"Topmost" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fawns at evening came and laid Their cool black noses on my lowest boughs, And on my topmost branch the blackbird made A little nest of grasses for his spouse, And now and then a twittering wren would light On a thin twig which hardly bare ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... what's to come of Tim O'Rooney, if he doesn't git some more right spaddily. His intellect toppled all the mornin', and can't stand another such strain, or it'll be nipped in the bud afore it has reached the topmost round at the ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... in the sideboard, and after she had drunk it they sat for some few minutes in agitated silence. The street sounds outside had died away. Julian's was the topmost flat in the block, and their isolation was complete. ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... fact, there, two miles from where they were, they saw some thirty wild natives close together, yelling, gesticulating, and cutting all kinds of antics at the foot of the sycamore. Some, climbing into the tree itself, were making their way to the topmost branches. ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... in the same direction. It is a common peculiarity that the months do not occupy equal spaces, but those that are most important to the child extend more widely than the rest. There are many varieties as to the topmost month; it is ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... unworthy incarnations. That these laws were actual and not formal only was proved by the instance that within the hundred years before the birth of Elissa, a lady Baaltis had been executed for some such offence, having been hurled indeed from the topmost pinnacle of the fortress above the temple to the foot of ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... possessed of immense strength, it is rare for the Orang to attempt to defend itself, especially when attacked with fire-arms. On such occasions he endeavours to hide himself, or to escape along the topmost branches of the trees, breaking off and throwing down the boughs as he goes. When wounded he betakes himself to the highest attainable point of the tree, and emits a singular cry, consisting at first of high notes, which at length deepen into a low roar, not unlike that of a panther. ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... crew, their ammunitions, and provisions, were housed roomily, rose the enormous trunk full forty feet in girth, towering like some tall lighthouse, smooth for a hundred feet, then crowned with boughs, each of which was a stately tree, whose topmost twigs were full two hundred and fifty feet from the ground. And yet it was easy for the sailors to ascend; so many natural ropes had kind Nature lowered for their use, in the smooth lianes which hung to the very earth, often without a knot or leaf. ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... they entered the path leading through the wood. No one spoke now, and they trod cautiously, lest there should be any noise from their footsteps. The tall black fir-trees towered above them to an unusual height; and through all the topmost branches there ran a low, mournful sound, as if every tree was whispering about them, and lamenting over them. Even the little brook, which in the sunshine rippled so merrily along the borders of the wood, seemed to be sobbing like ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... you are actually walking on the old ramparts of the city; and on the wall you may read the number of strokes rung to mark disaster in each portion of the town, two for St. Sever, six for St. Gervais, one for Mont Riboudet, and so forth. From the topmost gallery look out at the many towers and spires which even now rise in such profusion above the roofs of Rouen—St. Pierre du Chastel, St. Eloi, the front of the Palais de Justice with the Tour St. Laurent beyond, St. Ouen looking (to my mind) far finer from that point of vantage than the Cathedral, ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... star and cradle and 'gain he speak his thought. He say: "What is cradle, Sensei? I know 'bout star. Every night at my honorable home I open shoji to see old priest strike bell and make him sing. Then I see big star hang out light over topmost of mountain." One more time he say, like thinking to himself: "Cradle. Maybe him shrine for ...
— Mr. Bamboo and the Honorable Little God - A Christmas Story • Fannie C. Macaulay
... brilliant, they are grand, doubtless; but—shall I say it to you?—such vague projects for the perfecting of corrupt societies seem to me to crawl far below the devotion of love. When the whole soul vibrates with that one thought, it has no room for the nice calculation of general interests; the topmost heights of ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... ago, hidden behind the shelter of its venerable walls, and half smothered under masses of wisteria and Virginia creeper. On the wall, in summer time, grow countless soft green mosses, and brown, waving grasses. Thick masses of yellow stonecrop and tufts of snapdragon crown its summit, whilst the topmost branches of the long row of lime-trees within come nodding sweet-scented greetings to the passers-by along ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... cast down, bowed without replying, while an imperceptible shudder ran from the tip of her satin shoe to the topmost bit of orange-blossom in her crown. But honest Risler saw nothing. The excitement, the dancing, the music, the flowers, the lights made him drunk, made him mad. He believed that every one breathed the same atmosphere of bliss beyond compare which enveloped him. He had no perception of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... water rose over the topmost letter and a moist silence prevailed till a sudden jerk fished up the bag, and before the dolls could recover their wits they were spread out on the floor of a mail car to dry, while several busy men sorted and saved such papers and letters as ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... And now the vesper-sparrows' pealing hymn From every orchard close At eve comes flooding rich and silvery; The daisies in great meadows swing and shine; And with the wind a sound as of the sea Roars in the maples and the topmost pine. ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman
... heroic men than those who were called respectively Pearce, Cribb, and Spring? Did ever one of the English aristocracy contract the seeds of fatal consumption by rushing up the stairs of a burning edifice, even to the topmost garret, and rescuing a woman from seemingly inevitable destruction? The writer says no. A woman was rescued from the top of a burning house; but the man who rescued her was no aristocrat; it was Pearce, not Percy, who ran up the burning stairs. Did ever one of ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... outside a door on the topmost landing. From some mysterious recess in her apparel ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... his muzzle. As he did so, a sidelong hint of the man standing below with the raised gun smote him; he sprung round furiously, and, seizing his prey, was about to leap into some unknown airy den of the topmost branches now waving to the slow dawn. The late moon had rounded through the sky so that her gleam at last fell full upon the bough with fairy frosting; the wintry morning light did not yet penetrate the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... In my vague mental condition, the impression of her came slowly. First it was as though I saw three cubes, one above the other, the largest in the middle. Then these took on clothing, blue calico with large polka dots, and the topmost one crowned itself with thin wisps of hair, parted in the middle and plastered down at the side. So, little by little, John Shadrack's widow grew on me, till I saw her a square little old woman, with a wrinkled, brown face, a perpetual smile and a pipe that snuffled in a ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... her delighted passengers and proud officers, however, there were any more enthusiastic about the great vessel than two lads who were seated in the wireless operators' cabin on the topmost deck. ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... command. Dicky Esse and I accompanied the Second-Lieutenant. Our orders were to board the prows, and if they offered any resistance, to destroy them. The water was smooth and beautifully blue, while the rising sun tipped the topmost heights of the lofty hills, which rose, as it were, out of the ocean, feathered almost from their summits to the water's edge with graceful trees. There lay the brig, while the prows were clustered like so many ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... but all covered by the sea. He would not take it upon him to be positive; but this he could tell Daisy; there was never a stick or a leaf to be found in those old rocks that ever lived and grew on dry ground, though there were plenty that grew in the sea, until in the very topmost or latest of those rocks some few bits of ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... took a hot and cold shower; hobgoblins fled, although he felt no inclination to sing! He called down for his breakfast and opened his hall door. A pile of letters lay on his newspapers, and the topmost one, in a large envelope, addressed in a flowing meticulously fine hand, he knew, without speculation, to be ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the King's dominions stood the palace, perfect in beauty, from its dazzling foundations to its topmost flaming turret. Brightness unquenchable shone from its walls, warmth and the spirit of friendliness streamed from its windows and wide-flung golden doors. Beyond it, in the garden of the Princess, the exquisite flame-roses and stately fire-lilies ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... understand just what the girl that Miss Havisham gives is after, and she gives her so abundantly that there's no more doubt of the why than there is of the how. Sometimes I used to think the house couldn't follow Miss Pettrell in her subtle touches, but the house, to the topmost tier of the gallery, will ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... moon, and withheld the comfort of her radiance; and it was not until the whimper of the torrent had quickened about me to a plunging roar, and my foot was on the striding bridge that took its waters at a step, that her light broke through a topmost cleft in the hills, and made glory of the leaping thunder that crashed beneath ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... the largest of this kind.[K] These mounds are the remains of peculiar constructions, called ZIGGURATS, composed of several platforms piled one on the other, each square in shape and somewhat smaller than the preceding one; the topmost platform supported a temple or sanctuary, which by these means was raised far above the dwellings of men, a constant reminder not less eloquent than the exhortation in some of our religious services: ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... kneel beside the topmost step, and see the Reverend Mother pass; she would look up at that serene face which had melted into tenderness; would see the firm line of those ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... in size, they make ample amends in height. Heedless, and bankrupt in all curiosity, must he be who can journey on without stopping to take a view of the towering mora. Its topmost branch, when naked with age or dried by accident, is the favourite resort of the toucan. Many a time has this singular bird felt the shot faintly strike him from the gun of the fowler beneath, and owed his life ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... the yellow turned to a deeper glow that shot forth in long streamers, the rosy fingers of the dawn, from the horizon to the zenith. Cold and ghostly lay the snows on the mighty cone; till at last there came upon their topmost slope, six thousand feet above us, a sudden blush of pink. Swiftly it floated down the eastern face, and touched and kindled the rocks just above us. Then the sun flamed out, and in a moment the Araxes valley and all the hollows of the savage ridges we were crossing ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... the Prince, loth to quit the view, turned and refilled his eyes with Sancta Sophia, of which, from his position, the wall at the water's edge, the lesser churches of the Virgin Hodegetria and St. Irene, and the topmost sections far extending of the palaces of Bucoleon seemed but foundations. The edifice, as he saw it then, depended on itself for effect, the Turk having not yet, in sign of Mohammedan conversion, broken the line of its marvellous dome with minarets. At length ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... with gingerbread cakes, sword-swallowers, and waffles piping hot. As the evening falls, colored lamps and Chinese lanterns are lighted around the venerable oak which stands in the middle of the fairground, and boys climb about among its topmost branches with maroons and ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... the cabbage is taken from its stretcher and borne to the topmost peak of the house or barn. Whether it be a chimney, a gable, or a dove-cote that crowns the roof, the burden must, at any risk, be carried to the very highest point of the building. The "infidel" accompanies it as far as this, sets it down securely, and waters it with a great pitcher of wine, while ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... think at times you hear the distant call of a ship. But what would that be? Something in the mind. It happened long ago. You, too, are a ghost left by the vanished past. There is a man above at a high loophole, the topmost cave of a warehouse which you can see has been exposed to commerce and the elements for ages; he pulls in a bale pendulous from the cable of a derrick. Below him one of the horses of a van tosses its nose-bag. There is no other movement. ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... So the princess returned to the palace wondering whether she should ever find the courage to pluck a primrose. Ever since she had been a small child she had thought how delightful it must be to fly through the air; to rest on the topmost branch of a tree in the sunshine and sing and sing ...
— The Bountiful Lady - or, How Mary was changed from a very Miserable Little Girl - to a very Happy One • Thomas Cobb
... pair of wood-pigeons took to housekeeping in his topmost branches. The Prince was glad to welcome them, for though denied human speech, he understood the language of trees and birds. On Midsummer Eve, the pigeons said to him, "To-night the King of the Trees comes ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... the owls delight to hoot, the bats go whirring past, the moonbeams surely cast their kindest rays; by day the pigeons coo from the topmost boughs their tales of love, while squirrels sit blinking merrily, or run their Silvios on ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... a series of swings, one trapeze fixed higher than another, like a line of gigantic steps, to the very pinnacle of the tent. 'The Signor' announced that he was going to swing himself up upon these hanging bars until he reached the topmost, and from that he would leap through the air down, down into the lighted abyss below, and catch a rope that was stretched at the foot ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough, A-top on the topmost twig,—which the pluckers forgot, somehow,— Forgot it not, nay, but got it not, for none could get it ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... an opportune stumble and a noisy effort to recover himself, at the same instant aiming a stealthy kick at the topmost round of the ladder, and scrambling ostentatiously over the edge of the trap. The ladder went down thirty or forty feet with a racket, clattering and banging against the walls of ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... pocket, he detached his latch-key softly, and as softly inserted it in the lock. The door opened noiselessly, showing a light down the stairway from the hall above. He could now hear some one moving, probably on the topmost floor, with an opening and shutting of doors that might have been those of closets, followed by a swishing sound like that of the folding or packing of clothes. He entered and closed the door with a ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... when they stood at the foot of the high stair— six stories high—and Captain Bruce, they learned, was inhabiting the topmost flat. Malcolm looked ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... complete than that at Nimes; it has suffered even more the assaults of time and of the children of time, and it has been less repaired. The seats are almost wholly wanting; but the external walls, minus the topmost tier of arches, are massively, ruggedly complete; and the vaulted corridors seem as solid as the day they were built. The whole thing is superbly vast, and as monumental, for a place of light amusement—what is ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... beseem them not All the worst half of women. Thus we stoop To pick up hectic apples from the ground, Pierc'd by the canker or the unseen worm, And tasting deem none other grow but they, Whilst on the topmost branches of life's tree Hangs fruitage worthy of the virgin choir Of bright Hesperides. Soft! Who comes here? Surely my rascal is not yet return'd— The times are full of plotting. I ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... gives. Of all kinds a single pair, And the members safely there Of his house he doth embark, Then at once he shuts the ark; Everything therein has pass'd, There he keeps them safe and fast. O'er the mountain's topmost peak Now the raging waters break. Till full twenty days are o'er, 'Midst the elemental roar, Up and down the ark forlorn, Like some evil thing is borne: O what grief it is to see Swimming on the enormous sea Human corses pale and white, More, alas! than I can write: ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... were no nightingales there, but the thrushes sang in the dawning, and the little birds whose voices were sweet and thin chirruped about it in crowds, while the larks, trilling out the ardour of mating time, sometimes rose from their nests in the grass and soared over its topmost ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... gradually; but, instead of drifting directly for the timber, it was borne by the current in a direction that would carry it at least twenty yards from the trees. The squirrels had gathered upon that side; and now, instead of running up and down the trunks, as before, they all stood upon the topmost branches apparently watching the motions of ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... Once there he would face the next difficulty. One was enough at a time. And then, when he had made the rope fast to one of the marble pillars and slid down it, it proved too short. He swung with his feet just touching the topmost branch of a blossoming peach tree. There was nothing for it but to let go, snatch at the branches as he fell and trust to chance for safety. He found it; and dropped to the ground amid a perfect ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... were fastened, and that when he passed again a little before six o'clock, he noticed that the hall-door was closed. Another witness testified that about five o'clock, a man in a laborer's dress, carrying a dinner-pail, ascended the steps of the Nathan mansion, picked up a paper from the topmost step, and passed on down the street. The introduction of this man in the laborer's dress but deepened the mystery and increased the labors of ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... different nature, seldom seen except on the topmost peaks, is the rosy-headed finch. While on the summit of Pyramid Peak, we saw two of them, and one of them favored us with his (or her) ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... topmost sheet, she shook it open. Then the next and the next till she reached the bottom of the box. Nothing of a criminating nature came to light. The box as well as its contents was without mystery of any kind. This was not an unexpected result of course, but the smile with ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... most enthusiastic criticisms of her concerts, calling her "the wonder-child," and "the first German artist," one who "already stands on the topmost peak of our time." He even printed verses upon her genius. In a letter to Wieck, in 1833, he says, "It is easy to write to you, but I do not feel equal to write to Clara." She was still, however, the child to him; ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... absorb herself so utterly in the outpouring of the spire that her gaze seemed to leap upwards with it; her lips at the same time curving in a friendly smile for the worn old stones of which the setting sun now illumined no more than the topmost pinnacles, which, at the point where they entered that zone of sunlight and were softened and sweetened by it, seemed to have mounted suddenly far higher, to have become truly remote, like a song whose singer breaks into falsetto, an ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... this all; along with the pelicans prodigious numbers of other water-birds had selected this for their dwelling-place, and covered the trees in thousands, standing on the topmost branches; tall flamingoes, herons, egrets, storks, ibises, and other waders. We had disturbed them thus early, before their habitual hour for betaking themselves to their fishing-fields. By degrees, as the light increased, we saw them beginning to move upon the trees; they looked around ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... rising moon begins to climb Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there— When the stars twinkle through the loops of Time, And the low night-breeze waves along the air The garland-forest, which the gray walls wear,[pa] Like laurels on the bald first Caesar's head—[512] When the light shines serene ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... behold thee scarred?' To such vain quest he cared not to reply, But, heaving from his breast a deep-drawn sigh, 'Fly, Goddess-born! and get thee from the fire! The foes,' he said, 'are on the ramparts. Fly! All Troy is tumbling from her topmost spire. No more can Priam's land, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... he stood trying the topmost stone, with his torch held aloft, the glare of the light shone upon the sides of the chimney and disclosed that very opening which Russell had already discovered. At first he thought that it might be a side flue, ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... curtain which extends upwards to the next storey, surrounding a deep lunette in which there is a Madonna between two Saints. Here the monument should have ended, but it is surmounted by an ogival arch, flanked by two trumpeting children and with a central medallion of God the Father. This topmost tier may have been a subsequent addition. It overweights the whole monument, introduces a discordant architectural motive, and is decorated by inferior sculpture. The Madonna in the lunette is also poor, and the curtain looks as if it were made of lead. But the lower portion of the tomb compensates ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... built on the river Marne, and, having seen two vast hydraulic machines, we enter a lift with the intelligent foreman deputed to act as guide, and ascend to the topmost top of the many storied, enormous building in which the cocoa berry is metamorphosed into the delicious compound known as Chocolate Menier. This is a curious experience, and the reverse of most ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... with no less success in Gluck's operas of "Orphee" and "Alceste" than in the first, and rose again to the topmost wave of court favor. When "Orphee" was at rehearsal at the opera-house, it became the fashion of the great court dignitaries and the young chevaliers of the period to attend. Gluck instantly, when he entered the theatre, threw off his coat and wig, and conducted in shirt-sleeves ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... is no base weed—no planted tree, Nor a seedling of last Autumn; Nor a sapling planted at Beltain; [7] Wide, wide around were spread its lofty branches— But the topmost bough is lowly laid! Thou hast forsaken us ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... stationary and exterior to the field. It consists of a laminated ring with slots on its inner surface and supported by a massive external cast-iron frame. The armature, as has been noted, comprises seven segments, the topmost segment being in the form of a small keystone. This may be removed readily, affording access to any field coil, which in this way may be easily removed and replaced. The armature winding consists of U-shaped copper bars in partially closed slots. ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... upward-rushing storm and cloud Of shriek and plume, the Red Knight heard, and all, Even to tipmost lance and topmost helm, In blood-red armor sallying, howl'd to the King, "The teeth of Hell flay bare and gnash thee flat!— Lo! art thou not that eunuch-hearted King Who fain had clipt free manhood from the world— The woman-worshipper? Yea, God's curse, and I! Slain ...
— The Last Tournament • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... the very topmost course of all, the gallery dwindles into such insignificant dimensions that not even a dwarf (as one would naturally understand that term) could creep along it. Scott cannot have meant this very extremity. With regard ...
— Fians, Fairies and Picts • David MacRitchie
... you'll find that here await you Four companies of most pugnacious women Armed cap-a-pie from the topmost louring curl To the lowest ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... all was clear for my escape. But I had forgotten this strange city in which I was. Every house is an island. As I flung open the door, ready to bound out into the street, the light of the hall shone upon the deep, still, black water which lay flush with the topmost step. ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... interesting study in the composition of lines. Starting from the topmost point of the turban, draw a line on the right, coming across the shoulder along the outer edge of the drapery to the toe. On the left, let the line connecting the same two points follow the outer curve of the scroll, along the slanting edge of the mantle, and we get a beautiful pointed ...
— Michelangelo - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Master, With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... shoe. For, like the sin, the punishment is awful; he shall carry about for ages the phantom-body of the girl, knowing that her soul is away, sitting with the soul of his brother, down in the deep ravine, or scaling with him the topmost crags of the towering mountain peaks. There are some who, from time to time, see the doomed man careering along the face of the mountain, with the lady hanging across the steed; and they say it always betokens a storm, such as this which is ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... and secretly, it was said, by smuggling. The chateau was built on a cliff, which it completely occupied. This cliff was formed of several terraces that rose in a stair one above another. On the topmost one sat the chateau, like an eagle in its nest. It had four dentilated turrets, with great casements and immense galleries, that gave it the grandest possible aspect. On the second terrace you found ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... had sought out quiet nooks To tell the tale that all the past has told And coming times will tell, stand mute and gaze. The home-stretch soon is reached, and Channa's three By word and lash urged to their topmost speed, The foaming Babylonians left behind, While Devadatta and Timour draw near, A whole round gained, Timour a length ahead. But Devadatta loosens now his reins, Chides his fleet pets, with lash swung high in air Wounds their proud spirits, not their tender ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... sorrow. He nodded from time to time as she spoke, and walked up and down with his hands behind, him. When she stopped, he asked her to tell him further facts. Then the light waned under the sycamore trees and only a red fire still touched their topmost boughs. ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... sprightfulness; And he ought to let Scripture alone—'tis self-slaughter, For nobody likes inspiration-and-water. He'd have been just the fellow to sup at the Mermaid, Cracking jokes at rare Ben, with an eye to the barmaid, His wit running up as Canary ran down,— The topmost bright bubble on the wave of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... with nothin' but her character an' that bell to encumber her, goes fa'rly flyin' light. But go as fast an' as far as she pleases, them long-y'eared locoed worshippers of her's won't let her outen their raptured sight. The last one of 'em, panniers, freight an' all, would go surgin' to the topmost pinnacle of the Rockies if ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... Brown-Thrasher. Though he belonged to the Pleasant Valley Singing Society, he sang so well that he usually preferred to sing by himself, instead of attending a singing party. Each morning and each evening he would seat himself in the topmost branches of a tree near the thicket where he lived; and there he would sing his favorite song over and ...
— The Tale of Jasper Jay - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... accepted must be broken—God save the mark!—as Terence Reardon remarked after seeing one passed as broken, following five minutes of furious pitching and squealing—Cappy Ricks was one of the first at the corral and the last to leave. Perched on the topmost, rail, he piped encouragement to the lank, flat-bellied border busters who, a dozen times a day, risked life and limb at five ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... saw his trim dark head and his bright blue waistcoat among the branches, and his heart gave a guilty throb of relief. But soon he noted that Charlotte had not her basket, and the conviction seized him that Thomas had it and was filling it with the very choicest cherries from the topmost branches, as was ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the conversation ripples on, a quiet undertone of perfect confidence, freedom without reserve as to another self, suddenly discovered in the working identity of a fellow-creature. It ripples on just thus, all the distance of the walk along the topmost down, in the evening sunlight, and then comes a pause to negotiate the descent to their handy little forest below. Then a sense that they are coming back into a sane, dry world, and must be a lady and a gentleman ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... people. He built this pagoda and was immensely proud of it He delighted to deck it with gold and precious stones. She says that once the whole of the exterior was covered with plates of solid gold, and the Hti, the umbrella, that is the topmost stage of the pagoda, was hung with thousands of golden and silver bells, and decked with huge rubies and other precious stones. Most of these didn't belong to him. For he had a habit of marching upon neighbouring ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... he exclaimed that the gods would avenge their own wrongs. Taking advantage of this tacit consent, fifty soldiers rushed up the stairway of the temple, and dragging the great wooden idols from their places in the topmost tower, they rolled them down the steps of the pyramid amid the groans of the natives and the triumphant shouts of their comrades, and then burnt them to ashes. The Totonacs, finding that their gods were unable to prevent or even punish this ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... part Andrea leant over her to read the programme which she held open in her hands, and in so doing pressed against her arm, inhaling the perfume of her violets, and sending a wild thrill of ecstasy through her. The Adagio rose with so exultant a song, soared with so jubilant a strain to the topmost summits of rapture, and flowed wide into the Infinite, that it seemed like the voice of some celestial being pouring out the joy of a deathless victory. The spirits of the audience were borne along on that irresistible ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... the example of most ambitious men of his class by repairing to St. Petersburg (whither, as we know, the more spirited youth of Russia from every quarter gravitates—there to enter the Public Service, to shine, to obtain promotion, and, in a word, to scale the topmost peaks of that pale, cold, deceptive elevation which is known as society). But the real starting-point of Tientietnikov's ambition was the moment when his uncle (one State Councillor Onifri Ivanovitch) instilled into ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... done," suggested Amy, and Lucy brought from the other side of the raspberry bushes a large-sized milk-pail so heaping full that the topmost berries looked as if they were contemplating escape. The ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... Ah, would that way were also mine! O noble poet! thou whose heart Is like a nest of singing birds Rocked on the topmost bough of life, Wilt thou, too, from our sky depart, And in the clangor of the strife Mingle ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... such an offer from such a suitor as Lord Hampstead. But in truth the glory of the thing was not very much to her. It was something, no doubt. It must be something to a girl to find that her own personal charms have sufficed to lure down from his lofty perch the topmost bird of them all. That Marion was open to some such weakness may be acknowledged of her. But of the coronet, of the diamonds, of the lofty title, and high seats, of the castle, and the parks, and well-arranged equipages, of the rich dresses, of the obsequious servants, and fawning ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... sheer down to invisible depths, from whence came the rumbling echo of falling water. In this almost perpendicular wall of rock were a few ledges, like the precarious rungs of a broken ladder, and down these he prepared to go. Clinging at first to the topmost edge of the precipice, he let himself down warily inch by inch till his figure entirely disappeared, sunken, as it were in darkness. As he vanished there was a sudden cry—a rush as of wings—and a woman sprang ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... earth and stone, cleft by deep embrasures, from which the great guns grin across the rich gardens, studded with standard fruit-trees, which close the glacis to its topmost edge. And there, below him, lie the vineyards: every rock-ledge and narrow path of soil tossing its golden tendrils to the sun, grey with ripening clusters, rich with noble wine; but what is that wall which ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... made their escape and went sailing serenely down the stream. The balm of Gilead trees exuded their healing perfume on the cool breeze that blew ceaselessly up the broad valley; a golden-brown chipmunk raced up a tree and scolded at them from the topmost branches; overhead, in the clear blue of the mid-heaven, a flock of wild geese, with flashing white wings, honked away to the Brandon Hills, en route for that northern lake that no man knows; while a flock of goldfinches, like a shower ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... of these under each arm, he made his way to the wooden steps which led down to the water's edge, and the men in the boat heard the shuffling and scraping of his feet, as he felt with his boot for the topmost step; his hands being fully ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... now precede the rest. The literature, songs, esthetics, &c., of a country are of importance principally because they furnish the materials and suggestions of personality for the women and men of that country, and enforce them in a thousand effective ways.[27] As the topmost claim of a strong consolidating of the nationality of these States, is, that only by such powerful compaction can the separate States secure that full and free swing within their spheres, which is becoming to them, each after its kind, so will individuality, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... roses of summer were bursting their topmost buds into full bloom on the lawn of the Doctor's bungalow. The martins that built each year in the little boxes he had set on poles around his garden were circling and chattering far up in the sapphire skies of a late September day. Their leaders ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... thy hunger." Such the words I heard From Virgil's lip; and never greeting heard So pleasant as the sounds. Within me straight Desire so grew upon desire to mount, Thenceforward at each step I felt the wings Increasing for my flight. When we had run O'er all the ladder to its topmost round, As there we stood, on me the Mantuan fix'd His eyes, and thus he spake: "Both fires, my son, The temporal and eternal, thou hast seen, And art arriv'd, where of itself my ken No further reaches. I with skill and art Thus far have drawn thee. Now thy ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... the windows. The clump of burdock against the wall under the window turned out to have been trodden on too. Dyukovsky succeeded in finding on it some broken shoots, and a little bit of wadding. On the topmost burrs, some fine threads of dark ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... soul's emotion is not only the life of the root of this "tree of knowledge"; it is also the life of the sap of the uttermost branches; it is the force that makes the fragrance of each topmost leaf mingle with that of all the rest, in that unified breath of the whole tree which loses itself ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... that a third, and so on up to eight. The ascent to the top is on the outside, by a path which winds round all the towers. When one is about halfway up, one finds a resting-place and seats, where persons are wont to sit some time on their way to the summit. On the topmost tower there is a spacious temple, and inside the temple stands a couch of unusual size, richly adorned, with a golden table by its side. There is no statue of any kind set up in the place, nor is the chamber occupied of nights by anyone but a single native woman, who, as the Chaldaeans, ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... the world. Alas, in me is no such unfathomable mystery. I but trick myself. Yet I have my moments. These stones that I carry on the mountain, what of them? On what windy ridge do I build my castle? It is shrill and bleak, they say, on the topmost peaks of the Delectable Mountains, so lower down I have reared its walls. There is no storm in these upland valleys and the sun sits pleasantly on their southern slopes. But even if there be unfolded no broad ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... stands majestic on its hills, with its long lines of palaces and convents terraced around the rocky slope, and on the height the soaring steeples of a swarm of churches piercing the blue, and the huge cube of the Alcazar crowning the topmost crest, and domineering the scene. The magnificent zigzag road which leads up the steep hillside from the bridge of Alcantara gives an indefinable impression, as of the lordly ramp of some ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... Theodora was curled up in a fork of one of the topmost branches of her tree. The apples were beginning to ripen, and she had eaten until even her hearty young appetite was satisfied. Then she crossed her feet, coiled one arm around the branch beside her, and fell to planning, as she had so often done before, how she could fulfil ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... fires, and that sleepy folk will here lie snugly a-bed on frosty mornings. But still the brazen fellow is not content. A ladder leads horribly to the roof. For myself I will climb until the tip of my nose juts out upon the world—until it sprouts forth to the air from the topmost timbers: But I will go no farther. But if your companion sees a scaffold around a chimney, he must perch on it. For him, a dizzy plank is a pleasant belvedere from which to view ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... possible—if she could put her hand in his and trust to him for safety in all the coming years they might live together—what man of woman born would dare to interfere? There was a blue light coming in through the shutters. He went to the window: the topmost leaves of the trees were quivering in the cold air far up there in the clearing skies, where the stars were fading out one by one, and he could hear the sound of the sea on the distant beach, and he knew that across the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... had hung over the city from early morning seemed to lie like a roof over the topmost circle of the amphitheatre, and as night came on the pit below grew dark and chill. Then torches were lit and put in prominent places—long pitch sticks covered with rags or brown paper. The people were patient and good-humoured, but to beguile ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... time came when we thought it safe to start toward Albany and with grateful words of thanks to the carpenter and his wife, we set forth upon our travels. Our courage was again at topmost gauge. My success with the saw had given me confidence. I was no longer afraid of towns, and in a glow of high resolution and with thirty dollars in my pocket, I planned to invade New York which was to me the wickedest and the ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... sparkling lake under canvas, till the overhanging hills of the opposite side robbed them of their aerial wings, and the sail being struck, the boatmen bent to their oars. As they passed under a promontory, clothed from the water's edge to its topmost ridge with the most luxuriant vegetation, it was pointed out to the lady ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... looped on to the topmost thread, between the two bars, and with this, knots are made over all the 14 threads that come from the ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... to the hard bricks. No bones, fortunately, were broken, but he sustained such a shock that he was confined to his bed for some weeks. But a more remarkable escape occurred at a later date. Visiting the castle, a dozen or more yeans ago, while the writer was looking down to the basement from the topmost gallery, close to the foot of the small staircase which leads to the flat roof of the south-eastern turret, the son of a farmer in the parish came up to him and said, in the most unconcerned manner, “Sir, my brother fell from here to the bottom yesterday.” ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... Knocked at the door behind, and he was gone, A darker pillar of darkness in the dark. Straightway one opened and I gave the scroll. He read, then thrust it in his lanthorn flame Till it was ashes; 'Follow' and no more Whisper'd, went up the giddy spiring way, I after, till we reached the topmost door. Then took a key, opened, and crying 'Delia, Delia my sweetheart, I am come, I am come,' I darted forward and he locked us in. Two figures; one rose up and ran to me Along the ladder of moonlight on the floor, Fell on my neck. Long time we ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... sky, and behold, dangling from one of the topmost branches of a famous big sour apple-tree, a pair of sturdy boy's legs! And there was Sandy, lying on the ground ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... worship of Legba consisted of propitiating his or her characteristics by unctions of palm oil, and near every native door stood a clay Legba-pot of cooked maize and palm oil, which got eaten by the turkey-buzzard or vulture. This loathsome fowl, perched upon the topmost stick of a blasted calabash tree, struck Burton as the most appropriate emblem of rotten and ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... wind that moaneth bleak? There is not wind enough in the air To move away the ringlet curl From the lovely lady's cheek— There is not wind enough to twirl The one red leaf, the last of its clan, That dances as often as dance it can, Hanging so light, and hanging so high, On the topmost twig that looks up at ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... children and put them to bed. It seemed to him a long time before she was ready to sit down with her sewing at the table, upon which the soft, pleasant light of their shaded lamp was falling. At last she came, with her small work-basket in her mind. Topmost of all its contents was a French novel. When Ellis saw this, there came doubts and misgivings ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... dirt. And when moral horror had been blunted by custom and drink, physical horror had remained acute. For, human nature being a development upward through the physical to the spiritual, when a process of degeneration sets in, the topmost layers, the spiritual, wear away first—then those in which the spiritual is a larger ingredient than the material—then those in which the material is the larger—and last of all those that are ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... bigs his nest For the mate he lo'es to see, And on the topmost bough, O, a happy bird is he; Where he pours his melting ditty, And love is a' the theme, And he 'll woo his bonny lassie When the kye comes hame. When ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... moorland burn; And waked at dawn, to feel the rain Fall on my face, as on the fern That drooped about my heather-bed; And how by noon the wind had blown The last grey shred from out the sky, And blew my homespun jacket dry, As I stood on the topmost stone That crowns the cairn on Hawkshaw Head, And caught a gleam of far-off sea; And heard the wind sing in the bent Like those far waters calling me: When, my heart answering to the call, I followed down the seaward stream, By silent ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... in affluence, and always prosperous, clombe without the difficulty and various disappointments that all human beings seem destined to encounter, to the very topmost pinacle of happiness: Around him was sunshine, and clouds whose shapes of beauty made the prospect divine concealed from him the barren reality which lay hidden below them. From this dizzy point he was dashed ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... dubious clause as to the weather?" asked Helen, looking at the golden shafts of sunlight on the topmost crags of Corvatsch and the Piz della Margna. Those far off summits were so startlingly vivid in outline that they seemed to be more accessible than the mist shrouded ravines cleaving their dun sides. It needed an effort of the ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... faith arrayed, We these foundations laid In war's dark day. Oppression's reign o'erthrown, Sweet peace once more our own, Do Thou the topmost stone ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... Barracombe was the most punctual of men. He entered his office in Mincing Lane precisely at ten o'clock on Thursday morning. His letters had already been sorted and arranged in two neat piles on his desk. Topmost on one of them was a cablegram from Toronto: "Meet me home eleven p.m. Smith." He never admitted that anything would surprise him, and in fact he showed no sign of excitement, but looked through his correspondence methodically, distributing the papers among ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... ask where we are going. Ask that question of the sparrow that sits on the house-top—ask where it is going, and what is the aim of its journey. It will reply, the next bush, the nearest tree, the topmost bough of a weeping willow, which stands on a lonely grave; the mast of a ship, sailing on the wide sea; or the branch of a noble beech, waving before the window of a beautiful maiden. I am as incapable of telling you the exact aim and end ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... tracts that surround it bear the names of Adventurers, Princes and Editors, and the very topmost tip, out of compliment to a well-known pianist and politician, has been ...
— This Giddy Globe • Oliver Herford
... at the top of a hill—the topmost of an ascending range of hills—and to some minds that alone is rapture. To inhale the fresh night air was to drink deeply of an ethereal beverage. I had never experienced so delicious a sensation since I had stood on the grassy battlements of ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... warmer-hearted blue 5 Stoops softly to that topmost swell; Its thread-like windings seem a clew To gracious climes where ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... adjective which certainly was more descriptive of his appearance. Of his riding on Mr. Pretty's back when he, in pursuit of his duty, must crawl on all fours under the counter; his clinging to his legs when duty again called him to mount the steps for the topmost shelf. Nothing was too absurd, no tiny record too trivial to be precious ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... guest. By the rapt light in his eyes, the Maccabee knew that the boy was once more journeying over the stones of the streets of the Holy City, or standing awed on the polished pavements of its lordly interiors, or on the topmost point of her hills with the broad-winged wind from the ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... of the pass. And after that the poet cared no more for them, but went on his way with a bold heart, until he had left behind and below him the clouds and mists of the ravines among the hills, and stood on the topmost expanse of dazzling snow, and beheld once more the golden gate of the Land that lies beyond the Sun. But of his meeting with the Princess, and of the gladness and splendour of their espousals, and of all the joy that he had, is not for ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... meet him in single combat, and Percy promptly accepted. In the duel Percy was unhorsed, and Douglas captured his pennon and his gauntlet gloves, embroidered with the Percy lion in pearls. This trophy Douglas vowed he would carry off to Scotland with him, and set it in the topmost tower of his castle of Dalkeith, that it might be seen from afar. "By heaven! that you never shall," replied Percy; "you shall not carry it out of Northumberland." "Come and take it, then," was Douglas' ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... surrounding each separate yard were much too lofty for men to climb up and look over, yet the inmates, though bereft of their liberty, were not bereft of their wits, as we shall see in more striking ways as the story proceeds; and some of them, from the topmost berths on the sides of their immensely high dormitories, had taken off the tiles, and from thence saw ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown
... graces is completed by Hope. Without her fair presence something is wanting to the completeness of her elder sisters. The great Campanile at Florence, though it be inlaid with glowing marbles, and fair sculptures, and perfect in its beauty, wants the gilded, skyward-pointing pinnacle of its topmost pyramid; and so it stands incomplete. And thus faith and love need for their crowning and completion the topmost grace that looks up to the sky, and is sure of a ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... at the door and looked up into the branches. They were very much forked, and upon every difficult branch Hugh had nailed steps and made a railing. In some of the forks he had inserted wooden seats, others he had left to nature. The topmost seat was almost at the summit of the tree, and behind it was firmly lashed a flagpole, with a Union Jack hanging limply in the still air, and a lantern with green and red glass on two of its sides. Near the door of the little house there hung from a stout branch ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... wonderful diversity of external characters, considering that all seem equally adapted to a purely arboreal life. In the howlers we have a specially developed voice organ, which is altogether peculiar; in the spider monkeys we find the adaptation to active motion among the topmost branches of the forest trees carried to an extreme point of development; while the singular nocturnal monkeys, the active squirrel monkeys, and the exquisite little marmosets, show how distinct are the forms under which the same general type, may be exhibited, and in how many varied ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... the road, nor watching us from behind this bush or that hillock. Turkey never left me till he saw me safe up the ladder; nay, after I was in bed, I spied his face peeping in at the window from the topmost round of it. By this time the east had begun to begin to glow, as Allister, who was painfully exact, would have said; but I was fairly tired now, and, falling asleep at once, never woke until Mrs. Mitchell ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... itself in vocal rustling. And to thee, Pontic Amastris, and to box-screened Cytorus, the pinnace vows that this was alway and yet is of common knowledge most notorious; states that from its primal being it stood upon thy topmost peak, dipped its oars in thy waters, and bore its master thence through surly seas of number frequent, whether the wind whistled 'gainst the starboard quarter or the lee or whether Jove propitious fell on both ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... associations must be formed to take the new work that will come before us, for when the ballot is given to woman then the great work will begin. Then comes the tug of war. For the obtaining of the ballot by woman is but stepping up the first round of the ladder, whose topmost ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... topmost crags of Duty scaled, Are close upon that shining tableland To which God Himself ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson |
