"To and fro" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and the two candles on the table, which had burned low, shed but a dim light in the room. The chancellor noticed two figures sitting on both sides of the door leading into the adjoining room, and slowly swinging to and fro, like the pendulum of a clock. He softly approached the two sleepers. "Ah," he whispered, with a smile, "there sleeps Timm, the chamberlain, who is to announce my arrival to the king; and here sleeps Major Natzmer, to whom I want to say a word before he sets out." he laid his hand gently ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... to bed, and to sleep perhaps, but Sir Victor Catheron. He was too happy to sleep. He lit a cigar and paced to and fro in the soft darkness, thinking of the great bliss this day had brought him, thinking over her every word and smile, thinking that the first of September would give him his darling forever. He walked beneath her window of course. She caught a glimpse of him, and with intolerant ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... fellow-countrymen and countrywomen in India give their countenance to the Missionaries labouring around them. They well deserve it, but too often are allowed to stand alone. The loss is theirs who keep aloof, and neglect the man and his work. While our people are running to and fro in the busy whirl of Indian life—some hasting to be rich, others engrossed in the labours of administration—higher things are too frequently forgotten. The spiritual life is prone to fade and droop. Many men—and women as well as men—who ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... I could no longer resist my desire, and went in. There was nobody that I could perceive at first in the church-yard or going into it but the buriers and the fellow that drove the cart or rather led the horse and cart; but when they came up to the pit they saw a man going to and fro muffled up in a brown cloak and making motions with his hands under his cloak, as if he was in a great agony, and the buriers immediately gathered about him, supposing he was one of those poor delirious or desperate creatures that used to bury themselves. He said ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... as when at the dawn it obeyed the will of the Creator. They saw the hills and the mountains grow, and the rivers trickle toward the sea. The masses of brown and green began to be splashed with red and yellow as the fields became fertile and fructified; and the insect race of men began to crawl to and fro. ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... day in the face. The world was miraculously renewed. It rose, and received the newborn of Aurora in its arms. There were clouds of pearl above hills of chrysoprase. The sea ran in volatile flames. The shadows on the bright deck shot to and fro as we rolled. The breakfast bell rang not too soon. This was ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... in the lovely month of June (which is the favourite month of all the year for the water-nixies, for then the white and yellow water lilies are in flower, and the yellow irises shine among the water-reeds) the three sisters were swimming lazily to and fro, plunging under the water like seals, to reappear like seals on the look-out for something to happen. But nothing ever did happen but one of their father's tempers, and of these they were tired ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it,' answered he, smiling, and laying his finger on his lips, 'my dear pupils. And you are both ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... soliloquies, he had hardly observed that a large variegated butterfly, hovering over the neighbouring flower-bed, moved slowly to and fro, just as if it were undecided in choosing on which flower it would alight. He was very attentive to its broad wings, which glittered with the most splendid colours, while the insect, brilliantly variegated, settled on a scarlet ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... listening, each with an arm locked in an arm of the other, the South Wind gently swayed them to and fro. Then a voice was heard, singing, "San noh-eh! San noh-eh! San noh-eh!" which means, "The Mother of ...
— Stories the Iroquois Tell Their Children • Mabel Powers
... keep him from rushing into the fray; and when Joe started kicking, it was all she could do not to let him go. But she knew Athol—her dearest brother—would say it wasn't fair play. So she tugged, and Prince tugged; while the boys, fiercely silent, rocked to and fro; and Christine sobbed ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... time he had paused in his weary walk to and fro to lean on the parapet close by Cleopatra's Needle. The Embankment was almost deserted now, save by the tramps and a few isolated wanderers like himself. For several minutes he looked out over the brightly glittering waters below him, ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... credulous of happiness, throw down Upon this turf thy wallet—stored and swoln With morrow-morns, bird-eggs, and bladders burst— That tires thee with its wagging to and fro: Thou too wouldst breathe more freely for it, Age! Who lackest heart to laugh at ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... rage and dismay, rose from all quarters of the hall. Unmoved and undaunted, that marble man, livid as a spectre, his dark eyes blazing, his thin and writhing lip flecked with foam, his tall form swaying to and fro, rising, bending—now thrown back, then leaning over the marble bar of the tribune—continued to pour forth his scathing sarcasm, his crushing invective, his eloquent persuasion and his unanswerable ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... comfortably and swung the nearly empty bag to and fro. "Ah, I told you that I carried great magic in the bag. With Piper's help, Maya will ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... resigns his room to me, Meaning to make me general of the world: Jove, viewing me in arms, looks pale and wan, Fearing my power should [304] pull him from his throne: Where'er I come the Fatal Sisters sweat, [305] And grisly Death, by running to and fro, To do their ceaseless homage to my sword: And here in Afric, where it seldom rains, Since I arriv'd with my triumphant host, Have swelling clouds, drawn from wide-gaping [306] wounds, Been oft resolv'd [307] in bloody purple ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... "Kalevala" have always to be sung not by one singer but by two. The two singers straddle a bench facing each other and hold each other's hands. Then they sing alternately, each chanting one line, rocking back and forward, pulling each other to and fro as they sing—so that it is like the motion of rowing. One chants a line and pulls backward, then the other chants the next line and pulls in the opposite direction. Not to be able to answer at once would be considered a great disgrace; and every singer has to be able ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... fiddle, and catching The comb at arm's length, dived below. And Frieder, the instrument snatching Across the weird strings drew the bow, To and fro—to and fro! ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... it up. We usually think of the hard life as if it were a life of sin. We speak of a hardened sinner, of a hard man, as of persons whom good influences cannot penetrate. But the hard soil of the parable is not that of sin. It is that of a roadway, hardened simply by the passing to and fro. It is the hardening effect of habit. Sometimes, the passage says, your life gets so worn by the coming and going of your daily routine, that you become impenetrable to the subtle suggestions of God, as ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... crieth, and by crying and fighting, by help from heaven, its way is made through all the oppositions that appear so mighty, and draweth up at last to Jesus Christ, into whose bosom it putteth the soul, where, for the time, it sweetly resteth after its marvellous tossings to and fro.27 ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... run to and fro in the streets, and talk about the corners, and prognosticate with passion, and defy, in the way of cowardice, where safety rather than the truth is well assured. If one woman could console another, Jacqueline wished that she might console Leclerc's mother. And if any ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... added that there was now in this much-thinking little person's state of mind no mere crudity of impatience. Something had happened, rapidly, with the beautiful sight of him and with the drop of her fear of having annoyed him by making him go to and fro. Subsidence of the fearsome, for Maggie's spirit, was always, at first, positive emergence of the sweet, and it was long since anything had been so sweet to her as the particular quality suddenly given by her present emotion to the sense ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... furniture, carpet, and a few other appointments were of a character much more elegant than those of the public room below. A window which overlooked the street was open, so that the plush curtains which had been drawn aside moved slightly to and fro in the draught. ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... suddenly he lifted his head, listening. Did a door grind somewhere near on its hinges? He got up cautiously and looked out. It was not fancy. She was standing full in view on the small balcony of the room next his own. Her white robes waved to and fro in the breeze; the pearls on her arms glistened. Her face, framed in the pale gold of her hair, was turned towards him; a smile curved her lips; her mysterious eyes seemed to be searching his through the shadow. He drew back, confused ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... sat down, with the effect of immersing his spinal column in the depths of the arm-chair he selected. He crossed his legs, and swung one foot to and fro in its high wrinkled boot ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... tied up at the wharf a short distance from the stone house. The sailors went ashore, leaving the boats without any one to look after them, but there were men on the wharf and constant passing to and fro of men ...
— The Liberty Boys Running the Blockade - or, Getting Out of New York • Harry Moore
... transparent in its obscurity, that wrapped the form of the sybil and finally enveloped her until she appeared to be but a shade. Anon, another and larger room seemed to grow in the midst, with columned galleries and a rostrum, and hundreds of forms in wild commotion, moving to and fro, though uttering no sound. At one moment, it seemed that I could look through one of the windows of the phantom building, and I saw the branches of a palmetto tree waving in the winter wind. Then amidst and ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... to and fro, his plumy tail curling around her knees, looked up at his mistress out of ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... always Lomax's duty to come down with us at bathing times, and, with his walking cane under his arm, he used to stride to and fro along the bank, barking out orders to the lesser boys, who were constantly breaking the rules, and getting toward the ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... had centered about the great waterway. There was much of poetic justice in his end; for the Thames had claimed him, who so long had used the stream as a highway for the passage to and fro for his secret forces. Gone now were the yellow men who had been the instruments of his evil will; gone was the giant intellect which had controlled the complex murder machine. Karamaneh, whose beauty he had used as a lure, at last was free, and no more with her smile would tempt men to death—that ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... host of Takasaki had, with his blessing, made me a note turned out so poorly prefaced that I hesitated. The extreme zeal on the part of its proprietor to book me made me still more doubtful. So, sending Yejiro off to scout, I walked to and fro, waiting. I did not dare sit down on the sill of any of the booths, for fear of ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... garden also was well-patronized that night. The white-aproned waiters were running to and fro; the stout landlady in black silk and a lace cap was moving among her guests with beaming face; a soft babble of talk and laughter rose from every walk and corner. When Richard came to his chosen table he found it occupied ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... explanations, using technical terms and illustrating his meaning with everything he could lay hands on—glasses, saucers, matches. His frayed sleeves, as they swept to and fro, wiped the marble top of the table and set the glasses rattling. Disturbed by the noise, the Marquis Tudesco, who was asleep, half opened his ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... devilish form. One of them said that Justinian suddenly arose from his royal throne and walked about (although, indeed, he never could sit still for long), and that at that moment his head disappeared, while the rest of his body still seemed to move to and fro. The man who beheld this stood trembling and troubled in mind, not knowing how to believe his eyes. Afterwards the head joined the body again, and united itself to the parts from which it had ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... all so kind and interested about the money, too," went on Miss Flora, gently rocking to and fro. "Bert Benson sells stocks and invests money for folks, you know, and Mis' Benson said he'd got some splendid-payin' ones, and he'd let ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... and counter-charge swept the tide of battle to and fro—at what terrible cost, the killed and wounded, strewing the ground like leaves in the forest, made answer. Twelve thousand men lay dead on the field when the battle ended, and one thousand prisoners were taken, besides nine thousand ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... alone, sat down and tried to think. But she could not think; she could only love. She could use her mind only in recounting to herself the perfections of that demigod whose heavy steps were so audible overhead, as he walked to and fro collecting his things and putting ...
— The Courtship of Susan Bell • Anthony Trollope
... been. Got back yesterday. Sorry I am back, to tell you the truth," and he glanced significantly towards the window. A fine, wetting drizzle was falling; dozens of umbrellas passed to and fro outside; the street lamps were lit, though it was barely three o'clock, and in the room that we were in the electric lights were switched on. The sky was the colour of street mud, through which the ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... presenting a second capful of water to the stag, the grateful animal licked my hands, and, after having drunk, tried to rise to follow me, but its strength failing, its glances followed me as I was walking to and fro; they spoke volumes; I could understand their meaning. I hate to hear of the superiority of man! Man is ungrateful as a viper, while a horse, a dog, and many others of the "soulless brutes," will ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... his companion, and so they walked on together and turned down a long, narrow court in the lowest part of the town. At the doors of the houses laboring men, mostly Irish, lounged or stood about, smoking and talking to one another, or to the women who leant out of the windows, or passed to and fro on their various errands of business or pleasure. A group of half-grown lads were playing at pitch-farthing at the farther end, and all over the court were scattered children of all ages, ragged and noisy little creatures most of them, on whom paternal and maternal ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... gesture of concurrence, but in his face Dampier saw no sign that he meant to abandon his project. He seemed to sink into sleep, and the skipper, who went up on deck, paced to and fro a while before he stopped by the wheel and turned to ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... compassion of their evils move? There is:—else much more wretched were the case Of men than beasts: but O the exceeding grace Of Highest God! that loves his creatures so, And all his workes with mercy doth embrace, That blessed angels he sends to and fro, To serve to wicked man, to serve ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... reached with his heavy stick, striking it repeatedly and driving it to the wall. There the two carrion-eaters commenced to circle the chamber while the human carrion, their master, now in a perfect frenzy of demoniacal rage, ran to and fro in an effort to intercept them, striking out with his cudgel and lashing them with his tongue, calling down upon them the curses of whatever gods and demons he could summon to memory, and describing in lurid figures the ignominy of ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Spaniard's coat. His general employment is to scorn all business, but the study of the modes and vices of the times, and you may look upon him as upon the painted sign of a man hung up in the air, only to be tossed to and fro with every wind ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... well-furnished, home-looking apartment, where a fire-place worthy of the middle ages, is already brightened with a hospitable fire. The great rambling hotel is vacant, and its silence unbroken, save by the hastening to and fro of our willing host, who unites all offices of service in his own person, and the pattering of his pretty little boy's feet—the little fellow following him like his shadow, and, perchance, running away from other shadows in this great empty house. The little ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... room,—you would hardly imagine it, but it is above a ton. So rapidly do the weights rise up, and so important is the presence of the atmosphere, and of the oxygen and the nitrogen in it, and the use it performs in conveying things to and fro from place to place, and carrying bad vapours to places where they will do good ...
— The Chemical History Of A Candle • Michael Faraday
... were only a few yards distant from the spot which afforded the poor creature the requisite shelter while recruiting her exhausted powers. At length she arose, and having tottered over to the graves, she sat down, and clasping her hands about her knees, she rocked her body to and fro, as Irish women do when under the influence of strong grief. She then chaunted a verse or two of an old song, whose melancholy notes were not out of keeping with either the scene or the hour; nor an unsuitable burthen for the wild night breeze which wailed through ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... who has his post at the next gate. Eteocles is his name, him the third lot, Forth from the brazen helmet leaping, set To lead his band against the Eastern gate. There to and fro he wheels his fiery steeds, That pant in their caparisons to charge The portal, and with snorting nostrils proud Make uncouth music through their mouth-pieces. Nor lowly the device upon his shield: A man-at-arms is on a ladder seen Scaling the wall of a beleaguered ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... tell. It began to have an interest, an exciting hold upon me, which I could not describe. It seemed to call up visibly a scene any one could understand,—a something shut out, restlessly wandering to and fro; sometimes the voice dropped, as if throwing itself down, sometimes wandered off a few paces, growing sharp and clear. "Oh, mother, let me in! oh, mother, mother, let me in! oh, let me in!" Every word was clear to me. No wonder the boy had ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... along the jungle trail. Tarzan seized and broke a small tree limb, and at the sudden cracking sound the ponderous figure halted. Great ears were thrown forward, and a long, supple trunk rose quickly to wave to and fro in search of the scent of an enemy, while two weak, little eyes peered suspiciously and futilely about in quest of the author of the noise which had disturbed ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... my earliest years I always was fond of animals. No matter what sort they wos, I liked 'em all—birds an' beasts an' fishes, flyers and creepers, an' squeakers and flutterers," said the boy, clasping both hands over one knee, and rocking himself to and fro on the counter, while he gazed into the owl's face with the air of one whose mind is rambling far away into ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... which was near the garden, preparations were making for a game. Young men in flannels and girls in light dresses were passing to and fro arranging the racquets and tightening the nets, some gathering the balls together and trying them ere the other players should arrive. It was a pleasant scene. Birds twittered out and in the ivy ...
— Little Frida - A Tale of the Black Forest • Anonymous
... custom-house and the governor's residence are the most considerable, but both make a very indifferent appearance. In front of the governor's house, which occupies a tolerably large space of ground, in the upper part of the town, a sentinel is constantly stationed. This sentinel parades to and fro, without shoes or stockings, and not unfrequently without a coat, his arms being covered only by his shirt sleeves. As to a cap, that seems to be considered as unnecessary a part of a well-conditioned ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... the nature of the shock are also in common use among Italians and Spaniards. An undulatory shock consists of one or several waves, the movement to and fro being along a nearly horizontal line; a subsultory shock of movements in a nearly vertical direction; while a vorticose shock consists of undulatory or subsultory movements crossing one another ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... to and fro from all parts: some brought canisters of gunpowder and bags of shot; others, fire-arms and boxes of caps. They ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... nearer he saw what Eradicate was doing. The colored man was pushing a lawn-mower slowly to and fro in the tall, rank grass that grew beside the thoroughfare, and at the sound of Tom's motor-cycle the negro looked up. There was such a woe-begone expression on his face that Tom at once stopped ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... supposed his nerves had failed him, for he could not even now give me a straightforward answer. His only reply was, "Let us get away! Let us get away from this horrible house!" and this he kept repeating with a shudder as he moved restlessly to and fro. ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... Joseph, who had beaten his companions by climbing to the top of the tallest pole, and was daring them to come up to him, was detected by the Empress in the very act. The Hofcompositor was sent for, and the figure of Haydn rocking himself to and fro on the pole duly pointed out. 'Give that fair-haired blockhead einen recenten Schilling' (slang for a 'good hiding'); 'he is the ringleader of them all,' said the Empress. The descent of Joseph from his elevated perch, and ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... to the Fafa at Falealupo, as the entrance to their hades was called. The villagers in that neighbourhood kept the cocoa-nut leaf blinds of their houses all closely shut down after dark, so as to keep out the spirits supposed to be constantly passing to and fro. There was a cocoa-nut tree near the entrance to those lower regions, and this tree was called the tree of Leosia, or the Watcher. If a spirit struck against it that soul went back at once to its body. In such a case of restoration from the gates of death the family rejoiced and ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... head-wind and current so we only made about four or five knots an hour. The river is full of mud banks, and the channel winds to and fro in an unexpected manner, so that one can only move by daylight and then often only by constant sounding. Consequently, starting at noon on Monday, it took us till 5 p.m. Wednesday to do the 130 miles. It is much less for a crow, but the river winds so, that one can quite believe Herodotus's ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... tower, delicately massive, a score of feet above them, swayed to and fro, gently, like the ripple of wheat in light summer airs. But Corliss gazed at it unheeding. Just to lie there, on the marge of the mystery, just to lie there and drink the air in great gulps, and do nothing!—he asked no more. A dervish, whirling on heel till all things blur, may grasp ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... in solemn style; A world of love flows to and fro; He smiles; that he may learn to know His mother by ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... dined at the cook-shop, or at his more genteel and gloomy restaurant of the Bronze Horses, it was his custom to lounge an hour or two over a cup of coffee and a Virginia cigar at one of the many caffes, and to watch all the world as it passed to and fro on the quay. Tonelli was gray, he did not disown it; but he always maintained that his heart was still young, and that there was, moreover, a great difference in persons as to age, which told in his favor. So he loved to sit there, and look at the ladies; and he amused ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... he, commencing to pace to and fro on the quarter-deck with his superior officer, while the men made the necessary preparations for the intended assault, "that alters the case, Mr Manton. I don't think, however, that Gascoyne would have taken advantage of the chance to give the brutes what ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... with a jerk upon the big kitchen, where before the Christmas turkeys toasting on the spit, Aunt Rhody was striding to and fro like an Amazon in charcoal. From the beginning of the covered way they had been guided by the tones of penetrant contempt, with which she lashed the circle of house servants who had gathered to her assistance. "You des lemme alont now," was the advice she royally offered. "Ef ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... chattering, cabbage-scented Bogle's there was almost a heart tragedy. Tildy with the blunt nose, the hay-coloured hair, the freckled skin, the bag-o'-meal figure, had never had an admirer. Not a man followed her with his eyes when she went to and fro in the restaurant save now and then when they glared with the beast-hunger for food. None of them bantered her gaily to coquettish interchanges of wit. None of them loudly "jollied" her of mornings as they did Aileen, accusing her, ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... score of such scares, and would snap her fingers at all the comets of the heavens at once. Sometimes it makes me tremble to hear her talk; but methinks she loveth to raise a shudder in the hearts of those who hear her. She is a strange being. Sometimes I almost fear to go to and fro there, albeit she treats me well, and seldom speaks harshly to me. But men say she is above a hundred years old, and she leads so strange a life in her lonely house. Fancy being there alone of a night, with only that deaf old man ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... blissful seat of Paradise, A passage down to th' Earth, a passage wide, Wider by farr then that of after-times Over Mount Sion, and, though that were large, 530 Over the Promis'd Land to God so dear, By which, to visit oft those happy Tribes, On high behests his Angels to and fro Pass'd frequent, and his eye with choice regard From Paneas the fount of Jordans flood To Beersaba, where the Holy Land Borders on Aegypt and the Arabian shoare; So wide the op'ning seemd, where bounds were set To darkness, such as bound the Ocean wave. Satan from hence now on the lower ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... advanced the Patriarch, and his hands were outstretched before him, and he moved them a little to and fro—and the gesture, the poise, the mien, as, touching nothing he seemed to feel his way through space itself, was as one invoking a blessing ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... if carefully read, will instruct both young and old. In this age of progress, when the forces of nature and art are being applied to practical ends; when "men are running to and fro and knowledge is wonderfully increased," it becomes us as intelligent Christians to look around and see whether we are not ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... before his eyes; and with his elbows on his knees, began moving to and fro, as if in ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... to get out. I gave directions that his permit to pass our limits should be recognized. I have no reason to believe that this privilege was abused, but it familiarized our guards so much with the sight of Confederates passing to and fro that I have no doubt many got beyond our pickets unobserved and went on. The most of the men who went in that way no doubt thought they had had war enough, and left with the intention of remaining ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... great wood that rises just above the village and climbs the hillside, and goes down to the river in the valley; such another long lovely valley, Raymond, as that on which we looked one summer night, walking to and fro before your house. For many an hour I strayed through the maze of the forest, turning now to right and now to left, pacing slowly down long alleys of undergrowth, shadowy and chill, even under ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... in England now, my friends, who would laugh in their hearts at those worthy Rechabites, and hold them to be ignorant, old-fashioned, bigoted people, for keeping up their poor, simple, temperate life, wandering to and fro with their tents and cattle, instead of dwelling in great cities, and making money, and becoming what is now-a-days called civilized, in luxury and covetousness. Surely according to the wisdom of this world, the Rechabites were foolish enough. But ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... and running to and fro, and gathering up of baskets and shawls. The good old horse, which had been grazing peacefully in a clearing hard by, was harnessed, and Mr. and Mrs. Merryweather, Colonel Ferrers, and the impedimenta bundled in and off ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... atmosphere a mile or two below us, and to a distance of perhaps twenty miles around in every direction, was alive with airships of various sizes, and some of most extraordinary forms, exchanging signals, rushing to and fro, but all finally concentrating beneath the place where our squadron ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... of the souls of those who laid down their lives for the Faith. On the Cross is flashed the blood red image of the Crucified, likewise formed by glowing stars, the souls of Christian warriors. Not stationary do the splendors remain, but through the glittering mass they dart to and fro like motes in a sunbeam that finds its way through a shutter or screen. With eyes amazed the poet now hears such a wondrous melody that he says: "I was so much enamoured therewith that up to this point there ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... illuminated. Warm fires glowed in the shining marble grates. Dim argand lamps bathed in soft light the rich furniture, carved cornices, and rare statuary which decorated the mantels. The elite of Wimbledon were assembling, and young Mrs. Edson moved lightly to and fro, receiving her numerous guests with graceful self-possession, and welcoming them to her home and heart with warm, earnest cordiality. They were nearly all strangers to her, as she had been but a few months installed mistress of Mr. Edson's splendid mansion; but she felt ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... discerning any object on that side. The sight in my other eye has now been gradually and sensibly vanishing away for about three years; some months before it had entirely perished, though I stood motionless, everything which I looked at seemed in motion to and fro. A stiff cloudy vapour seemed to have settled on my forehead and temples, which usually occasions a sort of somnolent pressure upon my eyes, and particularly from dinner till the evening. So that I often recollect what is said of the poet ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... spoken to Mrs. Hanway-Harley of my passion," continued Storri, still pacing to and fro. "She is so charming ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... and in spite of the many, many thoughts which shuttled to and fro in her mind, she did not lie awake for long. It was a clear and sparkling night; there were no foghorns to disturb her dreams with their raucous warnings, and the surf along the beaches below the Head merely scuffed ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... sunbow's rays still arch The torrent with the many hues of heaven, And roll the sheeted silver's waving column O'er the crag's headlong perpendicular, And fling its lines of foaming light along, And to and fro, like the pale coursers tail, The Giant steed, to be bestrode by Death As ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... finding her. She was walking to and fro beneath the avenue of elms that stood in the archdeacon's grounds, skirting the churchyard. What had passed between her and Mr. Arabin had not, alas, tended to lessen the acerbity of her spirit. She was very angry—more angry with him than with anyone. How could he have so misunderstood ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... network of shadows. Looking back once, he saw the weather-beaten groom with hands on his hips, tilting himself to and fro in benicotined enjoyment of some odd strain of philosophy. Good heavens! was that the way men went to war,—as if it were a hunt with an equal chance of being the hound or the hare? 'Sausage-eaters'—what a phrase to describe those eagle-helmeted supermen ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... Imagine an immense river-steamboat filled on every deck: every berth, every square inch of room, covered with wounded men,—even the stairs and gangways and guards filled with those who were less badly wounded; and then imagine fifty well men, on every kind of errand, hurried and impatient, rushing to and fro, every touch bringing agony to the poor fellows, whilst stretcher after stretcher comes along, hoping to find an empty place; and then imagine what it was for these people of the Commission to keep calm themselves, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... pray, the abbot strove to dissipate his agitation of spirit by walking to and fro within his chamber; and while thus occupied, he was interrupted by a guard, who told him that the priest sent by the Earl of Derby was without, and immediately afterwards the confessor was ushered in. It was the tall monk, who had been standing between the ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... sticking there is extraneous, poisonous; is as a dead iron spike, some horrid rusty ploughshare driven into the living substance;—nay is far worse; for in every wind-storm ('commercial crisis' or the like), it frets and creaks, jolts itself to and fro, and cannot lie quiet as your ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... and filling his mouth with great wads of crust and dough. Richard afterwards learnt that this voracity of appetite was nerve begotten. In moments of acute agitation it was Van Diest's custom to eat enormously on the theory that a full belly begets a placid mind. His little piglike eyes darted to and fro among the cates before him assuring themselves ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... a little, Lord, or let me go, I am so weary walking to and fro Through all your lonely halls that were so sweet Did they but echo ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... Experiences of David Copperfield the Younger" was, among all its author's works, his own particular favourite, he himself, in his very last preface to it, in 1867, formally acknowledged. Several years previously, while sauntering with him to and fro one evening on the grass-plot at Gadshill, we remember receiving from him that same admission. "Which of all your books do you think I regard as incomparably your best?" "Which?" "David Copperfield." A momentary pause ensuing, he added, readily and without the smallest reservation, ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... inertia. Elasticity in some form, or some equivalent of it, in order to be able to store up energy and effect recoil; inertia, in order to enable the disturbed substance to overshoot the mark and oscillate beyond its place of equilibrium to and fro. Any medium possessing these two properties can transmit waves, and unless a medium possesses these properties in some form or other, or some equivalent for them, it may be said with moderate security to be incompetent to transmit waves. But if ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... a different turn; the Athenians were worsted (at the battle of Delium, 424 B.C.), and then much indecisive fighting followed. At last negotiations for peace were opened, which, after many embassies to and fro, resulted in what is known as the Peace of Nicias, from the prominent Athenian general who is supposed to have had most to do in bringing it about. The treaty arranged for a truce of fifty years. Each party was to give up to the other all ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... Michaelmas, Lent, Easter, and Act, were kept severally by a residence, in the aggregate, of ninety-one days, or thirteen weeks. Under this interrupted residence, accordingly, it was possible that a student might have a reason for going down to his home four times in the year. This made eight journeys to and fro. And as these homes lay dispersed through all the shires of the island, and most of us disdained all coaches except his majesty's mail, no city out of London could pretend to so extensive a connection with Mr. Palmer's establishment ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... on the street, To and fro with weary feet;— Aching heart and aching head; Homeless, lacking daily bread; Lost to friends, and joy, and name; Sold to sorrow, sin, and shame; Wet with rain, and chilled by storm; Ruined, wretched, lone, forlorn;— Weak and wan, with weary feet, Still ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... where I stood listening. The noises were a kind of irregular thumping accompanied by a peculiar grinding sound. In a moment I guessed the truth, rushed on deck, and by the dim light in the air saw the long tiller mowing to and fro! The beat of the beam seas had unlocked the frozen bonds of the rudder, and there swung the tiller, as though like a dog the ship was wagging her ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... bridle path at intervals, weaving their way out of sight into the drugged depths of the plantations. Flaming red cardinals flew to and fro before the intruders, and a small green parrakeet clung upside down to a moon vine and whistled as they ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... and their lungs of fire roar and breathe flames eagerly and dangerously out, like a serpent's forked, flashing tongue. The sides glow and swell from the increasing heat, and the iron arms of the machinery tremble and quake with the pent-up and rapidly accumulating forces, running unseen to and fro, only too ready to lend a helping hand—at anything. The seat of power in all this is, like the seat of power everywhere, hot and revolutionary, and those who occupy it must be vigilant, as only one head can control, though that is not ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill
... garden that none saw fit to quit it, and seek diversion elsewhere. Rather—for the sun now shone with a tempered radiance that caused no discomfort—some of the ladies gave chase to the kids and conies and other creatures that haunted it, and, scampering to and fro among them as they sate, had caused them a hundred times, or so, some slight embarrassment. Dioneo and Fiammetta fell a singing of Messer Guglielmo and the lady of Vergiu.(2) Filomena and Pamfilo sat them down to a game of chess; ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... the boys followed the pointing finger dimly outlined in the light of the torches, and saw the Little Brass God swinging to and fro in ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... had gone to the river. Tom Davis, however, with Molly beside him, stood lolling against a tree, sobered, indeed, by the shock of the fire, but scarcely steady enough on his legs to run. Another, who was a cripple, swaying to and fro on his crutches with excitement, broke into a storm of oaths because his companion did not do the work for which he was himself too helpless. But Tom only gazed with bleared eyes at the fire, and tried to stand ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... romance. Scarcely had they reached those latitudes, when a violent tempest arose. Don Fernando soon lost sight of the accompanying caravel, and was driven out of all reckoning by the fury of the storm. For several weary days and nights he was tossed to and fro, at the mercy of the elements, expecting each moment to be swallowed up. At length, one day toward evening, the storm subsided; the clouds cleared up, as though a veil had suddenly been withdrawn from the face of heaven, and the ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... shaping in mid air (And sometimes with ambitious wing that soars High as the level of the mountain tops,) A circuit ampler than the lake beneath, Their own domain;—-but ever, while intent On tracing and retracing that large round, Their jubilant activity evolves Hundreds of curves and circlets, to and fro, Upward and downward, progress intricate Yet unperplex'd, as if one spirit swayed Their indefatigable flight.—'Tis done— Ten times, or more, I fancied it had ceased; But lo! the vanish'd company again Ascending;—they approach—I hear their ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... attention. The telescope now disclosed some of the mysteries of the expedition. I perceived a considerable excitement among the troops on shore. I made out one tent, and I distinguished men hurrying to and fro apparently busy and excited. During this time we were rapidly approaching, and as the distance lessened, I could distinctly see a number of people being driven from the shore on board a vessel that was lying alongside the bank. I felt convinced that these were slaves, as I could distinguish the ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... some time watching the hurrying figures of the miners as they moved to and fro, but his mind was far away. Somehow Zip's luck, in spite of the excessive figures which extravagant minds had estimated it at, only took second place with him. He was thinking of the man who had journeyed ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... head from her friend's shoulder and look round. They were surrounded by the fluttering wings of the bats. These little denizens of the darkness must have been hanging in numbers from the ceiling, and Lindsay's entrance had disturbed them. With strange squeaks and hisses they flitted to and fro for a few moments, then flew off to seek some ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... monarch, stunned and bewildered, saw his faithful subjects falling round him without hardly comprehending his situation. The litter on which he rode heaved to and fro as the mighty press swayed backward and forward; and he gazed on the overwhelming ruin, like some forlorn mariner, who, tossed about in his bark by the furious elements, sees the lightning's flash and hears the thunder bursting around ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... friendships of the latter are held so sacred, that no instance is on record of any depredation being committed on travellers furnished with their protection, which it is usual to purchase with a present, or on any of the valuable caravans, which are continually passing to and fro through their territory, between Barbary and Soudan: the predominant feature of their character is, however, self interest, and although in their dealings amongst strangers, or in the towns, they assume a great appearance of fairness or sincerity, yet they are not ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... anxiety will be to spare your legs and wind. Let us suppose that the two miles of track are perfectly straight, and make our train one platform car, a mile long, with parallel rails laid upon its top. Put a little dummy engine on these rails, and let it run to and fro along the platform car, while the platform car is pulled along the ground track. Catch the idea? The dummy takes your place. But it can run its mile much faster. Fancy that our locomotive is strong enough to pull the platform car over the two miles in two minutes. The dummy can ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... questioning voice That asks the meaning of this mighty world And finds no answer,—asks, and asks again, With patient pleading or with wild complaint, But wakens no response, except the sound Of other questions, wandering to and fro, From other souls in doubt. And so this voice Persists above all others that I hear, And binds them up together into one, Until the mingled murmur of the world Sounds through the inner temple of my heart Like an eternal ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... lot of chaff going on while she tossed her pretty head and picked at potted shrimps. The room was too crowded for any one to notice me; and I sat quietly in a corner eating my sandwiches and smoking my cigarette. The frosted- glass double doors swung to and fro and the shrill voices of children asking for drinks and carrying them away in their mugs made me feel profoundly unhappy. I followed one little girl through the doors out into the street and saw her ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... changed in the slightest detail. The crystal sphere still softly glowed, with intangible shadows flitting across its surface; the adept still sat cross-legged staring into its depths; opposite him, the cobra, its hood distended, swayed slowly to and fro. ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... atomic motion of heated or luminous bodies. It must be also noticed, that if we could see the air through which the sound waves are passing, we should see that each atom or particle of the atmosphere was vibrating to and fro in the direction of propagation. If, however, we could see an atom of Aether in vibration, accepting the principle that Aether is atomic, we should see that each aetherial atom is not vibrating in ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... Britain, which was pressing towards Tibet. Farther west was the great Ottoman empire; the attempt to gain direct contact with it was not hopeless in itself, and this was recognized at Istanbul. Missions went to and fro, and Turkish officers came to Yakub Beg and organized his army; Yakub Beg recognized the Turkish sultan as Khalif. He also concluded treaties with Russia and Great Britain. But in spite of all this he was unable to maintain his hold ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... along which for hundreds of years rolled to and fro the tide of martial life between London and the great Sea Gate of the Realm, lies near by, silent and almost disused. Mr. Balfour's land, on the brow of Hindhead, is enclosed but not yet built upon, although a whole archipelago of cottages and villas is springing up ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... 'cucumber tree,' as its soft wood could be more easily excavated than that of other trees. The men used to wear a yoke upon their shoulders with hooks from which the pails were suspended; and thus equipped they would traverse to and fro with the sap. I well remember lending my assistance to father by trudging valiantly through snow that reached my knees, to carry buckets of sap, but without the ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... wealthy Halifax merchant, one who had been a devoted friend of his, saw as he was entering his place of business a farmer or drover, one well known for 'homespun without, and a warm heart within,' sitting on a box outside near the door, his head leaning on his hand, his foot monotonously swinging to and fro, looking as if he had sat there for hours and had no intention of getting up in a hurry. 'Well, Stephen, what's the matter?' 'Oh, nauthin',' was the dull response. 'Is it Howe?' was the next question, in a softer tone. The sound of the name unsealed ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... of Hampshire that I was at Newbury on the last day of October. The weather was bright though very cold and windy, and towards evening I was surprised to see about twenty swallows in Northbrook Street flying languidly to and fro in the shelter of the houses, often fluttering under the eaves and at intervals sitting on ledges and projections. These belated birds looked as if they wished to hibernate, or find the most cosy holes to die in, rather than to emigrate. On the following ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... excitement increased. Uncertain how Division would go. Rumours of possible defeat of the Government; AKERS-DOUGLAS moving about smiling; therefore all must be well. House surging with excitement; movement to and fro; a buzz of conversation rising above the voice of Member addressing the Chair. Only one placid figure under the glass roof. Seated in side Gallery facing Treasury Bench was J.S. BALFOUR; (no relation of Prince ARTHUR's, bien entendu) Question put; Division bell rang; the bustle of eight ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 27, 1891 • Various
... should not seem to be done but upon privy slander, and to be tossed to and fro in a corner, only to spite us, there have been besides wilily procured by the Bishop of Rome certain persons of eloquence enough, and not unlearned neither, which should put their help to this cause, now almost despaired of, and should polish and set forth the same, both in books, and with ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... while, alternately twisting his moustache and the cat's tail. Presently he flung the latter away, rose, inspected the stars on the wall, and then began to pace to and fro, his gloved hands behind his ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... twitched for some time, and at last sank into sleep. He moaned again and again, but showed no signs of waking, and I sat quietly smoking and framing good resolutions. My eyeballs were irritable, and I found that I could only obtain ease by closing my eyes. Once I started up and walked to and fro; then it struck me I ought to throw the Derringer out of the window, and I did so; then I sat down. The clock struck two; my tired eyes closed, but I was sure I could keep awake, and I began to repeat old songs merely to test my memory ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... any body, and found the night as dark as pitch (it was then November), and raining in torrents; the wind was high, howling round the yard, and sweeping in the rain in every direction as it eddied to and fro. It was some time before I could find O'Brien, who was hard at work; and, as I had already been made acquainted with all his plans, I will now explain them. At Montpelier he had procured six large pieces of iron, about eighteen inches long, with a gimlet at one end of each, and a square ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... romps with the boys, runs races with them in the yard, and up and down the stairs, and is heard scolding laughingly at their rough play. She asks William Allen to place her "on top of that horse," whereupon he puts his large brown hands about her waist, and, swinging her to and fro, lifts her on horseback. William threatens to rivet two horse-shoes round her neck, for having clambered, with the other girls and boys, upon a load of hay, whereby the said load lost its balance and slid off the cart. She strings the seed-berries ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... next we got a clear view the tables had turned, for the crocodile, whose head seemed to be a mass of gore, had got the lion's body in his iron jaws just above the hips, and was squeezing him and shaking him to and fro. For his part, the tortured brute, roaring in agony, was clawing and biting madly at his enemy's scaly head, and fixing his great hind claws in the crocodile's, comparatively speaking, soft throat, ripping it open as one would rip ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... to be a democratic business in proportion as one sees experts in it expressing crowds. One sees great crowds going to and fro and up and down in it acting for all practical purposes like geniuses, like skilled angels doing every day offhand inspired and inspiring difficult adventurous things as a matter of course—like tackling the high cost ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... coat and began pushing the milky water to and fro with a broom. Seeing the maid next door making great wet curves on her steps with a sort of stone, he called to her to ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... its environs. In dirt, bad paving, etc., I found it equal to any of the towns I had yet seen. The lower street, near the sea, alone is broad and bustling, with loaded and unloaded camels passing continually to and fro. The bazaar is composed of some miserable booths containing common provisions and ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... little piece of England, and towing it across the sea to find a safe anchorage in a sunnier clime. The ship which takes out emigrants will bring back the produce of the farms, and constant travelling to and fro will lead more than ever to the feeling that we and our ocean-sundered brethren ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... were to his taste. Nell now saw above her the trunk like a huge black snake which stretched and bent; it touched one of her little hands and then the other; afterwards both shoulders and finally descending it began to swing gently to and fro. ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz |
