-emerged, a letter in his hand, with which he had just time to catch the postman, as that functionary was striding off from the back yard with ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... existed no longer. I stationed a man at the hatch — and another below and transmitted my orders to the engine room by them. First we drove ahead with one screw, then with the other, to get a zig-zag course; next we backed first with one propeller and then the other. Each time we backed farther than we went forward, for I wanted to get out of the mess if possible. The crazy course threw the ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... artist really should be picturesque; and, having no other beauty, must be firm to long hair, while it lasts—and then I shouted, "George!" until the strata of the mountain (which dip and jag, like veins of oak) began and sluggishly prolonged a slow zig-zag of echoes. No counter-echo came to me; no ring of any sonorous voice made crag, and precipice, and mountain vocal ...
— George Bowring - A Tale Of Cader Idris - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... rains and we have a violent gale, and as we zig-zag this at times catches us full on the port side and the ship rolls badly. She creaks from stem ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... hindmost of all. I was just thinking that, though every one should know his own business best, yet if I were to drive down a steep mountain in that way I should expect to break my neck, and suspect I deserved it, when, as we turned a sharp zig-zag on a steep grade at a stiff trot, our carriage tilted, and over she ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... the resemblance which her lameness made her bear to the letter [Greek: l], or lambda! AEsop was called Theta by his master, from his superior acuteness. Another was called Beta, from his love of beet. It was thus Scarron, with infinite good temper, alluded to his zig-zag body, by comparing himself to ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... more information now than she had asked for. She ventured on no more questions, but made all haste to her tent, where, seated upon a corner of the bed, one foot tucked under her while the unfortunate shoe tried to dry, she sewed industriously on the zig-zag tear in her dress, and tried to imagine what she could do next. Certainly they had long days at Chautauqua. "I shall go to meeting this afternoon," she said, resolutely, "if they have three sermons, each ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... singulierement mon attention. C'etoit un sort grand talus qui venoit d'une face escarpee; j'y montai pour m'approcher du rocher, et je remarquai, avec etonnement, des multitudes de paquets enchevetres les uns dans les autres, sans ordre ni direction fixe; les uns presqu'en rouleaux; les autres en zig-zag; et meme ce qui, separe de la montagne, eut peu etre pris pour des couches, le trouvoit incline de toute maniere dans cette meme face de rocher. Non, me dis-je alors a moi-meme; non, l'eau n'a pu faire cette montagne.... Ni celle-la ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... cheering of the crowd. When standing for so many miles tired him, he sat high up on the folded hood, with one of his suite to hold him, and he did not stop waving his hat. In this way he accomplished the thirty-six miles ride, only slipping down into his seat as the car mounted the stiff zig-zag that led up Mount Royal ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... a pewter plate, On the grey disk of the unrippling sea, Beneath an airless, sullen sky of slate Dazzled destroyers zig-zag restlessly, While underneath the sleek and livid tide, Blind monsters nosing through the soundless deep, Lean submarines among blind fishes glide And through primeval weedy ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... York, with the intention of becoming a painter. He was no more serious than thousands of other young men who plan their lives early and live them up to specifications; but Olga Tcherny, who had flitted a zig-zag butterfly course among the exotics, now found in the meadows she had scorned a shrub quite to her liking. Markham was the most refreshingly original person she had ever met. He always said exactly what he thought and refused to speak at all unless he had something to say. Those hours in the ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... term "echelon" means, literally, "steps", or a zig-zag formation of columns, such as is shown in sketch Number 2, where the Japanese formation has been altered from "line ahead", as in ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... mistress who had ceased to love him, and he had persecuted her for a long while with supplication. "She is at one with herself always," he said, and he tried to understand her. "She is one of those whose course through life is straight, and not zig-zag, as mine is." He liked to see her turn and look at the baby, and he said, "That love is the permanent and original element of things, it is the universal substance;" and he could trace Ellen's love of her child in her love ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... a weight was lifted from my shoulders, and settling back against the pile of blankets in my rig, I let the horse follow his own sweet will and we started to zig-zag up a steep incline. At the end of five minutes' time I was so benumbed by the cold that sleep was impossible, so I left my seat and joined the others who, all save Yvonne, had been obliged to descend to relieve their horse. What a climb that was—seven long kilometers ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... said Bevis, presently. "It seems to me that you hop first one side and then the other, and go in such a zig-zag fashion it will take us hours ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... She whirled round as quickly as one could turn one's hand, requiring promptness and presence of mind in the steersman. Thus, like a bird, with smooth and equable motion, she flew with her delighted passengers, in many a zig-zag, down the Severn, until they had gone as far as desired, when round she spun, and before the breeze, houses, and men, and trees, gliding by as in a race, dashed ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... motioned with his rolled-up flag towards a point on my level, some two or three hundred yards distant. I called down to him, "All right!" and made for that point. There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough zig-zag descending path notched out: ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... suddenly revived thirst for the stage and a field for work. She determined to run down to Meran and see Angelo. Laura walked a little way with her, till Wilfrid, alert for these occasions, joined them. On the commencement of the zig-zag below, there were soldiers, the sight of whom was not confusing. Military messengers frequently came up to the castle where Count Lenkenstein, assisted by Count Serabiglione, examined their depositions, the Italian in the manner of a winding lawyer, the German of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... valleys and through pass after pass; and now and then a long zig-zag brings us out of a valley, up to a higher level. The air grows cooler, we are rapidly changing our climate, and afternoon finds us in the region of the sugar-cane and the coffee-plant. We pass immense green cane-fields, ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... Bray, once affording through them a view of this chapel. In the east end, on the north side, are three lancet-shaped windows, forming one great window, divided by slender pillars, and having mouldings, with zig-zag ornaments. The tracery windows on the south side are masoned up, but much of the original tracery remains. At the north-east corner are remains of sharp-pointed arches; here also is an enclosure with table, desk, and elevated seat. This part is, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... Manila Bilibid Prison Hospital Modern Contagious Disease Ward, San Lazaro Hospital Filipina Trained Nurses Staff of the Bontoc Hospital A Victim of Yaws before and after Treatment with Salvarsan The Culion Leper Colony Building the Benguet Road Freight Autos on the Benguet Road The Famous Zig-zag on the Benguet Road A Typical Baguio Road One of the First Benguet Government Cottages Typical Cottages at Baguio A Baguio Home The Baguio Hospital Government Centre at Baguio A Scene in the Baguio Teachers' Camp The Baguio Country ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... reach the goal than two others start off, and thus for two hours, until the sum of victories gained by individuals entitles one party or the other to claim success. The race decided, the runners range themselves in two facing lines, and, preceded by the drum, begin a slow zig-zag march. ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... the Tenure-of-Office Bill while that bill was pending, and to avoid defeat on the first vote taken, which was inevitable on that Article—and also to explain, so far as any explanation is possible, the zig-zag method of conducting the ballot—skipping all the first ten Articles and going down to the bottom of the list for the first vote, with the promise of then going back to the first Article and continuing to the end. but, instead, skipping that for the second time, and starting ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... without drawing fire. And yet they did thus expose themselves; for where there are even chances of being missed or hit, soldiers will take the chances rather than lie still and suffer from thirst, supineness, and want of all things. There was no getting to the rear until zig-zag passages were dug, and then the wounded were borne off. Our occupation continued during the night and the next day, the regiment being divided into two reliefs, the one off duty lying a little to the rear, in a cornfield near Harrison's ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... the staple engrossed no less of the people's thought than of their work. A traveler who made a zig-zag journey from Charleston to St. Louis in the early months of 1827, found cotton "a plague." At Charleston, said he, the wharves were stacked and the stores and ships packed with the bales, and the four daily papers and all the patrons of the hotel were "teeming ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... driven back by the trembling movement of the earth. The shore had distinctly advanced, and many marine animals were left high and dry upon the sands. Behind us was a dark and dreadful cloud, which, as it was broken with rapid zig-zag flashes, revealed behind it variously shaped masses of flame; these last were like sheet lightning, though on a larger scale.... It was not long before the cloud that we saw began to descend upon the earth and cover ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... almost zig-zag, without acute angles but more acute at angles than undulating: differs from sinuate in being ...
— Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology • John. B. Smith
... disregard of hygiene, or in a willowy figure, the result of lacing. If I could now and then thread some particular bead on an electric wire that should tingle and thrill wherever it touched, or write in a streak of zig-zag light across the sky, I might, perhaps, compel attention to what I have to say. There are certain laws of health which, if they only might be regarded, would make us all as beautiful in outward seeming as we strive to be, no doubt, in spirit. Ever so pure and lovely a ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... the colorful and steep vistas that lay along the zig-zag roads where ramshackle victorias clattered at crazy speed. Below him was the world's most vivid spread of sun-kissed color; the Bay of Naples curving nobly from his point of view to Ischia's misty bulwark, ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... were treated as impostors; for, as they had not ft handsome wife, nor sister, to speak for them, not one single election vote in their family, nor a shilling in their pockets to bribe the turnpike {22}door-keeper, they could not succeed; besides, Chinese, zig-zag, and gothic imitations, monopolized all premiums: and the envy of prejudice, and the folly of fashion, made a party against them. They were so weak in themselves, as to imagine the merits of their works would recommend them to the world. ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... with Cedar and Chestnut, with an undergrowth, in many places, of Heath and Bramble. The chief feature, however, is a dense growth in the centre, consisting of Dog-wood, Water-Beech, Swamp-Ash, Alder, Spice-Bush, Hazel, etc., with a network of Smilax and Frost-Grape. A little zig-zag stream, the draining of a swamp beyond, which passes through this tangle-wood, accounts for many of its features and productions, if not for its entire existence. Birds that are not attracted by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... in spite of all the efforts of time and force, to make Sainte Croix an object of singular interest; some of the circular arches are quite perfect, with their zig-zag ornaments, as freshly cut and sharp as possible; many of the pillars of the interior remain in their original state—huge blocks out of which the columns have not yet been carved, in the same manner as those at St. Alban's Abbey, in Hertfordshire. Some ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... wrestler, a very Daniel Lambert, can be carried forth feet first from such a front. The shop keeper followed the pair with his eyes. He passed his hand over the money. Then he looked again. The lady went lightly up the hill. Puffing and blowing at last Rokuzo was compelled to zig-zag on its steepness. Then she followed after his movements, gently encouraging him with words, and a cheerful pleased giggle that was a very goad in his rear. The grocer crossed to consultation with the baker. ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... horses, with sweeping tails, the white foam flying from the champed silver bits, the whole turn-out driven by a handsome, white-gloved, black-coated Roman. In solemn state and swiftly, he winds up the zig-zag road leading from the piazza Popolo, (so-called from popolo, a poplar-tree, and not as the English will have it, from popolo, the people,) and at last reaches the summit of Roman ambition—the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... I didn't mean to laugh," Adela was saying to herself as she fell back in the zig-zag path down the rocks. "I wish I hadn't—I'll —I'll—" What she meant to do wasn't very clear in her mind; what she did do, was to run up to her grandmother's and her room, and toss her sketch-book on the table, and herself on the bed, for ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... journey was the pull up the long mountain road, ascending zig-zag, as sailors make way against a head-wind, by tacking. I forget the name of the pretty little group of houses—it did not amount to a village—buried in trees, where we got our four horses and two postilions, for the work was severe. ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... characteristic in the peculiar features of both. In no locality is the surface of the great forest of Darnaway more undulated, or its trees nobler; and nowhere does the river present a livelier succession of eddying pools and rippling shallows, or fret itself in sweeping on its zig-zag course, now to the one bank, now to the other, against a more picturesque and imposing series of cliffs. But to the geologist the locality possesses an interest peculiar to itself. The precipices on both sides ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... building adjoining the church, several figures in habit and cowl walked slowly behind the arches. Indians were in the vineyards and orchards and moving about the rancheria adjacent to the main buildings. Cattle were browsing on the hills. A stream tangled in willows cut a zig-zag course across the valley. ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... little of one as he does of the other, would ruin me for everlastingly. It ain't pleasant to have such a burr as that stick on to your tail, especially if you have no comb to get it off, is it? A politician is like a bee; he travels a zig-zag course every way, turnin' first to the right and then to the left, now makin' a dive at the wild honeysuckle, and then at the sweet briar; now at the buck-wheat blossom, and then at the rose; he is here and there ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... progress, came timidly, again, from their dim lurking places, to eye this new companion of the bath with less distrust, more curiosity. With sinuous stroke, so slow it scarcely made a ripple, so strong it sent her steadily and firmly on her zig-zag way, she swam, now, back and forth, around about, from side to side and end to end in the deep pool, with keen enjoyment, each movement a new loveliness, each second bringing to her fascinating face some new ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... of the long strands of small-leaved ivy; and there, if you liked, you could look down, to the left, upon a lovely garden, the mossy roofs of mill and house, all to the left; while to the right you looked up the zig-zag gorge with its closed-in, often perpendicular walls, to see the glancing waters of the stream, and far up, the great plunging fall, flashing with light when the sun was overhead, deep in shadow as it passed onward towards ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... record of his life leaves but a mean impression. Unstable in his goings, without principle or plan, he flickered through existence like an ignis-fatuus; now shooting into momentary gleams of happiness and generosity, now quenched in the mephitic marshes over which his zig-zag path conducted him. He had many amiable qualities, but scarcely any moral worth. From first to last his circumstances were against him; his education was unfortunate, its fluctuating aimless wanderings ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... Department; and so the work of form-filling, corresponding, minuting, memorandum-making, signing, counter-signing, counter-counter-signing, referring backwards and forwards, and referring sideways, crosswise, and zig-zag, recommenced. ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens |
