"Oar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to pay his fees To Charon, by the caverned water's shore, A beggar, proud-eyed as Antisthenes, Stretched out his knotted fingers on the oar. ...
— Forty-Two Poems • James Elroy Flecker
... an attack upon the boat, and were with difficulty prevented from staving or oversetting her; but a boat from the Carcass having come to assist ours, and joined it, they dispersed, after having wrested an oar from one of the men. One of the ship's boats had before been attacked in the same manner, but happily no harm was done. Though we wounded several of these animals we never got but one. We remained hereabouts until the 1st of August; when the two ships got completely fastened in the ice, occasioned ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... would understand me, go to the heights or water-shore; The nearest gnat is an explanation, and a drop or motion of waves a key: The maul, the oar, the handsaw, second ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... Douglas. "Row as if your lives depended on each stroke of the oar; for ere five minutes the skiff will be ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Sussex, could only have acquired such a naval dominion as Athens once held, by devoting, and zealously training, all its sons to service in its fleets. In order to man the numerous galleys which she sent out, she necessarily employed also large numbers of hired mariners and slaves at the oar; but the staple of her crews was Athenian, and all posts of command were held by native citizens. It was by reminding them of this, of their long practice in seamanship, and the certain superiority which their discipline gave them over the enemy's marine, that their great ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... waltzing being rather conscientious than dreamlike, and he was only tolerably good-looking. On the other hand, he was not celebrated in any way, and even his mother and sisters had never considered him brilliant. He had been educated at Rugby and Trinity, Cambridge, where he rowed a fairly good oar, on principle, and took a middle second in the Moral Science Tripos. Now he was in a solicitor's office, where he was receiving a good salary, and was valued as a steady, sensible young fellow, who could be thoroughly depended upon. He was fond of his profession, and had acquired ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... every other year. These exhibitions are not very remarkable, but it is extremely entertaining to be in Venice on the opening day, for all the State barges and private gondolas turn out in their richest colours, some with as many as eighteen rowers all bending to the oar at the same moment, and in a splendid procession they convey important gentlemen in tall hats to the scene of the ceremony, while overhead two great dirigible airships solemnly swim like ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... said the man at the steering oar, "our tempers are all filed up on the raw edge just now, and if you give much lip, this boat will be rowed over the top of your Noah's ark before you know what's hit it. You paddle back to your squaw and piccaninnies on the beach, Robinson, and don't you come out here to mock your ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... Of the Moslem slaves, on the contrary, the chains which secured them to their places were carefully examined, and their rivets secured; and they were, besides, fitted with handcuffs, to disable them from using their hands for any purpose but tugging on the oar. The arquebusier, the musketeer, and the bombardier looked carefully to the state of their weapons, ammunition, and equipments; the sailor sharpened his pike and cutlass; the officer put on his strongest casque and his best-wrought cuirass; the stewards placed supplies ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... in which the Norsemen navigated the Tyne centuries ago. The keel is a tubby, grimy-looking craft, rounded fore and aft, with a single large square sail, which the keel-bullies, as the Tyne watermen are called, manage with great dexterity; the vessel being guided by the aid of the "swape," or great oar, which is used as a kind of rudder at the stern of the vessel. These keelmen are an exceedingly hardy class of workmen, not by any means so quarrelsome as their designation of "bully" would imply—the word being merely derived ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... of the green slopes which led down to the valley, and shorter still of the beach below. He jumped into a boat with a scant apology to Jack Harris, the owner, who with a delighted smile of recognition, and a polite tug at his cap, took the oar and ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... interrupted by the voice of the old boatman who, relinquishing an oar, pointed to a swart precipice near at hand and said in tolerable English (the older generation of natives all spoke English—their children ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... is, Clotho; here has all been ship-shape and ready for a start this long time; the hold baled out, the mast stepped, the sail hoisted, every oar in its rowlock; it is no fault of mine that we don't weigh anchor and sail. 'Tis Hermes keeps us; he should have been here long ago. Not a passenger on board, as you may see; and we might have made the trip three times over by this. Evening is coming on now; and never a penny taken all day! ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... has attained this stage of development it begins to move about in the ovolemma. This causes the membrane to burst. The larva emerges from it, and swims about in the sea by means of its oar-like tail. These free-swimming larvae of the Ascidia have been known for a long time. They were first observed by Darwin during his voyage round the world in 1833. They resemble tadpoles in outward appearance, and use their tails as oars, as the tadpoles do. However, this lively and highly-developed ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... all got into their bathing things, and the boat was rowed round from where it was anchored to the bit of the shore where they always played. When everyone had been out and had learnt to row, first with one oar and then with two; and when the tide had gone down, down, down, as far as it could, Akela anchored the boat in shallow water, and took away all the oars but one. Then the Cubs had a gorgeous time, rowing by ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... Madge Morton were good oarsmen. Indeed, they were almost as much at home on the water as they were on land. Each girl wore a tiny silver oar pinned to her dress. Only the week before Madge had won the annual spring rowing contest; for Miss Tolliver made a special point of athletics in her school, and fortunately the school grounds ran down to the bank of a ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... reach the lake by sunrise, and I know it," remarked one of the soldiers to Larry, who stood in the bow of the casco with an oar, ready to do whatever seemed best for the craft. "We've a good many ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... he was forced by the clamours of the people, in consequence of a famine occasioned by Pompey's cutting off the supply of corn by sea. But at last, having built a new fleet, and obtained twenty thousand manumitted slaves [123], who were given him for the oar, he formed the Julian harbour at Baiae, by letting the sea into the Lucrine and Avernian lakes; and having exercised his forces there during the whole winter, he defeated Pompey betwixt Mylae and Naulochus; ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... and a wooden pipe in his mouth. Affectionate and jolly, he was a fascinating companion for a voyage down the sparkling stream of life; only his boat was very small. There was room in it for a girl-partner at the oar, but no accommodation for passengers. He was allowed to drift away from the threshold of the Belgravian mansion while Winnie averted her tearful eyes. He was not a lodger. The lodger was Mr Verloc, indolent, and keeping late hours, sleepily jocular of a morning from under his bed-clothes, ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... there is a state of life worse than death, if the war you wage should put us in that state, it will be better to close our eyes for ever than to see the interminable oppressions of oar country. ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... up and Ben saw a man plunge from the rocks into the boiling waters. He bent to the oar, his boat rushed through the waves, and as he came one way, that white face moved steadily from the shore. The waters were buffeted fiercely around it. Some mighty power seemed to sweep back the ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... and with muffled oar Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, Just as the moon rose over the bay, Where swinging wide at her moorings lay The Somerset, British man-of-war; A phantom ship, with each mast and spar Across the moon like a prison-bar, ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... forgetting a "little brown jug" for Simon, took his arm, and tripping gaily down to the river, embarked. Simon pulled strongly at the oars until a bend of the river hid them from view of the plantation, when, taking in the oars, he seated himself by the widow, and placing an oar at the stern to steer with, they glided down the river. Simon was married, but was a firm believer in the theory advanced by ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... for a row," answered the girl, "but I have just discovered that one of the oar locks is broken, so I am not going for a row," and she laughed, showing her white, ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... boat, let his oar fall with a splash, and Will followed his example; but they were not a dozen yards from the lighter before they were missed, and divers and crew rushed to the side ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... around one of the frequent turns in the river, the gleam of other oars, the high prow of a larger galley, and across the water came the oar-song of a larger company of rowers. Helena started ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... other artful confederates were at work. The same day, about an hour before daylight, two men, dressed as foreigners, landed from a six-oar galley, and called on a gentleman of Northfleet, and handed him a letter from an old friend, begging him to take the bearers to London, as they had great public news to communicate; they were accordingly taken. About twelve or one the same afternoon, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... are my perfect knight; and I will always buy my carpets through you. (Apollodorus bows joyously. An oar appears above the quay; and the boatman, a bullet-headed, vivacious, grinning fellow, burnt almost black by the sun, comes up a flight of steps from the water on the sentinel's right, oar in hand, and waits at the ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... stranger will have passed, like a wind, away. Still, like the wind, he leaves in thy heart the seeds that may bear the blossom and the fruit. Zanoni hath performed his task,—he is wanted no more; the perfecter of his work is at thy side. He comes! I hear the dash of the oar. You will have your choice submitted to you. According as you decide we shall meet again." With these words the stranger moved slowly away, and disappeared beneath the shadow of the cliffs. A boat glided rapidly across the waters: it touched land; a man leaped ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... cast the die for the open sky When the great sun beats abroad, For the foam-fleck and the narrow deck, The life of oar and sword. ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... reduced us to despair. It seemed as if all our efforts had only served to take us farther away from the ship, and deprived us of all motive for rowing any harder than was barely necessary to keep the boat steady. After a time Agnew dropped his oar and began to bail out the boat—a work which was needed; for, in spite of our care, she had shipped many seas, and was one third full of water. He worked away at this while I managed the boat, and then we took turns at bailing. ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... you fellows can handle an oar?" Frere went on. "There, curse you, I don't want fifty! Three'll do. Come on now, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... leggings, and with the fat of my dogs, I could make smoke enough to be seen if only I could get a light. I had found a piece which I thought would do, and had gone back to wave my flag, which I did every two minutes, when I suddenly thought I saw again the glitter of an oar. It did not seem possible, however, for it must be remembered it was not water which lay between me and the land, but slob ice, which a mile or two inside me was very heavy. Even if people had seen me, I did not think they could ...
— Adrift on an Ice-Pan • Wilfred T. Grenfell
... athletic sports, and if he had now been famous for nothing else at his college, he would at least have been noted as a good bat, a famous boxer, a desperate man in a football scrimmage, and a splendid oar. It was on this subject that Jim and his relations were at variance. When I speak of "relations" I refer, by the way, to a certain old-fashioned uncle and aunt in Cornwall, who since Jim's father's death had assumed the guardianship of that youth and his brothers and sisters. ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... Harry did not lose countenance, but went on hammering at his boat as if he cared not at all, till observing that one of the soldiers was looking hard at Edmund, he called out, "I say, Ned, what's the use of loitering there, listening to what's no concern of yours? Fetch the oar out of yon shed. I never lit on such a lazy ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it my lot—there peeped a wish— To hand a pilot's oar and sail, Or haul the dripping moonlit mesh Spangled with herring-scale: By dying stars how sweet 'twould be, And dawn-blow freshening the sea, With weary, cheery pull to shore To gain my cottage-home once more, And meet, before ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... bag,) and lifting each upon the shoulders of two men, one at each end, walked off with them to the boat, and prepared to go aboard. Here, too, was something for us to learn. The man who steered, shipped his oar and stood up in the stern, and those that pulled the after oars sat upon their benches, with their oars shipped, ready to strike out as soon as she was afloat. The two men at the bows kept their places; and when, at length, a large sea came ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... heavy rapids, over which it was necessary to track, and in some places to double the crews. Each boat had a tow line of fifty feet, and in tracking the end was taken ashore by one of the crew of two, while the boat was kept off the bank by the other man with an oar. At the Horseshoe Rapids, ten miles above Gull Island Lake, an accident happened which threatened to put a stop to further progress of the expedition. While tracking around a steep point in crossing these rapids the boat which Messrs. ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... Then each, in aid, shall some companion ask, For help or comfort in the tedious task; And what that help—what joys from union flow, What good or ill, we next prepare to show; And row, meantime, our weary bark to shore, As Spenser his—but not with Spenser's oar. {2} ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... cable net in which are starfish, seaweed, and other marine flora and fauna. A ledge formed by a ship's chain surmounts the net, and above this is a profile of Mr. Cox circled with laurel. A lifebuoy crossed with a boat hook and oar ornaments the other side. Handles at the sides are two mermaids who with bowed heads and curved bodies hold in their upraised hands sea plants growing from the side of the top of the vase. The mermaids are the only portion of the ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor
... was, there never could be, just such another morning as this, for to-day I was to marry Lisbeth, and every stroke of the oar carried me nearer to her and happiness. Gaily the alders bent and nodded to me; joyfully the birds piped and sang; merrily the water laughed and chattered against my prow as I rowed through ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... pilot a long narrow boat called a skiff or shell. The coxswain calls the strokes and is generally the coach and commander of the crew. Unlike in a canoe, the pullers face backwards, and the one nearest the coxswain is called the "stroke oar", because all the other oars watch him and match his stroke. The racing takes place on the river which runs through Oxford, and since because of the oars the river is too narrow for normal passing as in most other kinds of racing, the race is sometimes ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... abiding city or country in this bodily existence, but in its varying changes and fortunes look to the hope of eternal life, promised through Christ. This is the final haven; and we must strive for it with sail and oar, as eager and earnest ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... is? And, witless, hear'st not Zephyr blow with gentle, happy wind? For treason now and dreadful deed she turneth in her mind, Assured of death; and diversely the tide of wrath sets in. Why fleest thou not in haste away, while haste is yet to win? Thou shalt behold the sea beat up with oar-blade, and the brand Gleam dire against thee, and one flame shall run adown the strand, If thee tomorrow's dawn shall take still lingering on this shore. Up! tarry not! for woman's ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... fortunes of many others. Arnold having one day pulled out on the open lake, in his venturesome manner, Pellew gave chase in another boat. The Americans being hard pressed and capture probable, Arnold unbuckled his stock and himself took an oar. So nearly caught was he, that he had to escape into the bushes, leaving behind him stock and buckle; and these, as late as sixty years after, remained in the possession of Pellew's brother. Had he ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... 'Liab, de boss man at der registerin' he ax me fer my las' name, an' I tell him I hadn't got none, jes so. Den Sheriff Gleason, he put in his oar, jes ez he allus does, an' he say my name wuz Desmit, atter ole Mahs'r. Dat made me mad, an' I 'spute him, an' sez I, 'I won't hev no sech name'. Den de boss man, he shet up Marse Gleason purty smart like, and he sed I'd a right ter enny name I chose ter carry, kase nobody hadn't ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... But scatters wide the wrecks of Hope! Yet the dire task I may not quit— 'Twas self impos'd; and I submit, To paint, ah me! the heavy close, The full completion of my woes! And, as a man that once was free, Whose fate impels him o'er the sea, Now spreads the sail, now plies the oar, Yet looks and leans towards the shore, I feel I may not longer stay, Yet even ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... its current. Touch forms its island. Taste constitutes its current. Scent is its mire. Sound is its waters. That particular part of it which leads towards heaven is attended with great difficulties. Body is the boat by which one must cross that river. Forgiveness is the oar by which it is to be propelled. Truth is the ballast that is to steady that boat. The practice of righteousness is the string that is to be attached to the mast for dragging that boat along difficult waters. Charity of gift constitutes ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... locket from his bosom; and I heard him speak, Will, and he said: "Here's the picture of my fair and true lady; drink to her, SeA-ors, all." Then he spoke to me, Will, and called me, right up through the oar-weed and the sea: "We have had a fair quarrel, SeA-or; it is time to be friends once more. My wife and your brother have forgiven me; so ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... the other branches, and the wind caught the sailorman fairly and spun him like a dancing dervish. Then it tired of him, and went off to try to drown the Chapman boy, leaving the sailorman motionless with his arms outstretched, balancing in each hand a tiny oar and smiling happily. ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... necessary in the early stages of the work, as places could not be spared for more than two, or at most three seamen to each boat, who were always stationed, one at the bow, to use the boat-hook in fending or pushing off, and the other at the aftermost oar, to give the proper time in rowing, while the middle oars were double- banked, and ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in constructing the raft. We had then to cut out the paddles, a long oar to steer by, and also the mast and yard. These, although they were very roughly formed, occupied us some time longer, so that it was late in the day before we were ready to commence our voyage. We calculated, however, ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... whip. Weeks after the welts on my back and shoulders turned dark along the line of the whip, and greenish at the edges. I did not cry. I felt numbed with fright and rage. Suddenly, however, the tall canal-boat captain, coming back along the tow-path, put in his oar by striking the whip out of John Rucker's hand; and snatched me away ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... 6th.—As five years of freedom had augmented my inveterate dislike of office, you may suppose that I made a gallant resistance—quite a la Danoise; but at last I could not help taking an oar with old friends in a boat which they believed to be sinking, and in which they fancied I might be of some use. If the Government had been as clear of some of the worst shoals a fortnight ago as it is now, nothing would have induced me to ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... through valleys covered deep with snow, and found more deserted houses, corn, and many graves; for a pestilence had lately swept off the Indian population. On the last exploring voyage, the waves ran so high that the rudder was carried away and the explorers steered with an oar. As night came on, all sail was spread in hope of reaching shore before dark, but the mast broke and the sail went overboard. However, they floated to an island where they landed and spent the night. On the second day after, Monday, December 21, the explorers reached the mainland. ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... from the Teutonick. It is certain, that the English, German, and other Teutonick languages, retained some derived from the Greek, which the Latin has not; as, ax, achs, mit, ford, pfurd, daughter, tochter, mickle, mingle, moon, sear, oar, grave, graff, to grave, to scrape, whole, from [Greek: axine], [Greek: meta], [Greek: porthmos], [Greek: thygater], [Greek: megalos], [Greek: mignyo], [Greek: mene], [Greek: xeros], [Greek: grapho], [Greek: holos]. Since they received these ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... turned in the current of the river. Tom, swinging on his big oar in answer to the ferryman's cries of "Ho!" "Now!", saw the other bank creeping nearer. At last they cleared the full flood of the stream. On the other shore, Sam stood ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop
... of the two oars in the boat, sometimes raised himself suddenly to keep clear of water that swirled in over the stern. It was a thin little oar and it seemed often ready ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... who was always on the look-out for an excuse. He was, so to speak, chained to that broom so many hours a day, and if he had been a galley slave, and the broom an oar, it is morally certain that he would have been beaten with many stripes, for he would have left off rowing ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... Mutter she does at times, but it is in solitary places that are desolate as she is desolate, in ruined cities, and when the sun has gone down to his rest. This sister is the visitor of the Pariah; of the Jew; of the bondsman to the oar in the Mediterranean galleys; of the English criminal in Norfolk Island, blotted out from the books of remembrance in sweet far-off England; of the baffled penitent reverting his eyes forever upon a solitary grave, which to him seems the altar overthrown of some past ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... rest. The things are not so painful and difficult of themselves, but our weakness or cowardice makes them so. To judge of great, and high matters requires a suitable soul; otherwise we attribute the vice to them which is really our own. A straight oar seems crooked in the water it does not only import that we see the thing, but how and after what manner we ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... your oar, Jedidiah Burbank!" she said. "I guess I know what I'm about. If it was leap-year fifty times over, I wouldn't ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... Wort had been very anxious to pull an oar, and Will gratified them. But the governor could not row. Will had urged him to stop. The governor's resoluteness sometimes ran into obstinacy, and it ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... the upper valley of the St. Lawrence and of the valley of the Mississippi remembered as distinctly its origin we should everywhere hear the plash of the oar in all the hospitality of their settlements. But all such traces have disappeared, or all but disappeared, in the Mississippi Valley. The only one that comes to me now, as possibly of the old French days, is one which is preserved in an adage not ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... incredible speed, and with these canoes they navigate among these islands, which are innumerable, and carry on their traffic. I have seen in some of these canoes seventy and eighty men, each with his oar. In all these islands I did not notice much difference in the appearance of the inhabitants, nor in their manners, nor language, except that they all understood each other, which is very singular, and leads me to hope that their Highnesses will take means for their ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... on my first passage through the archipelago. Small rocks rising from the water were covered with sea-gulls and cormorants, which scarcely took any notice of the boat, even when we came almost within an oar's length. This fearlessness of wild creatures is one of the most charming impressions of travel in these remoter parts of Japan, yet unvisited by tourists with shotguns. The early European and American hunters in Japan seem ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... to the chain. Being armed, the white men threatened to shoot. Manfully did the black men stand up for their rights, and declare that they did not mean to give up their boat alive. The parties speedily came to blows. One of the white men dealt a heavy blow with his oar upon the head of one of the black men, which knocked him down, and broke the oar at the same time. The blow was immediately returned by Thomas Sipple, and one of the white men was laid flat on the bottom of the boat. The white men were instantly seized with a panic, and retreated; after ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... much changed. The lake and the hills were, of course, the same as I had known them forty-six years ago, and the main street seemed but little altered. Of the old seminary only the foundations were standing, and the trees had so grown about it that I hardly knew the place. I again dipped my oar in the lake, again stood beside Cooper's grave, and threaded some of the streets I had known so well. I wished I could have been alone there.... I wanted to muse and dream, and invoke the spirit of other days, but the spirits would not rise in the presence ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... forgets everything now but my own crimes, and the crimes of those that are still worse than myself—old I am, and wicked, and unrepenting—but I shall yet live to pour the curses that rise out of an ill-spent life into his dying oar, until his very soul will feel the scorches of perdition before its everlasting tortures come upon it in hell. I am old," she proceeded, "but I will yet live to see the son that cursed his mother, and threatened to raise his sacrilegious hand against her that bore him, ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... protestations of his innocence. The officer refusing to give it up, and being joined by the crew of the pinnace, which was waiting for Captain Cook, a scuffle ensued, in which Pareea was knocked down, by a violent blow on the head, with an oar. The natives, who were collected about the spot, and had hitherto been peaceable spectators, immediately attacked our people with such a shower of stones, as forced them to retreat, with great precipitation, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... with a look of bitter determination on his face, Jack lifted one of the light boat-oars that we had brought with us, and resting it on his shoulder, stood up in an attitude of bold defiance. Peterkin took the other oar and also stood up, but there was no anger visible on his countenance: when not sparkling with fun, it usually wore a mild, sad expression, which was deepened on the present occasion as he glanced at Avatea, who sat with ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... with the first laugh since that tragic moment when he had seen a different boat swept over the dam many weary miles up the river. "We'll each take an oar and try some two- handed rowing. This craft was built for ocean-going service. Hold tight; ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... passed, till by degrees she re-composed herself, and accepted of a restorative glass of wine from my spark, who had left me to fetch it to her, whilst her own was readjusting his affaire and buttoning up; after which he led her, leaning languish-ingly upon him, to oar stand ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... a word.... You have been so beset with people all the afternoon that I never got a chance to put my oar in. Dear Reverend Mother, everything has gone off so well. No clergyman will ever preach again about Providence spreading a table in the wilderness without my coming back in memory to to-day. May ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... in small things is at the base of every great achievement. We too often forget this, and yet no truth needs more to be kept in mind, particularly in the troubled eras of history and in the crises of individual life. In shipwreck a splintered beam, an oar, any scrap of wreckage, saves us. On the tumbling waves of life, when everything seems shattered to fragments, let us not forget that a single one of these poor bits may become our plank of safety. To despise ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... feeling and action with Captain Cephas. The latter hastily opened the draughts of the kitchen stove, and put on some wood, and by the time this was done Captain Eli had the kettle filled and on the stove. Then they clapped on their caps and their pea-jackets, each took an oar from a corner in the back hall, and together they ran down ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... guess I could row through any water in this harbor," bragged Amos, bending to his oar so lustily that he broke one of the wooden thole-pins, unshipped his oar, and went over backward into the bottom of the boat, losing his hold on the oar as he fell. He scrambled quickly back to his seat, and endeavored to swing ...
— A Little Maid of Province Town • Alice Turner Curtis
... dread Spirit! being's End and Source! O check thy chariot in its fervid course; Bend from thy throne of darkness and of fire, And with one smile immortalize oar lyre!" ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... encourage expansiveness on the other's part, and little more was said whilst they unmoored the boat and rowed across, so the engineer had good opportunity for taking stock of his companion. The water was rough, and he judged from the clumsy way in which Garstin handled his oar and his apparent powerlessness to impart vigour to the stroke that muscular development had not formed part of his education. Trevannion stood six-foot-one in his stockings, and his frame was well knit with muscles that were supple as well ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... my pilgrim-staff, I lay Aside the toiling oar; The angel sought so far away I welcome at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... cousin, only I must ask whether you think that every one will consent? There's a lot of folks have to have their say in this, if it's to be done. What will your folks say? Joggeli's awfully queer sometimes. And your children will put in their oar too and want to make the farming as profitable as possible. Uli has a risky undertaking. A single bad year, with sickness of the stock or the like, can ruin him. On such a farm a thousand francs more or less in earnings can scarcely ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... ancient state, Save where many a palace-gate With green sea-flowers overgrown Like a rock of ocean's own, Topples o'er the abandon'd sea As the tides change sullenly. The fisher on his watery way Wandering at the close of day, Will spread his sail and seize his oar Till he pass the gloomy shore, Lest thy dead should, from their sleep Bursting o'er the starlight deep, Lead a rapid masque of death O'er ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... battleship attack to support us. De Robeck knows that when the Fleet goes in our fighting strength goes up. But he can gauge, as I cannot, the dangers the Fleet will thereby incur. Every personal motive urges me to urge him on. But I have no right to shove my oar in—no right at all—until I can say that we are done unless the Fleet do make an attack. Can I say so? No; if we get the drafts and munitions we can still open the Straits on our own and without calling on the sister ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... land. Some of the religions papers condemned the whole affair, enlarging upon the strained wrists, broken blood-vessels and barbaric animalism of men who ought to have been rowing their race with the Binomial Theorem for one oar and Kames' Elements ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... them down upon the yellow sand, Between the sun and moon upon the shore; And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland, . . . . ; but evermore Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar, Weary the wandering fields of barren foam. Then some one said, "We will ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... a strong stroke of the oar, drove the boat into an open space between two fishing-boats; he pulled rapidly over the shining water, which glowed, at the contact of the oars, with a blue phosphorescent fire. A long trail of softly scintillating ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... storm. John had been called in the grey dawn to the life-boat, and Joan, in spite of wind and rain, went down to the beach with him. With a prayer in her heart, she saw him buckle on his buoyant armour and set his pale blue oar like lance athwart his rest, and then make straight out into the breakers that dashed and surged around. Joan saw the boat's swift forward leaping, its downward plunge into the trough of the sea, its perilous uplifting, its perpendicular rearing, its dread descent. And John felt its ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... were an unassuming undergraduate at Caius College, spending your leisure-time in an eight-or a pair-oar, and stirring up the muddy shallows of the Cam, as you did to some purpose, I cannot believe that any premonitions of the heights of celebrity to which you would some day attain disturbed your mind. And yet here you are, a survivor from the foul and murderous shattering of ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... to his great annoyance, his oar stuck fast in the oar-lock, and he straightway did that very unsailorly thing ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Sorell, holding his oar suspended to listen. He remembered the song perfectly. He had heard her sing it in many places—Rome, Naples, Syracuse. It was a great favourite with her mother, for whom the national upheaval of Italy—the heroic struggle of the Risorgimento—had ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... be going of now?" shouted one or two voices from the Oar-stone point, the furthest outlook of the ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... poisoned nail and stuck it in the handle of the oar in such a way that the knight would be sure to scratch his hand when he picked up the oar. Then she went home laughing, very much pleased with ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... said he, and the barge with oar and sail Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan. That, fluting a wild carol, ere her death, Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere Revolving many memories, till the hull Looked one black dot against the verge of dawn, ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... business—why? Because his maternal grand-uncle is serving a long sentence in gaol. The poor family must be helped! A brawny young fellow will be removed from a landing-stage boat, and his place taken by some tottering old peasant who has never handled an oar—why? The old man's nephew has married again; the family must be helped. A secretarial appointment was specially created for an acquaintance of mine who could barely sign his own name, for the obvious reason that his cousin's sister ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... you?" cried the Captain: "do you suppose, Madam French, we have not enough of other nations to pick our pockets already? I'll warrant you, there's no need for you for to put in your oar." ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... in his oar and uttered a number of preposterous statements. In particular, he described a ship which had unloaded at Milan. When Regoyos pointed out that Milan was not a seaport, ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... acknowledgments of the community; to intrude upon the retreats of brave men, fatigued and exhausted by honest industry, to drag them out with all the wantonness of grovelling authority, and chain them to the oar without a moment's respite, or perhaps oblige them to purchase, with the gains of a dangerous voyage, or the plunder of an enemy lately conquered, a short interval to settle their affairs, or bid their ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... overhauled, and a larboard and starboard boat was launched and manned, and in a few minutes they were dashing over the waves, the men pulling that steady, strong, and even stroke which gives such propelling force to the whaleman's oar. The men on board cheered, and their cheers seemed to quicken the action of the boatmen. The sturdy old captain watched their progress through his glass, every few minutes giving expression to his feelings in ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... continues sparse. My experience in the East had shown me that quorums are not readily attained in literary societies, which is a sore hindrance to the half dozen efficient laborers out of a populous city, who generally hold the laboring oar of ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... is not a foreign force, since it is employed entirely on the horse. Nor can it be employed on the foreign fulcrum, the ground, through the medium of your reins; as much as you pull up, so much you pull down. If a man in a boat uses an oar, he can accelerate or impede the motion of the boat, because his strength is employed through the medium of the oar on the water, which is a foreign fulcrum. But if he takes hold of the chain at the ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... Okikurumi's affair, even the place where he kept his two treasures. The result of this was that one day when Okikurumi was out hunting in the mountains the stranger stole these treasures and all that Okikurumi possessed, and then fled with his wife Tureshi in a boat, of which they each pulled an oar. Okikurumi returned from the mountains to his home by the seaside, and pursued them alone in a boat; but could not come up to them, because he was only one against two. Then Tureshi excreted some large foeces in the ...
— Aino Folk-Tales • Basil Hall Chamberlain
... miserable than the situation of our hero at this season, floating in a little boat on the open seas, without oar, without sail, and at the mercy of the first wave to overwhelm him? nay, this was indeed the fair side of his fortune, as it was a much more eligible fate than that alternative which threatened him with almost unavoidable certainty, viz., ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... that the oar was gone, and in his anxiety to regain the blade the tramp nearly lost the second oar. But his efforts were unavailing, and he started to paddle himself to the bank, meanwhile watching his ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... Oswald's blood: the alternative they adopted was perhaps not more merciful—although a common doom in those times. They selected a crazy worm-eaten boat, and sent the criminal to sea, without sail, oar, or rudder, with a loaf of bread and cruse of water, the wind blowing freshly from ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... and keep cool!" came from Whopper, and he allowed his oar to slip on purpose, sending a shower of water over the ...
— Four Boy Hunters • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... boat. Now he took the other oar and commenced rowing. But here the wound, of which he had at first been scarcely conscious, began to be felt, and the first vigorous stroke brought a sharp twinge, besides increasing the flow of blood. His natural ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... weigh, and following hard after me. I had but a little way to go, but quicker and quicker came the boat after me. A few more strokes and I would be on the shore, but I felt the oncoming of the boat, and expected each second to feel the crash of an oar or other weapon on my head. Had I not seen that dreadful axe disappear in the water I do not think that I could have won the shore. I heard the muttered curses of those not rowing and the laboured breath ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... Though looming large, through dawn's dim cloud, Like an invading host The Barks of France are bearing down, One crowd of sails, while high Above the misty morning's frown Their streamers light the sky. Up!—greet for once the Tricolor, For once the lilied flag! Forth with gay barge and gilded oar, While fast the volley'd salvoes roar From batteried line, and echoing shore, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... that they receive anonymous presents of chocolates. But presumably they are not allowed to eat them, so that these can do little to alleviate their sufferings. It is true also that for ever after (if their wives allow it) they can hang an enormous oar on the wall and contemplate it after dinner. But, after all, I can do that too, if I like; for I too have rowed over ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 17, 1920 • Various
... prosy yarns to me. The first thing I do is to let them know just what I want of them; and not an inch beyond that does a man of them go, at least while I am managing the business. There are times when John J. Laylor comes in, and puts in his oar, and wants to hear the whole story; which is pure stuff and nonsense, for John J. Laylor doesn't know anything more about a ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... casts off the long land tilts, There where the widows proud the serpent watch, As she glideth from the town. West from the Nid thereafter the King doth steer, Into the sea drop the oars of his men. Move can they, the King's lads, the straight oars in the water. The widows stand and wonder at the oar-strokes so swift, The thole knows hurt when seventy oars do move her I' the water ere the war-folk on the sea their oars do strain. Northmen the serpent row (nailed is she) out on the billow-stream icy; 'Tis ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... the captain, and, following the "King's" instructions, told him to steer straight for the negro. He grumbled not a little. Of course, if I wanted to run aground, it was none of his affair—etc., etc. Then I stationed the sturdiest of the two deck-hands on the port bow with a long oar, while I took the starboard with another. Very slowly and cautiously we made in, pointing straight for a thick growth of mangrove bushes. Samson stood there ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... canoe dipped and was motionless. Rome had caught the stern, and the girl wheeled in hot anger. Her impulse to strike may have been for the moment and no longer, or she may have read swiftly no unkindness in the mountaineer's steady look; for the uplifted oar was stayed in the air, as though at ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... that the old gentleman pulls as good an oar as any of us," retorted another man, in a blue ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... comes; the starting-rope slackens in Miller's left hand, and the stroke, unshipping his oar, pushes the stern ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... an inch or two he was able to measure the height of the gunwale above the water. Then he made note of where an oar lay, asking himself how long he could keep afloat on a timber so small, wondering how far he could be from land. Then he suddenly fell to questioning if the waters of that ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... glass had given her only too true warning, that with her beauty her reign had ended, and the days of her love were over? What does a seaman do in a storm if mast and rudder are carried away? He ships a jurymast, and steers as he best can with an oar. What happens if your roof falls in a tempest? After the first stun of the calamity the sufferer starts up, gropes around to see that the children are safe, and puts them under a shed out of the rain. If the palace burns down, you take shelter in the ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... small native boats, some of them with sails and loaded with goods, most of them rowed by one or more oars. It was to be noticed that when there was only one oar it was being worked vigorously by a woman, while a man sat comfortably in the stern and steered. These people were evidently going from the crowded villages in which they lived to work in the ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... all around; Listens the king once more; "I hear across the bay the sound As of a plashing oar." Yes, it is they!—They come!—They come— Thy son, with spear and shield, And thy daughter fair, with golden ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... necessary to sweep the boat with the oars away from the burning island. Alone I could not have accomplished this, and I doubt if Melannie could have helped me, ignorant as she was of the use of the heavy oar. But Van Luck and I had no difficulty in sweeping the boat out to sea. Thus does Providence ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... agent for procuring military stores,* was joined with us in commission. But such was the state of my family that I could not leave it, nor could I expose it to the dangers of the sea, and of capture by the British ships, then covering the ocean. I saw, too, that the laboring oar was really at home, where much was to be done, of the most permanent interest, in new-modelling our governments, and much to defend our fanes and fire-sides from the desolations of an invading enemy, pressing on our country in every point. I declined, therefore, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... getting alarmed! And don't you," added Webster, "go shoving your oar in when your social superiors are talking! I've had to speak to you about that before. My remarks were addressed ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... fur and tucked his paws in against his belly, while within him his heart quaked by reason of the strangeness: and he longed to get to land, groaning terribly through the stress of chilling fear. He put out his tail upon the water and worked it like a steering oar, and prayed to heaven that he might get to land. But when the dark waves washed over him he cried aloud and said: 'Not in such wise did the bull bear on his back the beloved load, when he brought Europa across the sea ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... I broke an oar to-day. I'm not used to rowing anyway, and the oar was long; two of us sit on one seat, each pulling an oar. There is room for eight in the boat, beside the captain. We went out to-day in a boat called the Ellida and after going all around the lake ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... moment of peril. I endeavored to lower the sail; but in so doing I had to quit the helm; the bark was overturned in an instant, and I was thrown into the water. I endeavored to cling to the wreck, but missed my hold; being a poor swimmer I soon found myself sinking, but grasped a light oar that was floating by me. It was not sufficient for my support; I again sank beneath the surface; there was a rushing and bubbling sound in my ears, and ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... palm-thatched cabin, or tolda, rising over the quarter, a low-decked locker running from bow to midships,—along each side of which were to be seen, half seated, half standing, some half-dozen dark-skinned men, each plying, instead of an oar, ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... remember t' Creed, as a might die a Christian. But all a could think on was, "What is your name, M or N?" an' just as a were giving up both words and life, they heaved me aboard. But, bless ye, they had but one oar; for they'd thrown a' t' others after me; so yo' may reckon, it were some time afore we could reach t' ship; an' a've heerd tell, a were a precious sight to look on, for my clothes was just hard frozen to me, an' my hair a'most ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... shorewards. Night fell, and who can describe the awful hours that followed? All control of the vessel being lost, she drove onwards whither the wind and the waves took her. The crew, and even the oar-slaves, flew to the wine with which she was partly laden, and strove to drown their terrors in drink. Thus inflamed, twice some of them came to the cabin, threatening to throw their passengers overboard. But Nehushta barred the door and called through it that ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... wild river (that's the proper way to put it, but in the interests of science it may be translated into crawling towards the middle). Meanwhile Obanjo performed prodigies of valour all over the place. He triced up the mainsail, stirred up his fainthearted crew, and got out the sweeps, i.e. one old oar and four paddles, and with this assistance we solemnly trudged away from danger at a pace that nothing slower than a Thames dumb barge, going against stream, could possibly overhaul. Still we did not feel safe, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... I have made a riddle;" cried Hunne, putting in his oar, "Now guess mine, Dora. My first you can eat ...
— Uncle Titus and His Visit to the Country • Johanna Spyri
... barges are usually towed, but are sometimes fitted with some kind of engine; the men in charge of them are known as bargees. On tidal rivers barges are often provided with masts and sails ("sailing barges"), or in default of being towed, they drift with the current, guided by a long oar or oars ("dumb-barges"). Barges used for unloading, or loading, the cargo of ships in harbours are sometimes called "lighters" (from the verb "to light" to relieve of a load). A state barge was a heavy, often highly ornamented vessel used for carrying passengers ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... his galley was bound that afternoon on a cruise of a few miles along the coast and indeed was lifting anchor as he was hauled up the side. He had, therefore, but a hasty view of his surroundings before he was chained to his bench, facing the great oar. He saw only a long chamber, crossed by row upon row of white, desperate faces. Down the middle, by the ends of the benches, ran a gangway, along which three overseers paced leisurably, each with a tall, flexible wand in his hand. The stench in the place was overpowering, and ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... vapid and tasteless in the telling, like champagne which has been uncorked for a week. We were one day discussing some question of law at the table, and John, who had not yet begun to study law himself, put in his oar as usual, when Charles Allen, afterward Judge of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, turned on him with some indignation. "What do you know about it, Johnny? You don't know what a quantum meruit is." "If you had it, 't would kill you," said Felton. He ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... turned he the boat about, governed it, led it swiftly or slowly with the stream and against the stream, stopt it in its course, guided it with one hand, and with the other laid hard about him with a huge great oar, hoisted the sail, hied up along the mast by the shrouds, ran upon the bulwarks, set the compass, tackled the bowlines, and steered the helm. Coming out of the water, he ran furiously up against a hill, and with the same alacrity ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... orders to get the boat under way again. Tim handled his oar with considerable skill, and before they reached the boat-house, he had learned to time his stroke with that ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... watching the muscular development of the boatmen as they pulled at the oars, and in admiring the dexterity and skill with which they managed the boat, that I did not think of danger," remarked a man who had been stroke oar on a ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... introduce a short exordium and grand finale. The Jorram, or boat-song, some specimens of which attracted the attention of Dr Johnson,[21] was a variety of the same class. In this, every measure was used which could be made to time with an oar, or to mimic a wave, either in motion or sound. Dr Johnson discovered in it the proceleusmatic song of the ancients; it certainly corresponds in real usage ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... cruise in the yacht, in the company of a man in whom I was naturally interested. I was passionately fond of the sea, and had already learned from the Berwick sea-going folk how to handle small craft, and the management of a three-oar vessel like this was an easy matter to me, as I soon let Sir Gilbert know. Once outside the river mouth, with a nice light breeze blowing off the land, we set squaresail, mainsail, and foresail and stood directly out to sea ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... in navigation is contemporaneous with the first use of the wind; the name of the inventor, "unrecorded in the patent-office," is lost in the lapse of ages. The first motor was, undoubtedly, the hand; next followed the paddle, the scull, and the oar; sails were an after-thought, introduced to play the secondary part of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... duumvir is discreet; what I am to do, where go to find my fleet, he will tell on the ship, where a sealed package is waiting me. If, however, ye have offerings for any of the altars to-day, pray the gods for a friend plying oar and sail somewhere in the direction of Sicily. But she is here, and will come to," he said, reverting to the vessel. "I have interest in her masters; they will sail and fight with me. It is not an easy thing to lay ship side on a shore like this; so let us ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... comes from your putting an oar in," said Sorenson, lifting his fist in a burst of fury ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... The oar indeed and home with sails Flax-tissued, swelled with favoring gales, Staunch to the wave, from spear-storm free, Have to this shore escorted me, Nor so far blame I destiny. But may the all-seeing Father send In fitting time propitious ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... of the rays of light caused by their entering the earth's atmosphere, which is a denser medium than the very light ether of the outer sky. The effect of refraction is seen when an oar is thrust into the water and looks as if it were bent. Refraction always causes a celestial object to appear higher than it really is. This refraction is greatest at the horizon and diminishes toward the ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... and Hogg could arrive from London, and here they were within reach of the river. No long time elapsed before they were tempted to experience again the delights of a holiday on the Thames. So Mary and Shelley, with Peacock and Charles Clairmont to help him with an oar, embarked and went up the river. They passed Reading and Oxford, winding through meadows and woods, till arriving at Lechlade, fourteen miles from the source of the Thames, they still strove to help the boat ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... the light again. He must envy the dead, on whom the executioner has done his utmost; for to him life itself has become one endless punishment. He is bound without fetters—bound more securely than if he were locked to the oar or welded to the rock. Every step, every movement, tells him of his weakness and of his guilt. The living world around him—he has lost it all; he retains only its sources of pain, and the unfading memory of his own crime. Scoffed at by the unfeeling, pitied by some, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... we by, with prow and oar: Ripple shadows off the wave, And reflected on the shore, Haply play about the grave. Folds of summer-light enclose All that ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... dark cheek, and her black eyes reflected some unexplained anger. Beside her, leaning against the house wall, was the handle end of a broken oar. Tunis chanced to mark that there was a streak of dull blue ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper |
