"Plash" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not like this description, nor the news the concierge had given. It was nine o'clock, and very dark, for it had begun to rain towards evening, and a monotonous drip, drip mingled with the plash of the fountain in the garden. Grim fancies came knocking at the door of my brain. It was a mad thing for a boy, little more than a child, to go out alone in the night with a stranger, a "rough-looking peasant-fellow," who pretended to know something ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... to note how in "Sylvie and Bruno" his idea of the thoughts of a child has become deeper and more spiritual. Yet in the earlier tale, told "all in a golden afternoon," to the plash of oars and the swish of a boat through the waters of Cherwell or Thames, the ideal child is strangely beautiful; she has all Sylvie's genuineness and honesty, all her keen appreciation of the interest of life; only there lacks that mysterious charm ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... hummocks. White, snow-laden floes and lumps of ice float on the dark surface, looking like white marble on a black ground. Occasionally there is a larger dark-colored pool, where the wind gets a hold of the water and forms small waves that ripple and plash against the edge of the ice, the only signs of life in this desert tract. It is like an old friend, the sound of these playful wave-lets. And here, too, they eat away the floes and hollow out their edges. One could almost ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... man that she since wadded does not think her a pin the waur for the misfortune.—They live, Mr. Mannering, by the shore-side, at Annan, and a mair decent, orderly couple, with six as fine bairns as ye would wish to see plash in a salt-water dub; and little curlie Godfrey—that's the eldest, the come o' will, as I may say —he's on board an excise yacht—I hae a cousin at the board of excise—that's 'Commissioner Bertram; he got ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... on the dark water. Not a breath of air was stirring; but fortunately the gentle ripple of the sea upon the shore, mingled with the soft roar of the breaker on the distant reef, effectually drowned the slight plash that we unavoidably made in the water by the dipping ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... they began to sink, till with one spasm of dread she seemed to awake, and find she was a child again in the parlor at evening twilight, and Tom was not really angry. From the soothed sense of that false waking she passed to the real waking,—to the plash of water against the vessel, and the sound of a footstep on the deck, and the awful starlit sky. There was a moment of utter bewilderment before her mind could get disentangled from the confused web of dreams; but soon the whole terrible truth urged itself upon her. Stephen ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... deeply impressive. The waves plash at your feet, and the seagull, strangely tame, screams close overhead; but glorious as is the unbroken view of sky and ocean, the loneliness of the place, and the unutterable mystery of the sea, and the deep sullen roar, and the memories of the long sad history of the sands, oppress your soul. ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... all a vague murmur, fraying off into nothing, ending like a wave with a long upward plash ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... were now pulling easily, and the long skiff darted up to them faster and faster still. Jack watched their pursuers with a fascinated eye. There was not the faintest sound made, save for the regular plash of the rising and falling oars. They were so near that he could see the naked backs of the oarsmen glisten as they swung their bodies to and fro in the starshine. Nearer, nearer, came the ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... of the river; its foundations are deep set in the water, and its rugged and buttressed walls are reflected stone by stone in the clear, tremulous mirror. The glancing lights on the bright stream, the wealth of leafy foliage, the sweet cadence of the ripples as they plash against the walls of the Quay, and the beauty of the long reflections—quivering lines of grey, green, and purple—increase the beauty of what is probably the most picturesque corner of the town, while over the tops of the trees peers the grey tower of ...
— Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath
... not, but she stood the image of doubt and painful indecision. Then the plash of oars was heard in the water, and at the next moment the pinnace was seen gliding over the element, impelled by the strong arms ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... was clean, and had an air of old-time respectability. The dining-room, which was evidently of more modern build, opened into a square courtyard where oleanders and lemon trees in boxes stood round the basin of a little fountain, whose tinkle and plash blended agreeably with the rattle of the knives and forks. In one corner of the room was a raised and railed platform, where behind a desk sat the mistress of the house, busy with her account-books, but keeping an eye the while on ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... Nor by tally nor price shall their worth be replaced; Ah, boded the morning of our brave unreturning, When it drifted the clouds in the rush of its blast. As we march'd on the hill, such the floods that distil, Turning dry bent to bog, and to plash-pools the heather, That friendly no more was the ridge of the moor, Nor free to our tread, and the ire of the weather Anon was inflamed by the lightning untamed, And the hail rush that storm'd from the mouth of the gun, Hard pelted the stranger, ere ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... hearty cry of the sailors, as with a plash and a cheer the anchor goes down, just in the deep water inside of Long Point; and then, says their journal, "being now passed the vast ocean and sea of troubles, before their preparation unto further proceedings as to seek out a ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... in the prow, and only we three sat up to feast on the beauty of the night. The moon rode high above our heads, changing the river into a silver band, and deepening the mysterious shadows of the crowding woods on either bank. Not a sound was heard but the regular plash of our blades; naught moved but our gliding boat, and the silent water which bore us. Ludar, lugging steadily at his oar, spoke not a word. Yet I knew, though I was at his back, where his eyes rested, and what was the big content in his heart. As for me, lulled by music of ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... wind Are tapping at the window-sash. A hawk is in the sky; his wings Slowly begin to plash. ...
— New Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... was I when I reached the other bank. Now for a better country. Vain presage! Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage, Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank 130 Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank, Or wild cats in a red-hot ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... placid, and the sea like a smooth lake. When we had got some way out, and the sounds of the water on the yacht, together with the human noises of her crew, had faded, a singular silence fell. The plash of the oars was the only sound that broke on the ears. The air was soft and serene; nature seemed to have at last relented, and to be out of key with those tragic deeds committed on the sea. As I sat, passing ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... exactly; yet, walled up as was that orchard with all its forbidden fruit, that evil fruit would hang over the wall so that if any lusty youth wished to taste it, he had only to reach up to the over-hanging branches and plash down on himself some of the forbidden bunches. Now, that was just what Matthew had done. Till we have him lying at the House Beautiful, not only not able to enjoy the delights of the House and of the season, but so pained in his bowels and so pulled together with inward pains, that he sometimes ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... probation had been a distinguished caterer; but he was addicted to a sort of dreaming of his own, even when the sun stood in the zenith, and he was walking the poop, in the midst of a circle of his officers. Still, he could not refrain from glancing back at the past, that morning, as plash after plash was heard, and recalling the time when magna pars quorum FUIT. At this delectable instant, the ruddy face of a "young gentleman" appeared in his state-room door, and, first ascertaining ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the tepid shingle, listening to the plash of the waves and watching the sun as it sinks over the western mountains that are veiled in mists during the full daylight, but loom up, at this sunset hour, as from a fabulous world of gold. Yonder lies the Calabrian Sila forest, the brigands' ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... all parts of the island, that Knox says, not the running streams alone, but the reservoirs and ponds, "nay, every ditch and little plash of water but ankle deep hath fish in it."[1] But many of these reservoirs and tanks are, twice in each year, liable to be evaporated to dryness till the mud of the bottom is converted into dust, and the clay cleft ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... pallid brows of a youthful pair. The maiden drooped like a gentle flower, When lashed by the gale in its quivering bower: Her arms round her lover she wildly twined, And gazed on the sea with a wildered mind. He bent o'er the trembler, and sheltered her form, From the plash of the sea, and the sweep of the storm; But woe to the lover, and woe to the maid, Whose hopes on the treacherous deep are laid! For the Sea hath a King whose palaces shine, In lustre and light down the pearly brine, And he loves to gather in glory there, The choicest ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... seems to have a great idea of our power," whispered Hollis, hopelessly. And then again there was a silence, the feeble plash of water, the steady tick of chronometers. Jackson, with bare arms crossed, leaned his shoulders against the bulkhead of the cabin. He was bending his head under the deck beam; his fair beard spread out magnificently over his ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... to the moist outer world; tree ferns, springing to sudden life on moss-clad trunks and boughs, showed brilliant as emeralds on velvet. The whole earth was quick with hidden stirrings and strivings, the whole air quick with living sound—plash of rain-drops; evensong of birds; glad shouting of cicadas among the branches, and the laughter ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... after conception weaves its nest with the thorns of the marine needle, making it round and oblong in shape like a fisherman's basket, and after deftly and closely weaving it together, subjects it to the action of the sea waves, that its surface may be rendered waterproof by this plash and cement, and it is hard for even iron or stone to break it. And what is more wonderful still, so symmetrically is the entrance of the nest adjusted to the kingfisher's shape and size, that no beast either greater or smaller can enter it, they ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... could keep its head and ears in the warmth and shelter, and never once attempted to creep in nearer; and so another hour passed, only broken by the low murmur of Dale's voice as he talked to the guide, and the plash and rush of water. For the dripping was drowned now by the enormous amount which fell, and this went on increasing till there was quite a heavy roar, as of ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... its storerooms; or the door of a mosque, with its mosaic floor and pillared corridor. The interminable lines of bazaars, with their atmospheres of spice and fruit and fragrant tobacco, the hushed tread of the slippered crowds; the plash of falling fountains and the bubbling of innumerable narghilehs; the picturesque merchants and their customers, no longer in the big trowsers of Egypt, but the long caftans and abas of Syria; the absence of Frank faces and dresses—in all these there was the true spirit of the ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... half-ashore, was bordered by a fringe of silver. When at one moment a gentle breeze lifted the water into ripples, countless stars floated, down a white waterway from yonder argent moon. Not a house on the banks of the mere; not a sign of life; only the low plash of wavelets on the pebbles. Hark! What cry was that coming clear and shrill? It was the curlew. And when the night bird was gone she left ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... overhead. Beautiful palms, kladiums, and tree ferns, grew in profusion around us, and rare orchids filled the air with their sweet perfumes. Strangely enough not a bird, or living thing, was to be seen in this lovely glen, and the solemn stillness which reigned, broken only by the plash of the water as it fell from rock to rock, ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... at the bottom of the pit, where the great drops of water fell plash. Many colliers were waiting their turns to go up, talking noisily. Morel gave ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... drifted on into the final week of July. There was scarcely any snow left on the hillsides by this time; the air was filled with the incessant cry of birds and the constant plash of falling waters. We could sleep well enough once more on the green grass in the open air; and another period of watching now began, for here it was that the vessels passed every year, as the savages told us. Sometimes, however, they did not stop; but, when the ships appeared, the savages ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... many boats in this little river; only a few dinghies, laden with dry branches and twigs, are moving leisurely along to the tired plash! plash! of their oars. At the river's edge the fishermen's nets are hung out to dry between bamboo poles. And work everywhere seems to be over for ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... up and down on the regular beat, sometimes in the full silvery moonlight, sometimes in the shade cast by the hut; one minute only the footsteps to break the silence, or the wallowing plash of one of the great reptiles that ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... iron—a boat-chain; then stillness. Only the lights showed that the boat had been launched into the middle of the river and was floating down stream. Soon the murmur of voices again, and the plash of oars, and now these sounds were quite close to Ivanov. One of the men was teasing the girls, the latter laughed at first, then all at once they ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... installed as reader and garde malade in general, and Clement Rutherford soon learned to await her coming with impatience and to welcome her with delight. All his life long will he remember those summer days, when her voice and the low plash of the far-off ocean waves wove themselves together into music as she read, and when the blue splendors of her lustrous eyes lent a new meaning to the poet's story as it flowed in melodious verses from her lips. Then came a day when the book was laid aside, and ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... green parasol. She went with him to the edge of the lake, where a couple of boats were always moored; they got into one of them, and Felix, with gentle strokes, propelled it to the opposite shore. The day was the perfection of summer weather; the little lake was the color of sunshine; the plash of the oars was the only sound, and they found themselves listening to it. They disembarked, and, by a winding path, ascended the pine-crested mound which overlooked the water, whose white expanse glittered ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... again made his way through the deserted and sleepy paths of the town to the old philosopher's house. He was wet, chilled, weary, and sick enough at heart as he leaned against the cold stone doorway and waited for an answer to his knock. The plash of the heavier rain-drops from the tiled leaves was the only sound he heard for many minutes, until, at last, pattering feet neared him on the inside, and a child's voice asked who was there. To his friendly response the door ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... wished to visit some nets on the lake. Mabel readily assented, and the stranger quitted the house, while Fenwolf lingered to offer some attention to Mabel, which was so ill received that he was fain to hurry forth to the boathouse, where he embarked with his companion. As soon as the plash of oars announced their departure, Mabel went forth to watch them. The stranger, who was seated in the stern of the boat, for the first time fixed his large melancholy eyes full upon her, and did not withdraw his gaze till an angle of the lake ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... he was, he could have sat down and cried. Blackest night seemed to nestle under those matted boughs, and the sullen gleams of stagnant water—the plash of a frog jumping in—the wading birds that stalked about—told him what to expect if he went farther. At the same instant a gleam of copper sunset struck across the heavens on the tops of the evergreens, and the west was not ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... moment or two, and then threw it from him with such force that it struck the far side of the shaft and sent up a series of echoes before, from far below, there came a dull sullen plash, with a succession of whishing, lapping sounds, such as might have been given out if some monster had come to the top and were swimming round, disappointed by what had fallen ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... cry: and straight the plash of oar, And creak of sail were stilled; And every ear Was tent to catch the strains her sweet voice trilled. Avast to gloomy thoughts and boding fear! Alack the day when she should witch their hearts ...
— Rowena & Harold - A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst • Wm. Stephen Pryer
... still waters as they lay between banks now overhung by mangrove thickets, now receding in plains dotted with gloomy clumps of gumtrees, as far as the eye, from our low position and by the imperfect light afforded, could reach. As we advanced, the measured plash of the oars frightened from their roosting places in the trees, a huge flock of screeching vampires, that disturbed for a time the serenity of the scene by their discordant notes; and a few reaches further up, noisy flights of our old friends, the whistling-ducks, greeted ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... to either bank. Then, as the surging eddies set the floating but stationary logs in motion, the huge saurian asleep on them can be heard giving a grunt of anger for the rude arousing, and pitching over into the current with dull sullen plash. ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... along, but even at that the boat frequently bumped into the bank. Reaching the lake, she paused to look and listen. Not more than ten rods above she saw lights on the shore of the island and a light on the water. A motor boat chugged a few times, the plash of an oar followed, ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... sat alone on the branch of a dead tree, or a kingfisher poised himself over the water, watching for his prey. Numerous gulls were gathered in large companies on the trees along the river-shore; alligators lay on its surface, diving with a sudden plash at the approach of our canoe; and occasionally a porpoise emerged from the water, showing himself for a moment and then disappearing again. Sometimes we startled a herd of capivara, resting on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... To list thy marriage-song; Dark as the touchstone that tries gold, And see now—on before thee— Those lines of tender light that creep The clouded sky along: O night! that trieth gold of love, This love is proven perfect! O lines that streak the touchstone sky, Plash forth true shining gold! O rose-leaf feet, go boldly! O night!—that lovest lovers— Thy softest robe of silence About these ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... they laid on their oars that night. All around them dim islands seemed to float, scarcely discernible in the fog; sometimes from the top of each a point would show itself, as of a mighty hand, and they could hear an occasional plash and roar, as if this hand came downwards. Once they heard a cry, as if of sailors from another vessel. Then they strained their eyes to gaze into the fog, and a whole island seemed to be turning itself ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... Plash fences thy plantation round about, And whilst yet young, be sure keep Cattel out; Severest Winters, scorching sun infest, And sheep, goats, bullocks, all young plants molest; Yet neither cold, nor the ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... spot, up here, by the queer lake, with timber on one side and the mountain on the other; the air was frosty, because ice would form any night, so high; not a sound could be heard, save the plash of trout, or the sighs of Apache as he fidgeted and dozed and grazed; but the Red Fox Scouts were snug under their tent, and under our bedding we Elks were cuddled warm, in two pairs and with ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... simple, plaintive melody, sounded to Lambert as refreshing as the plash of a brook in the heat of the day. He stood listening, his elbow on the show case, thinking vaguely that Alta had a good voice for singing ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... she said; "close by it, sir. There's one bed in our garden that always thrives, in the hottest summer, by the plash from the mill, sir." ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... well as fly-fishing, so that every fish knows the lures, the fun is mainly over. In April, no doubt, something may still be done, and in the silver twilights of June, when as you drift on the still surface you hear the constant sweet plash of the rising trout, a few, and these good, may be taken. But the water wants re-stocking, and the burns in winter need watching, in the interests of spawning fish. It is nobody's interest, that I know of, to take trouble and incur expense; and free fishing, by ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... wooded heights seemed tipped by fleecy, summer clouds, and off to the northeast Laramie Peak thrust his dense crop of pine and scrub oak above the mass of snowy vapor that floated lazily across that grim-visaged southward scarp. The drowsy hum of insects, the plash of cool, running waters fell softly on the ear. Under the shade of willow and cottonwood cattle and horses were lazily switching at the swarm of gnats and flies or dozing through the heated hours of the day. Out on the level flat beyond the corral the troopers had unsaddled, ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... beetle's hum The Elfin army's goblin drum To pigmy battle sound; And now, where dripping dew-drops plash On waving grass, their bucklers clash, And now their quivering ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... shore to spawn, and that he seizes too the haddock, having enticed it near by beating the water. Crantz, in his "History of Greenland," evidently alludes to this cunning habit when he observes, "They plash with their feet in the water, to excite the curiosity of some kinds of fishes to come and see what is going forward, and then they snap them up; and the Greenland women have learnt this piece of art from ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... pilgrim, starting, listens, and the noise is repeated, but instead of a groan, a croak—croak—croak! manifestly from a thing with life. A pause of silence! and hollower and hoarser the croak is heard from the opposite side of the glen. Eyeing the black sultry heaven, he feels the warm plash on his face, but sees no bird on the wing. By-and-by something black lifts itself slowly and heavily up from a precipice, in deep shadow; and before it has cleared the rock-range, and entered the upper region of air, he knows it to be a Raven. ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... and in another moment were on top of the big rock. It was almost as good as being at sea; for when they turned their backs to the shore nothing could be seen but water and sails and flying birds, and nothing heard but the incessant plash and dash ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... knowledge is, not to engage a man's self peremptorily in anything, though it seem not liable to accident; but ever to have a window to fly out at, or a way to retire: following the wisdom in the ancient fable of the two frogs, which consulted when their plash was dry whither they should go; and the one moved to go down into a pit, because it was not likely the water would dry there; but the other answered, "True, but if it do, how shall ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... my sleep. Like pencilled lines upon a tinted sheet The city's spires rose distant on the sky; Nor sound familiar to the crowded street Assailed my ear, nor busy scene mine eye; I saw the hills, the meadows and the river— I heard cool waters plash ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... upland lawns, as she rode happily on the dear old mare, by whom she really thought herself fondly recognised. There was something in the stillness of the whole, even in the absence of the roll and plash of the sea waves beside which she had grown up, that seemed to give her repose from the hurry and throb of sensations and thoughts that had so long preyed upon her; and when the ride was over she was refreshed, not tired, and the evening bell drew ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... He did not have to turn out at every mud-puddle, and he could plash into the mill-pond and give the frogs a crack over the head without stopping to take off stockings and shoes. Paul did not often have a dinner of roast beef, but he had an abundance of bean porridge, brown ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... went so far as to laud the Julia to the skies as the best and fastest of ships. Jermin too, as a good fellow, and a sailor every inch, came in for his share of praise; and as for the captain—quiet man, he would never trouble anyone. In short, every inducement we could think of was presented; and Plash Jack ended by assuring the beachcombers solemnly that, now we were all well and hearty, nothing but a regard to principle prevented us ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... half the distance, however, another flash announced the quick coming of the tempest, and the first premonitory drops began to plash down heavily upon the pavement. Still I ran on, thinking that I should find a cab in the Place de la Madeleine; but the Place de la Madeleine was empty. Even the cafe at the corner was closed. Even the omnibus office was shut up, and the red lamp ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... join their colours and melt subtly into distant purple. After crossing this we reach L'Isle, an island village girdled by the gliding Sorgues, overshadowed with gigantic plane-boughs, and echoing to the plash of water dripped from mossy fern-tufted millwheels. Those who expect Petrarch's Sorgues to be some trickling poet's rill emerging from a damp grotto, may well be astounded at the rush and roar of this azure river so close upon its fountain-head. It has a volume and an arrow-like rapidity that communicate ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... through the main part of the bedroom into the cabinet de toilette. She moved about in the cabinet de toilette thinking that the waltz out of The Rosenkavalier was divinely exciting. The delicate sound of her movements and the plash of water came to him across the bedroom. As he played he threw a glance at her now and then; he could see well enough, but not very well because the smoke of the shortening cigarette was in ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... rove through Tempe's vale, or scale the giant Alp, Where roses list the bulbul's late, or snow-wreaths crown the scalp; I'd pause to hear soft Venice streams plash back to boatman's oar, Or hearken to the Western flood in wild and falling roar; I'd tread the vast of mountain range, or spot serene and flower'd, I ne'er could see too many of the wonders God has shower'd; Yet though I stood on ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... the dictionary are those which may in almost every instance be heard in the speech of the uncultured wherever the English language is spoken. Among others are these words: chapellin', chanch, coxy, corchey, dawnin', fettle, franzy, gell, megrim, nattering, nesh, overrun, queechy, plash. In a letter to Professor Skeats, published in the Transactions of the English Dialect Society, she has explained her methods ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... returning enemy, while from time to time Mr Brooke's clear, short orders came out of the darkness behind us, and we knew that he had sent a party into the fixed boat to rock it from side to side. Then came a cheer, as the water rolled hissing and whispering among the reeds; there was the simultaneous plash of oars, and a ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... save for the presence of several copper-colored, blue- shirted individuals who were commencing the work of taking down and rolling up the silken awnings, accompanying their labors by a sort of monotonous chant that, mingling with the slow, gliding plash of the river, sounded as weird and mournful as the sough of the wind through ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... was beyond her strength. She could not move the helpless weight, and, in her despair, she let Tibbie's head fall back with a dull plash upon ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... was passing with four or five young men and girls who sang in good time and tune. Only a song of the music-hall or of the nigger minstrels, but it sounded pleasantly with the plash of the oars. A fine sunset had begun to glow upon the river; its warmth gave a tone ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... the fresh, monotonous plash of the waves, when the tide served, was his favourite resort. He could stand still and look out over the expanse of ripples, or wander on, as he pleased, watching the sea-gulls ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... all I had to trouble me! Oh, sir, work is occupation, but work harassed with care for others becomes unreal. I cannot sleep, thinking for Agnes. I cannot teach, my head throbs so. That river, so cold and impure, going along by the wharves, seems to suck and plash all day in my ears, as we see and hear it now. At my desk I seem to see those low shores and woods and marshes, on the other side, and the chatter of children, going all day, laps and eddies up like dirty waves between me and that indistinct boundary. ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... legacy, and amusing for ever from the obscurity of its source. They were superabundantly crude as yet—happily for Olive, who promised herself, as we know, to train and polish them—but they were as genuine as fruit and flowers, as the glow of the fire or the plash of water. For her scrutinising friend Verena had the disposition of the artist, the spirit to which all charming forms come easily and naturally. It required an effort at first to imagine an artist so untaught, so mistaught, so poor ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... the plash of oars quite near to the Fatma and deep voices of men chanting, almost muttering, a monotonous song that set the time for the oars. And although it rose up to him out of a golden world, it was like a chant ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... longer the hero of a romance, but face to face with a hard, practical, terrible reality. It was night when I landed at the Paddington Station, and taking an omnibus for Charing Cross, watched the long lines of lamps on Oxford Street, and the glitter of the Haymarket theatres, and at last the hard plash of the fountains in Trafalgar Square, with the stony statues grouped so rigidly about the ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... deserted for any otter's den or chance hole in the bank where he may sleep away the sunlight in peace. The great dam, upon which he toiled so many nights, is left to the mercy of the freshet or the canoeman's axe; and no plash of falling water through a break—that sound which in autumn or winter brings the beaver like a flash—will trouble his wise ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... and we stood staring at the black bulk lying motionless on the grey water; stood for a long time, listening. I, to tell the truth, was straining my ears to catch the plash of oars: I thought it possible that some of those on board the yawl might take a violent ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... places and doze in the shade of the pine forests. The coach was changing horses; the two young men walked along the village street, picking their way between dunghills, breathing the light, cool air, and listening to the plash of the fountain and the tinkle of cattle-bells. The coach overtook them, and then Rowland, as he prepared to mount, ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... queried, as they sat there embowered in palms and ferns, listening to the plash of the fountain, "didn't you enjoy the ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... it was full of peace. Upon the further side of the lawn, so that I could hear it but not see it, a fountain was playing into a basin. By the sound it was one of those high French fountains which the people who built such houses as these two hundred years ago delighted in. The plash of it was very soothing, but I was so tired and drooping that at one moment it sounded much further ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... very peaceful here in the hot haze that brooded over the still mountains, and there seemed to be nought to fear. We drew swiftly up to the mound, with the plash of oars only to break the silence, and there was nought amiss that we could see. They had made it on a little flat tongue of land that jutted from the mountain's foot into the deep water, so that on two sides the mound was close ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... little space Of silence, then the plash and spray, The sound of eager waves that ran To kiss the perfumed locks astray, To touch these lips that ne'er said 'Nay,' To dally with the helpless hands; Till the deep sea in silence lay On ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang
... It appeared to me that not a human voice was raised among those humiliated and defeated thousands. The plash of oars, so long as we were at a distance from the line, alone broke the silence of night; but that was incessant. As our canoe drew ahead, however, an hour or two after we had left the shore, and we overtook the boats that had first started, the moaning and groans of ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... finally lost in the shadow of the great bluff that abruptly shut in the entire point and plateau and shut out all further sight of lake or land in that direction. Far beneath he could hear the soft plash upon the sandy shore of the little wavelets that came sweeping in the wake of the raft-boat and spending their tiny strength upon the strand; far down on the hotel point he could still hear the soft melody of the waltz; ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... weather.[125] The frogs in the ditches, which croak ten times loader than any frogs in Europe, gave notice of rain by an incessant noise that was almost intolerable, and the gnats and musquitos, which had been very troublesome even during the dry weather, were now become innumerable, swarming from every plash of water like bees from a hive; they did not, however, much incommode us in the day, and the stings, however troublesome at first, never continued to itch above half an hour, so that none of us felt in the day the effects of the wounds they had ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... that saam gallow, for it is a diseash dat is fatal to our family. Vel, den, dere is nothing, shentlemens, but Mrs. Shullen would spaak wid the Count in her chamber at midnight, and dere is no haarm, joy, for I am to conduct the Count to the plash, myshelf. ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar
... as they stood in the street looking seaward, could hear already the solemn hum through the breathless air, and feel the first cool whiff of the breeze on their faces, while at their feet there fell with a sudden plash a heavy ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... of the wind roaring in the chimney; of the church-bells ringing in the distance; of the ever-increasing moaning of the sea about St. Mary's Rock; and finally of the rumbling of the rubber wheels of several carriages and the plash of horses' hoofs on the gravel ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... the roar of the river, the plash of the dipping oars, was heard the piteous wailing of the wounded, the loud oaths and jeers of the soldiers who had rushed down to the shore, and, with clenched fists, hurled execrations after the emperor, accusing ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach
... for all on board. It was on a moonlight night and we were going smoothly, consequently I was not ill, and Captain Totten proposed that we should sing the song. Everybody was on deck enjoying the delightful evening. Everything was still; only the puffing of the smokestack and the plash of the wheel were heard. We all clustered around mother and began ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... followers now passed under a lofty portal, and looked through the open doorway into the interior of the palace. The first thing that they saw was a spacious hall, and a fountain in the middle of it, gushing up towards the ceiling out of a marble basin, and falling back into it with a continual plash. The water of this fountain, as it spouted upward, was constantly taking new shapes, not very distinctly, but plainly enough for a nimble fancy to recognize what they were. Now it was the shape of a man in a long robe, the fleecy whiteness of which was made out of the fountain's spray; ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... feeling as though horror happened wherever she went. But along by the sea wall it was very peaceful; only the soft lapping of the landlocked tide against the stone, the slow gliding of ferry boats, the lazy plash of oars and the metallic clanking in the naval dockyard on Garden Island came to her. On a man-of-war out in the stream the sailors were having a washing day; she could hear their cheery voices singing and laughing as they hung vests and shirts and socks among the rigging, ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... awoke with a start. A rush of wind, a sudden plash of water were followed by the whizzing of an arrow through the air. He was close to the water. Softly peering through the reeds he saw, palpitating and stricken with fear, a snowy swan. The arrow had missed the stainless ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... Tranio, for the time I studie, Vertue and that part of Philosophie Will I applie, that treats of happinesse, By vertue specially to be atchieu'd. Tell me thy minde, for I haue Pisa left, And am to Padua come, as he that leaues A shallow plash, to plunge him in the deepe, And with sacietie seekes ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... the balcony of the diminutive inn known as "The Hungarian Crown," watching the sunbeams on the broad current of the Danube and listening to the ripple, the plash and the gurgle of the swollen stream as it rushed impetuously against the banks. A group of Servians, in canoes light and swift as those of Indians, had made their way across the river, and were struggling ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... the gulches is always solemn. You canter along a bright breezy upland, and are suddenly arrested by a precipice, and from the depths of a forest abyss a low plash or murmur rises, or a deep bass sound, significant of water which must be crossed, and one reluctantly leaves the upper air to plunge into heavy shadow, and each experience increases one's apprehensions concerning ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... drifting and shuddering, ominous of a thaw. From the eaves and the branches of the trees heavy drops kept falling, making round black holes in the snow, and mixing and melting here and there in a yellowish plash. ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... went a gun in my very ear. Flame, smoke—much of both—and the stifling smell of sulphur. Jorian had fired at the face of the pop-gun knave. That putty-white countenance had a crimson plash on it ere it vanished. Then came back to us a scream of dreadful agony and the sound ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... by only a few inches, they rippled over their rocky bed, murmuring to each other in tones so low that only an attentive ear could catch them, sparkling in the sunlight as though for very joy. Suddenly, near the edge of the narrow plateau over which they ran, they turned, and, with a tinkling plash of farewell, plunged in opposite directions,—the one eastward, hastening on its way to the Great Father of Waters, the other westward bound, towards the land of the ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... The paddles plash, The wavelets dash, We see the summer lightning flash; While now and then, In marsh and fen Too muddy ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... rapidly, and when he got to the side of the well, he, without a moment's hesitation, flung it headlong down, and, listening attentively, he heard it fall with a slight plash, as if there was some water at the ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... crossed the violet waters of Loch Roag quivered in a deeper gold. The night-air was scented with the Dutch clover growing down by the shore. They could hear the curlew whistling and the plover calling amid that monotonous plash of the waves that murmured all around the coast. When they returned to the house the darker waters of the Atlantic and the purple clouds of the west were shut out from sight, and before them there was only the liquid plain of Loch Roag, with its pathway of yellow fire, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... glass of water, and, trying to conceal my own distress for her as well as I could, sat down, silently, near her. Gradually she grew quieter, until the room was so still that we could hear the raindrops from the eaves plash down outside. Peggy pushed back her cloud of bright hair and fastened it in the nape of her neck. At last she said, with conviction: "Mother, Maria didn't say these things, but I know she thinks them for me, thinks that a woman's love is just all forgiveness and indulgence. By that ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... Nile rises two hands daily. The lowest land is inundated; from higher ground people are removing hastily flax, grapes, and cotton of a certain species. Over places which were dry in the early morning, waves plash as evening approaches. A mighty, unseen whirlwind seems to blow in the depth of the Nile. This wind ploughs up broad spaces on the river, fills the furrows with foam, then smoothes for a moment the surface, and after a time twists it into deep eddies. Again the hidden wind ploughs, again ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... afternoon before a tremendous impression. Madame de Vionnet wouldn't, couldn't rest till she should have some assurance from him that he WOULD consent again to see her. The announcement was made, across their marble-topped table, while the foam of the hot milk was in their cups and its plash still in the air, with the smile of Chad's easiest urbanity; and this expression of his face caused our friend's doubts to gather on the spot into a challenge of the lips. "See here"—that was ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... I always think of it. It was an unco place by night, unco by day; and these were unco sounds, of the calling of the solans, and the plash of the sea and the rock echoes, that hung continually in our ears. It was chiefly so in moderate weather. When the waves were any way great they roared about the rock like thunder and the drums of armies, dreadful but merry to hear; and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mighty sturgeon was so abundant in the Delaware that one could hardly remain a minute on the wharf in early morn or ruddy evening without seeing some six-foot monster dart high in air, falling on his side with a plash. In the winter-time the river was allowed to freeze over, and then every schoolboy walked across to Camden and back, as if it had been a pilgrimage or religious duty, while meantime there was always a ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... it did not come down—it bounded into the tin eave-trough and rolled slowly along till it came to the big pipe that led to the cistern, and into this it dropped, and went whirring down, and stopped somewhere with a faint plash. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... growth of reeds fringes the margin of the lagoon, and heat and moisture combine to throw up a rank vegetation on its marshy banks. The peasants fly from its pestiferous exhalations, and nothing is heard or seen but the plash of the fish in the still waters, the sharp cry of the heron and gull, wheeling and hovering till they dart on their prey, and some rude fisherman's boat piled with baskets of eels ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... river, with several branches coming down from Ruppin Country, and certain lakes and plashes there, in a southwest direction, towards the Elbe valley, towards the Havel Stream; into which latter, through another plash or lake called GULPER SEE, and a few miles farther, into the Elbe itself, it conveys, after a course of say 50 English miles circuitously southwest, the black drainings of those dreary and intricate Peatbog-and-Sand countries. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Appendix - Frederick The Great—A Day with Friedrich.—(23d July, 1779.) • Thomas Carlyle
... almost the rush of my breath in the profound silence,—I lowered my boy into the boat. The basket followed. The negro fastened the boat-hook to the cabin window, and on this, lame as I was, I followed the basket. Fortunately, not a plash, a crack, or a footfall disturbed the silence. I looked aloft, and no one was visible on the quarter-deck. A slight jerk brought the boat-rope softly into the water, and I ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... sultry August evening. No breeze was stirring in the garden; no cool dews refreshed the parched and heated earth; yet from the languishing flowers rich sweets exhaled. The plash of a fountain fell pleasantly upon the ear, conveying in its sound a sense of freshness to the fervid air; while deep and drowsy murmurs hummed heavily beneath the trees, making the twilight slumberously musical. ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... branches over the wall; and being mellow, they that found them did gather them up, and oft eat of them to their hurt. So Christiana's boys, as boys are apt to do, being pleased with the trees, and with the fruit that did hang thereon, did plash[58] them, and began to eat. Their mother did also chide them for so doing, but still ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... wherein I slept gave upon that stretch of sandy beach where lay the boat and this night the weather being very hot and no wind stirring, I came without the cave and sat to watch the play of moonlight on the placid waters and hearken to their cool plash and ripple. Long time I sat thus, my mind full of foreboding, mightily cast down and hot with anger against Resolution, whose subtle lies had set Joanna on this vain folly of love, teaching her hopes for that which might never be; and guessing some of her pain therefor, ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... their time for good or evil thought; The billows round the promontory brought The plash of hostile oars.—Alas! who made That sound a dread? All around them seemed arrayed Against them, save the bride of Toobonai: She, as she caught the first glimpse o'er the bay Of the armed boats, which hurried to complete The remnant's ruin ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... Rattan is stuck in the fisher's girdle, and the other knotted, that the fish should not slip off: which when it is full, he discharges himself of them by carrying them ashore. Nay every ditch and little plash of water but anckle deep ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... day, just as the princess had sat down to dinner, she heard a strange noise—tap, tap—plash, plash—as if something was coming up the marble staircase: and soon afterwards there was a gentle knock at the door, and a little voice ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... was that mysterious one of late twilight, when outlines lose their distinctness and sea and shore melt into one mass of uniform gray. There was no wind and the waves came in with a soft plash, but so near to the level of the road that it was evident, even to these strangers, that the tide was at its height and would ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... of such fair respectability that he attained an honour, unknown to Robert Burns, of acting as an elder of the kirk, was not always so chaste in his words as he might seem to be in his deeds; he took his plash as a poet, and not always in the clearest waters; besides, he had a terrible lash at his command, which he could wield with an effect at times that paid little respect to the bounds set in such matters by Christian ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... pliant lash he touch'd The sleek-skinn'd horses; springing at the sound, Between the Greeks and Trojans, light they bore The flying car, o'er bodies of the slain And broken bucklers trampling; all beneath Was plash'd with blood the axle, and the rails Around the car, as from the horses' feet, And from the felloes of the wheels, were thrown The bloody gouts; yet on he sped, to join The strife of men, and break th' opposing ranks. His coming spread ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... heavy plash, From the cliffs invading, dash Huge fragments, sapped by the ceaseless flow, Till white and thundering down they go, Like the avalanche's snow, On the Alpine vales below; Thus at length, outbreathed and worn, Corinth's ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... is the green earth renewed 5 With the bright sea-wind and the yellow blossoms. From the cool shade I hear the silver plash Of the blown fountain ...
— Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics • Bliss Carman
... Venice—human voices calling in ceaseless interchange from shore to shore, resonant in the brilliant atmosphere, quarrels softened to melodies across the water, cries of the gondoliers telling of ceaseless motion, the constant lap and plash of the wavelets and the drip of the oars making ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... Freddy never remembered seeing any one quite so still before. Even his breathing had grown quiet, and the rise and fall of the broad breast was the only sign of life in the otherwise motionless figure. All around him was very still, too. Freddy could hear the plash of the waves on the beach, the rustle of the wind through the dwarf trees, the whir of wings as some sea bird took its swift flight above the broken roof. But within there was a solemn hush, that to the small watcher ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman |
