"Tread on" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... October 10, 1776, when off Chestnut street wharf, Philadelphia, under a salute of thirteen guns, hoisted with his own hands the first American naval flag. This had thirteen stripes, but without the blue union, and bore across the field a rattlesnake with the motto "Don't tread on me." Appointed captain in October, 1776, he was soon afterward sent by Congress to France, to arrange certain naval matters with the American commissioners. Subsequently he carried terror along the coast of England, and on September 23, 1779, fought his famous action off Flamborough Head, near ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... the neighboring fields, when his tasks were all over. There, if he saw a young bird that had fallen to the ground before it could fly, he would pick it up gently, and put it back in its nest. I have often seen him step aside, lest he should tread on an anthill, and thus destroy the industrious little creatures' habitation. If a child smaller than he was carrying a heavy bundle or basket, Harry would always offer to help him. Was any one hurt, or unhappy, ...
— Two Festivals • Eliza Lee Follen
... that spot, alone with his grief and absorbed in his prayer. Long past midnight Fanny heard his step on the stairs, and the door of his chamber close with unwonted violence. She heard, too, for some time, his heavy tread on the floor, till suddenly all was silent. The next morning, when, at the usual hour, Sarah entered to unclose the shutters and light the fire, she was startled by wild exclamations and wilder laughter. The fever had mounted ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... fear literary things have a bad time. We will return to Europe through Germany, and see what peradventure we shall behold. I have written repeatedly to you on this subject, for you would really like this country extremely. You cannot tread on it but you set your foot upon some ancient history, and you cannot make scruple, as it is the same thing whether you or I are paymaster. My health continues good, and bettering, as the Yankees say. I have gotten a choice manuscript of old English Romances, left here by Richard, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... knew what time it was. It was nearly seven o'clock. But Mrs. Bingley could not blame her much, having herself forgotten to put on the electric bell, and Esther hurried through her dressing. But in hurrying she happened to tread on her dress, tearing it right across. It was most unfortunate, and just when she was most in a hurry. She held up the torn skirt. It was a poor, frayed, worn-out rag that would hardly bear mending again. Her mistress was calling her; there ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... yer raison for acting in that shtyle, to as good a man as iver asked God's blessing on a sunny morning, and who wouldn't tread on one of yer corns, that is, if yer big feet isn't all corns, like a toad's back, as I suspict, from the manner in which ye leaps over ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... fallen, How abject, Ilion, was thy semblance there! What master of the pencil or the style Had traced the shades and lines, that might have made The subtlest workman wonder? Dead, the dead; The living seemed alive: with clearer view His eye beheld not who beheld the truth, Than mine what I did tread on, while I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... what a blast that was! Hold on by me, Colin Clout, and I'll hold on by thee. So! Don't tread on that pikeman's stomach, lest he take thee for a marauding Don, and with sudden dagger slit Cohn's ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... should keep my glass upon their backs and make certain of the color of their rumps as they opened their wings. We were already within a very few paces of them, but they ran before him as he advanced, and in the end he had almost to tread on them. ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... I turn my ravish'd eyes, Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise, Poetic fields encompass me around, And still I seem to tread on classic ground.[299-2] ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... as needful as popular, you'll admit. And what more have we done in the letter than to be guilty of that? And people declare it's rarer: as if we were to be shut up in families to tread on one another's corns! Dear me! and after a time we should be having rank jesuitry advertised as the specific balsam for an unhappy domesticated population treading with hard heels from desperate habit and not the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... bright and falcon eye, That the reindeer's tread On the waving grass could spy, Thick with ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Queen thou meanest, O my Tigranes. Pardon me, tread on my neck, I freely offer it, and if thou beest so given take revenge, for I have ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... if not to lick 'em out of their boots? and that's the way this affair is going to end, just mark my words. We shouldn't know ourselves any longer if we should let ourselves be beaten. Beaten! come, come, that is too good! When the neighbors tread on our toes, or when we feel we are beginning to grow rusty for want of something to do, we just turn to and give 'em a thrashing; that's all there is to it. Come, boys, let 'em have it once more, and you'll see 'em run ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... descend to another with the guide ever in advance, continually assuring us that there was no danger so long as we held firmly to the rounds and did not look at our feet, and that we must not for our lives tread on the side plank, where the buzzing barrel-rope runs, and where two weeks ago a careless man was knocked down, unfortunately breaking his neck by the fall. Far below is a confused rustling and humming, and we continually bump against beams ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... whose wife persists from day to day in saying nothing that he can object to, thereby making his home a desert and driving him to the club. As for the great Irish dramatist, this paper leaves him still wishing that some one would tread on the tail of his coat. But, with all true Irishmen, the second party in a quarrel is merely a convenience, not a necessity. Whenever Mr. Boucicault feels that a public discussion is desirable for any reason, he can always tread on the tail of his own coat, and make quite as good a ...
— The Autobiography of a Play - Papers on Play-Making, II • Bronson Howard
... west walls are covered with monuments, and careless feet tread on inscribed stones in the aisle. On the northern wall below the north aisle is a monument which immediately attracts attention from its great size and striking design. It is that of Lady Jane Cheyne, daughter of William, Duke of Newcastle. It is ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton
... through a dense wood, where we saw no end of small birds, but such game could not now tempt Fritz to waste his shot. We then had to cross a vast plain, and to wade through the high grass, which we did with care, lest we should tread on some strange thing that might turn and ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson Told in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... the stars were propitious, and the wind blew from a quarter of good inheritance whence no surprises of sea-turns or southwest sultriness might be feared, long before I was fairly awake I used to hear a rustle and knocking like a great mouse in the walls, and an impatient tread on the steep garret stairs that led to Mrs. Todd's chief place of storage. She went and came as if she had already started on her expedition with utmost haste and kept returning for something that was forgotten. ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... alentours[Fr], suburbs, confines, banlieue[obs3], borderland; whereabouts. bystander; neighbor, borderer[obs3]. approach &c. 286; convergence 7c. 290; perihelion. V. be near &c. adj.; adjoin, hang about, trench on; border upon, verge upon; stand by, approximate, tread on the heels of, cling to, clasp, hug; huddle; hang upon the skirts of, hover over; burn. touch &c. 199 bring near, draw near &c. 286; converge &c. 290; crowd &c. 72; place side by side &c. adv. Adj. near, nigh; close ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... better go down again, lad. I must report to the captain that this craft is cruising in these waters. It will be dark before we are back, and I don't want to be in the woods after dark; there's no saying what one might tread on. I thought that we would stretch ourselves out under the trees for to-night and go aboard in the morning, but I feel different now. Bless you, I should never close an eye. So I propose as we goes down so as not to be noticed by them ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... seen the pallor creep into the girl's face, the hunted look in her eyes, and the trembling of the lashes on her cheeks, and realized the ordeal through which she was passing. Her prejudice against the minister had relaxed under his genial talk and presence, but feeling that Mrs. Burch was about to tread on dangerous ground, she hastily asked her if one had to change cars many times going from Riverboro to Syria. She felt that it was not a particularly appropriate question, ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... should be unlawfully imprisoned for refusing to pay such taxes. In the petition there was not an angry word, but as a member of the Commons declared, "We say no more than what a worm trodden upon would say if he could speak: I pray thee tread on me ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... his head from side to side, showing his teeth like a wild beast at sight of Iberville. His black brows twitched over his vicious eyes. "There are many ways to hell, Monsieur Iberville," he said. "I will show you one. Some day when you think you tread on a wisp of straw, it will be a snake with the deadly tooth. You have made an outlaw—take care! When the outlaw tires of the game, he winds it up quick. And some one pays for the candles and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... world be countless, and most of the trails be tried; You tread on the heels of the many, till you come where the ways divide; And one lies safe in the sunlight, and the other is dreary and wan, Yet you look aslant at the Lone Trail, and the Lone Trail lures you on. And somehow you're sick of the highway, with its ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... devotion to toil, a journey through the State, even at flying pace, is sufficient to show. The fertility of the soil is the despair of scientific farming. Who cares for rules, when he has only to drop a seed and tread on it, to be sure of a hundred-fold return? Who talks of succession of crops, when twelve burdens of wheat, taken from the same soil in as many years, leave the ground black and ready for another yield of almost equal abundance? ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... their equine charges with far greater sympathy and kindness than our English grooms and cab-drivers do. In India we ride stallions; my grey Arab, Fig. 7, was an entire, and was so kind and gentle that he was always most careful not to tread on his syce who slept in his box with him, rolled up in a corner, like a bundle of old clothes. When Gowlasher, which was the man's name, groomed him, the pony would playfully catch his arm between his teeth and make a pretence of ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... immediately, and Caleb said, "It's the feeling. The child feels in that way, and I feel with her. You don't mean your horse to tread on a dog when you're backing out of the way; but it goes through you, ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... a firm tread on the gravel walk caused them to turn as Arthur Sherwood came to greet his guest, and to welcome his ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... Arch of Titus we found ourselves in the Forum, now the Campo Vaccino: so that cattle now low where statesmen and orators harangued, and lazy priests in procession tread on the sacred ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... sooner reached the library, where he gave me coffee, than I heard a slow, measured tread on the broad brick terrace that ran along the house on the side toward the Sound. The windows were open and the guard was in plain view. I glanced at Antoine, whose attitude toward me was that of one benevolently tolerant of stupidity. He meant to save me in spite of my obtuseness. "Tell the picket ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... our cities. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth also, and their words unto the end of the world; and the poor beetle that we tread on, and the daisy and the lily in all its glory, and the sparrows that are going 'two for a farthing,' come in for their place also in this philosophy—the philosophy of science—the philosophy of the kinds, the philosophy of the nature that is one in them,—the ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... song of the Tube— Let us begin it By cursing the furies who fight and who bite ev'ry night To get in it; The folk who see red and who tread on the dead And climb over the slain, And who step on your face in the race for a place ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various
... spectrum gamut of the yellows and oranges and greens and blues and purples to the solitary star above the opaline peak, he had wanted to wait and see—what? He did not know. It had always seemed, if he watched, the primrose veil would lift and release some phantom with noiseless tread on a ripple of night wind. In his lonely vigils he used to listen for all the little bells of the nodding purple heather to begin ringing some sort of pixie music, or for the flaming tongues of the painter's ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... his chair, supporting his head vacantly on his hands, trying to think and fearing to think, de Spain heard Pardaloe's measured tread on the descending steps, and listened mechanically to the retreating echoes of his footsteps down the shaded street. Minute after minute passed. De Spain made no move. A step so light that it could only have been the step of a delicate girlhood, a step free ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... going to tell you, Josie. I only wish you to know that I walked, danced, sang and was kindly entertained, and hope that I may only have an opportunity of returning such kindness when any of those acquaintances should happily tread on Haligonian ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... so fairly in the face that he shrank back, and pressed his hand to a swelling cheek. "I said I hated and despised you. What I despise, though, is beneath my hate. I would tread on you as on a viper or a desert asp, as a noxious creature that is not fit to live. I have played my game; and though it was not I who won, but Agias who won for me, I am well content. Drusus lives! Lives to see you miserably dead! ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... laurels, Ye spirits which delight in just revenge! Let Europe and her pallid sons go weep; Let Afric and her hundred thrones rejoice: Oh, my dear countrymen, look down and see How I bestride your prostrate conqueror! I tread on haughty Spain, and all her kings. But this is mercy, this is my indulgence; 'Tis peace, 'tis refuge from my indignation. I must awake him into horrors. Hoa! Alonzo, hoa! the Moor is at the gate! Awake, invincible, omnipotent! Thou ...
— The Revenge - A Tragedy • Edward Young
... plain white ground, with the words "Liberty Tree" and "Appeal to God" prominently displayed. This flag was chiefly used until the adoption of the stars and stripes. The "rattlesnake flag," with a reptile in the act of striking, and the legend "Don't tread on me," was largely used by ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... 1. That hardly any Sovereign known to us did, in his general practice, if you will examine it, more perfectly respect the boundaries of his neighbors; and go on the road that was his own, anxious to tread on no man's toes if he could avoid it: a Sovereign who, at all times, strictly and beneficently confined himself to what belonged to his real business and him. 2. That apparently, therefore, he must ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... silly. You tread on her foot, or pick up her handkerchief, or something like that. If she thinks you want to know her she's flattered, and will manage it ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... may find you within the walls of the other. I speak in kindness, Senora, and of what I know. This palace is not all bowers and gardens. There be dungeons beneath those bowers, deep and dark. Santa Maria defend us! You tread on mines—hold ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... nobody came there. He walked more slowly between the small trees; he took care not to tread on them, stooped down and examined them, measured them out by steps as ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... referred to the contrivance and disposition of infinite wisdom: yet the vehicle in which these stupendous operations are conducted owns a material basis: even the confused mass that composes the earth we tread on possesses certain intrinsic properties. Every atom is subjected to definite regulation, and without exaggeration, may be considered endowed with instinctive tendency to coalesce or disunite under favourable opportunities, and the correct observation of these habitudes, constitutes ...
— On the Nature of Thought - or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence • John Haslam
... self-preservation, is the same in kind, (though different in degree,) amongst all living creatures; this instinct therefore, because it annihilates all distinctions, and degrades the greatest of men to the level of "the poor beetle that we tread on," exhibits human nature in its most abject and humiliating attitude. Such an attitude would little suit the purposes of the poet. What then must he do? He must throw the interest on the murderer. Our sympathy must be with him; (of course I mean a sympathy of comprehension, a sympathy by which ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... and traffic are concerned, but neither beautiful nor picturesque. The houses are high and flat, and, from a peculiarity of build about their tops, seem to leer at you with one eye. Softly over the pebbles! and mind you don't tread on the pigeons. They are the only creatures in Leipsic that enjoy uncontrolled freedom. They wriggle about the streets without fear of molestation; they sit in rows upon the tops of houses; they whirl in little clouds above our heads; they outnumber, at a moderate estimate, the whole human ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... attached to them, and had long, sharp teeth. We put them on the ground and strewed leaves over them, and hung up some of the carcass left by the bear near by. When he attempted to get this meat, he would tread on the trap, and the teeth would spring together, and catch him by the leg. They always fought to get free. I once saw a bear that had been making a desperate effort to get away. His leg was broken, the skin and flesh were all torn away, and he was ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... not rise. Here will I kneel forever, Here will I lie enchanted at your feet, And grow to the dear ground you tread on? ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... his citadel Sacked. And my daughters, virgins of the fold, Meet to be brides of mighty kings, behold, 'Twas for the Greek I bred them! All are gone; And no hope left, that I shall look upon Their faces any more, nor they on mine. And now my feet tread on the utmost line: An old, old slave-woman, I pass below Mine enemies' gates; and whatso task they know For this age basest, shall be mine; the door, Bowing, to shut and open.... I that bore Hector!... and meal ...
— The Trojan women of Euripides • Euripides
... through the glass point sank quite gently into a wide silver tun, which held them all, and could have easily harboured a thousand such little people. John and his man went down into such a one along with several others, all of whom screamed out, and prayed him not to tread on them, for if his weight came on them they were dead men. He was, however, careful, and acted in a very friendly way towards them. Several tuns of this kind went up and down after each other, until all ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... between Northern French and Southern French themselves was far wider than between Provencal and the Peninsular tongues. To which things, if any one pleases, he may add the difference of the spirit of the two races; but this is always vague and uncertain ground, and is best avoided when we can tread on the firm land of history and literature proper. Such a rhyme-arrangement as that above set forth is probably impossible in English; even now it will be observed that Mr Swinburne, the greatest master of double and treble rhymes that we have ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... grateful sight to behold the young and happy when all life is bright before them, when the soil which they tread on is covered with flowers, and the only murmurs which they hear are the murmurs of soft breezes, and the only sighs are sighs of passion; not less beautiful is it to see the young linked together in love, struggling with adversity; ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... disguise of an intellect subtle, discriminating and alert, so they never trouble to endeavour to forestall him. To find Sapphira is to find Steggles, as he always likes to spread his blanket where she could tread on him if she wanted ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917 • Various
... curtains shut this cold weather. So pray let me rise, and, Patrick, here, take away the candle.—At night. We are now here in high frost and snow, the largest fire can hardly keep us warm. It is very ugly walking, a baker's boy broke his thigh yesterday. I walk slow, make short steps, and never tread on my heel. It is a good proverb the ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... I believe I was mad too. I slid the off-shutter open an' rowled out into the dhark behind the elephint-head pillar, tucked up my trousies to my knees, slipped off my boots an' tuk a general hould av all the pink linin' av the palanquin. Glory be, ut ripped out like a woman's dhriss whin you tread on ut at a sergeants' ball, an' a bottle came with ut. I tuk the bottle an' the next minut I was out av the dhark av the pillar, the pink linin' wrapped round me most graceful, the music, thunderin' like kettledrums, an' a could ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... beasts all around me, distorted unnaturally, in a life and death struggle, with bloodshot eyes, with foaming, gnashing mouths. They attack and kill one another and try to mangle each other. I leap to my feet. I race out into the night and tread on quaking flesh, step on hard heads, and stumble over weapons and helmets. Something is clutching at my feet like hands, so that I race away like a hunted deer with the hounds at his heels—and ever over more bodies—breathless... ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... life the Duke was bluff and soldier-like, of rather a bullying turn, and extraordinarily indifferent to the feelings of others. "Ernest is not a bad fellow," his brother William IV. said of him, "but if anyone has a corn, he will be sure to tread on it." He ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... it was easy to hear, amid the deepest silence, a sound echoing up the staircase; it was a man's tread on the steps covered with dried lumps of mud. With some difficulty the priest slipped into a kind of cupboard, and the nun flung ...
— An Episode Under the Terror • Honore de Balzac
... don't tread on my gown: you are so awkward: say your prayers, and don't throw off the counterpane! ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... statue of God walking about the garden. Man had pre-eminence over all the brutes; man was only sad because he was not a beast, but a broken god. The Greek had spoken of men creeping on the earth, as if clinging to it. Now Man was to tread on the earth as if to subdue it. Christianity thus held a thought of the dignity of man that could only be expressed in crowns rayed like the sun and fans of peacock plumage. Yet at the same time it could hold a thought about the abject smallness of man ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... ever ye see and the old lady, she clean fell in with him, but Ruth, she seemed to have a regular spite agin him. And she that war as gentle as a lamb, that never had so much as a hard thought of a mortal critter, and wouldn't tread on a worm, she was so set agin Jeff, that she wouldn't so much as touch his hand when she got ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... brother-officers of a local regiment of which he was colonel. At one of the side-entrances of the church, and forming the threshold within the thickness of the wall, so that the feet of all who enter must tread on it, is a flat tombstone of somebody who felt himself a sinner, no doubt, and desired to be thus trampled upon. The stone is ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that she loved him as they floated together on the breast of the amorous Queen of Italian seas. But even in that moment of bliss, such as angels know, some one appeared in the garden walk. It was Chesnel! Alas! the sound of his tread on the gravel might have been the sound of the sands running from Death's hour-glass to be trodden under his unshod feet. The sound, the sight of a dreadful hopelessness in Chesnel's face, gave her that painful shock which follows ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... considered both ways," she said, taking him into her confidence. "You trample on others. How do I know you wouldn't tread on me?" ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... Company's officers enter the service while yet very young; none are so young, however, as not to be aware of the privileges to which they are entitled as British subjects, and that they have a right to enjoy those privileges while they tread on British soil. The oft repeated acts of tyranny of which the autocrat of "all Prince Rupert's Land and its dependencies" has lately been guilty, have accordingly created a feeling of discontent which, if it could be freely expressed, would be heard from the shores ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... propose halting to-morrow to refresh them. We were this day once more cheered by the sight of rising ground; Macquarie's Range just appearing above the horizon, distance about forty miles; and we felt that we were again about to tread on secure and healthy land, with a chance of procuring some sort of game, which would now be very acceptable, our diet being entirely confined to pork and our morsel of bread. The weather is far too cold for us to have any hopes of procuring fish; all our attempts to catch them for the last fortnight ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... never tread on the feet of their attendants or knock them down by accident; or, at least, no instances of the kind have come to my knowledge. The elephant's feet are large, his range of vision is circumscribed, and his extreme and wholly voluntary solicitude for the safety of his human attendants can not ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... impossible to do more than tread on one's own toes; one was almost blinded by the constant passing of faces. It was like being in a wheat-field with one's eyes on a level with the indistinguishable ears. One was alone in one's intense contempt for all these faces, all these contented faces; one ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... woman's heart! He is not worthy woman's tender, self-denying love, whom a sneer will change—a laugh will part—he will be found wanting—he will stand aloof when the faint heart turns to him for consolation. Wo to you! wo to you, especially if you trust such. You cannot always tread on flowers; choose one who can and will smooth down a rugged path. The gilded vessel, the child's plaything, rides gayly on a glassy sea—but life is not a glassy sea; the storm must come. If you would reach ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... with his left hand, his automatic thrown a little forward in his right, he began to retrace his way along the blank wall of the corridor, pausing between each step to listen, moving silently, his tread on the heavy carpet as noiseless as though it were ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... her little hand, and stamping her foot on the floor in a passion I could not understand. 'That is you! That is M. de Marsac all over. You say nothing, and men think nothing of you. You go with your hat in your hand, and they tread on you. They speak, and you are silent! Why, if I could use a sword as you can, I would keep silence before no man, nor let any man save the King of France cock his hat in my presence! But you! There! go, leave ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... your lamps," exclaimed the professor, "and pick your footsteps. Remember, you are about to tread on strange ground." ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... this awful silence, and then I was aware of a soft tread on the boards of the verandah, so stealthy that it seemed an impression directly on my brain rather than upon the nerves of hearing. Immediately afterwards a black figure darkened the glass door, and I perceived that a face was pressed against the upper panes. A shiver ran down my back, and my ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... and a surface so full of spines, ridges, ruffles, and frills, that the naturalists have not been able to count them without quarrelling about the number, and that the colored youth, whose sport they spoil, do not like to touch them, and especially to tread on them, unless they happen to have shoes on, to cover the thick white soles of ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... the plesiosaurus. The monster is wounded to death. I no longer see his scaly armour. Only his long neck shoots up, drops again, coils and uncoils, droops, lashes the waters like a gigantic whip, and writhes like a worm that you tread on. The water is splashed for a long way around. The spray almost blinds us. But soon the reptile's agony draws to an end; its movements become fainter, its contortions cease to be so violent, and the long serpentine form lies a lifeless ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... Only once did they tread on dangerous ground, and that was on her birthday. He stopped in a jeweler's on his way up-town and brought her a black pearl on a thin almost invisible chain, only to have her refuse ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... are liars!" exclaimed the other. "They dare not shut their eyes in the night. No; they sleep in the sun. See," he added, pointing with fierce triumph to the frightful ornaments of his leggings, "their scalps are so plenty, that the Pawnees tread on them! Go; let a Sioux live in banks of snow; the plains ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Saunders; but you're mistaken entirely. I don't consider the loss of a leg, for instance, as anything; I never look at men's legs, and therefore care little whether they are made of wood or not, provided they don't tread on my corns." ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... cups, and other vessels, esteem'd good to drink out of for hectical persons: The Egyptians made their coffins of it, which being lin'd with a resinous composition, preserved their dead incorrupt: The poor people in Spain, lay broad planks of it by their beds-side, to tread on (as great persons use Turky and Persian carpets) to defend them from the floor, and sometimes they line or wainscot the walls, and inside of their houses built of stone, with this bark, which renders them very warm, and corrects the moisture ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... the meaning of that wolf being there upon the ice? Kenric stood in confused wonderment. And if, as he half supposed, this white-breasted animal was not as other wolves, which fear to tread on ice — if it was in very truth the werewolf form which the wild Aasta had power to assume, why had she not recognized him? Why had she run away? Was it that she had now taken to the cover of the woods, that she might presently reappear in her own maidenly figure? There was something in ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... and blood, and brains, are just the same, and no better than another man's. He has all the chances on his side in the way of training, and pretty near all the prizes; so it would be hard if he didn't do most things better than poor men. But give them the chance of training, and they will tread on his heels soon ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... iron horses should kick him over? Spozein' he got wrecked on the Immoral railway? Or went up on the Awful Tower and fell off? Spozein' the elephants should tread on him? Or the boyconstructors or tigers git after him? Or he should go to the moon and git lost there and be obleeged to stay? Oh the wild fears that raced through my foretop; mebby they wuzn't reasonable ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... the ground your ridiculous little feet tread on, Mater," he said, causing his mother to gasp, so English did he sound, so ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... but on picking him up I was pleased to find that my wind-inflated rubber tyre had not, like the brazen chariot wheel, crushed his delicate vertebra; he quickly recovered, and when released glided swiftly and easily away into cover. Twice only have I deliberately tried to run down, to tread on coat-tails so to speak, of any wild creature. One was a weasel, the other a stoat, running along at a hedge-side before me. In both instances, just as the front wheel was touching the tail, the little flat-headed rascal ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... with Mr. Maxwell Faucitt. The poor old man was wearing such an expression of surprise and dismay as he might have worn had somebody unexpectedly pulled the chair from under him. He was feeling the sick shock which comes to those who tread on a non-existent last stair. And Sally, catching sight of his face, uttered a sharp wordless exclamation as if she had seen a child fall down and hurt itself in the street. The next moment she had run round the table and was standing behind him with her arms round his neck. She spoke across ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... a Gentleman. Come, no more words of it Host. By this Heauenly ground I tread on, I must be faine to pawne both my Plate, and the Tapistry ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... her feet away clear, Just an inch to one side of the fallen man's ear, With a flash of horse wisdom as she went on the wing Not to tread on man's ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... said Bullion, with a quiet air. "I never tread on people's corns. Only when it's wanted let me know. You see he went by the board. He begged me to save him. How could I? I've done enough for other people. Must take care of number one, now. Kerbstone, he begs, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... Servant—God's Servant, man's Servant. We see Him willing to have no rights of His own, no home of His own, no possessions of His own, willing to let men revile Him and not revile again, willing to let men tread on Him and not retaliate or defend Himself. Above all, we see Him broken as He meekly goes to Calvary to become men's scapegoat by bearing their sins in His own body on the Tree. In a pathetic passage in a prophetic Psalm, He says, "I am a worm and no man."[footnote2:Psalm ...
— The Calvary Road • Roy Hession
... exactly like its neighbours, dull, soiled, pinched, old curtains, worn blinds, blistered paint. He knew that if he walked inside he would tread on a strip of oilcloth, once gay in red and yellow squares, but now worn to a dirty grey uniformity. In the "hall" he would encounter a rickety hat-stand faced by an ancient print entitled "Idle Hours," ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... is left behind there, upon those lonely Crimean downs, and his comrades are returning without him, and all whom he knew, and all whom he loved, are looking for him at home. There his grave is, and must be; and "the foe and the stranger will tread on his head, and they ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... we have been in yet," murmured Hazon. "To tread on the superstitions of any race is to thrust one's head into the jaws of ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... stood close up to it, seemed to dominate the little room. He was still talking, or rather jerking, and he was still lighting matches and dropping their ends upon the carpet. Now and then he would make a motion with his feet as if he were running quickly backward upstairs, and would tread on the edge of the fender, so that the fire-irons went flying and the buttered-bun dishes crashed against each other in the hearth. The other philosophers were crouched in odd shapes on the sofa and table and chairs, ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... the fastest that owns Amsterdam As home, so not a letter can you send. I shall be back, before to where I am Another ship could reach. Now your stipend—" Quickly Breuck interposed. "When you once more Tread on the stones which pave our streets.—Good night! To-morrow I will be, at stroke of noon, At the great wharf." Then hurrying, in spite Of cake and wine the old man pressed upon Him ere he went, he took his leave and ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... not force me from thee. Use me reproachfully, and like a slave; Tread on me, buffet me, heap wrongs on wrongs On my poor head; I'll bear it all with patience Shall weary out thy most unfriendly cruelty: Lie at thy feet, and kiss 'em, though they spurn me; Till, wounded by my sufferings, thou relent, And raise me to thy arms, ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway
... the loss of the second shoe Priscilla took it off before she started. Lord Torrington and Sir Lucius crossed the lawn again. It seemed as if one or other of them must tread on the shoe which lay on their path; but they passed it by. Priscilla seized her chance, rushed to the middle of the lawn and returned again successfully. Then she and Frank retreated, for the sake of greater security, into the ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... no matter if you do tread on it. One would think you were wearing a sacred veil from the respect you show that coat. It isn't worth much. I use it only to travel in. A grandduke gave it to me ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Collot d'Herbois, are you not sworn to destroy him? Couthon, have you not pronounced him perjured, perfidious, and unfit to live? St Just, have you not in your bosom the list of those who have pledged themselves that Danton shall never be Dictator; that his grave shall be dug before he shall tread on the first step of the throne; that his ashes shall be scattered to the four winds of heaven; that he shall never ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... am I to tread? If I steps backward I tread on ye,—If I steps sideways I tread on ye, if I steps for-ard I tread on ye. It do seem to me as I can't go nowhere but there you be a-waitin' to be trod on, ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... done in wealth. If it were flowers she handled, it was as a goddess would handle them. None were too beautiful, or too costly, or too rare for her restless fingers to pluck, or her dainty feet to tread on. Had she possessed jewels, she would have worn them like roses, and flung them away almost as freely if they had displeased her or she had grown weary of them. Love was to her a jewel, and she wore it just now ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... sandaled with wind and with flame, I have heart-fire and singing to give, I can tread on the grass or the stars, Now at last ...
— Rivers to the Sea • Sara Teasdale
... the wild pig. And it would seem that he, or she, who came that way was a pig, only a precious little one. You know the ways of a pig? How you can hear him coming long before he comes; how he must snuffle, and grunt, and poke dead leaves, and snort, and tread on things, and snore. Very good. So it was here; and these things did this new-comer, who approached through the mist—only all in a dwarfed way, as if they were done by a tiny grown-up pig. Its gruntings were almost to itself; its snortings, snorings, and sniffings ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... Mr. Williams' mind. Translated his thoughts ran something like this: "Mighty pretty girl, blooming as a rose. Wonder how many of us the chaperon's going to stand for. Plague take it, why didn't Stuart give me a show—needn't have tread on my heels this way." ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... as the dead! With courts familiar from our birth, Is it fit subject for our mirth, That thus awakening from her theme, Where she through air and sea pursues, And all things governs, all subdues, (Like fetter'd captive in a dream,) Blindly to tread on unknown land, Without a guide or helping hand, No previous usage to befriend, (As well we might an infant lend Our eyes' experience, ear, or touch!) Can we in reason wonder much, Her steps are tottering and unsure Where we have learnt to walk ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... is Maymunah[FN98] bare * Whose sire in wisdom all the wits outstrippeth: Man may not tread on mud or dust or clay * Save by good sense, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... has a great cat which she is very fond of. Whoever is clever enough to tread on that cat's tail is the man she is destined ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... face surprised. "You! you! with such murderous thoughts—you, who can not bear to see a chicken killed, who can not bring yourself to tread on a spider or to stick a butterfly on ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... regarded it with disgust and fear. Then with garments held tightly round her, and feverishly grasping her parasol, she was persuaded to venture on a little journey over the slippery rocks. Sophia Jane and Susan, on either hand, advised the safest places to tread on, watched each footstep carefully, and made encouraging remarks as though to a child. Finally, after many perils and narrow escapes, she was conducted with much applause safely back to the dry land, and up again to the ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... short memory, Miller. I lay Jan Grimbal knaws the reason if you doan't. The worm that can sting does, if you tread on it. ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... forth into the great waters; far from the beloved house of the Holy Face are they gone, and far from the blithesome green aspect of the good earth; and no man of them knoweth what bane or blessing is in store for him, or whether he shall ever again tread on grass or ground. A little tearfully they think of their dear cloister-mates, but they are high of heart nothing the less. Their ship is their garth, and cloister, and choir, wherein they praise God with full voices through all the ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... of Privy Seal. Yet within ten hours came the men of the King; these took him aboard a cogger, the cogger took them to Calais, and at the gate of Calais town the King's men kicked him into the country of France, he having sworn on oath never more to tread on English soil. ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... one suggested that it be arranged so that menstruation should sometimes prove fatal to woman. On this he rose up in his place and cried: "Wata[n] Thanks! I'm glad some of them will die, for they are getting so thick that they tread on me." He fairly shook with joy at the thought, so that he fell over backward and could not get on his feet again, but had to wriggle off on his back, as the ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... themselves at the various stages of their journey, they were at last within a few short miles of their destination; they were about to become acquainted with a people, who had never seen, or scarcely heard of a European, and to tread on ground, the knowledge and true situation of which had hitherto been wholly unknown. These ideas of course excited no common sensations, and could scarcely be unaccompanied by strong hopes of their ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... Warwick Lane, Newgate, Paul's Chain, Watling Street, now flaming, and most of it reduced to ashes; the stones of St. Paul's flew like granados, the melting lead running down the streets in a stream, and the very pavements glowing with fiery redness, so as no horse nor man was able to tread on them, and the demolition had stopped all the passages, so that no help could be applied. The eastern wind still more impetuously drove the flames forward. Nothing but the almighty power of God was able to stop them, for vain ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... heart beat furiously. She felt suffocating with new hope, for what could be but good from Harold's meeting with that sweet woman who had already brought so much comfort into her own life? She was abashed, and yet radiant; she seemed to tread on air as she stood beside her friend saying farewell. She did not wish to speak. So the two women ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... the heads of the heavenly coursers, hovers the morning star, in the form of a youthful cherub, bearing his flaming torch. Nothing is more admirable in this beautiful composition, than the motion given to the whole. The smooth and rapid step of the circling Hours as they tread on the fleecy clouds; the fiery steeds; the whirling wheels of the car; the torch of Lucifer, blown back by the velocity of his advance; and the form of Aurora, borne through the ambient air, till you ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... or look back. "Nevertheless you said it," he rejoined in a tone that made her feel as if he had flung an icy shower of water in her face; and the next moment she heard his quick tread on the garden path and realized ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... through the open door there came the sound of a heavy tread on the stairs, mingled with various voices. Elena's shining face suddenly clouded, and Rossi, who read her thought, went out on to the landing. Bruno was coming up the staircase with something in his arms, and behind ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... liberal offers of Caesar; it is not far better to obtain without a combat the possession of gold, silver, silks, and all the objects of our desires? Are we sure of victory? Can we conclude a treaty with the sea? We do not tread on the land; we float on the abyss of water, and a common death hangs over our heads." [65] The memory of these Arctic fleets that seemed to descend from the polar circle left deep impression of terror on the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... the little tiny stems to which it is still attached. This is done by the men. The grain is placed on a large square sieve of rattan or cane, fixed between four posts in the verandah of the Dyak house, and the men tread on it and press it through the sieve. The paddy that falls through is taken and stored in the loft in large round bins made ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes
... but a nose can follow," said the satisfied scout, looking back along their difficult way; "grass is a treacherous carpet for a flying party to tread on, but wood and stone take no print from a moccasin. Had you worn your armed boots, there might indeed have been something to fear; but with the deerskin suitably prepared, a man may trust himself, generally, on rocks with ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... a spacious hall, whose ceiling, walls, and floor were covered with polished tiles carved all over with unknown figures. He gazed about, full of wonder, and was just preparing to walk out again when the same voice bade him: 'Tread on the stone in the middle of the hall, and good ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... companion, "there is a rattlers' den somewhere about here. The snakes are in their winter quarters now, almost dormant, but they can still strike if you tread on them. Step here! Give me your hand—use that point of rock—hold fast by this bush; it is firmly rooted—so! Here we are on Spy Rock! You have heard of it? I thought so. Other people have heard of it, and imagine that they have found it—five miles east of us—on a lower ridge. Others think ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... forgot he was a sacrifice, and really, with a little instruction, he would become a most admirable flirt. He is coming to call upon me this afternoon, and then he will get his eyes opened. I shall tread on him as if he were one ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... and they shuffled on after him in dogged painfulness. Four months ago that corporal, with the spring of the energy of youth when the war was young, was perhaps in that green column that went through the streets of Brussels in the thunderous beat of their regular tread on their way to Paris. The group was an object lesson in how much the victor must suffer in war in order to ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... Palliser's hat, to be packed with meaning. There was the moment, the dreadful moment, when he lagged behind and lost sight of her. The moment, his opportunity, when an enormous bramble caught and pinned her by the feet and skirt. She tried to tread on it with one foot and walk away from it with the other, a thing manifestly impossible and absurd. Besides, it hurt—horribly. He knelt before her on the wet moor, unconscious of his brand-new trousers, conscious of nothing but the exquisite ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... that I am now about to tread on very tender ground; but it would be an improper deference to the opinions and manners of the age altogether to avoid it. There has been much argument concerning the lawfulness of theatrical amusements[92]. Let it be sufficient to remark, that the controversy would be short indeed, if the question ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... from the saddle as quickly as possible, and both hurried anxiously towards the arbour. Frau Christine did not remain in the winding path, but though usually she strictly insisted that no one should tread on the turf, hastily crossed it to reach her goal more quickly. But ere she could put the question she longed to ask, Cordula sorrowfully exclaimed: "Don't judge me too severely. 'He who exalts himself shall be ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... anxiety caused by this Mehetabel fell asleep, for how long she was unable to guess. When she awoke it was not that she heard the cry of her child, but that she was aware of a tread on the floor that ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... Parsons laughed. "She worships the very ground you tread on. You can't imagine all you ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... handled easier than the settlers after they have set up housekeeping. Now you see the point, I reckon! So the whole thing simmers down to this: I want to discourage them city fellers. It's a long arm they're reachin' down this way, and I won't have to tread on their fingers many times till they'll be mighty glad to pull back. It's only a side issue with them, and they won't let a side issue keep 'em awake too many nights when there's a way to get rid of the bother. When they ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... made enemies? With the best intentions a man may wound or offend; his interference may be resented; he may even excite jealousy. A young man like the late Mr. Constant could not have had as much practical sagacity as he had goodness. Whose corns did he tread on? The more we know of the last few months of his life the more we shall know of the manner of his death. Thanking you by anticipation for the insertion of this letter in your valuable columns, ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... Shakespeare says, "The poor beetle that we tread on, in mortal sufferance, feels a pang as great as when a giant dies;" and it is equally true that it is as false as it ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Dipankara, the first of the twenty-five Buddhas, incalculable ages ago, when Gotama was a hermit called Sumedha. Seeing that the road over which Dipankara had to pass was dirty, he threw himself down in the mire in order that the Buddha might tread on him and not soil his feet. At the same time he made a resolution to become a Buddha and received from Dipankara the assurance that ages afterwards his wish would be fulfilled. This incident, called pranidhana or the vow to become ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... landed next morning I appeared to tread on air, but I could not help laughing out aloud at the, I thought, ridiculous and anything but picturesque dresses of the women. Their coal-scuttle bonnets and their long waists diverted me, although I was sorry to observe in my healthy and fair countrywomen ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... had been before. A fortnight later they reached Kukawa, the capital of Bornu, once a great Mohammedan empire. "We were about to become acquainted with a people who had never seen or scarcely heard of a European," says Denham, "and to tread on ground, the knowledge and true situation of which had hitherto been wholly unknown. We advanced towards the town of Kuka in a most interesting state of uncertainty, whether we should find its chief at the head of thousands, or be received by him under a tree, ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... apart from others. A foot, for instance, I will allow it is natural should be clean. But if you take it as a foot, and as a thing which does not stand by itself, it will beseem it (if need be) to walk in the mud, to tread on thorns, and sometimes even to be cut off, for the benefit of the whole body; else it is no longer a foot. In some such way we should conceive of ourselves also. What art thou?—A man.—Looked at as standing by thyself and separate, it is natural for thee in health and wealth ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... considerate about my dusty throat," he began with heavy sarcasm; "I ought to have seen at the time that you had it made up between you. This is the second time that you have broken in on me, Makimmon. I'm not a boy any longer. You can't tread on me. It's going to stop ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... at a landing, from which a path ascended the steep hill among the trees. The silence was broken only by the deep, distant, low roar of the Shawenegan Falls. Mr. Trenton sat in his place, while the half-breeds held the canoe steady. Miss Sommerton rose and stepped with firm, self-reliant tread on the landing. Without looking backward she proceeded up the steep hill, and disappeared among the dense foliage. Then Trenton leisurely got out ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... and bear in mind what we have spoken about; for though thy former journey abroad brought thee to great honour, this will be a far greater honour to thee. Thou wilt come back with great glory, and live to be an old man, and no man here will then tread on thy heel; but if thou dost not fare away, and so breakest thy atonement, then thou wilt be slain here in the land, and that is ill knowing for ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... wheresoe'er they turn their ravish'd eyes, Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise, Poetic fields encompass them around, And still they seem to tread on classic ground; For there the muse so oft her harp has strung, That not a mountain rears its head unsung: Renown'd inverse each shady thicket grows, And ev'ry stream in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
... to be especially the poor man's friend. With L500 a year he could have done much; with half that income he could do something to assist them, and something he still did. He had his foibles, and fancies, but such as they were they did not tread on the corns of any of his poorer neighbours. He was proud of his birth, proud of his family, proud of having owned, either in his own hands or those of his forefathers, the same few acres,—and many more also, for his forefathers before him had ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... with it. I think all the world of him. I'm a foolish wench'—her speech wandered as she settled herself cosily, one elbow on the arm-rest. 'We'd been engaged—I couldn't help that—and he worships the ground I tread on. But it's no use. I'm not responsible, you see. His two sisters are against it, though I've the money. They're right, but they think it's the dri-ink,' she drawled. 'They're Methody—the Skinners. You see, their grandfather ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... my son, and hearken patiently, That twenty thousand men have lost their lives For striving with their lemans* and their wives. *mistresses Now since ye have so holy and meek a wife, What needeth you, Thomas, to make strife? There is, y-wis,* no serpent so cruel, *certainly When men tread on his tail nor half so fell,* *fierce As woman is, when she hath caught an ire; Very* vengeance is then all her desire. *pure, only Ire is a sin, one of the greate seven, Abominable to the God of heaven, And to himself it is destruction. This every lewed* ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... tea table I noticed that the waiter was a young man who evidently had not been always thus. He had the air of one who yearns to have some one tread on the tail of his coat. Meekness, with me, is one of my characteristics. It is almost a passion. It is the result of personal injuries received in former years at the hands of parties who excelled me in brute force and who succeeded ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... prairie; The splendour of mountain and lake With their hues that seem ever to vary; The mighty pine-forests which shake In the wind, and in which the unwary May tread on ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... the same gloomy way. "The adders run away from you if you are walking through the heather. If you tread on one, and he bites your boot, what then? He cannot hurt you. But suppose you are out after the deer, and you are crawling along the heather with your face to the ground, and all at once you see the two small eyes of an adder looking at you and ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... have been of peculiar sanctity. I hate to leave this chapel and church, without being able to say any one thing that may reflect a portion of their beauty, or of the feeling which they excite. Kneeling against many of the pillars there were persons in prayer, and I stepped softly, fearing lest my tread on the marble pavement should disturb them,—a needless precaution, however, for nobody seems to expect it, nor to be disturbed by the ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... sometimes left out in the fields or forests for the wild beasts to devour them. In the South Sea Islands three-fourths of all the children born used to be killed. Sometimes they would strangle their babies. Sometimes they would leave them, where oxen and cattle would tread on them, and trample them to death; while, at other times, they would break all their joints, beginning with their fingers and toes, and then go on to their wrists, and elbows, and shoulders. How dreadful it is to think ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... cloaks were holding their little ones up to see the sight, which by this means they entirely lost themselves; and a troop of dogs and cats were playing and fighting at the feet of these eager sight-seers, who took the greatest pains not to tread on, or in any way ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a grand woman. I never saw such a one, and I have seen many. There was a prophetess once, lived in an island in the Weser-stream—and when a man saw her, even before she spoke a word, one longed to crawl to her feet on all fours, and say, "There, tread on me; I am not fit for you to wipe your feet upon." And many a warrior did it.... Perhaps I may have done it myself, before now .... And this one is strangely like her. She would ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... he said, rather paradoxically, I thought. "I'm afraid I should be talking about my ancestors, and asking some one to be good enough to tread on ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... tormenting the herd, and with what dexterity he springs up and catches them as fast as they alight on the bellies, legs, or udders of the animals! Observe how quiet they stand, and how sensible they seem of his good offices; for they neither strike at him, hit him with their tails, tread on him, nor try to drive him away as an uncivil intruder. Were you to dissect him, and inspect his stomach, you would find no milk there. It is full of the flies which ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston |
