"Leap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to have become as powerful as the engines of a transatlantic liner, and with one spring I rose smoothly and swiftly, and as straight as an arrow, surmounting the giant's foot, passing his knee and attaining nearly to the level of his hip. Then I felt that the momentum of my leap was exhausted, and despite my efforts I slowly turned head downward, glancing in affright at the ground a quarter of a mile below me, on which I expected to be dashed to pieces. But a moment's thought convinced me that I should get no hurt, ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... ever presented a proposition to Mrs. Wayne without finding her willing to consider it, an open-mindedness that often led her into the consideration of absurdities. And now the sacred cupidity of the reformer did for an instant leap up within her. All the distressed persons, all the tottering causes in which she was interested, seemed to parade before her eyes. Then, too, the childish streak in her character made her remember how amusing it would be to be Adelaide Farron's mother-in-law, and Peter's grandmother ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... Power which is finding expression in the universe, and which is present in every tiniest atom of the wondrous whole. I find that this Power is the one reality I cannot get away from, for, whatever else it may be, it is myself. Theologians will tell me that I have taken a prodigious leap in saying this, but I cannot help it. How can there be anything in the universe outside of God? Whatever distinctions of being there may be within the universe it is surely clear that they must all be transcended and comprehended within ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... in space! And the thunders crash up with a roar upon roar, And the eddying lightnings flash fire in my face, And the whirlwinds are whirling the dust round and round, And the blasts of the winds universal leap free And blow each upon each with a passion of sound, And aether goes mingling in storm with ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... shoulder against, the player next in front. They should thus make one long, even, and solid "back" or row of backs. These are called the buckets. The other players are called the bungs, and stand at some little distance to get a run for the leap. They will naturally select their best leaper as the first of their line, as he may not move forward after he has once landed on the backs, and it is desirable that he should leave as much space behind him as possible for the others ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... exhibited the Morse system to the astonished dignitaries of Peking, those old men, though heads of departments, chuckled like children when, touching a button, they heard a bell ring; or when wrapping a wire round their bodies, they saw the lightning leap from point to point. "It's wonderful," they exclaimed, "but we can't use it in [Page 205] our country. The people would steal the wires." Electric bells are now common appliances in the houses of Chinese who live in foreign settlements. Electric trolleys are soon ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... the burning fever. Only once his pace he slackened, Only once he paused or halted, Paused to purchase heads of arrows Of the ancient Arrow-maker, 255 In the land of the Dacotahs, Where the Falls of Minnehaha Flash and gleam among the oak-trees, Laugh and leap into the valley. There the ancient Arrow-maker 260 Made his arrow-heads of sandstone, Arrow-heads of chalcedony, Arrow-heads of flint and jasper, Smoothed and sharpened at the edges, Hard and polished, keen and costly. 265 With him dwelt his dark-eyed daughter, Wayward ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... pointed beard, and then taking a closer look through his field-glasses, would select the three guns he had decided would give him the effect he wanted to produce, and he would produce that effect. When the shot struck plump in the Turkish lines, and we could see the earth leap up into the air like geysers of muddy water, and each gunner would wave his cap and cheer, Frantzis would only smile uncertainly, and begin again, with the aid of his field-glasses, to ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... light boat, and a tight boat, and a boat that rides well, Though the waves leap around it and the winds blow snell: A full boat, and a merry boat, we'll meet any weather, With a long pull, and a strong pull, and ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... son; but, unfortunately, the Alderman was not there! Cut-in-half took the child by the seat of his trousers, and carried him into his den, where he kept his big ape tied to the foot of his bed. On seeing the child, the beast began to leap and grind his teeth like a mad thing, and to spring the whole length of his chain, as if he wished to ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... is thin and easy to travel on: and ye shall bid them give you of their folk as many as they deem fittest thereto to join your company, so that ye may have a chain of watchers stretching far into the wilds; but two shall lie without the wood, their horses ready for them to leap on and ride on the spur to the wain-burg in the ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... February day of the year 1760, and a young Tony, newly of age, and bound on the grand tour aboard the crack merchantman of old Bracknell's fleet, felt his heart leap up as the distant city trembled into shape. Venice! The name, since childhood, had been a magician's wand to him. In the hall of the old Bracknell house at Salem there hung a series of yellowing prints which Uncle Richard Saulsbee had brought home from ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... came to the levee, and made a profound bow to his Majesty. His Majesty bowed still lower. The Neapolitan bowed down his head almost to the ground; when, behold! the King clapped his hands on his Excellency's shoulders, and jumped over him like a boy playing at leap-frog. Another day the English Ambassador was sitting opposite the King at dinner. His Majesty asked him to take wine. The glasses were filled. The Ambassador bowed, and put the wine to his lips. The King grinned hideously and threw his ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... itself between her and the one friend and companion she had ever had. Pitt said he would return; but four or five years, for all present purposes, is a sort of eternity at her age; hope could not leap over it, and expectation died at the brink. Her want of comfort came back in full force; but where was the ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... friendly eye (For women, as to speaken *in commune*, *generally* They follow all the favour of fortune), And was all his in cheer*, as his in heart. *countenance Out of the ground a fire infernal start, From Pluto sent, at request of Saturn For which his horse for fear began to turn, And leap aside, and founder* as he leap *stumble And ere that Arcite may take any keep*, *care He pight* him on the pummel** of his head. *pitched **top That in the place he lay as he were dead. His breast to-bursten with his saddle-bow. As black he lay as any coal or crow, So was the blood y-run into ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... for it ere it be long; and ye shall lose acre and close and woodland, and be servants in your own houses, and your sons shall be the lords' lads, and your daughters their lemans, and ye shall buy a bold word with many stripes, and an honest deed with a leap ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... or two more we were at the foot of the mountain, when Lucien, overjoyed that the descent was accomplished, gave a leap which showed me that the back of his trowsers had ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... hare," I thought as I went home, "is madness, the youth, to leap over the meshes of good counsel, the cripple." Which is not mine, but that philosopher, Will Shakespeare; ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... he went on foot to Winchester. One of his gentlemen annoyed him by a hint to the country people as to who he was, whereupon a throng come out to stare at him, at one of the bridges. He escaped, and took his revenge by a flying leap over a broad "water carriage," leaving them to follow ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... green. I hope it will long continue so, and yourself likewise. I shall come up one of these days and have a roll on it with you"; and Kemble, upon another occasion, in urging Irving to visit him added as an inducement, "come and we will have a game of leap-frog." Referring to their last meeting Irving said of Kemble: "That is my friend of early life—always unchanged, always like a brother, one of the noblest beings that ever was created. His heart is pure gold." That was in the summer of 1859, and in the following November ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... f.: 'As vultures with crooked talons and curved beaks that upon some high crag fight, screaming loudly.' Ibid. v. 770 f.: 'As far as a man's view ranges in the haze, as he sits on a point of outlook and gazes over the wine-dark sea, so far at a spring leap the loud-neighing ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... the others it seemed to happen slowly. The mustang was halted in the midst of a leap, tugged at a leg that seemed glued to the ground, and then buckled suddenly and collapsed on one side. They heard that awful, muffled sound of splintering bone and then the scream ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... of the dastard were like curses. Thus they reached the shore, and it was not until Benedetto saw the Seine once more before him that he realized what he was doing. He shook off the hand on his wrist and began to run. He saw the wreck a foot or two from the shore, and with one leap he reached it, having little idea of the danger that awaited him there. The mad woman followed him and tried to put her arms around him. "You shall never leave me ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... the middle space. Sunk deep, the boat floats slow the waves along, And scarce contains the thickly crowded throng; A gen'ral horror seizes on the fair, While white-look'd cowards only not despair. 'Till rowed with care they reach th' opposing side, Leap on the shore, and leave the threat'ning tide. While to receive the pay the boatman stands, And chinking pennys jingle in his hands. Eager the sparks assault the waiting cars, Fops meet with fops, and clash in civil wars. Off fly the wigs, as mount their kicking heels, ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... it reminded me of the object of my search. In vain my eye roved among these; their figures were strangely lacking in the dignity and beauty which I had found among the poorest. Suddenly I came upon a sight that made my heart leap. There, squatting oddly enough on the pavement-curb of a street opposite the lawns, sat a frowsy, gaberdined Jew. Vividly set between the tiny green cockle-shell hat on his head and the long uncombed black beard was the face of my desire. The head was bowed ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... upon as a miracle by the people who rushed down to worship it. But Vladimir's soldiers gave it another bath, and this time it was caught by the current and drifted away. The cliff where it stood is still known at Kief as "the devil's leap," and the spot where Perun floated ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... them with your money," said the playroom girl. "You would not have taken care of a cross baby four weeks, and missed a plum picnic, and not played a leap, to earn pretty things for Dolly. You ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness
... and pop with the sudden surge of weight. Then the motors shut off, and Mac skidded several feet up the ladder. No matter how fast a man's reactions were, they couldn't be applied quickly enough to keep him from starting an involuntary leap after bracing against a suddenly removed gravity load. "All ...
— Tight Squeeze • Dean Charles Ing
... had as much attention paid me by the servants that showed us through the house, as any with a paler skin. As I walked through the building, the statuary did not fall down, the pictures did not leap from their places, the doors did not refuse to open, and the servants did not say, "We ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... perceived this, how did my heart leap for joy within me! My joy abounded,—my fear of the serpents abated,—my love to my kind and tender guide increased,—and my courage and confidence were renewed,—and I began to believe I was in the right way to attain my desire. So on I went, keeping my eye to the light through them all, ...
— A Short History of a Long Travel from Babylon to Bethel • Stephen Crisp
... quoth he, now wha begins: With that the foul Seven Deadly Sins Begoud to leap at anis. And first of all in Dance was Pride, With hair wyld back, and bonnet on side, Like to make vaistie wanis;[116] And round about him, as a wheel, Hang all in rumples to the heel His kethat for the nanis:[117] Mony proud trumpour[118] ...
— English Satires • Various
... into its proper division, when, to his horror and amazement, he found that he had grown two feet at least during the night; and that the pantaloons which had fitted so admirably before, were now only knee-breeches. He rushed to the window with the intention of breaking his neck by a leap into the street, when his eye fell upon the strange customer of the preceding day, who was leaning against the gable-end of the house opposite, quietly smoking his meerschaum. Hans paused; then thought, and then ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 16, 1841 • Various
... "We are at peace with the Indians; it would be a stout wolf that could leap this palisade; and the servants know their master too well to care to offend their mistress. Moreover, I would ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... Duke of Reichstadt's regiment Caught sight of him as he was riding homeward. You know the deep ditch bordering the road? His Highness wished to leap it, but his horse Shied, swerved, and backed. The Duke sat firm, And brought him to it again, and—over! Then The men, to applaud him, shouted. And ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... he looked at her and at Eogan, he said: "Ah Deirdre! it is the glance of a ewe when set between two rams that thou castest on me and on Eogan!" And when Deirdre heard that, she sprang up, and she made a leap out of the chariot, and she struck her head against the stony rocks that were in front of her, and she shattered her head so that the brains leapt out, and thus came to ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... thus, slowly, as though to gain time, he was looking about him, and as the last word left his lips, knowing that the door was locked, he dashed for the window, hoping, I suppose, to leap through the casement, or if that failed, to shout for help. But Kari, who had set the candles he bore on a side table, that where the writing lay, read his mind. With a movement more swift than that of a polecat ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... fine." For days he had been heavy with the melancholy of his love, but now in this hour of danger his heart seemed to be light and attuned to a rollicking air. I have known many a man to breathe a delicious thrill in an atmosphere of peril, to feel a leap of the blood, a gladness, but it was at a time of intense excitement, a sort of epic joy; but how could a man, lying in the dark, waiting for he knew not what—how could he put down a weighty care and ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... Nearer and nearer! Instinctively he thrust out his fiddle at them. The jarring of the strings made than leap back. Hope returned. He drew his hand violently across the strings—twang, twang! Instantly the wolves sprang back as if he had fired a ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... there came a sullen, tearing sound; and the top of the near pile, which had been half cut through, began to lean slowly, slowly. A yell of desperate warning arose. Goodine dropped his axe, turned like lightning, and made a tremendous leap for safety. He gained the edge of the landing-front, slipped on an oozy stone, and fell back with a cry of horror right beneath the toppling mass ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... to leap from the rock in pursuit of them; their enemies, forced to make a detour, left them a few ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MURAT—1815 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... you too of their brother:(946) he was on the expedition to St. Maloes; a party of fifty men appearing on a hill, he was despatched to reconnoitre with only eight men. Being stopped by a brook, he prepared to leap it; an old sergeant dissuaded him, from the inequality of the numbers. "Oh!" said the boy, "I will tell you what; our profession is bred up to so much regularity that any novelty terrifies them—with our light English horses we will leap this stream; and I'll ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... Mr. Houghton, kept very much to the right and were soon out of the run altogether. But the worst of it was that though they were not heading for their good country, still there was the brook, Pugsby brook, to be taken. Had the fox done as he ought to have done, and made for Pugsby itself, the leap would have been from grass to grass; but now it must be from plough to plough, if taken at all. It need hardly be said that the two things are very different. Sir Simon, when he saw how the land lay, took a lane leading down to the Brotherton road. If the fox ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... as to the precise mode of its attack. Such, however, is far from being the case; and next to its audacity, nothing is more surprising than the adroitness with which it escapes the spring of the snake under a due sense of danger, and the cunning with which it makes its arrangements to leap upon the back and fasten its teeth in the head of the cobra. It is this display of instinctive ingenuity that Lucan[2] celebrates where he paints the ichneumon diverting the attention of the asp, by the motion of his bushy tale, and then seizing ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... into the hall, and the very scent of the house—for each house speaks to more senses than one—made his heart leap in his broad breast. It seemed as if Millicent's presence was in the very air. This was more than he could have hoped. He had not intended to call this afternoon, although the visit was only to have ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... such celerity that one might have described the movement as a leap. He was within a yard of her when he next spoke; his back was toward her, his eyes searching the darkness ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... the hush of April weather, With the bees in budding heather, And the white clouds floating, floating, and the sunshine falling broad; While my children down the hill Run and leap, and I sit still, Through the silence, through the silence art thou calling, ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... and bedeviled the orchestra. For, in his hands, it is no longer the familiar and terrorless thing it once had been, a thing about whose behavior one can be certain. It has become a formidable engine of steel and gold, vibrant with mad and unexpected things. Patterns leap and tumble out of it. Violin music launches swiftly into space, trumpets run scales, the tempi move with the velocity of express trains. It has become a giant, terrible bird, the great auk of music, that seizes you in its talons and spirals into ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... the culprit was assailed on all sides by his countrymen with their paddles; even a boy in the same canoe inflicted several blows, and he was finally severely injured about the head and body, when, with the blood streaming from various parts, he was compelled to leap into the sea, in order to wash it away, before they would allow him to re-enter his own boat. His punishment, however, did not terminate with the above discipline; for as he assisted in paddling his canoe ashore, his countrymen followed him with ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... following morning, after two tyre troubles, I was passing out of the quaint mediaeval town of Hildesheim, intending to reach Hanover before noon. I had come around the Haupt Bahnhof and on to the highway beyond the railroad, when my heart gave a leap as a policeman dashed out into the road in front of me ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... if it were caught under precisely these conditions, could have done little more than drift down the channel. The boys resigned themselves to their fate. Now and again the fog shut down. Wild cries of sea-birds were about them. Now and then the leap of a great dolphin feeding in the tide splashed alongside, to startle them yet more. Each moment, as they knew, carried them farther and farther from their friends, and deeper and deeper into dangers whose nature they could ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... high in the air, his tiny ears flattened back in anticipation. Well he knew what was in store, what was expected. No need was there of a second command nor the touch of a bridle rein. Almost ere the taking of the single leap that put the rider in his seat the little beast was away, his wide-spread nostrils breathing deep of the prairie air, the patter of his tiny hoofs a continuous song upon the close-cropped sod. As two human beings living side by side grow to know each other, so this ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... measure of dust from his hat, settled it over hair as black as that felt had once been, and crossed the brook with a running leap. The roan lifted his head to watch Drew go and then settled back to grazing. This, too, followed a pattern both man and horse had practiced for a ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... came in at the door he was met by Roberta, cool and fresh in blue. It was but five in the morning; surely she did not commonly rise at this hour, even in May. The thought made his heart leap. She came straight to him and put both hands in his, saying in her friendly, low ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... necessary for springing back, there being but two in all. He likewise says that the leaping back, requires such an effort, that you have not Power to parry; but Experience sufficiently shows that you may easily parry and spring back. Indeed on a moving Sand, or slippery Ground, it is very difficult to leap back; and if we consider things rightly, we cannot find our purpose answered at all times and places; and tho' the first Retreat that I recommended, and which these Gentlemen esteemed, is very good, yet if you are followed closely ...
— The Art of Fencing - The Use of the Small Sword • Monsieur L'Abbat
... more than twelve swords. When I understood the matter, and saw not how to fly, I did my best to crouch into the hedge. But the thorns pricked and hurt me, goading me to madness like a bull; and I had half resolved to take a leap and hazard my escape. Just then Luigi, with his arm round Pantasilea's neck, was heard crying: "I must kiss you once again, if only to insult that traitor Benvenuto." At that moment, annoyed as I was by the prickles, and irritated by the young man's words, I sprang forth, lifted my sword ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... a little back, And waved his men apart; And Fawdon half leap'd up, and cried, "Thou wilt ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... leap over the counter and wrench the threatening weapon from Mr. Bailey's grasp with one hand, while he throttled him with the other? We are obliged to say that he did not. He stood quite still, for something ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... how he should begin. Indeed it did not seem easy. It would have been easier if he had been less advanced, or further advanced, in his suit. Most people never jump without feeling, at the moment of jumping, that they could leap a little better if they could "take off" an inch ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... he was running toward the crater's edge in bounding strides that carried him twenty feet at a leap. He understood now. Detis had recovered from his wound and was reversing the rulden's energy. He was projecting his own image and voice, many times amplified, into the column of fire ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... Glory, Who wou'd not be a Cuckold to be great? —If Cromwell leap'd into my Saddle once, I'll step into his Throne for't: but, to be pointed at By Rascals that ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... fastened was not much more than a sapling, and he lay in the saddle of a crotch five feet from the ground when Metoosin led one of the dogs past him. The Airedale saw him and made a sudden spring that tore the leash from the Indian's hand. His leap carried him almost up to Muskwa. He was about to make another spring when Langdon rushed forward with a fierce cry, caught the dog by his collar, and with the end of the leash gave him a sound beating. ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... abreast. Above it appeared a fleet of junks. Again the shot came rattling furiously among them. Several boats were struck. Many fine fellows, officers and men, were killed. The commodore's boat sank under him, and barely had he time with his crew to leap out of her, than away she drifted with the body of his coxswain, who had been killed, and a favourite dog who would come with him towards the enemy. Several times was the passage attempted, till at length the boats retreated. Their gongs began to sound, ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... pairing of almost all; and we shall have collected new instances of the usage (I dare not say law) according to which Nature lets fall, in order to resume, and steps backward the furthest, when she means to leap forwards with the greatest concentration ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... I was belated, and it came on dark, and just as we turned into the path from the old road, that awful beast, with a terrible shriek, sprang into the road before us, and was about to leap upon me, when Barton sprang at him and drove him off. If it had not been for him, I would have ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... offering unto the Lord. Their cause is good; it is for religion and righteousness. Their hearts do not recoil against the cause for which they suffer; and although they are children, God can deal with them as with John the Baptist, cause them in a moment to leap for joy of Christ; or else can save them by his grace, as he saveth other his elect infants, and thus comprehend them, though they cannot apprehend him; yea, why may they not only be saved, but in some sense be called martyrs of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the least. I will undertake that when you leave this you shall be au fait at everything. Leap frog is not too heavy for me and spillikins not too light. I am up to them all, from backgammon to a cotillon,—not but what I prefer the cotillon ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... even whining Heraclitus, though he abhorred laughing, the action that is most peculiar to man. For who could have forborne? seeing those young warriors, with their nymphs and queens, so briskly and gracefully advance, retire, jump, leap, skip, spring, fly, vault, caper, move to the right, to the left, every way still in time, so swiftly, and yet so dexterously, that they never touched ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the clearing; they leap within the human circle. Their painted faces are distorted with the effort of their wild exertions; their befeathered heads are rendered still more hideous by the lurid blending of conflicting lights. Thirty creatures, hardly ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... death. It had created a sort of bond between, us. It made our silence weighty and uneasy. I ought to have left her there and then; but, as I think I've told you before, the fact of having shouted her away from the edge of a precipice seemed somehow to have engaged my responsibility as to this other leap. And so we had still an intimate subject between us to lend more weight and more uneasiness to our silence. The subject of marriage. I use the word not so much in reference to the ceremony itself (I had no doubt ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... mason makes his arches many and low; as the water gets deeper, and it becomes troublesome to build his piers up from the bottom, he throws his arches wider; at last he comes to the deep stream, and, as he cannot build at the bottom of that, he throws his largest arch over it with a leap, and with another little one or so gains the opposite shore. Of course as arches are wider they must be higher, or they will not stand; so the roadway must rise as the arches widen. And thus we have the general type of bridge, with its highest and widest arch towards one side, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... behind the scenes to rescue him, not crossing the platform but breaking down the light screen at the side of it.... I saw afterwards, though I could hardly believe my eyes, the girl student (Virginsky's sister) leap on to the platform with the same roll under her arm, dressed as before, as plump and rosy as ever, surrounded by two or three women and two or three men, and accompanied by her mortal enemy, the schoolboy. I ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... for taking leave was not come:—"Thou canst leave this prison when thou wilt. Go forth boldly!" Just there, in the bare capacity to entertain such question at all, there was what Marius, with a soul which must always leap up in loyal gratitude for mere physical sunshine, touching him as it touched the flies in the air, could not away with. There, surely, was a sign of some crookedness in the natural power of apprehension. It was the [55] attitude, the melancholy ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... like steeds that start Leap forth the powers of earth and fire and air, Seas that revolve ...
— A Century of Roundels • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... figure-head has gone; but she probably had a fierce dragon over the bows, just ready to strike. Her sides were hung with glittering shields; and when mere landsmen saw a Viking fleet draw near, the oars go in, the swords come out, and Vikings leap ashore—no wonder they ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... that burst in streaming columns from them. Not until his swift career had brought him exactly in front of his position did the old man stir a muscle. But then, quick as the motion of the leaping game, his rifle jumped to his cheek, and even as the buck was at the central point of his leap, and suspended in the air, the piece cracked sharp and clear, and the deer, stricken to his death, fell with a crash to the ground. The quivering hounds rose to their feet, and bayed long and deep; Wild Bill swung his hat and yelled; ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... who was the gayest of the gay, specially distinguished himself for his vaulting powers in a sport which he entitled in his broken English manner "ze leap of ze frog;" and, as for grave Doctor Batson, whom we all thought so formal and dignified in his professional tether, why, the way in which he "stuck in his twopenny," as the boys said, and "gave a 'back,'" was a ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... swept back swiftly as the fire in a thunder-sky. They were no longer strangers. They were no longer friends of a day. The grip of Aldous' hands tightened. A hundred things sprang to his lips. Before he could speak, he saw a sudden, startled change leap into Joanne's face. She had turned her face a little, so that she was looking toward the window. A frightened cry broke from her lips. Aldous whirled about. There was nothing there. He looked at ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... professor," he said quickly. "I'm a professional balloonist, parachute jumper. Give exhibitions at county fairs. Leap for life, and all that sort of thing. I guess you mean my friend. He's smart enough for a professor. Invented a lot of things. How much ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... were that they should push forward in spite of the enemy's fire, leap into the ditch, drive the garrison before them, and if possible enter the works with them; but, if not, to obtain at least a firm footing on the outer defenses. The second party, similar in strength and formation, under the command of the ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... York. So his private secretary, Miss Harrison, wrote and ordered a berth for me and then I lost no time in cabling you that I should reach Southampton March 14, and Paris the 15th. Land, but it made my pulses leap, to think I was going to see you again!..... One thing at a time. I never fully laid Webster's disastrous condition before Mr. Rogers until to-night after billiards. I did hate to burden his good heart and over-worked head with it, but he took hold with avidity and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... turned alertly, and moved toward the inspector's door. Keith wanted to call him back, to leap upon him, if necessary, and drag him away from that deadly door. But he neither moved nor spoke until it was too late. The door opened, he heard Cruze announce his presence, and it seemed to him the words were scarcely out of the ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... language of Cattle Land, steers had "jumped to seventy-five." This was a great and prosperous leap in their value. To have flourished in that golden time you need not be dead now, nor even middle-aged; but it is Wyoming mythology already—quite as fabulous as the high-jumping cow. Indeed, people gathered together and behaved themselves much in the same pleasant and ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... our fire in that mound; and after we had eaten, Martin slept. I sat watching the beauty of the skies and of the shadowy vale. I heard no one approach—but something made me leap to my ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... was looking for Mother—I know he was; for the next minute after he saw me, he looked right over my head at the woman back of me. And all the while he was talking with me, his eyes would look at me and then leap as swift as lightning first here, and then there, all over the hall. But he didn't see her. I knew he didn't see her, by the look on his face. And pretty quick I said I'd have to go. ...
— Mary Marie • Eleanor H. Porter
... de end o' de day. De grown folkses sings an' somebody pickin' de banjo. De favorite song wuz 'Swing Low Sweet Chariot' an' 'Play on yo' Harp Little David'. De chilluns uster play Hide an' Seek, an' Leap Frog, an' ever'body ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... heard as the current surged through, and the crackling sound such as the now familiar wireless makes as the long sparks leap from pole to ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... thing. A convulsion seemed to quiver through the Indian's body; he rose at a single leap, and uttering a wild, piercing yell broke into a run. I never saw an Indian or anybody else run so fleetly. Yell after ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... (pronounced, of course, "relaps") and "species" to postulate a corresponding singular, and speak of "a relap" and "a specie," as a negro of my acquaintance regularly does. "Scrope" and "lept," as preterites of "scrape" and "leap," are correctly formed on the analogy of "broke" and "crept," but are not ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... headed by Sigurd, were well on their way towards the great Fall of Njedegorze. They had made a toilsome ascent of the hills by the side of the Alten river—they had climbed over craggy boulders and slippery rocks, sometimes wading knee-deep in the stream, or pausing to rest and watch the salmon leap and turn glittering somersaults in the air close above the diamond-clear water,—and they had beguiled their fatigue with songs and laughter, and the telling of fantastic legends and stories in which Sigurd had shone at his best—indeed, this unhappy being was in a singularly ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... and deep in the chest, lean about the loins, weighing never over one hundred and eighty pounds; his height was five feet ten and three-quarter inches; his legs and feet were slender and graceful, his gait long and springy, and he could stand and leap as high as his shoulder. In the house he wore slippers, which seemed always ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... obedience to external forms or observances, but "a bold leap in the dark into the arms of an ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... bringeth in the happy singing weather Groweth to pearly queendom, and full soon Shall Love and Song go hand in hand together; For all the pain that all too long hath waited In deep dumb darkness shall have speech at last, And the bright babe Death gave the Love he mated Shall leap to light and kiss ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... thought her to be, the stern servant of justice that I would have had myself, I felt the hot blood leap to my cheek at all which the words ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... the engineer and Neb were waiting on the beach, and before the passengers had time to leap on to the sand, Harding said: "We have been very uneasy at your delay, my friends! Did you meet with ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... as near as might be with that of the solar year, and arbitrarily altered the months; in fact, abandoned the "lunar month" and instituted the "calendar month." Thus he decreed that the ordinary year should be 365 days, but that every fourth year (which, for some perverse reason, we call "leap" year) should have an extra day. He ordered that the alternate months, from January to November inclusive, should have thirty-one days and the others thirty days, excepting February, which was to have in common years twenty-nine, ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... Ahead, and there is seen A black, strange line of breakers, down between The awful surges, lifting up their manes, Like great sea lions. Quick and high she strains Her foaming keel—that solitary ship! As if, in all her frenzy, she would leap The cursed barrier; forward, fast and fast— Back, back she reels; her timbers and her mast Split in a thousand shivers! A white spring Of the exulted sea rose bantering Over her ruin; and the mighty ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart
... himself a Christian, a humble believer in all the vital truths of religion. As of the future he entertained no doubt, so of the awful transition through the valley and shadow of death, he had no fear. "Death may be to others," said he, "a leap in the dark, but I rather consider it a resting-place where old age may throw off its burdens." He died, peaceful and assured, with no apparent pain, and without regret, at his residence in St. John's parish, on the 27th ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... mistakes, though, on the other hand, that same heart instinct also leads them at times to wisdom beyond the gauging of man's intelligence. A man reasons and keeps tight hand on his feelings; a woman feels and knows; and sometimes a leap in the dark lands one safely, ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... been a good term for either. Thank heaven, as they sat there, they had honesty enough left to know it, and hope enough left to feel there might still be a chance. They were not to jump by one leap into the perfect schoolboy; still, with honesty and hope left, who shall say ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... to the ground. Then dismounting and springing nimbly upon the prostrate beast, they quickly fastened the beast's feet with a "hogtie" hitch so that he could not rise, a fire was built, the short saddle iron heated, and the beast branded. The feet were then unbound and the cow-hunter made a flying leap into his saddle, and spurred away to escape the infuriated charge sure to be delivered ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... be true! I'd say 'Giant scissors, right the wrong and open the gate that's been shut so long,' There! Did you hear that, Solomon Greville? I said a rhyme right off without waiting to make it up. Then the scissors would leap down and cut the misunderstanding or trouble or whatever it is, and the gate would fly open, and there the brother and sister would meet each other. All the unhappy years would be forgotten, and they'd take each other by the hand, just as they did when they ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... tear up from the ground an ancient rock all overgrown, and lifting it high with both hands, hurl it down the slope. Heavily it would strike with a dull thud, and hesitate for a moment; then resolutely it would make a first leap, and each time it touched the ground, gathering from it speed and strength, it would become light, furious, all-subversive. Now it no longer leapt, but flew with grinning teeth, and the whistling ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... to sing to you my latest and best song. I promise that as soon as it is finished I will leap into the sea." ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin
... but with Tom followed close on the Indians' heels. There were bushes growing among the fallen rocks and debris from the face of the cliff, and they were, therefore, able to go forward as quickly as they could leap from boulder to boulder, without fear of being seen. A quarter of an hour's run, and the chief climbed up to a ledge on the face of the cliff where a stratum harder than those above it had resisted the effects of the weather and formed a shelf some twelve feet ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... guess where I have been? On the hillsides fresh and green! Out where all the winds are blowing, Where the free, bright streamlet's flowing Leap and laugh and race and run Like a child that's full of fun!— Crinkle, crinkle through the meadows, Hiding in the woodland shadows; Making here and there a pool In some leafy covert cool For the Lady Birch to see Just how fair and sweet ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various
... foaming sea. The two boats belonging to the floating light attended the Smeaton, to carry the artificers to the rock, as her boat could only accommodate about six or eight sitters. Every one was more eager than his neighbour to leap into the boats and it required a good deal of management on the part of the coxswains to get men unaccustomed to a boat to take their places for rowing and at the same time trimming her properly. The landing-master and foreman went into one boat, while the writer ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lease-holders esteemed Saint-Prosper a political disturber, affiliating with the other faction of the Democratic party, and bent, perhaps, on creating dissension at the tenants' camp-fire. The soldier's impatience and anger were ready to leap forth at a word; he wheeled fiercely upon the weedy Scot, to demand peremptorily the information so uncivilly withheld, when a gust of wind blowing something light down the road caused his horse to ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... lost no time. A single leap carried him into his saddle and he was off over the sand with a sharp rattle ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... get so near to Nature; I have a sorry dread of her clouds, her winds, and must walk with tedious circumspection where once I ran and leapt exultingly. Were it possible, but for one half-hour, to plunge and bask in the sunny surf, to roll on the silvery sand-hills, to leap from rock to rock on shining sea-ferns, laughing if I slipped into the shallows among starfish and anemones! I am much older in body than in mind; I can but look at what ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... can jump fairly well," Kiddie Katydid admitted. "But I don't pride myself on my jumping. It's something that has always run in my family, you know. All of us Katydids can leap quite ...
— The Tale of Kiddie Katydid • Arthur Scott Bailey
... to Fort Point and the Golden Gate; and beyond the Fort there was more flume and such a stretch of sea and shore and sunshine as caused us to leap with gladness. We could follow the beach for miles; it was like a pavement of varnished sand, cool to the foot and burnished to the eye. And what sea-treasure lay strewn there! Mollusks, not so delicate or so decorative as the shells we had brought ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... your correspondent have long since become pointless. It is the privileged abuse of old age—the hackneyed allegation of a thousand centuries—the damning crime to which all men have been subjected. I leave it to metaphysicians to determine the precise moment when wisdom and experience leap into existence, when, for the first time, the mind distinguishes truth from error, selfishness from patriotism, and passion from reason. It is sufficient for me that I am understood." This was Garrison's first experience with "gentlemen of property and standing" in Boston. It was not his last, as ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... will jump from your legs to your eyes, will try and hide himself in apertures and crevices, will leap from valley to mountain, endeavouring to escape you; but the rules of the house order you courageously to pursue, repeating aves. Ordinarily at the third ave ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... complex series of automatic responses to the stimulus afforded by the sight and action of their prey might very well mimic intelligent pursuit and attack, always with certain limits set by the inflexible character of such automatic adjustments. But no animal as large as Tyrannosaurus could leap or spring upon another, and its slow stride quickening into a swift resistless rush, might well end in unavoidable impalement upon the great horns of Triceratops, futile weapons against a small and active enemy, but designed no doubt to meet just ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew
... life, for to his immediate left is a precipice full twenty feet in height. He must gain the end of this before he can put even a yard of actual distance betwixt himself and the savages who are thirsting for his life. More than once he has half made up his mind to dare the leap, but the ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... artillery, blew the barricade to pieces and scattered the defenders," the narrative continues. "Advancing three-quarters of a mile our troops reached the square, when one of the buildings appeared to leap skyward. A sheet of flame and a shower of star shells at the same time made the place as light as day and enabled the enemy, ensconced in surrounding houses, to pour a devastating fire from rifles and machine guns. Our cavalry extricated themselves with ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... her mother took both her hands. They were chilly; and there was a little pulse on Mary's temple that visibly throbbed, and almost seemed to leap, with fearful rapidity. ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was the thrall of her own sympathy. So was he. At a hint she was off, and he after her, on wild paths of inference, on perilous oceans of conjecture. Only he moved more slowly, and he knew the end of it. He had seen, before now, her joyous leap to land, on shores of manifest disaster. He protested against that jumping to conclusions. He, for his part, took conclusions in ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... battle with the mountain, and his own swiftness carried him like another wind. It had taken less than a moment to sweep him past, quicker than the flight of a bird, as sudden as a lightning flash. The little Pilgrim followed him with her eager ears, wondering if he would leap thus into the country of light and take heaven by storm, or whether he would fall upon the heavenly hills, and lie prostrate in weariness and exhaustion, like him to whom she had ministered. She followed him with her ears, for the sound of his progress was with crashing ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... some men came out of the mill after us, which I believe were soldiers; so we fell a-running, both of us up the lane as long as we could run, it being very deep and very dirty, till at last I bade him leap over a hedge, and lie still to hear if anybody followed us—which we did, and continued lying down upon the ground about half an hour, when, hearing nobody come, we continued ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... she saw on the station platform was Kennicott, faithfully waving his hand, his face so full of uncomprehending loneliness that he could not smile but only twitch up his lips. She waved to him as long as she could, and when he was lost she wanted to leap from the vestibule and run back to him. She thought of a hundred ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... re-establish the royalty of the Church—a miracle of mercy, which will wipe away the past; reconcile duty and love; give Clara into his hands as his pure and lawful wife. "She is to carry him through the air to the space before her church as she was herself conveyed there...." Then come the leap and the catastrophe. ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... based on the former it knew nothing of the latter. Moreover, in Buddhism there is a greater intellectual vigor than in any phase of Brahmanism (as distinct from Vedism). To cast off not only gods but soul, and more, to deny the moral efficacy of asceticism this was a leap into the void, to appreciate the daring of which one has but to read himself into the priestly literature of Buddha's rivals, both heterodox and orthodox. We see then in Buddhism neither a debauched moral type, nor a weakened intellectuality. The pessimism ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... say that Lorna is gone?" asked Annie, in great amazement; yet leaping at the truth, as women do, with nothing at all to leap from. ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... leap in his bosom. The voice may have been a little huskier, with an accent of suffering and ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... very faintly foreshadows the Ossianic Titans that glide across its pages, or the tricksy phantoms, the headlong spectres, the tongues of flame, the folds and fangs of symbolic serpents, that writhe and leap and dart and riot there. With a poem named "Europe," we should scarcely expect for a frontispiece the Ancient of Days, in unapproached grandeur, setting his "compass upon the face of the Earth,"—a vision revealed to the designer at the top ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various |
