"Top" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with strict orders to move about off Shelness Point, and the strand at Leysdown, and to be ready, on a particular signal, to heave-to and cast anchor nearly opposite the Gull's Nest. Three times had Dalton lighted his beacon on the top of the ruined tower, and three times extinguished it: the signal was at length answered, although not according to his directions, which were light for light. The Buccaneer was, however, satisfied; descended by the private stair to the shore, and pushed ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... pails on a yoke, deposited them upon the edge of the pavement in front of the inn, and straightened his back to an excruciating perpendicular. His remarks had been addressed to a rickety person, wearing a waistcoat of that preternatural length from the top to the bottom button which prevails among men who have to do with horses. He was sweeping straws from the carriage-way beneath the stone arch that formed a passage ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... ground until it is filled with earth; then it cannot hear the music and remains awake." "Of all animals there is none so dangerous as the unicorn; it attacks everybody with the horn which grows on the top of its head. But it takes such delight in virgins that the hunters place a maiden on its trail. As soon as the unicorn sees the maiden, it lays its head into her lap and falls asleep, when it may easily be caught." Of the magnet we learn ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... beheld his beloved sailing by. She was got up in the fashion. A mauve silk dress with eighteen flounces, and about eighteen hundred steel buttons that glittered your sight away; a "zouave" jacket worked with gold; a black turban perched on the top of her skull, garnished in front with what court milliners are pleased to term a "plume de coq," but which, by its size and height, might have been taken for a "coq" himself, while a white ostrich feather ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Alexandria, on Red River, Louisiana, he saw a slave brought to a blacksmith's shop and a collar of iron fastened round his neck, with two pieces rivetted to the sides, meeting some distance above his head. At the top of the arch, thus formed, was attached a large cow-bell, the motion of which, while walking the streets, made it necessary for the slave to hold his hand to one of its sides, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... the rainy season at Nara, and floods were reported every day as doing damage in the neighborhood. The river Tatsuta, which flowed through the Imperial Palace grounds, was swollen to the top of its banks, and the roaring of the torrents of water rushing along a narrow bed so disturbed the Emperor's rest day and night, that a serious nervous disorder was the result. An Imperial Edict was sent forth to all the Buddhist temples commanding ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... has a greater latitude of choice than we; and if he brings home a parsnip or turnip-top, when he could as easily have pocketed a nectarine or a pineapple, he must be a blockhead. I never heard the name of the Pursuer of Literature, who has little more merit in having stolen than he would have had if he had never stolen ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... German people had directly or indirectly to bear, special offence was given at the beginning of the sixteenth century by the excessive exploitation of the practice of indulgences by Leo X for the purpose of completing the cathedral of St. Peter's at Rome. It was this, coming on the top of the exactions already rendered necessary by the increasing luxury and debauchery of the Papal Court and those of the other ecclesiastical dignitaries, that directly led to the dramatic incidents with which the ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... false, dishonest, and execrable. It was a well-deserved lesson, which he should remember: ought he to have relapsed into that cellar-like studio light? Was he going to revert to the filthy cooking of imaginary figures? When the picture came back, he took a knife and ripped it from top ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... history of this quarter, backwards and forwards, we can do up this deal in short order. You sign this contract, which is exactly like all the others we use, and I'll hand over your check. We get the bottom; you keep the top; I give you the sixteen thousand, ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... Duc de Nivernois, who dined at Claremont. The gallery is not advanced enough to give them any idea at all, as they are not apt to go out of their way for one; but the cabinet, and the glory of yellow glass at top, which had a charming sun for a foil, did surmount their indifference, especially as they were animated by the Duchess of Grafton, who had never happened to be here before, and who perfectly entered ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... for any family is that which the Keiths of Scotland selected a-many years ago: "They say. What say they? Let them say." It might even do for the top ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... the fat man went away, so the other two drove him off. Going down is worse. It's like looking over a precipice all the time. I was so glad when I got down that I sang with glee. I hate work like that, and to make it worse I took everybody's picture on top of the Pyramid, and forgot to have one of them take me, so there is no way to prove I ever went up. Little and I hired two donkeys and called them "Gallegher" and "Van Bibber" and raced them. My donkey was so little that they couldn't see him—only ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... bird whose name had just escaped his lips. All eyes were instantly turned in the direction whence it came—which was from the opposite side of the river—and there, just in the act of launching itself from the top of a tall tree, was the great enemy of ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... first day of the tenth month) that the "tops of the mountains" became visible. Hence it follows that, if the ark drew even as much as twenty feet of water, the level of the inundation fell very slowly—at a rate of only a few inches a day—until the top of the mountain on which it rested became visible. This is an amount of movement which, if it took place in the sea, would be overlooked by ordinary people on the shore. But the Mesopotamian plain slopes gently, from an elevation of 500 or 600 ...
— The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science - Essay #6 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... at once. Jehu condescending to hand down the luggage, they transferred it to the foot of the staircase, then, the fare having been paid, went up to the second floor, which was the top of the house. Miss Vesper's two rooms were very humble, but homely. She looked at Monica to remark ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... gestures, she had the air of being listlessly resigned. Her dress, a marvel of discretion, its colour the yellow of old ivory, was of some very rich and stiff stuff cut square to her neck; that, and her great black hair, clustered to a crimson rose at the top of her head, made the pallor of her face a thing to marvel at. Her beauty was at once sombre and illuminating, and youthful no less. The woman of thirty: but her complexion, and her arms, which were bare, were soft in ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... across the Confederate lines, and then he turned his attention to the mountains which here hemmed in the valley to such a straitened width. He saw a signal station of the enemy on a culminating ridge called Three Top Mountain, and as the flags there were waving industriously he knew that every movement of the Union army would be communicated ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and its belfry; midway was the hotel, with the stores, the printing-office, and the churches; and at the other extreme, one of the square white mansions stood advanced from the rank of the rest, at the top of a deep-plunging valley, defining itself against the mountain beyond so sharply that it seemed as if cut out of its dark, wooded side. It was from the gate before this house, distinct in the pink light ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... tired, we were very merry— We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry. It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable— But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table, We lay on the hill-top underneath the moon; And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams
... you shut your eyes the opening night at the Opera you might have fancied yourself back at Covent Garden, London, for the types of well-turned-out men out-Englished the English, from top ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 31, 1917 • Various
... "Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three." It was a way he had when something big was about to happen. The hand of the slender man was at the second button on the other's rough coat when Johnny reached fifty. At sixty it had come to the top button. At sixty-five his long finger-tips were doubling in for the fatal, vice-like grip. Noiselessly, Johnny laid the knife on a cross bar of the door. Knives were too deadly. Johnny's "wallop" was quite enough; more ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... went to bed I have been thinking over our conversation in the drawing-room, and it has just occurred to me that I was wrong in telling you I felt most of the sublime when on the top of the Cordillera; I am quite sure that I felt it even more when in the forests of Brazil. I thought it best to come and tell you this at once in case I should be putting you wrong. I am sure now that I felt most sublime in ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... jar such as used in putting up preserves, either of one or two-quart capacity. A one-quart jar gives good results, but if the bait to be caught is of fairly large size, the two quart size may be used. As the jars have the same style top they can be used ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... sprinkling of Javanese and Malays, are huddled on the little deck, with goats and buffaloes, and forty coops of fowls and ducks; the fowls and ducks cackling and quacking, and the Chinese clattering at the top of their ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... intend to swim the creek and try to reach the point at the mouth of the Illinois, from where I can see up and down the Mississippi. I am going to send Sam back through the woods there and have him climb that ridge. From the top he ought to have a good view up the valley of the Illinois. I suppose you ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... for me, my lady especially. The fellows staid in the yard swearing with one or two constables, and some time we locked them into the yard, and by and by let them out again, and so kept them all the afternoon, not letting them see me, or know where I was. One time I went up to the top of Sir W. Batten's house, and out of one of their windows spoke to my wife out of one of ours; which methought, though I did it in mirth, yet I was sad to think what a sad thing it would be for me to be really in that condition. By and by comes Sir J. Minnes, who (like himself ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... extinguishing a lamp which burns above the tomb. It is a singular circumstance that Voltaire caused the church of Ferney to be built, as well as several houses in the village, and on an iron vane on the top of the former is inscribed, "Deo ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... or Postmaster has a large number of letters for any particular office with which he does not exchange direct mails, he should tie them all up in one package, either addressing the package or facing the top and ...
— General Instructions For The Guidance Of Post Office Inspectors In The Dominion Of Canada • Alexander Campbell
... the ibex. These sheep were well known to the road builders, who had spent the winter in the locality. They told me they never went back on the plains, but throughout the winter had spent their days and nights on the top of the cliff and along its face. This cliff was an alternation of sheer precipices and very steep inclines. When coated with ice it would be difficult to imagine an uglier bit of climbing; but throughout the winter, and even in the wildest storms, the sheep had habitually gone ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... right in the top story," the man answered. "She is kind of foolish. I have to keep ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... from top. Add, This is "the law of our nature, that function is primary, and pleasure only attendant" (Stewart, Notes on Nicomathean ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... he had stationed two sentinels. These cowardly savages, when they saw the English approaching in such force, precipitately fled, without giving their chieftain any warning. The sachem, from his wigwam, saw their flight, and sent a third man to the hill-top to ascertain the cause. As soon as he arrived upon the brow of the hill he saw the glittering array of more than a hundred men almost directly upon him. Appalled by the sight, he also fled like his predecessors. Nanuntenoo, ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... not overset Faith's gravity, because by this time she had none to speak of. Alexander's delight was found to be in red apples, and he thought a little common top a treasure such as neither Diogenes nor the real Alexander knew of between them! One little girl was made happy with a wonderful picture-book in which there were a dog, a cat, and a lion with a great mane just ready to eat a man ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... antiquarian sentiment, so engrossing and curious as that produced by the headless skeleton of "auld Gilnockie's Tower," as it is seen in the grey gloaming, with a breeze brattling through its dry ribs, and a stray owl sitting on the top, and sending his eldritch screigh through the deserted hollows. The mind becomes busy on the instant with the former scenes of festivity, when "their stolen gear," "baith nolt and sheep," and "flesh, and bread, and ale," as Maitland ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... was a delicate oval, the mouth soft and sweet, the eyes bright with youth and health, the whole appearance telling of winning grace and cultured beauty. The fullness of the brows betrayed the artist instinct. The hair was drawn to the top of the head in a strange foreign fashion. The softly curving lines of face ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... together, Laid the bundle in her basket, Basket made from bark of birch-wood, Bound with cords the magic bundle; With the chains of gold she bound it To the pine-tree's topmost branches. There she rocked the thing of magic, Rocked to life the tender baby, Mid the blossoms of the pine-tree, On the fir-top set with needles; Thus the young bear well was nurtured, Thus was sacred Otso cradled On the honey-tree of Northland, In the middle of the forest. "Sacred Otso grew and flourished, Quickly grew with ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... little just to keep the almonds from sticking to the bottom, stirring lightly only the one way, then watch the boil carefully till it turns a light golden color; lift off the pan and pour the contents into the frames. The almond will come to the top better in tins ...
— The Candy Maker's Guide - A Collection of Choice Recipes for Sugar Boiling • Fletcher Manufacturing Company
... originally of a thousand veterans, besides burgher militia, had been much diminished. Two commandants of the place, one after another, had lost their lives. On the 1st of June, Governor De Masieres, Captain Mongyn, the father-confessor of the garrison, and two soldiers, being on the top of the great church tower taking observations, were all brought down with one cannon-shot. Thus the uses of artillery were again proved to be something more than ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... two such mature people do when they get together? I should like to know," said the young man as he reached the top. ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... vice-governatore, and completely puzzled Vito Viti. The grave mariners at the other table, too, thought it odd, for in no other tongue is the language of the sea as poetical, or figurative, as in the English; and the term of boot-top, as applied to a vessel, was Greek to them, as well as to the other listeners. They conversed among themselves on the subject, while their two superiors were holding a secret conference on the other side of the room, giving the American time ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... sought to recover its feet, then tumbled forward hurling the Marquis from the saddle. La Boulaye had an inspiration to fling himself upon the old roue and seek with his hands to kill him before they made an end of himself. But ere he could move to execute his design a horseman was almost on top of him. He received a stunning blow on the head. The daylight faded in his eyes, he felt a sensation of sinking, and a reverberating darkness ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... and was recovered with difficulty. He was immediately blooded, and had the chief wound, which is just over the eye, sewed up—but you never saw so battered a figure. All round his eye is as black as jet, and besides the scar on his forehead, he has cut his nose at top and bottom. He is well off with his life, and we ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... struck it; and from the curvature of the arm the ball passed through a second time above the elbow. The sudden shock caused the rifle to tilt a little upwards and thus saved the hero's life. Carson's face was severely burned by the powder, and the ball glanced over the top of his head, just cutting through the skin. The bully's rifle dropped from his hand. He had received a terrible and an utterly disabling wound. He had fought his last battle. No surgery could ever heal those fractured bones so as to put that arm again in fighting trim. The wretch ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... himself "in an elevated position in the main rigging, near the top," a place of great peril, but one which enabled him to see much better than if he had been on deck, the progress of the battle; and from thence he witnessed, and testified with great gratification to ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... the silver and black of the shadowed night he searched on, and not until the rosy light of dawning began to flush and grow in the east did he come to stand at the top of the canyon where he could look down and see the girl, her green riding habit blending darkly with the dark forms of the trees still in shadow, the gold of her hair glinted with the early light, and her ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... holy man was not so easily disposed of, however; for he immediately clapped his head upon his shoulders again, and holding it on with both hands, waded across the river, and marched steadily up the hill on the other side. Arrived at the top, he gave up his head and the ghost. Hence the convent and church ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... feet, however, Graeme had seized him and flung him out upon the heads of the crowd outside. But through the other windows men were coming in, and Graeme rushed for the barricade, followed by two of the enemy, the foremost of whom I received at the top and hurled ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... in the plot; which so enraged him, with their menaces together, that he drew, and stood upon his defence; and was so much in earnest, that the man he pushed into the arm, and disabled; and pressing pretty forward upon the other, as he retreated, he rushed in upon him near the top of the stairs, and pushed him down one pair, and he was much hurt by the fall: Not but that, he said, he might have paid for his rashness; but that the business of his antagonists was rather to frighten than to kill him: ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... an important journey was very evident. They were muffled up in ulsters, and wore gloves and top hats—a vanity no Mountjoy boy ever succumbed to, except under dire necessity. Yet it was clear they were not homeward bound, for no trunks encumbered the lobby, and no suggestion of Dulce Domum betrayed ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... a chill dark autumn evening, and Captain Cuttle had ordered a fire to be kindled in the little back parlour, now more than ever like the cabin of a ship. The rain fell fast, and the wind blew hard; and straying out on the house-top by that stormy bedroom of his old friend, to take an observation of the weather, the Captain's heart died within him, when he saw how wild and desolate it was. Not that he associated the weather of that time with poor Walter's destiny, or doubted that if Providence ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... from some other places, that it is lawfull to paint Angels, and also God himselfe: as from Gods walking in the Garden; from Jacobs seeing God at the top of the ladder; and from other Visions, and Dreams. But Visions, and Dreams whether naturall, or supernaturall, are but Phantasmes: and he that painteth an Image of any of them, maketh not an Image of God, but of his own Phantasm, which is, making ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... enter into any proof of this statement; the memory of the lean years which began in 1893 is still vivid, and we can contrast them with the conditions in this very year which is now closing. Disaster to great business enterprises can never have its effects limited to the men at the top. It spreads through-out, and while it is bad for everybody, it is worst for those farthest down. The capitalist may be shorn of his luxuries; but the wage-worker may be deprived of ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume: Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement • Theodore Roosevelt
... spring from other individuals; but there is a certain kind which reproduces itself. The Assyrians call it the Phoenix. It does not live on fruit or flowers, but on frankincense and odoriferous gums. When it has lived five hundred years, it builds itself a nest in the branches of an oak, or on the top of a palm tree. In this it collects cinnamon, and spikenard, and myrrh, and of these materials builds a pile on which it deposits itself, and dying, breathes out its last breath amidst odors. From the body of the parent bird, a young Phoenix ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... panting, drenched and confused. The next moment he saw, as through a fog—his eyes being full of water—something fall from the ship. He breasted the big waves, and swam towards it: it rose on the top of a wave, and he saw it was a life-buoy. Encumbered with wet clothes, he seemed impotent in the big waves; they threw him up so ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... never pop Thy head into a tin-man's shop? There, Thomas, didst thou never see ('Tis but by way of simile) A squirrel spend his little rage, In jumping round a rolling cage? The cage, as either side turn'd up, Striking a ring of bells a-top?— Mov'd in the orb, pleas'd with the chimes, The foolish creature thinks he climbs: But here or there, turn wood or wire, He never gets two inches higher. So fares it with those merry blades, That frisk it under Pindus' shades. In noble songs, and lofty odes, They tread ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... confusedly. Boys were emerging from all the other class-rooms also. There was a great mixing and tumult of boys and parents, bidding the masters and the mistresses good by, and exchanging greetings among themselves. The mistress with the red feather had four or five children on top of her, and twenty around her, depriving her of breath; and they had half torn off the little nun's bonnet, and thrust a dozen bunches of flowers in the button-holes of her black dress, and in her pockets. Many were making much of Robetti, who had that day, for the first time, abandoned ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... distance behind her was the bandit Stephano; with sword in hand he still maintained the chase, though breathless and ready to sink from exhaustion. Not an instant did Wagner tarry upon the top of the bank which he had reached; but darting toward Nisida, who was now scarce fifty yards from him, he gave vent ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... accession to his funds, and he sent the messenger, as Oretes had proposed. Oretes prepared to receive him by filling a large number of boxes nearly full with heavy stones, and then placing a shallow layer of gold or silver coin at the top. These boxes were then suitably covered and secured, with the fastenings usually adopted in those days, and placed away in the royal treasuries. When the messenger arrived, the boxes were brought out and opened, ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the top buttons of his coat. "I don't know what induced you to come here; I suppose you have come to the end of ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... itself; remembering always that the kind of work required here is mere child's play compared to that of fine figure engraving. Nevertheless, take a small magnifying glass to this—count the dots and lines that gradate the nostrils and the edges of the facial bone; notice how the light is left on the top of the head by the stopping, at its outline, of the coarse touches which form the shadows under the leaves; examine it well, and then—I humbly ask of you—try to do a piece of it yourself! You clever sketcher—you young lady or gentleman of ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... appreciable effect, the deepest indentation having been made by a shot that penetrated the iron on her side to the depth of four inches. On the "Merrimac" ninety-seven indentations of shot were found, twenty of which were from the 11-inch guns of the "Monitor," which had shattered six of the top layers of her ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... First: stratum number one, the top floor; that's Cyril's, you know. They'd note the bare floors, the sparse but heavy furniture, the piano, the violin, the flute, the book-lined walls, and the absence of every sort of curtain, cushion, or knickknack. 'Here lived a plain ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... of a giant who threw a stone from thence to Jutland, which was so large that two girls saved themselves from a bull by climbing to the top of it. There is, however, the variation that it was thrown by a giantess from Fyen (Funen) with her garter. I know of no special ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... young girl who was led astray and who, I had just been told, had taken medicine to terminate her pregnancy. When I learned of this I had thought of the loss of the incipient life. The same night I dreamed of going upstairs in a shed or barn. At the top of the stairs something—a door—is in the way. I go by it. A child is there. Again:—I am crossing a level field and come upon little star-like flowers which I try to analyse. I find many with pistils but no stamens,—the pollen bearing organs which effect fertilization. ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... not yet dark, but street-lamps had begun to flare and flicker in the gust of a cold, damp evening. A thin and slippery mud smeared the pavement. Tarrant had walked mechanically as far as to the top of Park Lane before he began to consider his immediate course. Among the people who stood waiting ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... out through the open flap and screamed at the top of her voice, thinking the creature had actually got into the tent. But nothing was visible, she declared, and she heard not the faintest sound of an animal making off under cover of the darkness. The brief account seemed to exercise a paralysing ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... twisted it into thread, which was woven into garments. Thus the legend became established and the belief in the Tartary lamb became so firm that for several hundred years people even in England thought that in the Far East there grew this wonderful plant with a vegetable lamb sprouting from the top of it." ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... ruthless as a baby with a worm, As cruel as a schoolboy ere he grows To Pity—more from ignorance than will, But put your best foot forward, or I fear That we shall miss the mail: and here it comes With five at top: as quaint a four-in-hand As you shall see—three ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... 'cash for negroes,' 'cash for negroes,' is the heading of advertisements in great capitals down the long columns of the crowded journals. Woodcuts of a runaway negro with manacled hands, crouching beneath a bluff pursuer in top boots, who, having caught him, grasps him by the throat, agreeably diversify the pleasant text. The leading article protests against 'that abominable and hellish doctrine of abolition, which is repugnant alike to every law of God and nature.' ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... in the commerce of Great Britain; and the grocers, about the due time, began to garnish their windows with our particular brand of luminary. We wore them buckled to the waist upon a cricket belt, and over them, such was the rigor of the game, a buttoned top-coat. They smelled noisomely of blistered tin; they never burned aright, though they would always burn our fingers; their use was naught; the pleasure of them merely fanciful; and yet a boy with a bull's-eye under his top-coat asked for nothing more. The ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... In a top-story bedroom in an old-fashioned house in a northern suburb of London, a girl of fourteen was kneeling on the floor, turning out the contents of the bottom cupboards of a big bookcase. Her method of doing so was hardly tidy; she just tossed the miscellaneous assortment of ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... lasso is done with the rapidity of thought, and an attempt to turn round and fire would indubitably seal his fate: the only means to escape the fatal noose is, to raise the reins of your horse to the top of your head, and hold any thing diagonally from your body, such as the lance, the carbine, or any thing except the knife, which you must hold in your sight hand, ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... only a week ago? Hazel wondered. Those three days of prostration had seemed to put whole continents of time between her and the wild walk across the hill-top; though the traces of that day, and of the weeks that went before, were still visible enough. Not strong yet, to withstand and manage the incoming tide of new thoughts and prospects and responsibilities, she took all the petting and pleasure and care with the most gravely girlish ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... species since the dawn of time. I think the first chicken that was ever hatched in Eden must have experienced some great nervous shock that has descended along the infinite line of its progeny. The monotonous rooster chants ever and anon from the top of the fence his unalterable convictions. The ducks waddle waggishly through the rain and the pigeons coo softly the mellowest melodies that ever sounded ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... their victim made a frantic effort to break away, and not succeeding in it, he commenced yelling at the top of his voice. As is usual in such cases, the watchman was nowhere to be seen; and his cries only ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... open, and trousers the knees of which were worn and dirty-looking, crowded behind me into the narrow passage leading to the staircase. I did not feel very easy in my mind, and I mounted the stairs rapidly. Several persons were waiting for me at the top: Mr. Abbey, Jarrett, and also some reporters, two gentlemen and a charming and most distinguished woman, whose friendship I have kept ever since, although she does not care much for French people. I saw Mr. Abbey, who was usually very dignified and cold, advance in the most gracious and courteous ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... help laughing, he kissed the top of her head, told her to write to him, and left the house, feeling like an entirely new ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... having acquir'd that, it will be more easy to attain those modern languages which are deriv'd from it; and yet we do not begin with the Greek, in order more easily to acquire the Latin. It is true that, if you can clamber and get to the top of a staircase without using the steps, you will more easily gain them in descending; but certainly, if you begin with the lowest you will with more ease ascend to the top; and I would therefore offer it to the consideration of those who superintend the education of our youth, ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... allow a parcel to be sent to Portland Mansions, saying that she preferred to carry it. At last, however, she seemed to think that Connie had had sufficient exercise, and they went home from the corner of Tottenham Court Road on the top of ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... morning about 5 AM. Came in a Ship from Marble Head[24] who was bound to So. Carolina. she had lost her Main Mast, Mizen Mast and fore top Mast. In the Latitude 35 deg. she mett with a hard Gale of Wind which Caused this dissaster so was obliged to put back and Came to New York to Refitt. About 11 Clock the Humming Bird weighd Anchor for Philadelphia to Gett hands. Att 4 PM. the Lieut. with 2 Sergeants belonging ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... theoretically true that solid stone under infinitely high pressure may be liquefied. If in the cylinder of a hydraulic press there be put a certain quantity of cobblestones, leaving a clearance between the top of the stone and the piston, and if this space, together with the voids, be filled with water and subjected to a great pressure, the sides or the walls of the cylinder are acted on by two pressures, one almost negligible, where they are in contact ...
— Pressure, Resistance, and Stability of Earth • J. C. Meem
... date-tree, is a native of Africa and the East, where it grows to the height of fifty or sixty, and occasionally a hundred feet. A cluster of branches issues from the top of it, eight or nine feet long, bending towards the earth, and extending all round in the form of an umbrella. The trunk is upright, and full of cavities, the vestiges of its decayed leaves, having a flat surface within, adapted to the human foot, and forming a kind of natural ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... smiled in answer. "I'm just hankerin' to be at the old job again, ridin' at top speed with the mail bags, same as I used ter do. Same as your father did. Your father lost his life in the business, you know. Was attacked by Injuns. And Eye-of-the-Moon—Broken Feather's father—went ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... slavery wuz wrong. I have a horror of being a slave. You see all dis lan' aroun' here. It belongs to colored folks. Dey were cut off wid nothin', but dey is strugglin' an' dey are comin' on fast. De Bible say dat de bottom rail will be on top, and it is comin' to pass. Sometime de colored race will git up. De Bible ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... birds they were singing in the morning, And the ivy and the myrtle were in bloom, The sun on the hill-top was dawning, It was then we laid ...
— A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk-Songs • Hubert G. Shearin
... afforded the required information. Mr. Lewis, forgetting all discretion, whilst he frothed at the mouth, turned towards Mr. Adams, and ejaculated at the top of his voice, "By G-d, sir, this is not to be endured ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... trash, and had it thrown into the pond behind the house. Well, when he cleared the decks next time, if he did not miss the old broken crockery, all of which, he said, he meant to mend with white lead on rainy days; while the broken bottles, forsooth, he had saved to put on the top of the brick wall, to hinder the little boys from climbing over to steal the apples! Oh, dear, dear, dear! there was no end to his bawling, and swearing, and calling me hard names, while he had the impudence to tell Kelly, in my hearing, that I ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... on it had the same spirit too. They were Bavarians—all new troops, and nearly all young fellows. Their accouterments were bright and their uniforms almost unsoiled, and I saw that each man carried in his right boot top the long, ugly-looking dirk-knife that the Bavarian foot-soldier fancies. The Germans always showed heat when they found a big service clasp-knife hung about a captured Englishman's neck on a lanyard, calling it a ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... The wildest of all passions, curiosity, had long held dominion over the crowd: every one wanted to see, though at the risk of crushing the others. M. Nibor tumbled down, M. Renault and his son, in attempting to help him, were thrown on top of him; Madame Renault, in her turn, was thrown down at the feet of Fougas, and began screaming at the top ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... heard you greeted by your sentinel, and guessed that you were near your burrow. We came no further, but looked around and found a projecting rock, under which to lie hidden, and a tree from whose top this place could be seen. So we have lodged under the rock, one of us keeping watch night and day from the tree. I hoped thus to be able to know when you should be taken, so that I might then look to the lady. But no soldiers came for you, neither ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... top of a sharp pitch he looked down into the twin canon of Escondido. A sharp bend cut off the view to the left, so that he could see for only seventy-five or a hundred yards. But his glance followed the ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... on together; and as they passed a cherry tree, the giant laid hold of the top of the tree where the ripest fruit was hanging, bent it down, gave it into the tailor's hand, and bade him eat. But the little tailor was much too weak to hold the tree; and when the giant let it go, it sprang back again, and the tailor was hurried into the ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... first time, my dear child, we suddenly saw your danger. Imagine how we felt as that hideous brute rose up in the road and began attacking the wagon. We called on Tenbrook to fire, but for some inconceivable reason he did not, although he still kept running at the top of his speed. Then ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... the Place, lay the old town, sloping up now, up even to the medieval castle, which fifty years ago had stood in lonely detachment, but now was faced on hill-top after hill-top, at its own level, by the enormous nursing homes and hostels, which under the direction of the Religious Orders had gradually grown up about this shrine of healing, until now, up to a height of at least five hundred feet, the city of Mary stood on bastion after bastion of the ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... lowly vales and woodland please, And winding rivers, and inglorious ease; O that I wander'd by Sperchius' flood, Or on Taygetus' sacred top I stood! Who in cool Haemus' vales my limbs will lay, And in the darkest thicket hide ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... Jonson, resemble the poet who made them. Lear, we see, is also choleric by temperament—the first of Shakespeare's heroes who is so. And a long life of absolute power, in which he has been flattered to the top of his bent, has produced in him that blindness to human limitations, and that presumptuous self-will, which in Greek tragedy we have so often seen stumbling against the altar of Nemesis. Our consciousness that the decay of old age contributes to this condition deepens our pity ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... couple of horsemen who were walking their jaded, much-splashed horses along a narrow road, or rather lane, which led between a stretch of pasture-land on one side and a ploughed field on the other. The red coats and top-boots of both were liberally besprinkled with mud; even their hats had not quite escaped. Their steeds hung their heads and moved languidly; both horses and riders had evidently had a hard day's work. Presently the road sloped somewhat steeply to a hollow sheltered at one side by a steep bank ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... hinted, two hours later, when, in another quarter of the town, a little girl of seven or eight, at play on the domestic side of an alley gate, became aware of an older girl regarding her fixedly over the top of the gate. The little girl felt embarrassed and paused in her gayeties, enfolding in her arms her pet and playmate. "Howdy' do," said the stranger, in a serious tone. "What'll you take ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... made: Yea, not only the Larynx, or Wind-pipe, doth thereupon tremble, but the whole Skull also; yea, and sometimes all the Bones of the whole Body, which any one may easily find in himself, by his applying his Hand to his Throat, and laying it on the top of his Head. This trembling is very perceptible in most sounding Bodies, and is (if I mistake not) owing for the most part to the Springiness of the Air; which, did I not study to be brief, I could more fully explicate. Now the Simple Breath is Air, breathed forth ...
— The Talking Deaf Man - A Method Proposed, Whereby He Who is Born Deaf, May Learn to Speak, 1692 • John Conrade Amman
... leading up to the back door, looking down on a pretty little green snake on the step below, that was wriggling along as fast as possible, trying to make its escape. Fred was seated quietly on the top step, waiting for the ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... it never comes out. If anything alarms it, with a sudden recoil it withdraws completely into its urn, the opening of which is closed with the disk formed by the flat top of the head. When quiet is restored, it ventures to put out its head and the three segments with legs to them, but is very careful to keep the rest, which is more delicate and fastened to ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... upon and consulted, and it was finally arranged that every afternoon from two to three he should have a reading lesson on the top ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... thinkin' iv th' doin's iv people. Th' campinily at Venice has fallen down. 'Twas built in 1604 be th' Beezantiums an' raystored in 1402 be th' Dogs. It fell down because th' foundations was weak, because th' wind blew, because th' beautiful figure iv th' goolden angel on top iv it was fifteen feet high. It will be rebuilt or maybe not. Th' king iv Italy has given thirty-three billion liars to put it up again, an' siv'ral ladin' American archytects have offered to do th' job, makin' an office buildin' iv it. Th' campinily was wan iv th' proudest monymints ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... stock with husbandry; but, of all things, let him beware of bringing it under the lash of his betters, because that will make it all bubble up into impertinence, and he will find no new supply. Wit without knowledge being a sort of cream, which gathers in a night to the top, and by a skilful hand may be soon whipped into froth; but once scummed away, what appears underneath will be fit for nothing but to be thrown ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... under an area in the basement story, dynamite being the agent employed for the outrage. A large aperture was made in the wall, which is three feet thick. Several large rents running to the top have been made, and it now presents a most dilapidated appearance. The ground-floor, where the explosion occurred, was used as a larder, and everything in it was smashed to pieces, the glass window-frames and shutters being shivered into atoms. On the three stories above it, the explosion ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... there were some truth in them after all? He had himself seen the man twice, under the most suspicious circumstances. What if he were her lover? How could Francis Markrute know of all her existence, when he had said she had been an immaculate wife? And gradually, on top of his other miseries, trifles light as air came and tortured him until presently he had worked up a whole chain of evidence, proving the lover ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... should adopt under his own peculiar circumstances. The consequence was, that on coming within about a couple of furlongs of a dark, narrow, thickly-wooded glen, through which he knew they must pass, he bolted off at the top of his speed, which, although very considerable for a man whose strength had been so completely exhausted by fatigue and the unusual slavery of that day's wandering through the mountains, was, notwithstanding, such as would never have enabled him ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... sorrow, Daniel sent Susan a ticket and a check for a trip to Kansas. Hesitating no longer, she waited only until her "tip-top Rochester dressmaker" made up "the new, five-dollar silk" which she ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... beach, the fisherman's eyes all the while intent upon them as he stood motionless beside his boat; then suddenly seeming to see the right one—though to the captain and Max it did not look different from many of its neglected predecessors—he gave his dory a vigorous push that sent it out upon the top of that very wave, leaped into the stern, seized his oars, and with a powerful stroke sent the boat out beyond ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... him, screeching still, across the ante-chamber to the head of the great stairs, and there they fell on him all together, and so wildly that they wounded one another in their fury to rend him into pieces. The tattered body, gushing blood from six-and-fifty wounds, was hurled from top to bottom of the stairs, with a gold-hilted dagger—Darnley's, in token of his participation in the deed—still sticking ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... with a gold pompon on top the helmet," he observed. "What is the dang thing, anyway, Amy?" ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... that in summer the chamois climb up to the everlasting snow and take much delight in playing in it. They will drop into a crouching position on the top of a very steep mountain, work their four legs with a swimming motion, and slide down on the surface of the snow for a hundred and fifty metres. As they slide down the snow flies over them like a fine powder. As soon as they reach the bottom, they jump to their feet, and ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... in the still air like smoke from burning villages. And out of this dust, as we whizzed on, our soldier chauffeur, whistle in mouth, shrieking for room, appeared pontoon trains—big steel scows on top, beams underneath, cut, numbered, and ready to put together; trains of light farm wagons, wide at the top, slanting toward the middle, commandeered from all over Austria-Hungary at the beginning of the war and driven, some by soldiers, but oftener by civilians with the yellow Austrian ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... of bed, to close the shutters belonging to the two windows in his room that looked out on the back yard where his pets were snugly housed, he wondered whether the circus had arrived safely, and if the storm would keep them from erecting the big round-top. Fortunately they had all of Sunday to prepare for the next performance; and that would count for considerable, ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... of "grinning for joy," in that poem, from my companion's remark to me, when we had climbed to the top of Plinlimmon, and were nearly dead with thirst. We could not speak from the constriction, till we found a little puddle under a stone. He said to me,—"You grinned like an idiot!" He ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... served, the better. You can sizzle the top with a salamander or other branding iron, but in any case set it forth as nearly sizzling as possible, on toast hellishly hot, whether it's browned or buttered ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... and to command the power of steam and of compressed air, and how to write with the burning fluid out of which the thunderbolt is forged, and how to drive the current of streams up the mountain's top, and how to make the air shine in the night like the light of the sun, and how to dive to the bottom of the deep ocean, and how to rise up to the sky—though we know all this, and many things else, still, looking at the temples of Baalbec, we cannot forbear to ask what people of giants was that, ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... you how Professor Libbey, of Princeton, had successfully scaled the bluff, and had reported that there were no traces of human life on the Mesa-top. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 47, September 30, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... on the steps between the lines of box hedge—a little girl under a big "grown-up" umbrella. The wet dripped from the umbrella top and from the hem of the ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... went on. We often saw the surgeon during study hours as the stairway leading to his room opened out of the little parlor. Sometimes he would stop awhile and listen as Jeannette slowly read, 'The good boy likes his red top'; 'The good girl can sew a seam', or watched her awkward attempts to write her name, or add a one and a two. It was slow work, but I persevered, if from no other motive than obstinacy. Had they not all prophesied a failure? When wearied with the dull routine, ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... were able to capture or buy slaves to do the hard work for them; in other cases their wives were their slaves. To this day, when the family moves, the husband rides on the camel while the wife trudges along on foot, loaded down with kitchen utensils, bedding, and her child on top. If a woman happens to ride on a camel she must get off and walk if she meets a man, by way of showing her respect for the superior sex. (Niebuhr, 50.) The birth of a daughter is regarded as a calamity, mitigated only by the fact that she will bring in some money as a bride. Marriage ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... over and over in a confused tangle of arms and legs. Now Tom Lincoln was on top. Now it was John Carter. "Go it, Pa," Abe shouted from the fence. "Don't let that old skinflint get you down." After a few minutes. Carter lay on his back ...
— Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance • Frances Cavanah
... this purpose was furnished with a large wooden chest, firmly nailed down upon it, and provided with a good lock and key; and this chest, which was neatly painted, and embellished with a inscription, was so contrived, by means of an opening in the top of a large vertical wooden tube fixed in its lid, and made in the form of a mouse-trap, that when it was locked, (as it always was when it was sent round for the donations of bread,) a loaf of bread, or any thing ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... pastoral care, but he also loved his library. But, on the other hand, as to Walker, if ever he were seen burning the midnight oil, it was not in a gentleman's study—it was in a horrid garret or cock-loft at the top of his house, disturbing the 'conjugal endearments' of roosting fowl, and on a business the least spiritual that can be imagined. By ancient usage throughout this sequestered region, which is the Savoy of England (viz., Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Furness) all accounts are settled ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... Winterblossom!' which I allus told that huzzy as I wasn't a 'missus,' but a 'miss,' nor likewise a 'blossom,' but a 'rose.' Howsever, there she was, a yelling at the top of her voice, 'Missus Winterblossom! Missus Winterblossom!' until I had to run to her, only ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... knight came into view, motioning with his lance to invisible horsemen from the other side of the manage, and the top notes of his voice reached them thinly as he shouted the words of direction. But the ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... near the Upper Missouri, at not less than 200,000, and yet the range occupied by this animal is now very much smaller in area than it was when the whites first established themselves on the prairies. [Footnote: "About five miles from camp we ascended to the top of a high hill, and for a great distance ahead every square mile seemed to have a herd of buffalo upon it. Their number was variously estimated by the members of the party; by some as high as half a million. I do not think ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... Salamone; and the traitor Gan, with his scoundrel followers; and, in short, the whole flower of the chivalry of the age, the greatest in the world. The tables at which they feasted were on three sides of the hall, with the emperor's canopy midway at the top; and at that first table sat crowned heads; and down the table on the right sat dukes and marquises; and down the table on the left, counts and cavaliers. But the Saracen nobles, after their doggish fashion, looked neither for ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... beyond these mountaines, and to subdue the nations thereabout. Kurbski was yet aliue at my being in Moscouia, & declared vnto me that he spent xvii. daies in ascending the mountaine, & yet could not come to the top thereof, which in their tongue is called Stolp, that is, a piller. This mountaine is extended into the Ocean vnto the mouthes of the riuers of Dwina ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... was scaart, I tell you. 'But,' thinks I, ''twon't do to run away the fust lick:' so I held on, and pooty soon it come agin. This time I listened sharp, and had my wits about me; so that, when it wor through, I clim' right up to the top uv the ledge, and looked down ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin |
