"Balls" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the old fellow next time he comes, and find out just what I may do; then I shall know where I am. What a fool I was that day to be stewing my brains and letting the sun glare on my book till the letters danced before me! I see 'em now when I shut my eyes; black balls bobbing round, and stars and all sorts of queer things. Wonder if all ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... Stott when he was practising at the nets. It was a windy morning, and he noticed that several times the balls he bowled swerved in the air. When those swerving balls ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... all sorts of swinging ladders and standing ladders. There were punching bags and medicine balls; in fact, everything calculated to make strong healthy women of the girls who came ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler
... his career the sun arises. Millions of gems seem suspended from the leafless branches. The familiar robin and the bolder sparrow seek the abode of man. Swift fly the balls of snow; the ruddy youth binds on his skates and gracefully flies ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... is distinctly picturesque. The southern half is of red brick, and is surrounded by a high wall, in which is a gateway with tall red-brick piers surmounted by stone balls. Over the wall hangs an acacia-tree, and on the front of the house is an old sundial—altogether a house one could well associate with an imaginative novelist. It was the residence of the late Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Bart. The other part of the house has been painted a light stone ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... more balls had crashed into the facade. Yawning fissures, gigantic holes, marked the path of the ugly messengers from Marlanx. Nearly all of the windows had been wrecked by riflemen who shot from the roofs ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... matters of finance, equally curious and instructive. But pause we for the present, to consider the fashionable part: and caricature as it is, we have an accurate picture of the actual French dandy. Bets, breakfasts, riding, dinners at the "Cafe de Paris," and delirious Carnival balls: the animal goes through all such frantic pleasures at the season that precedes Lent. He has a wondrous respect for English "gentlemen-sportsmen;" he imitates their clubs—their love of horse-flesh: he calls his palefrenier a groom, wears blue birds's-eye ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... drowning, being rescued, indeed, by Graham, the tanner. Mr. Hood stood white in the gangway, dodging a missile now and then, waiting his chance, which never came. For many of the sailors were captured and carried bodily to the "Rose and Crown" and the "Three Blue Balls," where they became properly drunk on Jamaica rum; others made good their escape on board. And at length the bark cast off again, amidst jeers and threats, and one-third of her crew missing, and drifted slowly back to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... nearer and the Americans were able to make use of their short guns and small arms. Perry's clothing was torn by splinters and two musket balls passed through his hat. The battle continued for more than two hours with the utmost desperation, during which the scenes on the Lawrence were too frightful to be described. Finally the wrecked flagship began drifting helplessly out of action, when ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... depravity and perversity of my disposition) than ever I felt in the drawing-rooms of my father's distinguished patrons and respectable friends. Nor did my miseries end with the morning calls. I was commanded to attend all dinner-parties, and to make myself agreeable at all balls. The dinners were the worst trial. Sometimes, indeed, we contrived to get ourselves asked to the houses of high and mighty entertainers, where we ate the finest French dishes and drank the oldest vintages, ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... Lane. Here he found harbourage with a friendly fence, Wild's mortal enemy, who promised him a safe conduct across the seas. But the desire of work proved too strong for prudence; and in a fortnight he had planned an attack on the pawnshop of one Rawling, at the Four Balls in Drury Lane. ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... family. Thus the main house was really but the center of a little group of buildings, that constituted altogether a residence of great size. How spacious they were is shown by the number of guests that were at times housed in them, for at balls and on other festive occasions it was not at all infrequent for forty or fifty persons to remain for several days in the home of their host. At a ball given by Richard Lee, of Lee Hall, Westmoreland County, there were seventy guests, most ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... the dear friend who was to her like a second conscience. She shut her eyes and invented a long talk,—her questions, Cousin Helen's replies. But, as everybody knows, it is impossible to play croquet by yourself and be strictly impartial to all the four balls. Katy found that she was making Cousin Helen play (that is, answer) as she herself wished, and not, as something whispered, she would answer ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... some distance with her governess. In the meantime, there suddenly fell such a violent shower of hail, that I was immediately, by the force of it, struck to the ground; and when I was down, the hailstones gave me such cruel bangs all over the body, as if I had been pelted with tennis-balls; however, I made a shift to creep on all fours, and shelter myself, by lying flat on my face, on the lee-side of a border of lemon-thyme; but so bruised from head to foot, that I could not go abroad in ten days. Neither is that at all to be wondered at, because ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... balls any more, old dear," she said. "Monsieur Pomponnet has proposed marriage to me—and ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... out the buttermilk, and salt thoroughly within fifteen minutes after churning, either with water or without, as you prefer. Mix the salt thoroughly in every particle. Put up in balls, or pack closely in jars ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... his fists, and his fists alone. He was like a dancing man. And suddenly, in the midst of the miracle, they saw Jacques Dupont go down. And the second miracle was that Reese Beaudin did not leap on him when he had fallen. He stood back a little, balancing himself in that queer fashion on the balls and toes of his feet. But no sooner was Dupont up than Reese Beaudin was in again, with the swiftness of a cat, and they could hear the blows, like solid shots, and Dupont's arms waved like tree-tops, and a second time he was ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... and coming up to the milking shed. The lane led up from the low-lying lake meadows, knee deep with timothy and clover, and was fenced on both sides from the apple orchards which arched and overshadowed its entire length. The sturdy over-reaching boughs hung heavy with myriads of green balls. Now and then one dropped noiselessly on the thick turf in the lane, and a noble Holstein mother, ebony banded with ivory white, her swollen cream-colored bag and dark-blotched teats flushed through ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... maternal uncles thus slain by Arjuna, thy sons, O monarch, rained many weapons upon him. Sakuni also, conversant with a hundred different kinds of illusions, seeing his brothers slain, created illusions for confounding the two Krishnas. Then clubs, and iron balls, and rocks and Sataghnis and darts, and maces, and spiked bludgeons, and scimitars, and lances, mallets, axes, and Kampanas, and swords, and nails, and short clubs, and battle-axes, and razors, and arrows with sharp broad heads, and Nalikas, and calf-tooth ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... travelers lodged, were designated by pictured signs or emblems hung before the door, and were given names which had no relation to their uses, as the Indian Head, the Crooked Billet, the Green Dragon, the Plow and Harrow. In these taverns dances or balls were held, and sometimes public meetings. To those in the country came sleigh-ride parties. From them the stagecoaches departed, and before their doors auctions were often held, and in the great room within were posted public ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... coffee-coloured, almond-eyed young Copt, in a black or blue cotton nightgown, topped with the tarbush of black felt or a dingy-white or olive-brown muslin turban, murmuring softly to himself as he made entries, from right to left, in a huge limp-covered ledger, or deftly fingered the balls of coloured clay strung on the wires of the abacus at ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... Good Mohogony with Quarter Collums in the Body, broke in the Surface with Raised Pannels with Quarter Rounds burs Bands & Strings. The head is ornamented with Gilded Capitalls Bases & Frise with New fashion'd Balls compos'd of Mohogony with ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... prevent it," said Godfrey to himself, and he determined by sending poor balls, to get our hero out on three strikes. The first ball, therefore, he sent about six feet to the right of the batter. Andy stood in position, but, of course, was far too wise to attempt hitting any such ball. The next ball went several feet above his ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... hand, ever since the balls had been flying about his house, and the stones of it leaving their places to keep them company, the loyalty of the marquis had been rising, and he had thought of his prisoner-king ever with growing tenderness, of his faults with more indulgence, and of the wrongs he had done his family ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... came up, it seemed with a rush, and the line of distant Alps moved forward, blocked vividly against the silvery curtain that she brought. Her sight ran instantly about the world. Between the trees shot balls of yellowish white, unfolding like ribbon as they rolled. They splashed the rocks and put shining pools in the hollows among the moss. Spangles shone on Monkey's hair and eyes; skins and faces all turned faintly radiant. The lake, like a huge reflector, flashed its light up into the heavens. ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... enthusiastically, "it will be the greatest football match that ever was played;" but an old burgher, with his left hand in a sling, bound up in dirty-looking bandages, interposed: "No; the only game we like to play now is the one with cannon-balls." No; these dour, stolid men take their fighting sadly and sternly; there is none of the "frolic welcome" with which our Irish Tommies, for instance, enjoy their fighting or endure the waiting for it. When I was a prisoner in Pretoria they used to keep us ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... old town, the county-seat of Loudoun, lies at the eastern base of Catoctin Mountain, 2-1/2 miles from the Potomac River at Balls Bluff, and 3-7/8 miles west of Goose Creek. It is in the northern part of the County, 40 miles northwest of Washington, 153 miles in a like direction from Richmond, the State capital, within a few miles of the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains and the celebrated Valley of Virginia, 12 miles ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... affair looked so threatening that the Viceroy had to get on horseback and ride amongst the crowd to calm the tumult. The people met him with a shower of stones, and he, fearing the prisoner would escape, called on his guards to fire upon him. Four balls pierced Antequera, who fell dying from his horse into the arms of two accompanying priests. Thus the most turbulent of all the Governors of Paraguay ceased troubling, and the executioner, after having cut off his head, exhibited it to the people from the scaffold, with the usual moral aphorism ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... whether to advance or retreat, a shower of arrows was discharged, several of which took effect, though not mortally. This wanton aggression roused the spirit of the sturdy Englishmen, and regardless of the efforts which Captain Standish made to restrain them, a volley of musket balls instantly replied to the challenge of the red men; and the wild cries that arose from the cemetery plainly told that they had not sped in vain. Even Rodolph Maitland was surprised out of his usual calm ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... The whole year round the thorn has been hardening and sharpening. Spring comes: the thorn does not drop off, and it does not soften; there it is, as uncompromising as ever; but half-way up appear two brown furry balls, mere specks at first, that break at last—straight out of last year's thorn—into a blaze of ...
— Parables of the Cross • I. Lilias Trotter
... the little finger, it is of immense strength, being made of plaited hide. This beast was secured and butchered pretty much as in the former instance; the bolas had been thrown at the hind legs, but caught only one, round which the three thongs and balls were so tightly interlaced as to require some patience ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... in reserve, were stationed about half a mile further off at the bottom of the protecting hill. They were completely screened from the fire by some buildings of the suburbs abutting upon the slope. Those in front were watching the cannon-balls which had struck the crest and were rolling as it were by mere force of gravitation down the hillside. Some jokes were made about football, when suddenly a smart and popular young officer - Fox, first lieutenant of one of the brigs - jumped out at one of these spent ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... fiddle came, high and gay; feet blurred the talk of voices, and voices rose above the trampling of feet. Here and there some lurking form stumbled through the dark among the rubbish; and clearest sound of all, the light crack of billiard balls reached dry and far into the night Barker contemplated the stars and calm splendid dimness of the plain. "'Though every prospect pleases, and only man is vile,'" he quoted. "But don't tell the Republican party I ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... skimpy. My hobby's organizing balls like this; And when the revelry is at its highest Back to the everlasting Eastern Question! I love to rule a people and a ball: The Arbiter ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... in a confusion, worse, I think, than we were in before we so satisfactorily emerged from the distresses of—butter and blood and ink and paper and punk and silk. Now it's cannon balls and axes and disks—if a "lapstone" be a disk—it's a flat ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... train counted two thousand horses. To mention this incident would be superfluous, had not so acute an observer as Machiavelli marked it out as a turning-point in Florentine history. Now, for the first time, the democratic commonwealth saw its streets filled with a mob of courtiers. Masques, balls, and tournaments succeeded each other with magnificent variety; and all the arts of Florence were pressed into the service of these festivals. Machiavelli says that the burghers lost the last remnant of their old austerity of manners, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... of oak, black as ebony, with huge balustrades, and newel-posts supporting clumsy balls, Lionel was conducted to a small chamber, modernized a century ago by a faded Chinese paper, and a mahogany bedstead, which took up three-fourths of the space, and was crested with dingy plumes, that ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... saw with satisfaction that the Good Venture sailed three feet to her two. The poop and stern galleries of the Spaniard were clustered with soldiers, who opened a fire with their muskets upon their pursuer. The men were all lying down now at their guns, which were loaded with musket balls to ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... never travel or make even an excursion without, if I can help it; I charged with a ball, and fired at the globe, but to no purpose, the object being at too great a distance. I then put in a double quantity of powder, and five or six balls: this second attempt succeeded; all the balls took effect, and tore one side open, and brought it down. Judge my surprise when a most elegant gilt car, with a man in it, and part of a sheep which seemed to have been roasted, fell within two yards of me. When my astonishment had in some degree ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... very expert in skirmishing and attacking by surprise. Every soldier furnishes his own horse, and finds his accoutrements, consisting of a large sabre, a double-barrelled gun, a small red leather bag for holding his balls, and a powder-horn slung over the shoulder. He has no pay, nor any remuneration but what arises from plunder. This body is not very numerous, for when Ali made war upon Bambarra, I was informed that his whole force ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... walked mincingly on the balls of her feet. She frequently called the attention of her classes to this, which was superfluous, for so ostentatiously did she do her walking, one could not but be aware of some unnatural quality in her gait. But Miss Kilrain, that they might remember to do the same, reminded her classes so ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... puts an end to all treaties between the States directly engaged—should now be again regarded as in force and as holding good up to the year 1887[81]. He even stated that he "would rather begin again the war of cannon-balls than expose himself to a war of tariffs." France and Germany, therefore, agreed to place one another permanently on "the most favoured nation" footing. Yet this same man, who so much desired to keep down the ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... minutes count in such an adventure, and quicker than the eye can count them, puffy balls of white appear above, below and all around on the on-rushing Foker; they are the shrapnel bursts of our vigilant anti-aircraft guns that have now opened briskly from ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... Not rams, not mighty brakes, not slings alone, Wherewith the firm and solid walls to shake, To cast a dart, or throw a shaft or stone; But framed of pines and firs, did undertake To build a fortress huge, to which was none Yet ever like, whereof he clothed the sides Against the balls of ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... rougher every minute," sobbed Ophelia. "Look at those pool-balls!" These were in very truth chasing each other about the table in an extraordinary fashion. "And I wish I'd never followed you horrid new creatures on board!" the poor girl added, ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... seen the Magic Shop from afar several times; I had passed it once or twice, a shop window of alluring little objects, magic balls, magic hens, wonderful cones, ventriloquist dolls, the material of the basket trick, packs of cards that LOOKED all right, and all that sort of thing, but never had I thought of going in until one day, ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... in the hammock and gazed up at the festoons of little green balls, hanging in the trees. He did not respond with his usual readiness to his sister's nonsense. His gaiety seemed to have deserted ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... detained in this port by heavy rain and stormy weather. The natives repaired from all quarters in canoes, bringing fruits and vegetables and balls of cotton, but there was no longer gold offered in traffic. The cacique, and seven of his principal chieftains, had small plates of gold hanging in their noses, but the rest of the natives appear to have been destitute of all ornaments of the kind. They were generally naked ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... a bill to make out, or a letter to dispatch. Besides all this, he knew how to play the clarionet, and he went about with his friend Vermichel, the miller of Soulanges, to village weddings and the grand balls given at the Tivoli ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... slaves named in this list," says Dr. T. W. Smith, "nearly half were sold at Montreal, a few being carried by the Indians and Whites to Niagara. The others were handed to their former owners. 'Charles' 'taken at Balls Town making his escape out of a window in Col. Gordon's house' was sold to the Rev. David C. DeLisle, the Episcopal rector at Montreal, for L20 Halifax currency; Samuel Judah, Montreal, paid L24 for 'Jacob' ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... Both barrels of the derringer exploded in two quick roars. The leaden balls, however, went wild. A steel hand had closed lightning-swift on Gentleman John's ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... of Henry VIII.; many and very beautiful arms, as well for men as for horses in horse-fights; the lance of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, three spans thick; two pieces of cannon, the one fires three, the other seven balls at a time; two others made of wood, which the English has at the siege of Boulogne, in France. And by this stratagem, without which they could not have succeeded, they struck a terror into the inhabitants, as at the appearance of artillery, and the town ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... published, worthy to be knowne and considered of all men, especially such who are guilty of the sinne, or archpatrons thereof.' This amusing document, contains some fifty or sixty veritable accounts of balls of fire that fell into churchyards and upset the sporters, and sporters that quarrelled, and upset one another, and so forth: and among them is one anecdote containing an example of a rather different kind, which I cannot resist the temptation ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby knew of it she would send them a lot of tops, and balls, and marbles, and ninepins, and make them all as jolly ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... hath his name, and they their Ouerseer, whome they terme their Captaine: such are the Pel, Whilancleuth, in English, The worke of the Ditches: Pulstean, that is, The myrie head: Crueg braaz, The great Borough: Saint Margets, and many surnamed Balls, which betoken the Vales where the works are ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... months I spent among the Indians, French, and half-breeds. I lived with them, trapped and hunted with them, and picked up a little Cree and French. The life suited me. I became a northerner in heart and soul, if not quite yet in full experience. Clubs and balls and cities grew to be only memories. You know how I have always hated that hothouse sort of existence, and you know that same world of clubs and balls and cities has gripped at my throat, downing me again and again, as though ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... Europe from the Turks, and they were not to be stayed by orders or threats. What though the enemy greatly outnumbered them, and had cannons and scimitars against their pikes and flails, had they not God on their side, and should God's army pause to consider numbers and cannon-balls? They were not to be restrained; attack they ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... Hambledon to practise every Tuesday afternoon, and wander back after dark. He himself as a stripling would run a matter of four miles, after a day's work in the garden where he was employed, to attend an hour's practice over the downs before the twilight made the balls invisible. And afterwards came Teutonic revelry or wanderings under the summer starlight, as the mood might take him. For there was a vein of silent poetry in the youth ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... I'm pointing with my gun, Paul, and you can see two yellow balls shining like phosphorus. Those are his eyes and if I aim right between them I'm ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... weeks; in imagination I saw this one, and that one, friends that I knew, cold in death, or lying wounded alone in the night. I seemed to walk through crowded hospitals and to hear the 'ping' of the balls; I felt that if ever there was a place where the gospel words were needed, it was after the battle, when men were left with the awful shadow of death hanging over them. My youth and inexperience ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... consisting of a flat pear-shaped piece of shale, 2.5 inches long, and 2 inches broad, and perforated at the narrow end, was found along with querns, stones with concentric circles, and cup- shaped indentations worked in them; stone balls, spindle whorls, and an iron axe-head, in excavating an underground chamber at the Tappock, Torwood, Stirlingshire. One face of this pendant was covered with scratches in a vandyked pattern. Though of smaller size this ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... were now short-cutting across the country—we saw that the light over the distant hills had broken into a glorious flood of sunshine. Half over the far-off trees, along the horizon, the sun was shining, and the whole southeastern sky seemed aflame with bands and balls of fire. A vertical ribbon of gradually diminishing lustre, scarcely wider than the sun, was rising into the heavens to meet a vast semi-circle of rainbow beauty arched above the natural sun. Where the strange halo ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... by a long course of years, brings forth bitter death; and the life falls when its strength is done, and suffers the loss of its ancient lot. Famous old man, who has told thee that thou mayst not duly follow the sports of youth, or fling balls, or bite and eat the nut? I think it were better for thee now to sell thy sword, and buy a carriage wherein to ride often, or a horse easy on the bit, or at the same cost to purchase a light cart. It will be more fitting for beasts ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... a time there lived a King and Queen who loved each other so much that they were never happy unless they were together. Day after day they went out hunting or fishing; night after night they went to balls or to the opera; they sang, and danced, and ate sugar-plums, and were the gayest of the gay, and all their subjects followed their example so that the kingdom was called the Joyous Land. Now in the next kingdom everything was as different as it could ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... Earl of Besborough was no less opposed to his election than George Selwyn, and these two individuals agreed at any cost of comfort to be always at the club at the time of the ballot to throw in their black balls. On the night of his success, Lord Besborough was there as usual, and Selwyn was at his rooms in Cleveland Row, preparing to come to the club. Suddenly a chairman rushed into Brookes' with an important note for my lord, who, on tearing it open, found ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... door was an old engraving of a two-decker under full sail; pinned on the wall a chart and the plan of a ship. Relics of the wrecked frigate abounded. On a shelf above the stove was a small pyramid of encrusted cannon-balls, and supported on nails at odd places on the walls were corroded old pistols, and what I took to be the remains of a sextant. In a corner of the floor sat a hoary little carronade, carriage and all. None of these things affected me so much as a pile of lumber on the ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... of size, as well as numbers, they had a superiority of about three hundred and fifty guns. Ten thousand of their choicest troops were also distributed throughout the fleet, to ensure success by boarding; and their ships were furnished with fire-balls and combustibles of every description, in the hope of setting our's on fire. The French were commanded, in chief, by Admiral Villeneuve; and not by Admiral Decrees, as Lord Nelson had lately supposed would be the case; with Rear-Admirals Dumanoir and Magon: The Spaniards, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... Garson sneered through clenched teeth. His eyes were like balls of fire. There was a frightful grin of triumph twisting his mouth in this minute ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... as we fawned on her. "Good dogs," she said, softly; "you shall have a present." We went behind her again, and she took us to a shop where we both lay beside the counter. When we heard her ask the clerk for solid rubber balls, we could scarcely keep still. We both knew ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... irresistible swaying, a rattle of musket ramrods, a rhythm of marching feet, and the grating of heavy iron-bound wheels. Seven men appeared in sight above the heads, clinging to each other for support, and being drawn slowly along. The little worsted balls on the infantry shakos bobbed all round their feet. They were a sorry-looking group, those pirates; very wild-eyed, very ragged, dust-stained, weather-beaten, begrimed till they had the colour of unpolished mahogany. Clinging still to each other ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... queen of England introduced the fashion of brushing up the hair and uncovering the ears says that it seemed indecent. Fashion is stronger than autocracy. Nicholas I of Russia disapproved of late hours and ordered that court balls should be commenced early that they might be finished early. He found himself almost alone until eleven o'clock, and had to give up his reform.[408] In the height of the crinoline fashion Leech published in Punch a picture of two maiden ladies who ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... spreading out of the beam was connected in some definite way with its refraction. Could it be that the light particles after passing through the prism travelled in variously curved lines, as spinning racquet balls do? To examine this he measured the length of the oval patch when the screen was at different distances from the prism, and found that the two things were directly proportional to each other. Doubling the distance of the screen doubled the length of the patch. Hence the ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... covered with a shining black crust. When we enter into a careful investigation of the facts observed at those epochs when showers of shooting stars fell periodically in Cumana in 1799, and in North America during the years 1833 and 1834, we shall find that 'fire-balls' can not be considered separately from shooting stars. Both these phenomena are frequently not only simultaneous and blended together, but they likewise are often found to merge into one another, the one phenomenon gradually assuming the character of the other alike with respect to the size of their ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... to call sharply to the urchin, threatening him with a week's drill unless he mended his feeble and unequal pace, and kept from under the feet of his men. The remaining gun brought up the rear of the detachment, who marched with fixed bayonets and two balls in each musket; the whole presenting a front of sections, that completely filled up the road along which they passed. Colonel de Haldimar, Captain Wentworth, and the Adjutant Lawson followed in ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... frame on which the ship is floated. After dinner at the Franklin House, James Dean and I set off to H.; took a ride upon the circular railway, watched them play at nine pins, the bowls returned by means of an inclined wooden conductor into which the balls are put by the person who sets up the pins. Afterwards walked along a beautiful shady road with occasionally a glimpse at the Hudson and the beautiful white sails; then across an embankment over a swamp; along a beautiful road ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood
... no great pains to entertain the numerous guests, and being still unwell, rarely appears until late in the day. But at all the dismal dinners, leaden lunches, basilisk balls, and other melancholy pageants, her mere appearance is a relief. As to Sir Leicester, he conceives it utterly impossible that anything can be wanting, in any direction, by any one who has the good fortune to be received under that roof; and in a state of sublime satisfaction, he moves among ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... Piccola thought this was a delightful plan, and was very pleased to hear about it. Then all the children told her of every Christmas Eve they could remember, and of the presents they had had; so that she went home thinking of nothing but dolls, and hoops, and balls, and ribbons, and marbles, and wagons, and kites. She told her mother about Santa Claus, and her mother seemed to think that perhaps he did not know there was any little girl in that house, and very likely he would not come at all. But Piccola ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin
... or 'balls,' from an infected head contain millions of minute bodies, the spores or 'seeds' of the smut fungus. These reproduce the smut in somewhat the same way that a true seed develops into a new plant. A single smut ball of average size contains a sufficient number of spores ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... their benchership in common. In politics Salt was a whig, and Coventry a staunch tory. Many a sarcastic growl did the latter cast out—for Coventry had a rough spinous humour—at the political confederates of his associate, which rebounded from the gentle bosom of the latter like cannon-balls from wool. You could ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... sure that she could raise the siege at Orleans, for it had been so revealed to her; and that she told this to her King before it occurred. Asked, whether, when she made assault, she told her men that all the arrows, stones, cannon-balls, etc., would be intercepted by her, she answered no—that more than a hundred were wounded: that what she had said to her people was that they should have no doubts, for they should certainly raise the siege of Orleans. She ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... urchins waded knee-deep in the gutters, their trousers rolled to their thighs. Irish-Americans shot mud balls at black-eyed Italians; Polanders and Slavs together tried the depths of the same puddles; while the little boys of the Russian Fatherland played in a group by themselves at one ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... my way as birds their trackless way. I shall arrive,—what time, what circuit first, I ask not; but unless God send his hail Or blinding fire-balls, sleet or stifling snow, In some time, his good time, I shall arrive: He guides me and the bird. In ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... much of Breed's caution. Two days after their race with the dogs Shady had occasion to revise her estimates of horsemen. Twice in the same day, after imprudently showing herself in the open, she heard the vicious reports of their guns and the balls tossed up spurts of earth about her. Thereafter she followed Breed's lead in all such cases. Breed's way was the wolf way, recognizing no individuals among men but classing them as a dangerous whole. Shady, having lived among them, ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... off with a miss in baulk. Malooney gripped his cue, drew in a deep breath, and let fly. The result was ten: a cannon and all three balls in the same pocket. As a matter of fact he made the cannon twice; but the second time, as we explained to him, of ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... of the work proved to be almost perfect,—a fact which doubtless contributed to the coolness and precision of fire vitally essential with such deficient resources. The texture of the palmetto wood suffered the balls to sink smoothly into it without splintering, so that the facing of the work held well. At times, when three or four broadsides struck together, the merlons shook so that Moultrie feared they would come bodily in; but they withstood, ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... latterly, annual races; but it was found that the society was not sufficiently mature for such establishments. Dinner and supper parties are very frequent in Sydney; and it generally happens that a few subscription balls take place in the course of the year. Upon the whole it may be safely asserted, that the natural disposition of the people to sociality has not only been in no wise impaired by their change of scene, but that all classes of the colonists ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... declared Olive. "Zelotes has always talked about writin' folks and poets starvin' in garrets. If you went up attic to work he'd be teasin' me from mornin' to night. Besides, you'd freeze up there, if the smell of moth-balls didn't choke you first. No, you wait; I've got a notion. There's that old table desk of Zelotes' in the settin' room. He don't hardly ever use it nowadays. You take it upstairs to your own room and work in there. You can have the oil-heater to ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... them. And she was very strong, as are some girls who come from the tropics, and whom a tropical climate has suited. She could sit on her horse the whole day long, and would never be weary with dancing at the Government House balls. When Colonel Osborne was introduced to her as the baby whom he had known, he thought it would be very pleasant to be intimate with so pleasant a friend,—meaning no harm indeed, as but few men do mean harm on such occasions,—but ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... the letter—it dropped upon her lap, and her large, dark eyes looked blankly out over the cold, gray, rain-beaten sea. This was the life she longed for, prayed for, dreamed of, the life for which she would have sold half the years of her life. The balls, the operas, the rose silks and pearls, the booths and merry-go rounds of Vanity Fair. She thirsted for them as the blind thirst for sight. She longed for the "halls of dazzling light," the dainty ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... desperate frenzied courage that is likely to upset all of one's preconceived notions as to the behaviour of animals. It also brings, so that all men may be aware of its presence, a peculiar lurid glow to the balls of the eyes. ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... came in at dinner-time wrapped in unwonted silence. Lark's face was darkened by an anxious shadow, while Carol wore an expression of heroic determination. They sat down to the table without a word, and helped themselves to fish balls with a surprising ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... naked, and I saw them go out from it without shoes or other covering and run between the tents on the hoarfrost-covered ground. The younger were carried on the shoulders both of men and women, and were then so wrapped up that they resembled balls of skin. The children were treated with marked friendliness, and the older ones were never heard to utter an angry word. I purchased here a large number of household articles and dresses, which I ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... one grows of "calls and balls!" This "toujours perdrix" wearies; I'm longing, quite, for "Notes on Knox"; (Apropos, I've the loveliest box For ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... sluice two hundred feet long with a low grade, so the use of the boxes beyond that length is merely to catch the gold. There are claims however in which the clay is so extremely tough that it will roll in large balls more than a quarter of a mile through a steep sluice with a large head of water, and come out at the lower end ...
— Hittel on Gold Mines and Mining • John S. Hittell
... think and sigh, and find the soft feathers harder than any stone. Nor did he get better as time advanced. His once favourite pastime of hunting now ceased to afford him any delight. Nothing pleased him but to be giving dinners and balls, to make verses and sing them to his lute, and to joust and tournay in the eyes of his love, dressed in the most sumptuous apparel. But above all, gentle and graceful as he had been before, he now became still more gentle and graceful—for good qualities ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... gown, and that pale radiance of perfection in her every feature that made many call her the pearl of Virginia, though, as I have said before, she had no lovers. She and Mary were going to the ball, and a company of black servants with them. As for me, balls were out of the question for a convict tutor, and I knew it, and so did they. But suddenly, to my great amazement, Madam Cavendish turned to me: "And wherefore are you not dressed for the ball, Master Wingfield?" ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... seemed in keeping with the general humane arrangements of the place,—as humane, at least, as the system permits. The negroes all over the island have Sunday for themselves; and on Sunday afternoons they hold their famous balls, which sometimes last until four o'clock on Monday morning. Much of the illness among the negroes is owing to their imprudence on these and like occasions. Pneumonia is the prevalent disease with them, as with the slaves in our own South; it is often acute and fatal. Everything ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... resentment at an accusation which he knew to be unmerited, "but quicken your pace; until you are better acquainted with the country in which you journey, your words pass for empty breath in my ears. This is no trifle of a cloak doubled about the person, or of balls rolled into piles by the sport of children; but an affair of life or death. You are a half league in the air, Signor Genoese, in the region of storms, where the winds work their will, at times, as if infernal devils wore rioting to cool themselves, and where the stoutest limbs ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... ordered the Mercury and launch to draw near the shore, as if we had really intended to land, though the landing-place here is altogether impracticable for European boats; and I also cannonaded the town briskly. Our balls made no execution, yet ploughed up the sand in front of the Spanish horse, throwing it all over them: But neither this, nor the approach of my small craft, made any impression, for they stood firm, and at least shewed the countenance of as good troops as ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... make it an isle of delight. When they were not studying with their governesses, there were groves and gorges to play in, ponies to ride, and monkeys and land crabs to hunt. Later came the gay life of the Capital, the routs at Government House, frequent even when the Chief was elsewhere, the balls at neighbouring estates, the picnics in the cool high forests, or where more tropical trees and tree ferns grew thick, the constant meeting with distinguished strangers, and the visits ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... almost destitute of furniture, a little girl, wan, weary, and thin, lay on a miserable pallet, with scanty covering over her. Beside her stood Cattley—not, as when first introduced, in a seedy coat and hat; but in full stage costume—with three balls on his head, white face, triangular roses on his cheeks, and his mouth extended outward and upward at the corners, by means of red paint. Little Jim sat on the bed beside his sister, clad in pink skin-tights, with cheeks and face similar to his father, ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... sliced and pounded the earth, and the balls went sailing off Into bunkers and trees while the Devil grinned, "Keep your eye on it! That's not golf." Then the Devil took his sulphured cleik and mightily he swung, While each man marveled and cursed his form and ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... bairn! If it were anything you'd like to hear, but why should you know what is all sad and gloomful? No, no, go to your balls, and think of your fine dresses and gran' partners, though, for the matter of that, it ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... great proportion of these Pyrenean days, barring the rainy ones, run a uniform career: gold in the morning, silver at noon, gold again at night. The early mornings are brilliantly cloudless; by nine or ten o'clock the horizon whitens,—it is the dreaded brouillard; faint cloud-balls are taking shape; they roll lightly in, bounding like soap-bubbles along the peaks, finally clinging softly about them; and by noon, though the zenith holds still its rich southern blue, the circle of ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... St. Augustine began. In the morning this order likewise had a very grand procession, in which the soldiery led, as on Monday. There were many dancers, etc. In the afternoon there were balls, Indian dances [mitotes], and a thousand other ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... still in bed and unable to witness Myra Nell's triumph. During the days of furious social activity she had little time to give him, for the series of luncheons, of pageants, of gorgeous tableaux and brilliant masked balls kept her in a whirl of rapturous confusion, and left her scant leisure in which to snatch even ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... French. Le Notre eliminated the menagerie and the aviary, but kept certain geometrical forms, particularly with respect to hedges, where niches were frequently trimmed out for the placing of statues, columns surmounted with golden balls, etc. ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... What ills he suffered and what ills he did, They in the dark should look, in time to come, On those whom they ought never to have seen, Nor know the dear ones whom he fain had known." With such-like wails, not once or twice alone, Raising his eyes, he smote them; and the balls, All bleeding, stained his cheek, nor poured they forth Gore drops slow trickling, but the purple shower Fell fast and full, a pelting ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... never, in a single instance, permitted such thrusts or strokes, with rapier or sabre, to be given; prudently restricting themselves to pressure only, exerted after the sword-point had been placed against the body. He reminds us, further, that neither razors nor pistol-balls, both of which would penetrate gum-elastic, were ever tried on the convulsionists; and he adds,—"Neither flint stones nor andirons nor clubs nor swords and spits, pressed against it, would have broken the surface of the gum-elastic envelope. They would have produced no visible ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... burning in the bosoms of the ladies of that state." After reading an extract from this history, Mr. Adams thus comments upon it: "Politics, sir! 'rushing into the vortex of politics!'—glorying in being called rebel ladies; refusing to attend balls and entertainments, but crowding to the prison-ships! Mark this, and remember it was done with no small danger to their own persons, and to the safety of their families. But it manifested the spirit by which they were ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... la Bastille detruite, et elle ne se relevera jamais; and that in the Place du Carrousel, opposite the Tuileries, is, 10 Aout 1792, La Royaute francaise est abolie, et elle ne se relevera jamais. There are several marks of cannon-balls, but they have made but little impression on this front of the Tuileries; and under each of them is written, 10 ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... change with zest, and seems to treat the adoption of a new morality in the same light-hearted spirit as he might consider the buying of a new hat. From the first he has a terrifying way of dealing familiarly with vast things. Somehow he reminds one of those jugglers who, for a time, toss heavy balls about, and then suddenly astonish the audience by introducing a handkerchief, which flies lightly among its ponderous companions. So Mr. Wells began to juggle with worlds. He has latterly introduced that delicate thing, the human soul and conscience, into the play, and you see it precariously fluttering ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... little way back from the road, with small gardens before them. The first house is now divided into two, occupied, when the sketch was made in 1844, by Miss Read's academy (Tavistock House) and Mrs. Corder's Preparatory School; the latter (Bolton House) to be distinguished by two ornamented stone-balls on the piers of the gateway, was a celebrated military academy, at which many distinguished soldiers have been educated. [Picture: Bolton House gateway] The academy was established about the year 1770, by Mr. Lewis Lochee, who died ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... and round, ever enlarging a great well-like hole, the centre of which looked like a funnel-like whirlpool, with the water screwing its way apparently into the bowels of the earth, and down whose watery throat great balls of foam ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... the imaginary pleasure of pleasing you. How much wiser are all those women I have despised than myself! In placing their happiness in trifles, they have placed it in what is attainable. I fondly thought fine clothes and gilt coaches, balls, operas, and public adoration, rather the fatigues of life; and that true happiness was justly defined by Mr. Dryden (pardon the romantic air of ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville |
