"Perilous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prince's first meeting with Sue, since that memorable day when the secret of their clandestine love became known to Lambert. Sir Marmaduke knew well that it had been fraught with danger; that every future meeting would wax more and more perilous still, and that the secret marriage itself, however carefully and secretively planned, would hardly escape the prying ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... long ago he had prudently broken both his pledged word and his dangerous connections in Mexico, and had started what he believed to be a safe and legitimate career in New York, entirely free from perilous affiliations. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... It was that he had, unconsciously, no doubt, undermined the foundation of definite Christian belief, and had resolved it into a philosophy, so-called scholastic, which was now exploded. It was the sense of the perilous issues to which this diluted form of Blanco White's speculations, so recklessly patronised by Whately, was leading theological teaching in the University, which opened the eyes of many to the meaning of the movement, and brought some fresh friends ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... the story I wished to tell. It is full of suggestion to all who are starting forth upon life's perilous journey. Let truth, honor, integrity, and humanity, govern all your actions. Do not make haste to be rich, lest you fall into divers temptations. Keep always close to the right; and always bear in mind that ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... frail mortal! When I wandered through the fields of light where the happy souls play, I was borne up by the love of a woman, the wings of an angel; resting on her heart, I could taste the ineffable pleasures whose touch is more perilous to us mortals than are the ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac
... using to bring us closer to Thee. Hear, O Lord, the groans and cries of the widows and orphans of the slaughtered ones; men who gave up their lives in the feeble efforts to defend their homes and firesides. (Do, Lord.) Bless Brother Silkirk and his little family (Amen), who are about to start upon a perilous journey. The way is beset by demons thirsting for his blood. (Lord, help.) But he's in Thy hands, and Thou canst save him and save us from further persecution, if ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... the Turks to give up this demand. The second Turkish objection was that Russia had not sufficiently clearly declared its intention of refraining from all interference in internal affairs. But the Turkish Foreign Minister agreed that internal affairs in Austria-Hungary were an even more perilous sphere for Russian intrigues than were the Turkish; if I had no hesitation in accepting, he ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... inured to a hot climate; his medical knowledge would not only contribute to the preservation of his own health, but would also secure him the respect and veneration of the natives. At the commencement of his narrative, he relates the feelings which animated him in deciding on this perilous journey. The prospects of personal advantage held out, even should he prove successful, were so inconsiderable, that in his acceptance of the offer, he was evidently actuated by an ardent desire of adding ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... since her return to it from the convent where she had been educated. The innocent and simple hearted maiden looked forward to her marriage as to a release from a tedious and intolerable bondage. They had shown her King Charles's picture, and had given her an account of his perilous adventures and romantic escapes, and of the courage and energy which he had sometimes displayed. And that was all she knew. She had her childlike ideas of love and of conjugal fidelity and happiness, and believed that she was going to realize them. As she looked ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... marvel, when art is a brief truancy from rational practice, that the artist himself should be a vagrant, and at best, as it were, an infant prodigy. The wings of genius serve him only for an escapade, enabling him to skirt the perilous edge of madness and of mystical abysses. But such an erratic workman does not deserve the name of artist or master; he has burst convention only to break it, not to create a new convention more in harmony with nature. His originality, though ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Ride on! "Tis a pace will kill! Like Smuggler BILL and Exciseman GILL, In the Ingoldsby Legends, you ride a race On a perilous path, at a breakneck pace, In a mingled spirit of hate and fear, Too hot to heed, and too deaf to hear; With a fierce red eye on each other cast, And a rate of going that cannot last, On a road that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 5, 1892 • Various
... the boats. Jules Fontaine liked the business of diving. When the two men found themselves in a strange land, without any occupations, Captain Jules joined his fortunes with the pearl divers and for many years followed their perilous trade. ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... upon an emprise as momentous to that youth-errant as Perilous Bridge or Dragon's Cave could have been ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Once outside he placed his hand upon his heart and made a low bow to the handle, retreating backwards to the head of the stairs. Then he proceeded to slide down the banister, to the trifling detriment of his waistcoat. As he reached the end of his perilous journey a door opened at the foot of the stairs, and a man's form became discernible in the ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... be made than to train a girl to womanhood in ignorance of all life's duties and burdens, and then to let her face them for the first time away from all the old associations, the old helps, the old refuge on the mother's breast. That "perfect innocence" may be very beautiful, but it is a perilous possession, and Eve should have the knowledge of good and evil ere she wanders forth from the paradise of a mother's love. Many an unhappy marriage dates from its very beginning, from the terrible shock to a ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... the boat was manned, the captain himself keeping charge of the tiller. His object was not to approach the land, but to prevent being carried among the breakers, which, surging up snow-white, presented a perilous barrier to ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... too cunning and careful to be a smuggler himself, but he was also cunning enough to "scoop in" the major portion of the earnings of the men engaged in the perilous trade. ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... in ribbons, her banners in tatters! Her masts are afloat from the perilous wreck, And now o'er the billows the Tempest Fiend scatters With one mighty effort her ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... "Dangerous?" says Erec; "do you know about it? Whatever it be, tell us about it; for very gladly would I know." "Sire," says he, "I should fear that you might suffer some harm there. I know there is so much boldness and excellence in your heart that, were I to tell you what I know of the perilous and hard adventure, you would wish to enter in. I have often heard the story, and more than seven years have passed since any one that went in quest of the adventure has come back from the town; yet, proud, bold knights have come hither ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... were perilous for elephants, Hamilcar made his way in among them. He followed the long chain which extends from the promontory of Hermaeum to the top of Zagouan. This, they believed, was a device for hiding the insufficiency of his troops. But the continual uncertainty ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... obligation, they felt, in all its energy, the force of that tender tie which binds the heart of every virtuous man to his native land. It was to renew that connection with their country which had been severed by their compulsory expatriation, that they resolved to face all the hazards of a perilous navigation and all the labors of a toilsome distant settlement. Under the mild protection of the Batavian government, they enjoyed already that freedom of religious worship, for which they had resigned so many comforts and enjoyments at home; but their hearts panted for a restoration to the ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... said the old man. "Why should Geronimo think himself less exposed to danger than others? That Geronimo should be rash is excusable; but, Mary, you deserve a severe reprimand for encouraging your friend in his perilous design." ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... pasture, on the hillside. Walk in the woods, and the dry leaves rustle with the whir of their wings the air is vocal with their cheery call. In excess of joy and vivacity, they run, leap, scream, chase each other through the air, diving and sweeping among the trees with perilous rapidity. ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... them. There were three on each bed, curled up in every variety of picturesque and comfortable attitude; two sat on one of the bureaus, having pushed books and toilet articles up into a toppling and highly perilous mountain behind them; four more crouched somehow on the rather narrow window-seats. The rest were on the floor, except two early birds, who had come in time to get the two chairs. The floor was made comfortable with sofa-pillows, borrowed from the whole length ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... a sense more strangely beautiful, did I ever witness. Her tremulous, rapid, affectionate, eager, Scotch voice,—the swift, aimless, bewildered mind, the baffled utterance, the bright and perilous eye; some wild words, some household cares, something for James, the names of the dead, Rab called rapidly and in a "fremyt" voice, and he starting up surprised, and slinking off as if he were to blame ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... almost to Scyros, but had found no harbour. Then a weary day with the oars had brought him close to the Euboean shore, when a freshet of storm drove him seaward again. Now at last in this northerly creek of Sciathos he had found shelter and a spring. But it was a perilous place, for there were robbers in the bushy hills-mainland men who loved above all things to rob an islander: and out at sea, as he looked towards Pelion, there seemed something adoing which boded little good. There ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... turned our way, Victory visible, Walking at thy right hand, Beloved; O lift this day Thine arms, thy voice, as a spell; And pray for thy brother, pray, Threading the perilous land, ...
— The Electra of Euripides • Euripides
... fairly shouted with delight as I opened my eyes. According to his story the Austrians, falling back under the cavalry charge, had evacuated the trench without noticing, in the darkness, that I was missing. But soon discovering my absence he started back to the trench in search of me. It was a perilous undertaking for him, for the Cossacks were still riding about, and he showed me with pride the place where a stray bullet had perforated his knapsack during the search. He revived me, gave me first aid, and succeeded with great difficulty in helping me out of the trench. For ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... relationships than one who has struggled through in the customary manner of mankind. To take the inexperienced Jesus as our guide in practical living would be like a traveller who was planning a trip over perilous mountains and engaged as a guide a man who ...
— The Mistakes of Jesus • William Floyd
... shall the wanderers greet Each splendid square and still untrodden street, Or of some crumbling turret, mined by time, The broken stairs with perilous step shall climb, Thence stretch their view the wide horizon round, By scattered hamlets trace its ancient bound, And, choked no more with fleets, fair Thames survey Through reeds and sedge pursue his ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... the shadow of that dread sorrow, and that perilous uncertain future, they entered ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... unaccustomed skirting of precipices, hopping down ledges, and sliding down inclines too steep to afford a foothold he found himself leaning inward, sitting very light in the saddle, or holding his breath until a passage perilous was safely passed. In the next few years he had occasion to drop down the mountainside a great many times. After the first few trips he became so thoroughly accustomed that he often wondered how he had ever thought ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... in October, and the boys came back with their wonderful stories of the good time they had all had (especially some of the big boys, who were "en rhetorique et en philosophie")—and all the game that had fallen to their guns—wild-boars, roebucks, cerfs-dix-cors, and what not; of perilous swims in stormy seas—tremendous adventures in fishing-smacks on moonlight nights (it seemed that the moon had been at the full all through those wonderful six weeks); rides ventre a terre on mettlesome Arab steeds through gloomy wolf-haunted forests with charming female cousins; ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... boldly in the midst of the hostile crowd while two white cockades gleamed defiantly against the dark background of their cloaks. To an Englishman, who was a pastmaster in the noble art of using fists and knees to advantage, the situation was neither uncommon nor very perilous. The crowd was noisy it is true, and was no doubt ready enough for mischief, but Clyffurde's swift and scientific onslaught from the rear staggered and disconcerted the most bold. There was a good deal more shouting, plenty of cursing; ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... remained; and the hat, though it kept its border of feathers, was divested of every other ornament. There were pistols at the saddle-bow, which indeed were very necessary in those days to every one who performed the perilous and laborious duty of wandering along the King's Highway; and in every other respect the appearance of Lennard Sherbrooke was well calculated neither to ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... Queen's Ferry to Dunfirmline in the Kingdom of Fife. It was true that a false step or a slip of the foot would have dashed them to pieces on the rocks below. A gentleman of the party scouted the legend. Only a fox or an Alpine chamois could make that perilous descent. ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... art wooing, or title, or fame, There is that in the doing brings honour or shame; There is something in running life's perilous race, Will stamp thee as worthy, or brand thee as base. Oh, then, be a man—and, whatever betide, Keep truth thy ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... there was a passage through the continent to the Gulf of Carpentaria, and Freycinet and Baudin were by this time aware that no important discovery of this character was to be expected. But the navigation was perilous, the risks were unknown, and Freycinet should have been able to pursue his task unhampered by the fear that if circumstances compelled him to over-stay his time for a day or two, he would be abandoned in a small ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... many prayers and blessings from Miriam, and sad farewells from Camilla, he left his home to enter upon that perilous flight, the whole current ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... to young girls in tobacco, but the use of narcotics, anodynes, "drops" and chloral, to which many woman are becoming addicted, is even more perilous to body ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... Madame MELBA'S most perilous experience was on a tour in the Far East, when the liner in which she was travelling was caught by a tidal wave and hurled with enormous velocity towards the rocky coast of Sumatra. Noticing that a large whale was following the vessel, and remembering the peculiar susceptibility ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 7, 1914 • Various
... inspection, the new resident, when about halfway over, slipped off the plank on which he walked, and sank to his knees in the bog. Struggling only sent him the deeper, and he might have disappeared altogether, but for the workmen, who hastened to his assistance upon planks, and rescued him from his perilous position. Much disheartened, he desired to return, and even thought of giving up the job; but Mr. Locke assured him that the worst part was now past; so the new resident plucked up heart again, and both floundered on until they reached the ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... every port, and musters were taken throughout the kingdom. Everywhere the people pressed forward to help; in the Isle of Wight they were lining the shores with palisades, and taking every precaution to render a landing of the enemy a perilous enterprise.[1045] In Essex they anticipated the coming of the commissioners by digging dykes and throwing up ramparts; at Harwich the Lord Chancellor saw "women and children working with shovels at the ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... men at length appeared on the side nearest us; but when we called on them to swim on shore, they shook their heads, evidently not liking to make the attempt. The tide was now flowing fast, and their position was every instant becoming more perilous. It, however, made the passage less dangerous, as even in a few minutes the water became smoother than it ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... and in their climate, and with the summer coming on, the clothing of the troops was a matter of small concern. But their ammunition was running short. Everything was endeavoured, and timely, to remedy this; but there was no effectual remedy. Many a perilous march over the heights, and descent upon the shore, did one and another troop attempt—many a seizure of French supplies did they actually effect—many a trip did Paul, and others who had boats, make to one and another place, where it was hoped that powder ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... l'Hermitage, and, in obedience to that belief, they severed the ties of tradition and kindred, exposed their homes and the lives of those whose lives were dearer to them than their own to the rage of civil war, and placed all they hoped for and everything they loved upon the perilous hazard ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... then that poor wretch in the tumult of the waves, to whom, when he was in his agony, thou, Bertram, didst resign thy own security—and didst descend into the perilous and rocking waters? Deeply, oh deeply, I am in thy debt; far more deeply I would be, when I ask for favours such ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... in itself a loss of control and a dangerous one, for nothing is more perilous to sanity than the certainty that most other people in the world are wrong. Such conviction leads to a Jesuitical contempt of means; in cases where the Puritan shell has grown to be impregnable from the outside it sets up an internal ferment which sometimes bursts shell and ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... all the trees on the island had been felled to prevent the others from obtaining timber. The island was, indeed, so bare and naked, so scorched by the blazing sun, that life in it had become yet more perilous and terrible. However, it occurred to the man and two of his companions to employ the timbers of which their huts were built; and one evening they put out to sea on some rotten beams, which they had fastened together with dry branches. ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... of immortality which men have entertained have generally been accompanied by a sense of uncertainty in regard to the nature of that inheritance, by a perception of contingent conditions, yielding a twofold fate of bliss and woe, poised on the perilous hinge of circumstance or freedom. Almost as often and profoundly, indeed, as man has thought that he should live hereafter, that idea has been followed by the belief that if, on the one hand, salvation gleamed for him in the possible sky, on the other hand perdition yawned for him in the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... irregular as to require each to assist the other while passing from point to point. Beyond these a slender cleft, bordered by gnarled roots of low bushes, promised a somewhat easier and securer passage toward the summit. Hampton's face became deathly white as they began the perilous climb, but his hand remained steady, his foot sure, while the girl moved forward as if remaining unconscious of the presence of danger, apparently swayed by his dominant will to do whatsoever he bade her. More than once they tottered on the very brink, ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... suffocatingly hot in the little theater, and we were glad to think that we had arrived at the end of our perilous journey. The red on our cheeks was getting paler; the powder was becoming paste; the black on the eyebrowless actors began to run down their cheeks; Monsieur d'Espeuilles's wig and mustache were all on ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... the question remained for him still: how should he remedy this perilous state of things? For days he sat in a moody attitude over the fire, a pitcher of cider standing on the hearth beside him, and his drinking-horn inverted upon the top of it. He spent a week and more thus composing ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... which rolls in lazy flow Its coal-black waters from Oblivion's fount: The vapour-poison'd Birds, that fly too low, Fall with dead swoop, and to the bottom go. Escaped that heavy stream on pinion fleet 15 Beneath the Mountain's lofty-frowning brow, Ere aught of perilous ascent you meet, A mead of mildest ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... When Priam wishes to illustrate emphatically the most numerous host in which he ever found himself included, he tells us that it was assembled in Phrygia, on the banks of the Sangarius, for the purpose of resisting the formidable Amazons. When Bellerophon is to be employed in a deadly and perilous undertaking, by those who prudently wished to procure his death, he is despatched against the Amazons.—Grote, vol. ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... upon opiates for dulling the nervous strain. No trade is free from its special physical strain. There are, moreover, many morally dangerous trades. Work as chambermaids in hotels is conspicuously perilous for girls. The Chicago Juvenile Protective Association says, "The majority of girls who work in hotels go wrong sooner or later." The modern department stores, which employ the majority of young working-girls, offer temptations. Mrs. Florence Kelley refers to work in these stores ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... to perform so perilous a duty until our American friend, who had recovered from the effects of his kick, suggested that all present should take hold of the two ropes, and by pulling in opposite directions manage to keep the bird in a state of strangulation that ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... the death-wound, etc. Scott has the following note here: "When the stag turned to bay, the ancient hunter had the perilous task of going in upon, and killing or disabling, the desperate animal. At certain times of the year this was held particularly dangerous, a wound received from a stag's horn being then deemed poisonous, and more dangerous than one from the tusks ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... me, Margaret, there is no mistake. He is Ralph, the slate-picker, of whom I told you, who lives with Bachelor Billy. If he should survive this trying journey, take him immediately and bring him up as our son; if he should die, give him proper burial. We have set out on a perilous undertaking and some of us may not live through it. I write this note in case I should not see you again. It will be found on my person. Do not allow any one to persuade you that this boy is not our son. I know ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... once in his lifetime, though sometimes by his own fault, was brought into very perilous places. There are one or two incidents which are familiar to most of us, I dare say, in his life which are evidently referred to in the phrase 'He reproved kings for their sakes.' The principle remains in full force to-day, and God says to every thing and person, Death included, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... however, being as subservient to Bill Sykes or Daniel Quilp as to Leatherstocking or Dr. John Brown himself. This fidelity to me does not imply that he may not be highly treacherous to others, just as his protective value to me is in proportion to his savage and perilous possibilities to the not-me. Therefore I ought not to insist that my lovers must love my dog also. I should rather estimate their steadfast affection for me all the more on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... had heard from Peter, the "Jim" who, in Molly Maxwell's eyes, was an heroic figure. Peter never tired of telling anecdotes of Jim's wonderful feats of finance, his coolness and daring in times of black panic or perilous uncertainty in Wall Street, his scholarly attainments, of which he never spoke; his passion for music and gardens, and other contradictory traits such as no one would have expected in a keen business man. Sometimes Mary had fancied that Peter was a little inclined to fall in love with Jim ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... little of this last when he heard it dropped in conversation; but reading it in cold blood, and taking it in connection with the other strange particulars, he became convinced that he was engaged in perilous affairs. For half a moment he had a doubt of Lady Vandeleur herself; for he found these obscure proceedings somewhat unworthy of so high a lady, and became more critical when her secrets were preserved against himself. But her empire ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... seamstress stood on the sidewalk, looking helplessly across, but not daring to venture on the perilous passage. There was ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... respect to its visitation—namely, the province of Bisayas—was not troublesome to him, for he visited it. He did not hesitate at the suffering or the dangers of navigation, which at times is wont to be especially perilous, because of the many storms that generally invade the islands, and the not few enemies. He was considered lost, for he was not heard of for more than four months; for they wrote from the Bisayas that he had already embarked ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... he was a statesman in the highest sense of the word; the occasion was pressing and perilous; General Gordon had been for years Governor-General of the Sudan; General Gordon alone had the knowledge, the courage, the virtue, which would save the situation; General Gordon must go to Khartoum. ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... then by the whole legion. By this time the consul also, changing his plan on seeing them crossing the rampart, began to incite and encourage his soldiers, instead of calling them off; representing to them, how critical and perilous was the situation of the bravest cohort of their allies and a legion of their countrymen. All, therefore, severally exerting themselves to the utmost, regardless whether the ground were even or uneven, while showers of weapons were thrown against them from all sides, ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... with the left of the army. The right failing to penetrate through the swamp, and faring no better, was compelled to halt. All thought of a general attack for this day was abandoned. It only remained to withdraw the troops from their perilous position with as little loss as possible. This was done, not in a body, but regiment by regiment, under the same ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... first line mean? Some paths that are right paths for us to walk in still lead through perilous places; and this is the way the Psalmist refers to ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... autumn, those gay northerners, the birds, return to their southern plantations. The mountains are left bleak and sere. Solitude settles down upon them in drizzling mists. The traveller is beset, at perilous turns, by dense masses of fog. He emerges for a moment into more penetrable air; and passing some gray, abandoned house, sees the lofty vapors plainly eddy by its desolate door; just as from the plain you may see it eddy by the pinnacles of distant and lonely ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... of Hindostan. He was sometimes a scholar of Benares, and sometimes a disciple of the Mosque. According to the exigencies of the times, he was a pilgrim to Mecca or to Juggernaut. By a long, circuitous, and perilous route, he at length arrived at the Turkish capital. Here he resided for several years, deriving a precarious subsistence from the profession of a surgeon. He was obliged to desert this post, in consequence of a ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... a journey from St. David's to Rome a more perilous adventure in those unquiet days than an expedition "through darkest Africa" is in ours. At last the very Chapter of St. David's, for whose ancient rights he was contending, basely deserted him. "The laity of Wales stood by me," so he wrote in later ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... discrimination. This classification is according to temperament, education, example, custom, reading, strength or weakness of the imagination; there is a happy, asad, agentle, avehement, adallying, aserious, amelancholy, sentimentality, the last being the most poetic, the most perilous. ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... the wicked thing served them another trick; it slowly lay over on its side under the weight of the two men, who were now poised like panniers upon the extreme convexity of the silk. This was very perilous for both, but the change of position gave them a little rest, and Phillip shouted instructions round to Kenneth to slowly work his way back to the car, while he (Phillip) would mount to the top of the balloon, the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... lived together in a little house, in a by-street in Bloomsbury. Rose would never allow her husband to go out without her; the times were too perilous, either for him to be in the streets, or for her to remain alone at home. In the actual language of Ruth, she ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... switch, Gallagher had a sharp attack of memory. The day before, in the Horse Creek yard, he had seen and remarked a jagged scratch on the side of the Nadia. Hence, he was watching for the narrow rock cuttings, and the three passages perilous on the cliff face were made ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... of December, 1860, the House of Representatives organized what is known as the "committee of thirty-three," of which Mr. Corwin, of Ohio, was chairman. So much of the President's message as related to the perilous condition of the country was referred to it. Propositions of all kinds were sent to the committee, but the final result was, as anticipated, a disagreement upon ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... companions or the servants of the arch-conspirator Ballard; for the minister seems only to have humoured his taste in assisting him through this extravagant plot. Yet, as if a plot of so loose a texture was not quite perilous enough, the extraordinary incident of a picture, representing the secret conspirators in person, was probably considered as the highest stroke of political intrigue! The accomplished Babington had portrayed the conspirators, himself standing in the midst of them, that the imprisoned queen might ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... Guides, and also a company of the 66th Gurkhas under a native officer. Taking these troops, with great dash and personal gallantry he led them to the attack, drove back the already exulting enemy, stormed their position, and extricated Lieutenant Turner and his party from their perilous position. It was a noble deed, nobly and gallantly carried out; and when it had been achieved, the brave fighter returned to the tender care of the wounded, and to alleviate the ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... the border-land between the physical and the psychical, on the unconscious and the half-conscious, on presentiments and clairvoyance, as from another direction also Schelling's philosophy was brought into perilous connection with somnambulism. A second predominantly contemplative thinker was Karl Gustav Carus[2] (1789-1869; at his death in Dresden physician to the king; Lectures on Psychology, 1831; Psyche, 1846; Physis, 1851), greatly distinguished for his services to comparative anatomy. Carus ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... and if we neglect this first principle of right order and guidance, we shall find ourselves beginning to put forth other great powers, which are at present latent within us, without knowing how to find suitable employment for them—which would be a very perilous condition, for without having before us objects worthy of the powers to which we awake, we should waste them on petty purposes dictated only by the narrow range of our unilluminated intellect. Therefore the ancient wisdom says, "With all thy ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... this moment may be thus summed up: Either our frontier had to be defended on the spot under conditions which the British retreat rendered extremely perilous, or we had to execute a strategic retirement which, while delivering up to the enemy a part of the national soil, would permit us, on the other hand, to resume the offensive at our own time with a favorable disposition of troops, still intact, which we had at our command. The General ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... express an opinion that they will by no means go to the wall, and that they will be saved from such a destiny, if in no other way, then by their education. Of their political arrangements, as I mean before long to rush into that perilous subject, I will say nothing here. But no political convulsions, should such arise—no revolution in the Constitution, should such be necessary—will have any wide effect on the social position of the ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... details of caution, he assured himself. And while Marge O'Doone sat awake close to the door of her room all night, with a little rifle that had belonged to Nisikoos across her lap, David slept soundly in the amazing confidence and philosophy of that perilous age—thirty-eight! ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... and precipice as smooth and as far below. It was chilly there in the mountains; at night a stream or a wind in the gloom of the chasm below them went like a whisper; the stillness of all things else began to wear the nerve—an enemy's howl would have braced them; they began to wish their perilous path were wider, they began to wish that they had ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... his chair and expanded gloriously. He told tales of perilous adventure by flood and field, by mountain and forest; of the wild chase of moose and wapiti among the snows of the Rockies; of the fierce delight of single-handed combat with grizzly bears, the deadliest of their kind; of how he, Hardy, had been rolled down a canyon, locked in ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... verbal disagreements rise to hippopotamus-pitch again. Consequently when there was any real danger of such savagery as was implied in sending challenges, they hastened, by mutual concessions, to climb down from these perilous places, where loss of balance might possibly occur. For which of them could be absolutely certain that next time the other of them ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... extent, that, by refusing to discount any more, he would necessarily make them all bankrupts; and thus by ruining them, might perhaps ruin himself. For his own interest and safety, therefore, he might find it necessary, in this very perilous situation, to go on for some time, endeavouring, however, to withdraw gradually, and, upon that account, making every day greater and greater difficulties about discounting, in order to force these projectors by degrees to have recourse, either to ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... younger, entwining his round it, was thus led up to the summit in safety. The first on this evinced his delight by giving a salute something like the sound of a trumpet. The two animals then greeted each other as if they had been long separated, and had just met after accomplishing a perilous achievement. They mutually embraced, and stood face to face for a considerable time, as if whispering congratulations. The driver then made them salaam to the general, who ordered them five rupees each for ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... that I am speaking of, found himself in a perilous position. A fire had been raging for days, and now it was so close to his station that ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... suspected that the flood of invasion had reached high-water mark. Richmond, gazing night after night at the red glow which throbbed on the eastern vault, the reflection of countless camp-fires, and, listening with strained ears to the far-off call of hostile bugles, seemed in perilous case. No formidable position protected the approaches. Earthworks, indeed, were in process of construction; but, although the left flank at New Bridge was covered by the Chickahominy, the right was protected by no natural obstacle, as had been the case at Yorktown; and the lines occupied ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... Anagni, 1176). Henry VI, the son of Barbarossa, when he joined the kingdom of Sicily to the Empire through his marriage with Constance, the heiress of the Norman throne, sowed the seed of a new conflict, and bequeathed to Frederic II the perilous ideal of an Italy united under a Hohenstauffen despotism. Ecclesiastical freedom now became a euphemism for the preservation of the temporal power, and for the project of a federal Italy, owning allegiance to a papal suzerain. Frederic II, who came nearer to success ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... behavior of the odd man had shown that something was afoot outside of which those in the library were unaware. Was the uninvited guest the deus ex machina who was to help him, Desmond, out of his present perilous fix? ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... others would Christopher Columbus undertake his perilous journey into unknown seas; and the grandees of Spain walked ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... promptly and providentially rescued, was partially insensible; but some restoratives, which fortunately they happened to have on hand, being applied, she soon recovered, at least sufficiently to explain from whence she came, and through what means she had been placed in such a perilous situation. ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... Father Fabian, at a sign from Mr. Stillinghast, who leaned back exhausted. "It is a perilous thing, under the most favorable circumstances, for a Catholic to wed with a Protestant. If the Catholic has not the patience of a saint, and the constancy of a martyr, scandal must come. Concessions must be made—vital principles ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... college, because of the higher standard of requirement, it is probable that the glory of the secret society is already waning, and that the allegiance of the older universities to the open arenas of frank and manly intellectual contests, involving no expense, no dissipation, and no perilous temptation, is returning. At least there will now be an urgent question among many of the best men in college whether it ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... despised her husband heartily, and, as the story which we have to tell sufficiently proves, not without reason. She was interested by the conversation and flattered by the attentions of Hastings. The situation was indeed perilous. No place is so propitious to the formation either of close friendships or of deadly enmities as an Indiaman. There are very few people who do not find a voyage which lasts several months insupportably dull. Anything is welcome which may break that long monotony, a sail, a ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... process of cure acted by general means, and did not attack the head. From that moment, her curiosity was satisfied. Her mind had other objects of interest to dwell on, before she left Dimchurch. She touched on the perilous ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... the tall and saturnine sergeant-major of Lee's celebrated partisan legion, was a resident of Loudoun County. Readers of Lee's "Memoirs of the War" will recall the account of Champe's pretended desertion from the Continental armies. This perilous adventure was undertaken for the threefold purpose of capturing the traitor Arnold, saving the life of the unfortunate Andre, and establishing the innocence of General Gates, who had been charged with complicity in Arnold's nefarious ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... due to any act or neglect of his own. The first lay in the treason of his lieutenants. The governors of Damascus, of Aleppo, of Emesa, of Bostra, of Kinnisrin, all proved traitors. The root of this evil lay, probably, in the disorders following the Persian invasion, which had made it the perilous interest of the emperor to appoint great officers from amongst those who had a local influence. Such persons it might have been ruinous too suddenly to set aside, as, in the event, it proved ruinous to employ them. A dilemma of this kind, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... had she struck, would have sent her into a thousand splinters. A short distance more and they would be safe. The Zoe had observed them, and was standing towards them to render them assistance. Even their enemies forbore to fire, so perilous was their situation, and so certain appeared ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... what she meant. She was used to this sort of thing. "She likes my hair," said she, to lubricate the talk; and gave the mass of unparalleled gold an illustrative shake. Then, to steer the ship into less perilous, more impersonal waters:—"I must have another of those delightful little hot rolls, if I die for it. Mr. Torrens's mother—him I brought here, you know; he's got a mother—says new bread at breakfast is sudden death. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... these reasons: I believe in it; its energy is bound to give a tone that might be lacking otherwise; and—this is the principal point—there must be something to work back from. If I alarm with the mere chance of so perilous a menace to their democratic ideals, they will go to work in earnest at something in order to defeat me, and they will not go back so far in the line of vigour as if I had suggested a more moderate plan; for, mark my words, they would infallibly ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton |
