"Breakneck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... land familiar in far countries, amid scenery of a very different type. This is what the modern illustration can do when the ripeness of the modern sense is brought to it and the wood-cutter plays with difficulties as the brilliant Americans do to-day, following his original at a breakneck pace. An illusion is produced which, in its very completeness, makes one cast an uneasy eye over the dwindling fields that are still left to conquer. Such art as Alfred Parsons'—such an accomplished translation of local aspects, translated in its turn by ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... road at breakneck speed, passing through a clump of woods that lined both sides. Bob forced the motor to its utmost, but no sign of the gray roadster could they discover. Finally he brought the car to a dead stop ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... sometimes narrowly escaped being a genius, and that he might have crossed the boundary line into genius-land, if he had confined his attention to one department of literature and had been willing to write at less breakneck speed, taking time and thought to prune, revise, and suppress more of his productions. Not a few, however, think that Lowell, in spite of his defects, has left the impress of genius on some of his work. ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... life; and all threw themselves into it so heartily, that it was impossible to help getting great good from it, for these summer weeks, if well spent, work miracles in tired bodies and souls. Frank took a fancy to the bicycle boy, and, being able to hire one of the breakneck articles, soon learned to ride it; and the two might be seen wildly working their long legs on certain smooth stretches of road, or getting up their muscle rowing about the bay till they were almost as brown and nautical in appearance and language as the fishermen who lived ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... saddle, his blue flannel shirt was powdered with the white dust of the plain. Instead of the flaring neckerchief which the cowboys commonly favored, Macdonald wore a cravat, the ends of it tucked into the bosom of his shirt, and in place of the leather chaps of men who ride breakneck through brush and bramble, his legs were clad in tough brown corduroys, and fended by boots to his knees. There were revolvers in ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... take in the progress of this research is a pleasure that is new to me: it is the stimulus which makes a breakneck gallop across dreary fields gridironed with dykes and stone walls so delicious to the sportsman; it is the stimulus which makes the task of the mathematician sweet to him when he devotes laborious days to the solution of an abstruse problem; it is the stimulus that sustains the Indian ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... the life of their children. As I was sitting on the doorstep waiting for my dinner to be cooked, down came, galloping at a breakneck speed and riding bareback, a little child of eight, carrying slung under his arm a smaller child of one, the latter squealing terribly. They both landed safely at the door. Then there appeared one of the picturesque carts drawn by ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... in high good humour. He had voluntarily assumed the whole charge of our drivers during the day, had distinguished himself by most unwearied efforts in raising fallen horses, getting them over breakneck places, and cheering up the disconsolate Kamchadals, and he now wrung the water out of his shirt, and squeezed his wet hair absent-mindedly into a kettle of soup, with a countenance of such beaming serenity and a laugh of such hearty good-nature that it was of no use for anybody to pretend ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... of the appearance of peril by the darkness; but the danger never occurred to Ram, who had been up these cliff-paths too often for his pleasure to heed the breakneck nature of the rough sheep-track up and up the face of the cliff, leading to where it became a steep slope, which ran in and on some four hundred feet, forming one of the highest points in ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... fantasia is to show off one's own prowess and one's horse's paces while careering madly in a widish circle round some given object—an open carriage with some great one in it, or a bridal pair—taking no note of obstacles, dashing over rocks and gulleys and down breakneck slopes, loading and firing off a gun at intervals, in full career. I had tried the feeling of it once at a friend's wedding, and had been far from happy, though my horse enjoyed the romp and often tried to start ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... the approach of the water was from the seventeen-year-old son of John Baker. He was on the road on horseback and noticed the water coming out of a cavity about five feet in diameter, and not waiting to see any more he put spurs to his horse and dashed for the town at breakneck speed. Some of the people of this place saw him coming at great speed, waving his hat, and knowing something was wrong at once gave the alarm, and grabbing their children started for the high parts. When he arrived almost at Railroad street, his own home, the water ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... not but what I've often wished I could see my way to: but sez I to myself, ef he kin stan' it I kin, an' so I held out. But I tell you, boys, I'd rather drive the wust six-hoss team I ever got hold on down Breakneck Hill 'n the dark, than set there agin under thet woman's eyes, a blazin' one minnit, 'n fillin' with tears the next: 'n' I don't care what anybody sez; I'm a goin' to see her an' tell her that she needn't be afeard o' ever hevin to preach ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... understood. Not a soul at Gethin has heard a whisper of Wheal Danes, or of your coming; they think I'm fast asleep at my own house, this instant. But it's been hard work lugging this cursed ladder up here in such a breakneck night as this, I can tell you, and I am glad enough to rest ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... Francisco. As the speed must be rapid, there must be frequent relays. Stations were therefore established every twenty-five miles, and at them fresh horses and riders were kept. Mounted on a spirited Indian pony, the mail carrier would set out from St. Joseph and gallop at breakneck speed to the first relay station, swing himself from his pony, vault into the saddle of another standing ready, and dash on toward the next station. At every third relay a fresh rider took the mail. Day and night, in sunshine and storm, over prairie ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... he said. "The white boy shall not rob the poor Indian," and digging his heels into his pony's sides he set off at a breakneck pace for the nearest patch of timber. Ralph was about to fire on him, but ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... himself upon a bench, and absently followed their reckless play, while his thoughts went back to his own careless boyhood. A boy of ten or twelve took the lead in breakneck tricks, shouting and commanding; he was the chief of the band, and maintained the leadership with a high hand. His face, with its snub nose, beamed with lively impudence, and his cap rested upon ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... character, sketched upon the scale and model of a Torso, a giant in his virtues and his vices and his frame—but exaggerated with such tact and ability that even the impossible hugeness charms and fascinates. The feats of the hero in the dance and carpeted salon, on his mighty hunter leading the breakneck chase, carry us away with all the heat and ardor of sympathy; nor do we stumble in our companionable excitement over any unwelcome snag of commonplace thought or vulgar daring. Constance Brandon, as we have above intimated, we consider a splendid masterpiece—a ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... south-west corner, in a place they call the Devil's Elbow. I have never met that celebrity; nor (if the rest of him at all comes up to what they called his elbow) have I the least desire of his acquaintance. From the heel of the masonry, the rascally, breakneck precipice descended sheer among waste lands, scattered suburbs of the city, and houses in the building. I had never the heart to look for any length of time—the thought that I must make the descent in person some dark ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... into futurity, he already saw a monstrous cross crowning the dome-like summit. Far different were the sensations of the muleteer, who saw in those awful solitudes only fiery dragons, colossal bears, and breakneck trails. The converts, Concepcion and Incarnacion, trotting modestly beside the Padre, recognized, perhaps, some manifestation of ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... simultaneously: a space-suited figure, far out in the depths of interstellar space, caught up in a sudden flare of orange illumination. The strange figure seemed to whirl around, straighten up, and shoot at breakneck speed headlong for Jupiter. Behind it, and in a direct line with the winking flame in the Great Spot, another space denizen glowed luridly, startlingly, out of the blackness beyond, whirled, and shot down the long ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner
... breakneck pace to make up for lost time. How good it was to sniff the fresh air, and to be free, and then to think of that hour put into solid work over the book-list! Why, he glowed all over with delight ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... evident that the bear couldn't go on much longer at this breakneck pace. Its pursuers heard its steps with increasing distinctness, and then its labored breathing. They were gaining on ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... company, and away midshipmen and maidens galloped with a speed which would have tried less hardy steeds. Before long they overtook other parties of girls; on they went till a hill was reached, over which they scampered, descending at breakneck speed into a plain of still larger dimensions, on the other side. Here the road compelled them to keep closer together, as it passed between several sugar plantations. Tom had fixed upon a pretty Kanaka as his companion, who could speak a few words of English, as was the case with many ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... At a breakneck pace, we stumbled over low bushes; we grazed big boulders; we rolled down the sides of steep ravines; but we kept him in sight all the time, dim and black against the starry sky; slowly, slowly—yes, yes!—we gained upon him. My pony led ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... subsidiary rills; Versailles is a very sea of men. But above all, from the Church of St. Louis to the Church of Notre-Dame: one vast suspended-billow of Life,—with spray scattered even to the chimney-pots! For on chimney-tops too, as over the roofs, and up thitherwards on every lamp-iron, sign-post, breakneck coign of vantage, sits patriotic Courage; and every window bursts with patriotic Beauty: for the Deputies are gathering at St. Louis Church; to march in procession ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... rocky crest above, she heard excited cries. Once, on her breakneck descent, she looked up through the foliage of the pine; and she saw, far up against the sky, a white-masked face looking over the edge of ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... who were making semaphore signals to somebody on the Virginia side. Mosby ordered everybody to turn out as quickly as possible and went out to watch the signalmen with his field glasses. While he was watching, Dick Moran, a Mosby man who had billeted with friends down the road, arrived at a breakneck gallop from across the fields, shouting: "Mount your horses! The Yankees ...
— Rebel Raider • H. Beam Piper
... there are not a few remaining who look upon opera as a sort of vocal acrobatics. They go once or twice to the Metropolitan, and feel defrauded of their money if the prima donna fails to come forward to the prompter's box to run up some breakneck scales, and, having arrived at the top, descend by means of a chain of trills or series of somersaults. Their interest in music is athletic (feats of skill), not aesthetic (artistic expression of emotions). Yet these people have the impudence to say ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... graven head-mark, had borne to her heart a new fear that perhaps her mother, too, would soon sleep upon the hillside. She put the thought of her father away, and centered her efforts on reaching the station and the doctor. As she galloped at breakneck speed, the damp wind swept her face, cutting it sharply, and whipped out her horse's mane and tail till they fluttered on a level ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... the edge of her apron. And next she got her brother-in-law's candle ready for him, while Gavard and Quenu congratulated him on his decision. It was always necessary for a man to settle down, said they; the breakneck freaks of politics did not provide one with food. And, meantime, Lisa, standing there with the lighted candle in her hand, looked at him with an expression of satisfaction resting on her handsome face, placid like that of ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... report of a pistol, a death groan interrupted the police master's words. The three horsemen bounded forward into the night. Forward at breakneck speed, but for the sand, that dreadful sand. This is the Rehberg, they know it by the sand in which the horses sink, from which they extricate themselves only to sink again. Yet what matters it if they do make rather slow progress? They will surely reach Spandow before daybreak, ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... not understand till long afterwards, when I had watched the fawns many times, how important is this latter suggestion. One who follows a frightened deer and sees or hears him go bounding off at breakneck pace over loose rocks and broken trees and tangled underbrush; rising swift on one side of a windfall without knowing what lies on the other side till he is already falling; driving like an arrow over ground where you must follow like a ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... assumption only—a piece of faith or impudence which fulfils itself. If some other animal were to induce the chamois to believe that it should at the least have feet with suckers to them, like a fly, before venturing in such breakneck places, or if by any means it could get to know how bad a foot it really has, there would soon be no more chamois. The chamois continues to exist through its absolute refusal to hear reason upon the matter. But the whole question is one of ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... Motherless calves dodged about in bewilderment. In and out of this confusion the cowboys rode, following the animals selected for separation, forcing them out with devious turnings and twistings, and then running them madly in a series of breakneck crescent dashes over flats and hummocks, through dust and brush, until they had joined the smaller herd of choice animals which were to remain on the ranch. It was swift, sweaty, exhausting work, the ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... submarine officer, which never leaves his hand. For the steel walls of his craft, the doors, and the companion-ladder all sweat oil, and at every touch the hands must be wiped dry. The doorways are narrow round holes. Through one of the holes aft the commander descends by a breakneck iron ladder into the black hole lit by electric glow-lamps. The air is heavy with the smell of oil, and to the unaccustomed longshoreman it is almost choking, though the hatches are off. The submarine man breathes ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... perfect safety at a breakneck pace, for they all drive down on one side of the street and up on the other. Nor will an idvosjik hesitate to use his whip about the head and face of another idvosjik who dares to turn ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... a queer voice that scared him. "Will I? Watch! I'm going over the cliff!" And before he could interfere she had turned and was riding breakneck for ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... laugh, yet he said nothing to his sister, but again urged the marquis to mount his horse. And the marquis, who was in a sad tumult of triumph and of woe, leaped up, and they rode out, and, turning their faces towards the forest, set spurs to their horses, and vanished at breakneck speed into the glades. And no sooner were they gone than the troopers of the king's guard clattered at a canter up to the end of the bridge, where the Princess Osra stood. But when their captain saw the princess, ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... usual, was the braver of the two. Although it bored her dreadfully,—as she knew that there was no way out of it, she would go through with it, sit at the piano with a determined air, and gallop through her rondo at breakneck speed, stumbling over certain passages, make a hash of others, break off, turn her head, and ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... Secretary and the late Gogol scrambled into a third just in time to pursue the flying Syme, who was pursuing the flying President. Sunday led them a wild chase towards the north-west, his cabman, evidently under the influence of more than common inducements, urging the horse at breakneck speed. But Syme was in no mood for delicacies, and he stood up in his own cab shouting, "Stop thief!" until crowds ran along beside his cab, and policemen began to stop and ask questions. All this had its ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... mischievous intent in Aaron's mind. He conducted Anna and Blanka to the verge of the gorge that separates the so-called Hidas Peak of the Szekler Stone from the Louis Peak. This ravine is a deep cutting, down which a steep, breakneck path leads directly to Toroczko, but is very seldom used. On the farther side of the gorge may be seen a cave in the rocks, popularly known as Csegez Cave. A rude stone rampart guards its mouth, and, as only a very narrow path along the brink ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... more breakneck riding, and they got a cart and some bedding and carried Ben to Anderson's, which was handiest, if not nearest, and there was more wild and reckless ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... at breakneck speed down the stretch, circle at the forest edge, and come tearing back. Silvermane was pulling the roan faster than he had ever gone in his life, but the dark Indian kept his graceful seat. The speed slackened on the ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... steal from me this illuminated missal of memories, and were I to be banished to-morrow, I should have Spain to keep in my heart, I said, as we rushed down the steep, winding way that serpentined along the southern slope of the Guadarrama. A breakneck road it was, but nobly engineered, twisting back upon itself in many coils, letting us fly with the speed of a bird to lower levels; and it seemed that scarcely had we sunk over the brink of the mountain than we were at the turn on the right ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... many of the qualities that we may note in the American novelist Cooper, whose best stories are tales of adventure in the forest or on the sea. Like him, Scott shows lack of care in the construction of sentences. Few of the most cultured people of to-day could, however, write at Scott's breakneck speed and make as few slips. Scott has far more ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... never knew with any degree of certainty where I was placing my foot. I received several severe wounds on my hands and feet, and frequently fell down on the ground, when I trusted for support to the treacherous stem of a banana, which would break beneath my grasp. It was really a breakneck sort of excursion, which is very rarely made even by the officers, and ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... She snatched up the cub still clinging to his unfinished meal, and darted away at breakneck speed. Her show of fright gave courage to the toucans. They immediately took up the pursuit, their white throats flashing a sharp contrast to their black bodies as they hurtled after the fleeing monkey, easily keeping pace ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... screaming, to the nearest field hospital. The journey was made in double-quick time, over rough Belgian roads. To save his life, he must reach the hospital without delay, and if he was bounced to death jolting along at breakneck speed, it did not matter. That was understood. He was a deserter, and discipline must be maintained. Since he had failed in the job, his life must be saved, he must be nursed back to health, until he was well enough to be stood up ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... the shore. It was as Billy had said; everybody within sight was running, and at remarkable speed too; but whether or not it was the apparition of the boat that had startled them I could not tell, for about half of them seemed to be hastening at breakneck speed toward a part of the beach about half a mile ahead, where a group of some forty or fifty blacks had already gathered, close to the water's edge, and seemed to be engaged, in feverish haste, in collecting stones, or lumps of coral. Other groups, which I believed to be composed of women, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... surrounded by the insurgents at Theriso, having lost our road in the dark, and most of the party taken prisoners. I and my veteran cavass, Hadji Houssein, broke through with a guest,—Colonel Borthwick, an English officer in the Turkish service,—escaping down a breakneck hillside in the dark to save him and his two orderlies from capture by the insurgents, a trifling thing for us who were known as the friends of the Cretans, but a serious matter possibly for Turkish soldiers ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... leaped from their beds to run to the engine-house. Thence the hand-engines were dragged through the streets at a terrific rate of speed by hundreds of yelling men at the end of the ropes. The first engine at a fire obtained the place of honor; therefore every alarm was the signal for a breakneck race. Arrived at the scene of fire, the water-box of one engine was connected by hose with the reservoir of the next, and so water was relayed from engine to engine until it was thrown on the flames. The motive power of the pump ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... the muzzle with his whip, and galloped off at a breakneck pace. Tihon Ivanitch bowed to me twice, once for himself and once for his companion, and again set off at a trot ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... to Moscow in six days, drawn by three horses at breakneck pace, from Moscow to Kazan through the endless forests, on to the Volga, Brown and Ledyard hastened. By the autumn they were across the Barbary Desert, three thousand miles from St. Petersburg. Here Brown remained, and Ledyard went on with the Cossack ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... of our departure from home. Northerly wind; still drifting south. Observations to-day gave 81 deg. 41' 7'' north latitude, so we are not going at a breakneck speed. ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... Onwards they dashed at breakneck speed, while both the men sat grimly silent, prepared to take bravely whatever fate might be in store for them. Probably their thoughts were more of the two boys at the camp than of their present strait—more engaged with commending their ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... cloak and covering her mouth lest the rush of air should affect her voice; but the quick motion was pleasant, and she felt all the illusion of accomplishing something worth doing, merely because she was spinning along at breakneck speed. Somehow, too, the still air and the smell of the flowers had made her restless that morning before starting, and the rapid movement soothed her. If she had been offered her choice just then, she would perhaps have been on horseback for a gallop across country, but the motor car was ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... miss this opportunity, he at once put spurs to his steed, and dashed after the giraffes at a breakneck pace. The ground was very rocky, uneven, and full of holes and scrubby bushes. The long-necked creatures at once set off at a pace which tried Tom's steed, although a good one, to the utmost. There was a thick forest of makolani ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne
... a breakneck rate down the hill, but in the turn at the bottom, in the deep shadows, he encountered a chuck-hole and pitched headlong over the ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... direct driving purpose to reach a particular destination. The trail was a rough and rocky one, but he took it recklessly. His surefooted broncho scrambled catlike up steep inclines and slid in clouds of dust down breakneck hillsides of loose rubble. In and out he wound, across gulches and over passes, following always as nearly a bee line ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... mental memory, on which account he is able to retain the feeling and the thought till they can be embodied by means of words; a faculty which the others do not possess. But the transition from a commonplace nature to one that is richly endowed, demands always a more or less breakneck leap over a certain abyss which yawns threateningly below; and thus must the sudden change with the clerk strike ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... us so fast that at first we did not know what had passed us till the dogs came tumbling after at breakneck speed. They were such old hands at the game that they gave their quarry a bad time of it for awhile, turning and doubling on his tracks till we were almost as excited and bewildered as the poor coon. Little Mary Ware just stood and wrung her hands, and once when the dogs ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... have found it out long ago. That's why I've got Peasley forcing this old tub; she's doing ten knots, and that's a breakneck speed for her. Once we're through the Straits, I'll be satisfied. But meanwhile—" Emerson lowered his glasses with a sigh of fatigue, and in the soft twilight the girl saw that his face was lined and careworn. The yearning at her heart lent poignant sympathy to her words, ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... ascent in the Palace of the Doges, the 'Staircase of the Giants,' and on which Swann now set foot, saddened by the thought that Odette had never climbed it. Ah, with what joy would he, on the other hand, have raced up the dark, evil-smelling, breakneck flights to the little dressmaker's, in whose attic he would so gladly have paid the price of a weekly stage-box at the Opera for the right to spend the evening there when Odette came, and other days too, for the privilege of talking about her, of living among ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... again, a half hour later, and the women and children ran to the door of a house they were passing to see who it might be that was dashing by at such breakneck speed. The air came soft and cool to the riders half hidden in the shadows of the trees which bordered the road, though the moon was ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... the House, and, since he was sheltered from the gale, he could hear the faint sound of blows on woodwork. There was clearly the devil to pay there, and yet here he was helplessly stuck.... Setting his teeth, he started to ascend again. Better the fire than this cold breakneck emptiness. ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... the flashing stars, and through the sleeping streets of Rome, the Marquis galloped with almost breakneck haste. He was a daring rider, and the spirited animal he bestrode soon discovered the force of his governing touch,—the resolve of his urging speed. He went by the Porta Pia, remembering Ruspardi's hurried description of the route taken by the runaway actor, and felt, rather than saw ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... breakneck declivity of nearly three thousand feet by which we reach the banks of the Merced, we are six miles from the hotel, and every rod of the ride awakens wonder, awe, and a solemn joy. As we approach the hotel, and ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... you fifteen minutes to be on your way to the station. Miss the next train—and sink to the level of common men!" Shirts, socks—straps, locks; adieux, tips—horses, whips! Clatter through the Piazzetta Mondragone; down at breakneck speed to the Toledo; across the Piazza del Municipio; a good-bye to the public scriveners sitting at their little tables by the San Carlo; sharp round the corner, and along by the Porto Grande with its ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... when clothes were scarce and pockets past mending, I often made the unpleasant discovery that caused the fool, on his journey from the land of Kokanje, to cry to the King: 'We have ridden at such a breakneck pace, see, everything has slipped through this little hole!' Now I am obliged to write down my adventures without any notes, so dates, numbers, and names of places will occasionally be missing. It stands to reason ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... had their bacon stolen from the larder; the gospodarz Marcinezak, who returned rather tipsy from absolution, was attacked by men with blackened faces and thrown out of his cart, with which the robbers drove off at breakneck speed. Even the poor tailor Niedoperz, when crossing a wood, was relieved of the three roubles he had ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... the hut, it seemed to Stuart that the nerve-racking beating of the tom-tom sounded louder and nearer. They walked a mile or so, then, as Hippolyte suggested, at a small half-abandoned plantation, they found mules. Once mounted, the negro set off at breakneck speed, caring nothing about the roughness of the road, all the more treacherous because of the dead-black of the shadows against the vivid green-silver patches where the ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... so much more graceful and athletic than the other women that she soon outstripped them. She skated almost entirely with Stefan, only once with Gunther, who, since his strange look in the sleigh, a little troubled her. On that one occasion he tore round the clear ice at breakneck speed, halting her dramatically, by sheer weight, a few inches from the bank, where she ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... enthralling interest of her new work and surroundings, it seemed to Rose, during the year after she gained entrance to the temple of her desire, that her life was standing still, while all things else were speeding by her at a breakneck pace. ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... never had an experience like this before; but somehow he seemed to understand that the first, indeed, only thing to be done, was to get the woman and child in the sleigh some way or other, and then make for home at breakneck speed. ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... the grey dawn came, spreading to a bright autumn morning. The roads outside were dry and dusty. I meant, in a few hours, to make a breakneck dash out of Dresden, and to hide somewhere in the country. To attempt to escape by rail would be folly. But if either man was on the watch and invited himself to go for a run with ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... slipped in his sweating hands, but he managed to turn it. The elevator wasn't at his floor, and he couldn't stop for it. His feet pounded on the stairs, taking him down the three floors to the street at a breakneck pace. The walls of the stairway seemed to be rushing together, as if trying to close the way. He screamed at them, until they were behind, and he was charging out of the ...
— Pursuit • Lester del Rey
... of Inspector Dawfield put an end to Barrant's reflections. He explained that Sergeant Pengowan, in his anxiety to maintain the correctness of his official report, had taken him to various breakneck positions at the back of the house and along the cliffs in order to demonstrate the impossibility of anybody entering Robert Turold's rooms from outside. The sergeant was at that moment engaged in a ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... the cliff a boy, on whose jacket and cap the glitter of a little gold lace and his snow-white trousers proclaimed him to be that hero in embryo, a midshipman. Having looked about him for a few seconds, he began to descend the cliff at so seemingly breakneck a speed, that several of the ladies shrieked out to him to take care, and Mary Rymer turned somewhat pale and stood looking anxiously as the young sailor dropped from one point of rock to another, or slid down a steep incline, or swung himself ...
— Adrift in a Boat • W.H.G. Kingston
... the party—an office, however honourable, that is no sinecure since it obliges me to write rhymed eulogies or diatribes on Dolgelly, Tan-y-Bulch, Gyn-y-Coed, Llanrychwyn, and other Welsh hamlets whose names offer breakneck fences to the Muse. ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and feed now in pairs; the rookery is alive with them. To the steeple the jackdaws have returned and fly round and round; now one holds his wings rigid and slides down at an angle of sixty degrees at a breakneck pace, as if about to dash himself in fragments ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... light is needed all day, and the outside air does not come in very far to drive away the heat and the dampness. On going out at noon from a laundry where I had dipped shirts in hot starch all the morning at a breakneck pace, I was struck by the coolness of the day. That night I discovered that the thermometer had been registering 96 deg. in the shade. A few fans should be put in each laundry. They could be run by the power that runs ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... channel was rendered unnavigable by a long bar of gravel and grass, over which an inch or so of water crawled sluggishly. The main channel—only half a dozen feet wide—headed abruptly to the right, and swept at breakneck speed in a perfect half circle under the outwardly projecting base of a steep and wooded hill. Here and there the bushes hung down to meet the madly tossing ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... By reason of a breakneck ride through the Pentlands, I entered the dining-room at Stair very late one morning to find Huey MacGrath in a state of deepest gloom waiting ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... by her, and she, alas! Must stand there still and let it pass. Duty was duty, and hers was clear; God seemed far off, and no friend near. But the truest friend and the swiftest horse Must ride that ride on a breakneck course; And with truest horse and swiftest friend, To the fast express was the winning end! And as if one pang was needed more, There stood in the doorway, Nell Latore— Nell Latore, with her mocking face, Restless eyes, and her ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the privacy of the fo'c'sle neither spoke. She was breathless, partly with indignation, partly with indefinable fear and partly with the breakneck speed at which he had rushed her along the deck. He sat down on the anchor; she stood before him, her back to the rail, which she gripped with her hands. Her first impulse was to shake him thoroughly. But she resisted it as she ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... the night at a breakneck pace which they never slackened until, when within a quarter of a mile or so of Penzoy Pound, where the army was encamped and slumbering by now, they caught sight of the musketeers' matches glowing in the dark ahead of them. An outpost barred their progress; but Richard had ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... in and lighted a small hand lamp. Mrs. Snow took it and led the way to the hall and the narrow, breakneck flight of stairs. Captain Zelotes laid a ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... among themselves. Just as they reached the house a horseman came clattering down the road and all paused involuntarily to mark the new arrival. The rider was a handsome, slim young fellow, dressed as were the other cowboys present, and he came on at a breakneck speed that seemed only warranted by an ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... polo, and cards, and swap stories at the bar until the declining sun warns them of the necessity for departing before night falls on the forest. After hearty farewells they swing themselves up into the saddle again and dash off at breakneck speed to escape ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... in the western part of our country that disappears into a canon, the walls of which are some thousands of feet high, and the bottom so narrow that the confined waters roar through it at breakneck speed. Sometimes they disappear entirely under the rock, to emerge again below more furiously than ever. From the river-bed can be seen, far, far above, a blue ribbon of sky. Once upon a time, not long ago, two ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Polish world, gathered a great many other wealthy exiles, amongst whom I chiefly remember a cavalry captain of the name of Bansemer, a man of unlimited kindness, but of a rather frivolous nature; he possessed a marvellous team of four horses which he drove at such breakneck speed as to cause great annoyance to the people of Leipzig. Another man of importance with whom I remember dining was General Bem, whose artillery had made such a ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the officers had gone down the Scots lost heart. They would have trusted to no Gaelic oaths, for men got no quarter in the west, but when Brian shouted at them in English they listened to him right willingly. A score broke away and galloped breakneck for the south again, and perhaps fifty had gone down; the rest gathered about the wagons stared at Brian and Cathbarr in superstitious awe as the two lowered bloody ax and sword ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... construct and market an automobile specially designed for everyday wear and tear—business, professional, and family use; an automobile which will attain to a sufficient speed to satisfy the average person without acquiring any of those breakneck velocities which are so universally condemned; a machine which will be admired by man, woman, and child alike for its compactness, its simplicity, its safety, its all-around convenience, and—last but not least—its exceedingly reasonable ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... (neglectful) 460; without ballast, heels over head, head over heels; giddy &c. (inattentive) 458; wanton, reckless, wild, madcap; desperate, devil-may-care. hot-blooded, hotheaded, hotbrained[obs3]; headlong, headstrong; breakneck; foolhardy; harebrained; precipitate, impulsive. overconfident, overweening; venturesome, venturous; adventurous, Quixotic, fire eating, cavalier; janty[obs3], jaunty, free and easy. off one's guard &c. (inexpectant) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... such dizzy eeries, amid the eccentric gables and rheumatic chimney pots of great capitals, works were often composed which were destined eventually to confer lasting honors on their obscure authors. Goldsmith had written his "Vicar of Wakefield" in the memorable, dingy eminence at the head of Breakneck Steps. Pope, walking with Harte in the Haymarket, entered an old house, where mounting three pair of creaking stairs he pointed to an open door and said: "In this garret Addison wrote his 'Campaign.'" Gerald Griffin, however, had yet to experience all the hardships ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... strides now, and it was not long before, looking a good deal more amiable, he declared himself ready, and was in fact so ready that he raced with his brother down to the cliff— rather a breakneck proceeding, considering the steepness of the way; but they got down to the harbour in safety, and to Dick's delight he found that the lugger was not yet in, the progress by means of her sweeps having been very slow, and now for the first time he noticed that ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... for hours at a breakneck pace, and he was so exhausted that he could hardly lift his hand to fumble ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... it. The thing could not have happened save by the dishonesty and cynical disbelief of some priest, and indeed probably of more than one. And, upon the whole, it struck me as a second curious indication of the somewhat breakneck speed with which the threads of history are spinning themselves in these days and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... Yard. However, he did not come, so I wired him to the latter place, left a short note for him also at the hotel, to be kept till called for, and started off in a cab (when I dared delay no longer) at breakneck pace for Paddington station. ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... into the belly of the rock. From his stables, where men and horses seemed to stand ready day and night, ten troopers cantered out, scattering the sparks, the whites of their horses' eyes and their drawn blades gleaming; without another order they dipped down the breakneck gorge, to wait below. The oncoming rider had wheeled again; he had caught the cavalry, that rode to meet him, unawares. They were not yet certain whether he was friend or foe, and they were milling in a ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... little First-Formers. However, Sally May was discovered on her feet about to make a speech. Sally May, usually so glib of tongue, moistened her lips several times, and then, holding out the bouquet, she delivered at breakneck speed the little speech which she had composed—and fortunately ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... willingly enough, but he failed to understand his companion's excitement. After all they were merely bent upon "roping" a stray horse. The girl galloped on at breakneck speed; the heavy black ringlets of hair were swept like an outspread fan from under the broad brim of her Stetson hat, her buckskin bodice ballooning in the wind as rider and horse charged along, utterly indifferent to the nature of the country they were traveling—indifferent to everything ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... flowers, no books. Maurice tingled—his whole body tingled for a moment—and he felt like a man guilty of some mean crime and arraigned before all the world. Then he struck Tito with his switch, and began to gallop down the steep path at a breakneck pace, sticking his feet far out upon either side. He would forget. He would put away these thoughts that were tormenting him. He would enjoy this day of pleasure for which he had sacrificed so much, for which he had trampled down his self-respect ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Neil comfortingly, "I'll admit that the sight of Sandy's calves is enough to make anybody weep, but he'll fatten up next summer—here's Mother!"—and he ran up the lane at a breakneck pace. ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... give no thanks. I found my girl descending on the road Of breakneck coquetry, and barred her way. Either she leaps the bar, or she must back. That means she marries you, or ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... zig-zag little streets, one house tumbling on the back of its neighbour, another having contrived to wedge itself between two of portlier bulk, a third coolly taking possession of some inviting frontage, shutting out its fellow's light, air, and sunshine; here, meeting the eye, breakneck alley, there aerial terrace, and on all sides architectural reminders of the Souvigny passed away, the Souvigny once so splendid and important, now reduced to nothingness, as is, politically speaking, the so-called ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards |
