"Plashing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... therefore, while every other part of the Castle resounded with the human voice, was silent but for the whispering of the leaves, the emulous warbling of the tenants of a large aviary with their happier companions who remained denizens of the free air, and the plashing of the fountains, which, forced into the air from sculptures of fatastic and grotesque forms, fell down with ceaseless sound into the ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... St. Mungo, of Glasgow, of whom the song says that he let the Molendinar Burn 'rin by,' when he could get something stronger. I would have let the sources 'rin by' to Egypt, and never been made 'drumly' by my plashing through them. But I shall make this country and people better known. 'This,' Professor Owen said to me, 'is the first step; the rest will in due time follow.' By different agencies the Great Ruler is bringing all things into a ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... that Valmai should be bending over a musty book in a dimly-lit room? while outside were the velvet turf of the cliffs, the plashing ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... The rain is plashing on my sill, But all the winds of Heaven are still; And so, it falls with that dull sound Which thrills us in the churchyard ground, When the first spadeful drops like lead Upon the coffin of the dead. Beyond my streaming window-pane, I cannot ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... in his arms again; and for a time all things sensible and tangible, the deserted driveway, and the plashing of the little waves on the sands, the staring moonlight and the stencilled shadows of the oaks, were forgotten in the great soul-healing silence that wrapped them about and ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... Palace, seemed very beautiful, though laid out with an antique formality of straight lines and broad gravelled paths. Before the central window there is a beautiful sheet of water, and a fountain upshooting itself and plashing into it, with a continuous and pleasant sound. How beautifully the royal robe of a monarchy is embroidered! Palaces, pictures, parks! They do enrich life; and kings and aristocracies cannot keep these ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... gently down into the filthy water, and while my heart was beating so that I was certain it could be heard some distance from me, began making toward the fence. He passed under easily, and I raised my eyes toward the guard, while on my strained ear fell the soft plashing made by Harvey as he pulled himself cautiously forward. It seemed as if the sentinel must hear this; he could not help it, and every second I expected to see the black lump address itself to motion, and the musket flash out fiendishly. ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... moorland. Occasional farm-yard sounds were to be heard mingled now and then with voices and laughter of children, rooks cawed in the high tree-tops with a lazy irregularity, and there was an autumn freshness in the ambient air. In the courtyard the fountain played with a soft plashing, and as he rode in some little birds were chirping and fluttering as they drank and flirted the water with their wings. The wide doors were thrown open, showing the beauteous huge hall with its pictures and warm colours, its armour and trophies of the chase; the servants stood waiting ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and her lantern lighted all The house so still, but for the rude waves' din. Through the thin roof the plashing rain-drops fall, But something ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... words, she turned away, sprang lightly up the rocks as swiftly as a roe-deer, and disappeared. And from some hidden corner, clear and full and sweet, her voice rang out above the peaceful plashing of the waves: ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... were the utterings of the cooing dove, Who did approve In myrtle ambuscade this tender lore; The constant plashing of the fountain spray Melted in easy numbers, dying away A quiet cadence, while for evermore Faded the eve in richest livery wove Of Tyrian dyes and amber woof t'allure The soft salaam ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... slower motion, the calm water, which the moon converted into a bright mirror, rippled at her approach like a silver-broidered cloth; eddies widened and lost themselves amid the shadows of the banks, under the hanging willow branches, whence issued weird, plashing sounds. At every stroke she perceived recesses full of sound; dark cavities which she hastened to pass by; clusters and rows of trees, whose sombre masses were continually changing form, stretching forward and apparently following her from the summit of the bank. And when she threw herself on her ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... that sounded like the roaring of some sea monster which had unexpectedly raised its head above the water. The practised ears of our adventurers instantly comprehended it to be, what it truly was, the manner in which it was not unusual to hail a boat. Without taking time to ascertain that the plashing of oars was to be heard in the distance. Wilder raised his form in the skiff, ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... colossal fountain, the waters of which were plashing into the great basin, and found that from where we were standing we had a good view of the entrance to the hotel. That the theatres were over was proved by the number of cars and taxis that were depositing people in evening-dress who had come to the Ritz to supper. Hence we had ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... his hat back from his forehead, folded his arms, and stretched his legs. He listened to the music, he looked about him at the bustling crowd, at the plashing fountains, at the nurses and the babies. "I have worked!" he answered ...
— The American • Henry James
... suddenly down at the base of the tree, holding the nozzle close so that the plashing was loud and the spray diffused. And as an arrow goes to its mark the bird came swooping down plunk into the middle of the spray and puddle. Still playing the stream with one hand, Pee-wee reached carefully and with his other gently encircled ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... it was still plashing about their ankles, a secret block of masonry slid back and a horde of Antillians burst ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... by the quadrangle of the hotel, exquisitely kept, and with its acres of greensward now showing their colour vividly in the light of the electrics, which shone from all sides on the fountain flashing and plashing in the midst. I said that here was that union of the sylvan and the urban which was always the dream of art, and which formed the delicate charm of pastoral poetry; and although I do not think she quite ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... not far away; but the fog wreaths were hanging upon the river, and he could not see the speakers. Instinctively he bent harder to his oar. The wherry shot at redoubled speed through the dull, gleaming water; but there were sounds astern of other plashing oars, the sound of voices low yet eager, and Cuthbert felt sure he heard the name of Trevlyn spoken in accents of subdued fierceness. He could hear by the sound of the oars in the rowlocks that there ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the tide he halted with stiff forehoofs, seawardpointed ears. His snout lifted barked at the wavenoise, herds of seamorse. They serpented towards his feet, curling, unfurling many crests, every ninth, breaking, plashing, from far, from ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... little panting trout in his hand; but as he did so he heard, quite close to him, in the lake, a sound like that of water plashing upon water, and he saw the widening circles caused by a trout which had just risen to a fly; and he said to the little trout he ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... the hoofs of their horses plashing in the water. They seemed to share the impatience of their riders; "all we have to do now is to keep to ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... the heart's core, and in one rapid lightning-like glance, his memory revealed to him the faultful past, in all its sorrowfulness. And he, too, prayed wildly for help both for soul and body. Alone on the crag, with the sea tumbling and plashing round them, growing and gaining so much on their place of refuge, that his terror began to summon up the image of certain death; alone, wet, hungry, and exhausted, with the wounded and delirious boy, whose life depended on his courage, he prayed as he had never prayed ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... of pictorial art as in the place of wall-papers and of Brussels or Kidderminster carpets. We might speak of the profuse collections of statuary, of the gilding on ceiling and cornices, of the colours shed by the rich curtains and awnings of purple and crimson, of the grateful sound of water plashing in the fountains and basins or babbling over a series of steps like a broken cascade in miniature. But perhaps too much of such description might only encourage still further the erroneous notion that the Roman houses were all of this nature, and that even the average Roman lived ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... shoulders. But it was only for a few minutes that he yielded thus, for the stature of the mind of the boy had in reality advanced, and soon he drew himself up to it, stopped weeping, led the horse out to the well, drew bucket after bucket of water, and held them patiently to his plashing lips. Then a neighbor in the next house, a half-acre away, looking across the field, called her mother to see how much Jerome Edwards looked like his father. "It gave me quite a turn when I see him come out, he looked so much like his father, for all he's ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... was lighted only by wax candles in crystal chandeliers and candelabra. This made a soft, mellow radiance quite different from gas or electricity. On one side of the room long French windows opened on to the terrace, through which came the scent of roses and the sound of plashing fountains. On the other side, only slender pillars and arches divided the dining-room from a conservatory, and a riotous tangle of blossoms and foliage fairly spilled into the room, forming almost ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... times, the actual insurrections which took place among the slaves. Passing by the lesser excitements of Barbadoes and Demerara, we come to the great rising in Jamaica in 1832. A servile war is generally represented as displaying at every point its banners of flame, plashing its feet meanwhile in the blood of women and children. But the great insurrection of 1832, which, as it spread, included fifty thousand negroes in its train, was in the beginning simply a refusal ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... in the shadowy recesses of the islands. Whatever may be unseemly in life is covered by a rich and mystic drapery of twilight. The floating bath-houses of the Neva, with their variegated tressel-work and brilliant colors, resemble fairy palaces; and the plashing of the bathers falls upon the ear like the gambols of water-spirits. Not far from the Izaak Bridge, the equestrian statue of Peter the Great stands out in bold relief on a pedestal of granite; the mighty Czar, casting an eagle look over the waters of the Neva, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... sails did fall: in haste the seats were fixed; With plashing stroke, the oars smote heaven in ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... way from the house was a grove, in the midst of which a fountain threw upward its refreshing waters, that fell plashing into a marble basin, and then went gurgling musically along over shining pebbles. How often, with his gentle partner by his side, had Markland lingered here, drinking in delight from every fair object by which they were ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... palace and leads her companions in songs of gladness. Assad meets the Queen at Gath, performs his mission, and sets out to return, but, exhausted by the heat of the day, enters the forest on Mount Lebanon and lies down on a bank of moss to rest. There the sound of plashing waters arrests his ear. He seeks the cause of the grateful noise and comes upon a transportingly beautiful woman bathing. The nymph, finding herself observed, does not, like another Diana, cause the death of her admirer, but discloses herself ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... fall, undiminished and unincreased. The stream is so slender, that the gentlest breeze suffices to disturb its descent, and to scatter its pure sweet waters over the face of the cliff. But in that deep forest there is seldom a breath of wind; so that, plashing continually upon one spot, the fount has worn its own little channel of white sand, by which it finds its way to the river. Alas that the Naiades have lost their old authority! for what a deity of tiny loveliness must once have ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... desert waste, without grass or water; so she turned a third face of the jewel towards the sky, and said, "By the virtue of the names of Allah, let trees upgrow here and a river flow beside them!" And forthwith trees sprang up and by their side ran a river plashing and dashing. They made the ablution and prayed and drank of the stream; after which the Princess turned up the three other facets till she came to the fourth, whereon was portrayed a table of good, and said, "By the virtue of the names of Allah, let the table be spread!" And behold, there ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... greeted her as she drew nearer; something plashing down among the cinders by the track. Then she saw the tall column with its arm outstretched, and looming darker among the sage-brush the outlines of a water-tank. It was so she recognized the engine's drinking-tank, and knew that she had mistaken a pause ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... Surmounted by the Pope's device of a dove with an olive branch, a vain substitute of heraldry for sacred symbolism, and standing on an artificial rock-work about forty feet high, composed of figures of Tritons and nymphs, disporting themselves amid plashing fountains and marble foliage, the whole subject is incongruous and utterly opposed to the simplicity and majesty of the ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... harmony, and that their lives presented the most charming combination of active industry, harmless gaiety, and innocent pleasures. By a proper distribution of work and proportionment of labour, in which all took part, the cultivation of the land, the tending of the exquisite gardens, with their plashing fountains, fragrant flowers, and inviting arbours, the herding of the cattle, and the heavier part of various handicrafts, fell upon the men; while the women looked after the domestic arrangements—cooked, made or mended and washed the chelas' clothes and their own (both men and women ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... slowly and sorrowfully, and found the lane, and went limping down it, plashing in the cold puddly ruts, and beginning to feel how the run had taken it out of them. The evening closed in fast, and clouded over, ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... cottage, they saw Hughie and Lilly playing in a burn, or brook, which emptied into the little loch. Hughie was constructing a dam, with stones and turf and heather-branches cemented with clay, and Lilly was sailing a tiny boat, loaded with pebbles and flowers. Both were barefoot, and plashing fearlessly in the burn. Lady Blantyre checked her ponies, and after watching the children awhile, called them to the side of her phaeton. Hughie took off his Glengary cap, and held it in his hand, and Lilly was ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... of the party were well in advance, out of sight and hearing. Tramp, tramp, the steady regular footfall of her bearers, and the light plashing of rain drops as they fell, and the stir of the wind in the leaves, were all the sounds that Daisy heard. No rain fell now; on the contrary the heaven was clear as a bell, and light enough came through the woods ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... be needed to reach the bank. Was I to die of thirst in the middle of a river-bed? I rose painfully to walk the last bit, but I had not taken many steps before I stopped short. A duck rose on whirring wings, I heard the plashing sound of water, and the next moment I stood at the edge of a fresh, cool, ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... with softly gleaming lights and music coming from the open latticed windows. The garden is full of oleanders, roses, pomegranates, abundance of crimson flowers; the air is heavy with their fragrance: a fountain at the right is plashing gently: behind it is an arbour covered with vines. Near the centre of the garden stands a small, hideous image of the god Rimmon. Beyond the arbour rises the lofty square tower of the House of Rimmon, which casts a shadow from the ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... which shut in the strip of garden on all sides reflected not a ray of light. A chill struck through me, as I passed along the marble pavement; a saloon-dampness, empty, vault-like, hung about the fireless, sunless place; and the plashing of the fountain which dripped into the marble basin beyond—dropping, dropping, incessantly—struck upon my ear like water trickling down the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... and dashes the dull rock with foam. A long rough talus curves up against this part of the cliff, overgrown with snow-pressed willows, in which the fall disappears with many an eager surge and swirl and plashing leap, finally beating its way down to its confluence with the main ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... fragrance of heath and bog-myrtle was in the wind, and the mouth grew cool as after long draughts of spring water. Mists were crowding in the valleys, each bald mountain top shone like a jewel, and far aloft in the heavens were the white streamers of morn. Moorhens were plashing at the loch's edge, and one tall heron rose from his early meal. The world was astir with life: sounds of the plonk-plonk of rising trout and the endless twitter of woodland birds mingled with the far-away barking of ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... from the presence of the mother of the dead than death itself, and feeling that the mother would rather be alone with her dead, also left the room, and sought her chamber, where she threw herself upon the bed. All was still save the plashing of the fountain, for the music from ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... folds, the breeze gathered strength and weight by imperceptible degrees, until the scarcely audible tinkle under the bows merged into the sound of a knife shearing through a tautly stretched silken web, with a musical fountain-like plashing at the cutwater and a crisp, gushing curl of the glassy wave under the lee bow as it broke and hurried past into our wake in a lacework of creamy swirling froth, gemmed with countless glittering foam-bubbles; while the log told us that the ship ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... and made it the blooming, fragrant heart of her home. In the centre was a locust tree of lusty growth, plumy of foliage and brilliant of color; and underneath the tree a little fountain shot upward a thin stream, which broke into a diamond shower and fell plashing back into a pool whose rim was outlined by a circle of purple-flowered iris. Around this spread a velvet turf, dotted with dandelions and English daisies. An irregular, winding path inclosed the tiny lawn, and all the space between the path and the narrow stone walk that hugged the ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... replied Montigny: "Proceed; for your voice is sweeter to me than plashing fountain's, or than Saint Laurent's chimes, or than would be—could we hear it—the fabulous music of those night-hung spheres, coming harmonious to our listening ears, borne on the shoulders of the cherub winds. Why ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... black jagged sides had huge holes, into which the sea rushed—far into the dark—with a muffled roar; and large protuberances of rock, bare and threatening. Numberless shadows lay on their faces; and here and there from their tops trickled little steams, plashing into the waves at their feet. Passing through a natural arch in a rock, lofty and narrow, called the Devil's Bridge, and turning a little promontory, they were soon ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... the helm in darkness, By all forsaken, by Death forgotten, When sails unknown far away are wafted And some swift-coursing by night are passing, To note the ground-swell's resistless current, The sighing heart of the breathing ocean — Or small waves plashing along the planking, Its quiet pastime amid its sadness. Then glide my lingering longings over Into the ocean-deep grief of nature, The night's, the water's united coldness Prepares my spirit ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... It was resolved to begin at the very attic and sweep, scrub, and wash down. Old boxes and trunks were dragged out of their places, and piles of forgotten dust swept out. The passengers in the street had a narrow chance for their beavers and fall bonnets, for every front window had an extra plashing. Mr. Smith had several times urged me to permit him to introduce some Yankee fashion which he highly recommends for having "professional window-cleaners," with their whiting and brushes, who could go through the ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... Well, they are such letters as she might have written. 'By the tideless sea at Cannes on a summer day,' says their anonymous author, 'I had fallen asleep, and the plashing of the waves upon the shore had doubtless made me dream. When I awoke the yellow paper-covered volumes of Prosper Merimee's Lettres a une Inconnue lay beside me; I had been reading the book before I ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... that it was the month of November, was close and foggy—such as frequently follows a calm day of incessant rain. The bottoms were plashing, the drams all full, and the small rivulets and streams about the country were above their hanks, whilst the larger rivers swept along with the hoarse continuous murmurs of an unusual flood. The sky was one sheet of blackness—for not a cloud could be seen, ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... of the weed beds bright-colored fish were moving lazily to and fro, but these darted swiftly away at the approach of the steamer. On every side queer little crabs and turtles were plumping into the water, scared by the plashing wheels, while, stranger still, birds' nests and eggs were seen here and there amid the huge broad leaves of the stronger plants, to the great delight of Frank, who thought the idea of birds nesting in the middle of the Atlantic the finest joke he ...
— Harper's Young People, April 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... on in an infinite seclusion, not secret, nor threatening, but a quietness of sweet daylight and open air—a broad space of tender and deep desolateness, drooped into repose out of the midst of human labour and life; the waves plashing lowly, with none to hear them; and the wild birds building in the boughs, with none to fray them away; and the soft, fragrant herbs rising and breathing and fading, with no hand to gather them;—and yet all bright and bare to the clouds above, ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... lay all grey and visionary, stretching into the moist, translucent vista of trees and meadow. Fine electric activity in sound came from the dumbles below the road, the birds piping one against the other, and water mysteriously plashing, issuing ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... with my eyes, as he went sturdily plashing down the street; his broad, comfortable back, which owned a coat of true Quaker cut, but spotless, warm, and fine; his ribbed hose and leathern gaiters, and the wide-brimmed hat set over a fringe of grey hairs, that crowned the whole with respectable dignity. He looked precisely ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... bosom of that darkness, and close to the bottom of the precipice, the hound was heard at intervals baying fearfully, sounds which were redoubled by the echoes of the woods and rocks around. At intervals, these sunk into deep silence, interrupted only by the plashing noise of a small runnel of water, which partly fell from the rock, partly found a more silent passage to the bottom along its projecting surface. Voices of men were also heard in stifled converse below; it seemed as if the pursuers had not discovered the narrow path which led to the top of the rock, ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... off in the distance. To his alarm he perceived that Bythewood and his man had halted on the other side of the bridge, and were going to water their horses in the bed of the stream. Clashing and rattling down the steep, stony banks, and plashing into the water, came the foam-streaked animals. The negro rode one, and led the other by the bridle. There he sat in the saddle, watching the eager drinking of the thirsty beasts, and pulling up their heads occasionally to prevent ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... myself from dropping into a doze. And perhaps two hours may have gone in this fashion, and it was, I should think, a little after midnight, when I heard, at first far away towards the land, then gradually coming nearer, the light, slow plashing of oars that gently and leisurely rose ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... run you his rails right through the heart of the most populous city,—yea, even Glasgow herself,—and across the streets, without the slightest interruption to the traffic. He will contrive so, that the hissing of the locomotive shall be as graceful a sound as the plashing of a fountain in the midst of our bisected squares; and he is indignant at the supposition that any human being can be besotted enough to prefer the prospect of a budding garden, to a clean double pair of rails beneath his bedroom window, with a jolly train steaming it along ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... moment he had disappeared from her sight, and she was all alone in the dismal place, in darkness, save for a little light that forced its way up from below through the hole. It seemed five minutes before his plashing footsteps stopped, up there in the passage; then came instantly the noise of stones thrown aside into the water, and of heavy pieces of board grating and bumping, as they floated for a moment. Almost instantly a loud roar came from the same ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... paces from where this wall rises from the lawn stands the ever-plashing fountain. The basin is circular, while around runs a paved path, hemmed in by smoke-blackened laurels and cut off from the public way by iron railings. The water falls with pleasant cadence into a small basin set ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... gun," said I to Carleton. I started as I spoke at the alteration in my own voice. The gun went off, but the report was, as it were, stifled by the compressed atmosphere. It did not even alarm some water-fowl that were plashing and floundering in the creek a few hundred paces ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... ravishing climax of gentle chorus of quick plashing waves and swirling breeze the song sings on and the trumpet blows its line of tune to a ringing ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... I continued on as if the moon herself as patiently pursued us. And by-and-by we came to a house called Gloom, whose gardens slope down with plashing fountains and glimmering banks of flowers into the shadow and stillness of a broad valley, named beneath the ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... the fire, the plashing of the rain, filled the room with the atmosphere of reverie. Catharine's thoughts passed from her obligations toward Mary to grapple anxiously with those she might be under toward Meynell himself. The mere possession of the anonymous ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... baggage, ammunition wagons, and a part of the artillery. But before they had time to defile across the narrow passage, a gathering sound was heard, like that of a mighty forest agitated by the winds. It grew louder and louder, while on the dark waters of the lake was heard a plashing noise, as of many oars. Then came a few stones and arrows striking at random among the troops. They fell every moment faster and more furious, till they thickened into a terrible tempest, while the very ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... glow Rare insects, hovering low, And round thee glance thin streams of delicate grass, Plashing their odors on thee as ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... statues in dark confined places: that cheerless, endless plashing of water is the most inhospitable sound ever heard. The stiff grin of those French statues, or ogling Canova Graces, is by no means more happy, I think, than the smile of a skeleton, and not so natural. Those little pavilions ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... they were certain that they were going straight towards their goal. And as they went along, the garden became gradually graver, more discreet; the soughing of the branches died away, the streams hushed their plashing waters, the birds, the beasts, and the insects fell into silence. All around ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... close canals, exhaling wide Such fetid airs as—with those domes Of silent grandeur, by their side, Where step of life ne'er goes or comes, And those black barges plying round With melancholy, plashing sound,— Seem like a city, where the Pest Is holding her last visitation, And all, ere long, will be at rest, The dead, sure ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various
... stealth, but was obscured almost ere its brightness could be developed. The wind, as it rushed by, broke into short and irregular gusts, like scouts from the main body, betokening its approach. The rain had ceased, save a few hasty drops at intervals plashing ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Entirely differing from the Tudor ones, this is the most impressive of all the courts here, with its cloisters surrounding a quadrangle of greenery in the midst of which a fountain plays. Whether looked at from the gallery windows, where the plashing of the water may be heard on a summer day, or examined in our walk round the Cloisters, the Fountain Court is a beautiful and restful place, which, with its surrounding of untrodden grass—starred in spring with myriad daisies—forms a delightful contrast to the white ...
— Hampton Court • Walter Jerrold
... respectable married ladies there in the corner had been kissed by each other's husbands. The slim, Puritan-faced woman in white, with her black hair so demurely parted and coiled in a sleek knot, had risen suddenly from her place and walked indolently to the edge of the plashing pink fountain in the center of the room, had stood contemplating its shallows with a dreamy half-smile on her lips, and then had lifted her slim legs slowly and gracefully over its fern-fringed basin and had waded into its chilling midst, trailing her exquisite white satin and chiffon draperies ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... lake there are some fine curving bays, beautifully embroidered with rushes and polygonums, a favorite resort of waterfowl. On our return, keeping close along shore, we caused a noisy plashing and beating of wings among cranes and geese. The ducks, less wary, kept their places, merely swimming in and out through openings in the rushes, rippling the glassy water, and raising spangles in their wake. The countenance of the ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... noble stretch of hilly country, well wooded, with sparkling streams plashing down the hillsides—a landscape of uninhabited quiet. Two aeroplanes droned overhead—the first Allied planes we had seen since the retreat began. "The old French line," observed the colonel, pointing out a wide ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... well, did the great soldier, for the overarching boughs of ancient plane-trees turn the cobbled streets of the little town into leafy naves, the air is heavy with the scent of orange and oleander, and the place murmurs with the pleasant sound of plashing water. ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... whistling squalls of wind, and bitter blasts of hail; in short, on such a night as the devil would choose to take the air in; a farmer or farmer's servant was plodding and plashing homeward with his plough-irons on his shoulder, having been getting some repairs on them at a neighbouring smithy. His way lay by the kirk of Alloway, and being rather on the anxious look-out in approaching a place so well known to be a favourite ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... the open window and stood looking over the park beyond. Sunset lay broad and rich over the wide stretches of grass, and on the splendid oaks lifting their dazzling leaf to the purest of skies. The roses in the garden sent up their scent, there was a plashing of water from an invisible fountain, and the deer beyond the fence wandered in and out of the broad bands of shadow drawn across the park. Doris's young feet fidgeted under her. She longed to be out exploring the woods and the lake. Why was she immured in this stupid room, ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... in her fullness from an unclouded sky. Through the ethereal atmosphere which bathed the storied city her beams fell, plashing noiselessly upon the grim memorials of a stirring past. With a mantle of peace they gently covered the former scenes of violence and strife. With magic, intangible substance they filled out the rents in the grassy walls and smoothed away the scars of battle. The pale ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... in thoughtful mood, And now upon the bridge we stood. Full of sweet breathings was the air, Of sudden stirs and pauses fair. Down o'er the stately bridge the breeze Came rustling from the garden-trees And on the sparkling waters play'd; Light-plashing waves an answer made, And mimic boats their haven near'd. Beyond, the Abbey-towers appear'd, By mist and chimneys unconfined, Free to the sweep of light and wind; While through their earth-moor'd ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... night, and hour by hour night crept on until midnight came and passed, yet the lone watcher waited still, his horse beside him, the gloom around him, the rain still plashing on the sodden road. It was a wearing vigil, and only a critical need could have kept him there through those slow and dreary hours ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... of ecstatic delight, and a faint scent of attar and unguents almost effected by age lingered in my nostrils. Standing in the darkness of that vast desolate hall between the rows of those ancient pillars, I could hear the gurgle of fountains plashing on the marble floor, a strange tune on the guitar, the jingle of ornaments and the tinkle of anklets, the clang of bells tolling the hours, the distant note of nahabat, the din of the crystal pendants of chandeliers ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... streamlet to pluck some crimson lobelias, growing on the other side, and some delicate, bell-shaped flowers, fit only for a fairy's bridal wreath,—and how she wandered till sunset came on, and the Lake's pure breast was all a-glow, and then, how she lay under that old tree, listening to the plashing waves, and watching the little birds, dipping their golden wings into the rippling waters, then soaring aloft to the rosy tinted clouds? Shall I tell you how the grand old hills, forest crowned, stretched off into the ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... Blackfeet, plashing about, and talking. In a moment or so they were upon the beaver-house itself. Their moccasins crunched the brittle sticks and mud; they thrust with their spears, and seemed uncertain what to ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... wil make with dressing a faire, plesant, profitable, & sure fence. But you must be sure that your quicke thornes either grow wholly, or that there be a supply betime, either with planting new, or plashing the old where need is. And assure your selfe, that neither wood, stone, earth, nor water, can make so strong a fence, as this ...
— A New Orchard And Garden • William Lawson
... walked boldly into the river, and was soon floating out upon its current. Ossaroo had given them instructions how to balance themselves so as to keep upright, and also how to paddle with both hands and feet: so that, after a good deal of plashing and spluttering, and laughing and shouting, all three arrived safely on the opposite bank. Of course, Fritz ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... boys, to be only fine fun, and you think Lloyd a very lucky fellow to have the chance. But a bonfire in the street, on a summer night, or down in a vacant lot, is a very different matter from Lloyd's work, alone, on a December night, with the salt water plashing about his legs, and his breath freezing about his mouth. Besides, he knew that the lives of the ship's crew depended on what he did, or left undone. And he was not a man, to be sure he was right, but a boy, only ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... the beating coolies are plashing, and shouting, and yelling, or the revolving wheel (where machinery is used) is scattering clouds of spray and foam in the blinding sunshine. The firemen stripped to the waist, are feeding the furnaces with the dried stems of last year's crop, which forms our only fuel. The smoke hovers in volumes ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... iron-girded beams; peeping in upon him, through the chinks and loopholes in the walls; spreading away and away from him in enlarging circles, as the water ripples give way to a huge stone that suddenly comes plashing in among them. He saw them, of all aspects and all shapes. He saw them ugly, handsome, crippled, exquisitely formed. He saw them young, he saw them old, he saw them kind, he saw them cruel, he saw them merry, he saw them grim; ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... our horses, we moved forward swiftly but quietly; there was just the possibility of a trap. The place was almost like an enclosure on a large hacienda, but the fence was composed of trees, and we could hear the plashing ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... save by the plashing of oars and the tumultuous shock of the barques pressing on in disorder. Ere long, however, there was a loud shout. The Lord of Joinville, closely followed by Baldwin de Rheims, had reached the shore; and they were setting their ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... certain was I at the moment, of seeing all this, that I need not have shouted to assure myself. Excited with over-eagerness, I did so; and hailed the canoe in hopes of obtaining an answer. My summons produced not the desired effect. On the contrary, it seemed to still the slight plashing I had heard; and, before the echoes of my voice died upon the air, the dark objects had glided out of sight— having passed under thick masses of the floating vapour. Over and over, I repeated my summons—each time changing the form of speech, and each time with like fruitless ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... smell of wet wood about, and the monotonous drip from over the door. And it seemed to her that a stranger there would be very lonely, not knowing the ways or the speech of the simple folk, careless perhaps of his own comfort, and only listening to the plashing of the sea and the incessant rain on the bushes and on the pebbles of the beach. Was there any picture of desolation, she thought, like that of a sea under rain, with a slight fog obscuring the air, and with no wind to stir the pulse with the noise of waves? And if Frank Lavender ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... should undo them; the reassuring voice of a hopeful boatman—"You be easy, missis; we'll catch 'em up!"—the less confident one of his mate—"Have a try at it, anyhow!" Then her joy when the sail filled and the plashing of her way spoke Hope beneath her bulwark as she caught the wind. Then her dread that the Devil's craft ahead would make sail too, and overreach them after all, and the blessing in her heart for her hopeful oarsman, whose ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... his breath. And the poor Poet cries out, "Pump! the water is gaining on us, and our shop is going to ruin. Pump!" Whereupon the lazy, absent-minded one resumes pumping, while yearning all the while for the plashing stone-rollers and the purling eaves of his home in Baalbek. And once in a pinch,—they are labouring under a peltering rain,—he stops as is his wont to remind Shakib of the Arabic saying, "From the dripping ceiling to the ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... would be felt only in its results. It was therefore arranged that on the morrow the physician should bring his patient to the sea-side at noon, and that, while he and she were seated in view of the waves, and were listening to their soothing plashing, Amos and his brother and sister should pass near, and be guided in what they should do as circumstances might suggest. "Your mother," said the physician, "simply wants her mind clearing; all is more or less confused at present. She grasps nothing distinctly; and yet she is often very near a clear ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... wonderfully woven tapestry was draped. The windows were partly obscured by carved wooden screens, and the light entered through little panels of coloured glass. There were cushioned divans, exquisite pottery, and a playful fountain plashing in ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... court of his villa, lying amidst soft cushions heaped upon the marble bench. A lamp stood on the table at his elbow, its light making the water in the cistern twinkle. There was no sound in the court except the soft continual plashing of the fountain. Throughout these still hours he would meditate, and he became more than ever convinced that man could, if he pleased, become lord of his own sensations. This, surely, was the true meaning concealed under the beautiful symbolism of alchemy. ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... many days exil'd All torment from my breast;—'twas even then, Straying about, yet, coop'd up in the den Of helpless discontent,—hurling my lance 930 From place to place, and following at chance, At last, by hap, through some young trees it struck, And, plashing among bedded pebbles, stuck In the middle of a brook,—whose silver ramble Down twenty little falls, through reeds and bramble, Tracing along, it brought me to a cave, Whence it ran brightly forth, and white did lave The nether sides of mossy stones and rock,— 'Mong ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... her deck as if pulling on the ropes, and a misty shape, like the captain, glided to and fro. Terrified, I hailed the apparition, and suddenly the whole vision vanished, but I heard distinctly, above the whistling of the wind and the plashing of the waves, the flapping of the ropes against the ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai |
