"Overset" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... overcame Mrs. Pattison's repugnance to enter the boat. She stepped in, and he again rowed about half a mile, when suddenly he was seen by the men on shore to rise in the boat, and in an instant it was overset, and both were plunged in the lake. Mr. Pattison sunk at once, but his wife's clothes buoyed her up for a considerable time; ineffectually, however, for none of the bearers of the chaises a porteurs could swim; her cries were in vain, and she, too, perished. ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... and even in farce, struggle is clearly present. Here our sympathy is with people who engage in a not impossible combat—against rather obvious villains who can be unmasked, or against such public opinion or popular conventions as can be overset. The hold of an absurd bit of gossip upon stupid people is firm enough in "Spreading the News"; but fortunately it must yield to facts at last. The Queen and the Knave of Hearts are sufficiently clever, with the aid of the superb cookery of the Knave's wife, to do away with an ancient ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... swain's delay. He from the stack carves out the accustomed load Deep-plunging, and again deep-plunging oft, His broad keen knife into the solid mass: Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands, With such undeviating and even force He severs it away: no needless care, Lest storms should overset the leaning pile Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight. Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcern'd The cheerful haunts of man; to wield the axe And drive the wedge in yonder forest drear, from, morn ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... these verses," says Burns to Thomson, "for any merit they have. I composed them at the time in which 'Patie Allan's mither died, about the back o' midnight,' and by the lee side of a bowl of punch, which had overset every mortal in company, except the hautbois and the muse." To the poet's intercourse with musicians we owe ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... England about the end of April, 1716. While the man of war rode at anchor near the bar, Mr. Gideon Johnston, with about thirty more gentlemen, went into a sloop to take leave of their beloved Governor, and sailed with him over the bar. On their return a storm arose, the sloop was overset, and Mr. Johnston, being lame of the gout and in the hold, was drowned. The other gentlemen, who were upon deck, saved themselves by swimming to the land. Afterwards the sloop drove, and what has been thought somewhat remarkable, ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... sight,—'and Tholouse, and my aunt's mansion—and the groves in her garden!—O my friends! are ye all lost to me—must I never, never see ye more!' Tears rushed again to her eyes, and she continued to weep, till an abrupt turn in the road had nearly occasioned the carriage to overset, when, looking up, she perceived another part of the well-known scene around Tholouse, and all the reflections and anticipations, which she had suffered, at the moment, when she bade it last adieu, came with recollected force to her heart. She remembered how anxiously she had ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... abroad are not less deserving of attention. Experiencing the fortune of other nations, the United States may be again involved in war, and it may in that event be the object of the adverse party to overset our Government, to break our Union, and demolish us as a nation. Our distance from Europe and the just, moderate, and pacific policy of our Government may form some security against these dangers, ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... about a bow-shot of the booth of Volero, the sound of a slight scuffle was heard from within, and the light of the lamp became very dim and wavering, as if it had been overset; and in a moment went out altogether. But its last glimmering ray shewed a tall sinewy figure making out of the door and bounding at a great pace up the street toward ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... that 'such a terrible Protector this; no getting of him overset!' should have been compelled to contend with the notorious and obstinate incredulity of the members of his Parliament regarding the late attempt to overset him? Yet Cromwell's speech of September 1656 is pervaded with expressions such as these, regarding ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... however, I had nearly lost my life. Returning from carrying corn, the wind rose, and drove the boat to sea. I not understanding the management of the helm, and the servants awkwardly handling the sails, the boat in tacking was overset. The benefit of learning to swim, I again experienced, and my faithful servant, who had gained the rock, aided me when almost spent. The good people who had seen the shallop overset, came off in their boats to ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... horrid to be committed to paper. My pen could not trace it.——In a word, nothing could exceed the ferocity of the infuriate populace; and the sacking of the palace of the Trojan king presents but a faint image of what passed here on the day which overset the throne of ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... house quite gently thus, and found Farmer Nicholas Snowe asleep, little dreaming how his plans had been overset between us. And then Annie said to me very slyly, between a ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... had rowed, or rather driven, about a league and a half, as we reckoned it, a raging wave, mountain-like, came rolling astern of us, and plainly bade us expect the coup de grace. In a word, it took us with such a fury that it overset the boat at once; and separating us as well from the boat as from one another, gave its not time hardly to say, "O God!" for we were all swallowed up ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... back. As the Prince held out his arms to catch his sister, such numbers leaped in, that the boat was overset. And in the same instant ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... morning after the young dog's arrival; and, as was perversely ruled, it was just here that an accident occurred that might well have been judged impossible. The easel, in fact, with its huge canvas, was overset, carrying many things into limbo as they fell; and with the fate that too often pursues the unfortunate, Murphy therefore found himself suddenly buried beneath a mixed assortment of articles to which he had ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... the ship's surgeon endeavoured to follow the vessel in a small boat, in order to attempt some arrangement; but just as they had reached her, they were dashed by the waves against the ship's side and overset, and narrowly escaped with their lives. Drachart and Haven now betook themselves to the stranded shallop, but they were destitute of provisions, and the rain fell in torrents. The Esquimaux, who ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... tried to nurse it as his two aunts nursed it. The infant's weight was considerable; it exceeded Tom's estimate, with the result that, in the desperate process of extracting the baby from the cradle, the cradle had been overset, and ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... there must be a time allowed for action, as appears from the most {408} eminent contemplatives among the saints, and those religious institutes which are most devoted to this holy exercise. The mind of man must be frequently unbent, or it will be overset. Many, by a too constant or forced attention, have lost their senses. The body also stands in need of exercise, and in all stations men owe several exterior duties both to others and themselves, and to neglect any of these, upon pretence of giving the preference ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... them. Varillo had sprung up from his table in haste and overset his glass. It fell, shivering ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... of the boat, I should have said," answered the lieutenant. "Now spring with all the agility you possess." At which the lady gave a bound which nearly overset the gallant officer, and would have ended by bringing her down on the sand, had not General Caulfield caught her ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... own recital, he would rise from table, bounding to the middle of the dining-room, imitating the roar of a lion and the going off of a rifle crack! bang! the zizz of the explosive bullet—gesticulating and roaring about till he had overset the chairs. ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... some savage beast. But had he been a little more cautious it would have saved trouble, for the Malay had evidently been waiting as he heard steps, and as the door was opened he made a spring, dashed the doctor and captain aside, overset me, and, as the men gave way, reached the deck, where he ran right forward and then close up to the foremast, stood with his long knife or kris in his hand, rolling his opal eyeballs, and evidently prepared to strike ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... south-east. We left this about eleven a.m., and after reaching our destination all safe, left it about three o'clock p.m. for home, the weather then looking anything but promising. When about four miles from home and from the shore, we were overset by a squall. It came upon us so suddenly that we had no time to do anything; torrents of rain fell at the same time, and there we were, drifting along on the side of the boat (which luckily did not sink) without a ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... of us, upon the thwarts, staring and exchanging opinions, and were like to have overset the boat; but that the bo'sun ordered us down. And after this we made our breakfast, and had much discussion regarding the stranger, ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... which I had the prevoyance to purchase before I set out. I am worn out, but pass on to Barnby Moor to-night, and if possible to York the next. I know not what is the matter with me, but some derangement presses hard upon this machine. Still, I think it will not be overset this bout"—another of those utterances of a cheerful courage under the prostration of pain which reveal to us the manliest side of Sterne's nature. On reaching Coxwold his health appears to have temporarily mended, and in June we find him giving a far better account ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... inventions at that time), struck violently into a deep rut, over which lay a log of fallen wood; the driver, with a curse, stimulated his mules yet faster for the obstacle, the wheel was torn from the socket, and the carriage suddenly overset. ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... their course they ran, Though right ahead the roaring breakers lay: A reef between them also now began To show its boiling surf and bounding spray, But finding no place for their landing better, They ran the boat for shore,—and overset her.[145] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... the economic curtness of telegraphic despatches, to the dimension of the epigram without its point, Mr. Choate is one of the few whose paragraphs echo with the long-resounding pace of Dryden's coursers, and who can drive a predicate and six without danger of an overset. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... impairing the obligation of contracts. These are a few samples of the mode in which a Federal Court limits all legislative authority. If any one wishes to see the extent to which the power of such a Court has gone in fact, he should study the decisions on the Legal Tender Act, which all but overset or nullified the financial legislation of Congress during the War of Secession. If he wishes to see the effect of applying the constitution of the United States, or anything like that constitution, to Great Britain and Ireland, he should ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... exposition of the system is found in the work of the classical economists—Adam Smith and his followers of half a century—who created the modern science of political economy. Beginning as controversialists anxious to overset a particular system of trade regulation, they ended by becoming the exponents of a new social order. Modified and amended as their system is in its practical application, it still largely conditions our outlook to-day. It is to this ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... her head. "Poor dear Fred!" said she; "but it is quite impossible. I cannot bear it as he does; I should only overset him ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his last adieu. The vessel went before a merry gale, And for quick passage put on every sail: But when least fear'd, and even in open day, The mischief overtook her in the way: Whether she sprung a leak, I cannot find, 350 Or whether she was overset with wind, Or that some rock below her bottom rent; But down at once with all her crew she went: Her fellow ships from far her loss descried; But only she was sunk, and ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... work, whereby the former government (which was not only a ship, but a gust, too) could never open her sails, but in danger to overset herself, neither could make any voyage nor lie safe in her own harbor. The wars of later ages, says Verulamius, seem to be made in the dark, in respect of the glory and honor which reflected on men from the wars in ancient times. Their ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... a natural element to him, and he often amused himself in a manner which, to one less expert, would have been attended with the utmost danger. He would sometimes go out in a boat, and overset her by carrying a press of sail. Acts of daring like these must find their excuse in the spirit of a fearless youth. But he often found the advantage of that power and self-possession in the water which he derived from his early habits, in saving men who had fallen overboard, and especially ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... kingdoms which grew up out of its ruins; whereas, Jesus was born in the time of Augustus, i. e., precisely when the Roman Empire itself was in the highest of its splendour and vigour. This is a remarkable, and very striking, repugnance, to the claims of the New Testament, and, if substantiated, must overset them entirely.—E. ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... an enemy to all persecution. They knew that he came to free us from slavery and Popery, out of a country where a third of the people are contented Catholics under a Protestant government. He came with a part of his army composed of those very Catholics, to overset the power of a Popish prince. Such is the effect of a tolerating spirit; and so much is liberty served in every way, and by all persons, by a manly adherence to its own principles. Whilst freedom is true to itself, everything becomes subject to it, and its very adversaries are ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of this kind were generally diffused, people would cease to imagine that the human constitution was so badly contrived, that a state of general health could be overset by every trifle; for instance, by a little cold; or that the recovery of it lay concealed in a few drops, or a pill. Did they better understand the nature of chronic diseases, and the causes which produce them, they could not be ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... travelling from Constantinople to Warsaw, and a waggon with his baggage heavily laden overset; the country people harnessed two buffaloes by the horns, in order to draw it over, which they did with ease. In some very instructive conversation I had with this gentleman on the subject of his travels, this circumstance particularly ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... with the lead and line to N. and E., to sound wherever they found cracks in the ice, that they might have notice before the ice took the ground; for in that case the ships must instantly have been crushed or overset. ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... time, that Mr. Bolton had occasion to go some twenty miles into the country. On returning home, and when within a few miles of the city, his carriage was overset, and he had the misfortune to fracture a limb. This occurred near a pleasant little farm-house that stood a few hundred yards from the road; the owner of which, seeing the accident, ran to the overturned carriage and assisted to extricate the injured man. Seeing how badly ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... give the explanation of some particular outburst, but without any attempt to go in search of further or more original causes. Still less is she moved by the virtuous indignation that is the least charming of the ways of some little girls. Elle ne fait que constater. Her equanimity has never been overset by the wildest of his moments, and she has witnessed them all. It is needless to say that she is not frightened by his drama, for Nature takes care that her young creatures shall not be injured by sympathies. ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... remembered that Mrs. Todd had told me one day that Captain Littlepage had overset his mind with too much reading; she had also made dark reference to his having "spells" of some unexplainable nature. I could not help wondering what errand had brought him out in search of me. There was something ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... renders its votaries credulous. Madam de Menthon resolved to make use of this discovery, and one day, while Madam de Warrens was at cards with this lady's ungrateful favorite, she contrived, in passing behind her rival, almost to overset the chair she sat on, and at the same instant, very dexterously displaced her handkerchief; but instead of this hideous rat, the gentleman beheld a far different object, which it was not more easy to forget than to obtain a sight ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... told me—had found his chair overset behind him, but no other sign of a struggle. He had been stabbed in front, high on the left breast and a little below the collar-bone, and must have toppled forward at once across the step, and died where he fell. The chair had been righted and set in place, perhaps by Ann when ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... attempt to possess herself of the letter. This time she rose decidedly, and, putting aside the little ecarte table which was in her way, pressed forward to the drawer, saying something about "counters." Her Cachemere caught on Helen's harp, and, in her eager spring forward, it would have been overset, but that the general felt, ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... was the sudden shock of the sight of his old captain's face—whom he himself had murdered and thought dead and buried—flashing so out against the darkness, or whether it was the strain of passion that overset his brains, certain it is that when the pirates left the Belle Helen, carrying with them the young lady and Barnaby and the traveling trunks, those left aboard the Belle Helen found Sir John Malyoe lying in ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... you, God knows, with all sincerity, Signor Marchese. I have spoken as I have never before spoken to any human being. I have opened my heart to you to the very bottom of it. But the effort of doing so has been a painful one. It has terribly overset me; I feel like a wrung-out rag; and would fain rest. You will not be offended if I ask you to leave me now. It is getting late, too; and I expect my father home every instant. Good-night, Signor Marchese. Forgive me if I have said aught that I should not ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... And they thrust the oak table forward, and overset it in front of the door, throwing the chairs and stools on either side, that men might ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... that I should concern myself about," said Percival, superbly. And Vivian was almost sorry that he had made the remark, for it overset all the remains of his friend's good temper, and brought into ugly prominence the upright, black mark upon his forehead caused by ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... This rebuke almost overset him; he made many apologies, and said that he should certainly have first applied to her, but that he had no notion the young lady would have refused him, and, on the contrary, had concluded that she would have assisted him to persuade ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... familiar: but does the Minnow understand the Ocean Tides and periodic Currents, the Trade-winds, and Monsoons, and Moon's Eclipses; by all which the condition of its little Creek is regulated, and may, from time to time (unmiraculously enough), be quite overset and reversed? Such a Minnow is Man; his Creek this Planet Earth; his Ocean the immeasurable All; his Monsoons and periodic Currents the mysterious Course of ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... Halcyon by the ancients. Aristotle has described the bird and its nest; which, according to him, resembled those concretions that are formed by the sea water, and fashioned in the shape of a long necked gourd, hollow within, but so narrow at the entrance, that if it overset the water could not enter. This nest was called Halcyoneum, and had medical virtues ascribed to it: it was also a floating one; and therefore it was necessary for the poets who have described it to place it on a tranquil sea, and to supply the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 481, March 19, 1831 • Various
... his abhorrence; he loathed Buonaparte like Antichrist. Towards the end he fell into a kind of dotage; his family must entertain him with games of tin soldiers, which he took a childish pleasure to array and overset; but those who played with him must be upon their guard, for if his side, which was always that of the English against the French, should chance to be defeated, there would be trouble in Baxter's Place. For these opinions ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a clap of thunder in my ears. I may have been stunned for a moment. A pitiless hail was hissing round me, and I was sitting on soft turf in front of the overset machine. Everything still seemed grey, but presently I remarked that the confusion in my ears was gone. I looked round me. I was on what seemed to be a little lawn in a garden, surrounded by rhododendron bushes, ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... consoled them, in its absence of any witness to their disaster; even their previous slight attitude to each other was forgotten. They groped their way, pushing and panting, to the road again, where, beholding the overset buggy with its wheels ludicrously in the air, they suddenly seized and shook each other, and in an outburst of hilarious ecstasy, fairly laughed until the tears came ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... Racey, and overset a glass in such a way that four fingers of raw liquor splashed into Luke Tweezy's lap. "S'funny all right—an' that's fuf-funnier," he added as Luke and his chair scraped backward to avoid the ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... Poltermore, are to be in luck's way up to the tenth milestone,—where your chariot will overset and you will be ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... tide or hap, or natural negligence of joyfulness (for though they could not be heard, yet by their gestures they seemed singing at the time) forced in deep water against that iron bar, the ill-made catamaran was overset, and came all to pieces; when dashed by broad-chested swells between their broken logs and the sharp teeth of the reef, both adventurers perished before ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... of March, land was discovered to the W. It was an island six leagues round, which offered but a bad anchorage. The boats landed with difficulty, and one of them was actually overset in one of their visits and the crew nearly ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... He did not wish to be the first to tell his name, but, to give his father an opportunity of recognising him, he drew his sword, as if he meant to cut some of the meat with it, and showed it to Aegeus. Aegeus at once recognised it, overset the cup of poison, looked closely at his son and embraced him. He then called a public meeting and made Theseus known as his son to the citizens, with whom he was already very popular because of his bravery. It is said that when the cup was overset the poison was spilt in the place where now there ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... this anchorage the next morning with a fresh breeze of wind from south-east; as we steered round Cape Tribulation the sea ran so heavy that our boat, which was towed astern, filled and overset, and in a moment went to pieces. The wind had now increased to a gale, and the weather threatened so much that we were induced to take advantage of a bight to the northward of the Cape, in which we anchored at three quarters of a mile from the mouth of a rivulet, ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... drunken, He turned water into wine that they might have more to drink; that in the cornfield He plucked the cars of corn and ate them; that He saw an ass hitched, and without leave took it and rode into Jerusalem; that He went into the Temple and overset the tables of the money changers and took cords and whaled them out, telling them they had made His Father's house a den of thieves. I am aware that all Christians justify the acts of Christ, because He was the Son of God. But the people at that time did not ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... upon the fight, an eager crew Were gathered to the margin of their deck (Leaving the upper side as bare of foes), Their ship was overset. Beneath the keel Which floated upwards, prisoned in the sea, And powerless by spread of arms to float The main, they perished. One who haply swam Amid the battle, chanced upon a death Strange and unheard of; for two meeting ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... Aurora Borealis, and I supposed it was an interchange of rifle shots. There were flashes like summer lightning; and then all the sky became a whirling confusion of battle that was still largely noiseless. Some of the Central European aeroplanes were certainly charged and overset; others seemed to collapse and fall and then flare out with so bright a light that it took the edge off one's vision and made the rest of the battle disappear as though it had been snatched back ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... letter thus held some material of comfort for me, although it refused my request. Papa would not overset the overseer's decision about the prayer-meetings. It held something else. There was a little scrap of a note to Aunt Gary, saying, in the form of an order, that Daisy was to have ten dollars paid to her every quarter; that Mrs. Gary would see ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... who is the Calli who sits by the brasero, was spared; so we roamed about and choried and told baji; and it came to pass that once in the winter time our company attempted to pass a wide and deep river, of which there are many in the Chim del Corahai, and the boat overset with the rapidity of the current and all our people were drowned, all but myself and my chabi, whom I bore in my bosom. I had now no friends amongst the Corahai, and I wandered about the despoblados howling and lamenting till I ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... dear relative's assistance, and Mrs. Merillia endeavoured to rise and to lean upon his anxious arm. After a struggle, however, in which the Prophet took part and two chairs were overset, she was ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... but why all these precautions? Only, mark my words, the Duke has an infallible way of detecting, or rather of preventing, any attempt at imposition. It is ever thus, the most trivial circumstance will overset the best laid plans, and the inevitable destroy the combinations ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... thus with the girl, it chanced that certain things, being overset by a cat, fell with a noise that aroused the good woman, who, fearing that it might be a matter of more consequence, got up as best she might in the dark, and betook her to the place whence the noise seemed to proceed. ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... at this time is not generally lively; there is, he says, "a certain deadness to everything, which I think I may date from poor John's (his brother's) loss. Deaths overset one. Then there's Captain Burney gone. What fun has whist now?" He proceeds, "I am made up of queer points. My theory is to enjoy life; but my practice is against it." The only hope he has, he says, is, "that some pulmonary affection may relieve me." The success which attended the "Elia" Essays ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... dared not disobey the tyrant's order. From feelings of modesty Kleonike entreated the attendants at the door of his bedchamber to extinguish all the lights, and she then silently in the darkness approached the bed where Pausanias lay asleep. But she stumbled and overset the lamp.[307] He, awakened by the noise, snatched up his dagger, and imagining that some enemy was coming to assassinate him, stabbed the girl with it, wounding her mortally. It is said that after this her spirit would never let ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... to accept. His strength was almost exhausted when he reached the wherry, which was lying at the Temple Stairs according to appointment; and, when he pitched the trunk into it, the weight sank the bow of the boat so low in the water as well-nigh to overset it. ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... in the glass and think I was handsome. It seemed quite natural that every one should be kind and indulgent to me. I shall never forget the feeling I had when the landlady spoke to me in that hard, sharp way. My whole idea of the world was overset all at once; I seemed to be in a miserable dream. I sat in my mother's bedroom hour after hour, and, every step I heard on the stairs, I thought it must be my mother coming back home to me;—it was impossible ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... have written a minuet. I am not a judge of English poetry, but those who are told me it is very good. Is it printed?" This intolerable impertinence, which, however, she probably meant for condescension, so utterly overset Cat., that she could find not a word to say, and treated the overture so coldly that nothing more ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... came to anchor at the island of Fernando Noronba, in lat. 4 deg. S. where our skiff was overset going ashore, by the violence of the surf, and Richard Michelburne, a kinsman of our general, was drowned, all the rest being saved. The 25th, our long-boat, while going to fill some empty casks with water, fell in with the same unfortunate ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... maid had been so quick of eye; "there is nothing so bad but it might be worse," thought he; and the recovery of these few seemed to him almost as great an affair as the loss of all the rest. But, alas! as he stooped to pick up his treasures the loiterer made a rapid onslaught, overset both Harry and the maid with a movement of his arms, swept up a double handful of the diamonds, and made off along the street with ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... beating the Magister, so that the fur gown made a greyish whirl about his scarlet suit in the midst of a tangle of spun wool; spinning wheels were overset, Margot Poins crashed around upon them, wailing; the girls with their distaffs were crouching against the window-places and in corners, crying ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... all others the most curious vehicle, said my father, yet at the same time 'tis of so slight a frame, and so totteringly put together, that the sudden jerks and hard jostlings it unavoidably meets with in this rugged journey, would overset and tear it to pieces a dozen times a day—was it not, brother Toby, that there is a secret spring within us.—Which spring, said my uncle Toby, I take to be Religion.—Will that set my child's nose on? cried my father, letting go his finger, ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... may be indefinitely multiplied, for this principle is as true in the law as any physical fact in the exact sciences. It is not contended, indeed, that any degree of doubt must be of a reasonable nature, so as to overset the moral evidence of guilt. A mere possibility of innocence will not suffice, for, upon human testimony, no case is free from possible innocence. Even the more direct evidence of crime may be possibly ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... younger daughters, as they were rattling round the steep downward twists and turns of the great road, "you must sit quite still on these descents, or you do not know where you may go. The least thing would overset us." But Lucy and Sophy soon knew better, and became so intimate with the mountain, under the friendly guidance of their courier, that before the plains were reached, they were in and out, and here and there, and ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... secured from the feeble villany of these three associates, till Aristophanes joining them, broke down by wit the barrier that protected him. In the comedy of the Clouds he threw the venerable old man into such forcible ridicule as overset all the respect of the mob for his character, and all their gratitude for his services, and they no longer paid the least reverence to the philosopher whom for fifty years Athens had regarded as a being of a superior order. This accomplished, the conspirators ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... courtyard, with brewhouse and dairy on each side, and a pleasant smell of baking bread, and dogs winking in the sun, cats at the corners of doors, satisfied with life, and turkeys parading, and fowls, strutting cocks, that overset the dignity of Mr. Raikes by awakening his imitative propensities. Certain white-capped women, who were washing in a tub, laughed, and one observed: 'He's for all the world like the little bantam cock stickin' 'self up in a crow against the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... studying the papers, to catch what this offensive tone of the Neapolitan Minister was, I have found it so evanescent that I really cannot discern it, and suppose there must be something in the manner, or in Lord Napier's state of mind at the time, which overset him. ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... order of the day, as every condition had been legally fulfilled, that a particular case could not justify an infraction of decreed laws; and that, too, on such indications, to do away with a condemnation legally pronounced by a jury, would be to overset all ideas of justice and equality before ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... and craggy cliffs, such as we had not seen the like of since leaving Cape St Johns. The tide being now in our favour carried our ships to the westwards against the wind, when suddenly one of our boats struck on a rock and overset, so that our people had to leap out and set it to right again. After going along this coast for two hours, the tide turned against us, so that it was impossible to advance any farther with all our oars. We went therefore to land, leaving 10 or 12 of our people ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... lord, (albeit no lover of Frenchmen,) received the stranger with a good-humoured shake of the hand, and, on parting with him, made a little speech to the mob, recommending it to them "to take care and not overset ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... while kingdoms overset, Or lapse from hand to hand, Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet Thine acorn ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... back again in my old, isolated condition,—to be nothing, to wish nothing, to do nothing, but what the present moment brings with it!... Yet I am too proud to think myself unhappy. I just grind my teeth, and let the boat go as pleases wind and waves. Enough that I will not overset it myself." It is plain from this letter that suicide had been in his mind, and, with his antique way of thinking on many subjects, he would hardly have looked on it as a crime. But he was too brave a man to throw up the sponge to fate, ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... preparing a particular brew of toddy, which needed a single oyster simmering in the saucepan to give it its perfection of flavour. About two o'clock of a June morning the spirit lamp on which the saucepan stewed had been overset; neither of the two confederates in drink had their wits about them at the moment, and the house was half burnt and the rest of it ruined by water before the fire could be ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... mass was celebrated by the Bishop of Nantes. Then, amid acclamations and blessings, and with largess to the crowd, the king returned to the monastery of Saint Denis, where he dined amid a multitude of spectators, who thronged so thickly around him that his dinner-table was nearly overset. These were the very Parisians, who, but three years before, had been feeding on rats and dogs and dead men's bones, and the bodies of their own children, rather than open their gates to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... it, though it contained only three people besides the rower. We had just landed on the East bank, when we observed the canoe, in which were the three soldiers, pushing off from the opposite bank. It shortly after overset, and though the natives from the shore swam in to their assistance, yet J. Cartwright was unfortunately drowned. The natives dived and recovered two of the muskets, and Cartwright's body; they put the body in the canoe and brought it over. I used the means recommended by the Humane Society, ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... Mucklebackit, the fisherman whom we have so often mentioned, had been swamped at sea, and four men had perished, it was affirmed, including Mucklebackit and his son. Rumour had in this, however, as in other cases, gone beyond the truth. The boat had indeed been overset; but Stephen, or, as he was called, Steenie Mucklebackit, was the only man who had been drowned. Although the place of his residence and his mode of life removed the young man from the society of the country folks, yet they failed not to pause in ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... into his head. Before I could stop him—we were hiding in the bakehouse—he'd whipped up a storm of wildfire, with flashlights and voices, which sent the folk shrieking into the garden, and a girl overset a hive there, and—of course he didn't know till then such things could touch him—he got badly stung, and came home with his face looking like kidney potatoes! 'You can imagine how angry Sir Huon and Lady Esclairmonde were with poor Robin! They said the Boy was ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... peat flew so much about, that I dreaded the vessel might take fire. Then as Col was a sportsman, and had powder on board, I figured that we might be blown up. Our vessel often lay so much on one side, that I trembled lest she should be overset, and indeed they told me afterwards that they had run her sometimes to within an inch of the water, so anxious were they to make what haste they could before the night should be worse. I now saw what I never saw before, a prodigious ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... tables overset; The wash-tub spilled, and the floor all wet; And here and there in cinders black, ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... present state of copyright there is no help; we can, however, keep the American edition out of the Colonies, which is something. I have nothing more to say save to commend you not to go on the water without me; perhaps you would be overset; and do not go on the bridge again till I come. Take care of Habismilk and Craffs; kiss the little mare and ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... Russia's plans were overset by the premature outbreak of the Balkan war. But she was bent on getting all she could out of it for her side, and dragged France along with her. At the beginning of the Italy-Tripoli war, Izvolsky had written: "We must even now not only concern ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... himself at table with evident misgivings, and turning sharp round to pay attention to some observation of his loquacious neighbour, overset his bread. There was nothing very bad in this, and if he had had the presence of mind to let it go, and say nothing about it, nobody but the man who had laid the cloth would have been a bit the wiser; but the young gentleman in various semi-successful attempts ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... whole of them over; an hour more was employed in transporting the baggage; and it was near sunset before the canoe returned, when Demba Sego and myself embarked in this dangerous passage-boat, which the least motion was like to overset. The king's nephew thought this a proper time to have a peep into a tin box of mine that stood in the fore part of the canoe; and in stretching out his band for it, he unfortunately destroyed the equilibrium, and overset the canoe. Luckily we were not far advanced, and got back ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... performance which is accomplished by means seemingly inadequate to its production. To be sure we met with a few accidents. First, Lizzy spoiled nearly all her cowslips by snapping them off too short; so there was a fresh gathering; in the next place, May overset my full basket, and sent the blossoms floating, like so many fairy favours, down the brook; then, when we were going on pretty steadily, just as we had made a superb wreath, and were thinking of tying it together, Lizzy, who held the riband, ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... offer'd. The Messenger soon return'd, and let me know that I could not have it under 5 Guineas; and this I refused to give, knowing it was not worth one fifth part of the money. But this, my refusal, had like to have overset all we had before done, for soon after about 100 Men, some Arm'd with Musquets, others with Lances, came down to the Landing Place. Besides the officer that commanded this party, there came along with them a ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... his ragged regiment out of doors; to have carried every hog into captivity, and depopulated every hen-roost on the face of the earth with perfect impunity—but this wanton attack upon one of the most gallant and irreproachable heroes of modern times is too much even for me to digest, and has overset, with a single puff, the patience of the historian and ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... supposed that this movement proceeded from fear, they immediately closed up around the flotilla with shouts of triumph. The wind now sprung up, and the whole fleet made sail through the throng of canoes, plying their oars at the same time, and run down and overset great numbers of the Mexican canoes, compelling all the rest to fly for shelter to the recesses and shallows on the borders of the lake. After this, Cortes made sail to Cojohuacan[4], where he was again attacked by the Mexicans, both by means of their canoes ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... in front, struck him several quick and violent blows in the face with the bludgeon. The white cloth was instantly dyed with crimson; but, regardless of this, Jonathan continued his murderous assault. The struggles of the wounded man were desperate—so desperate, that in his agony he overset the table, and, in the confusion, tore off the cloth, and disclosed a face horribly mutilated, and streaming with blood. So appalling was the sight, that even the murderers—familiar as they were with scenes of slaughter,—looked ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth |
