"Literally" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Servian basin, that the eye embraces the whole breadth from Bosnia to Bulgaria, and very nearly the whole length from Macedonia to Hungary. When at length I stood on the highest peak, the prospect was literally gorgeous. Servia lay rolled out at my feet. There lay the field of Kossovo, where Amurath defeated Lasar, and entombed the ancient empire of Servia. I mused an instant on this great landmark of European ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... jury gave two dollars damages; the judge said they must find guilty or not guilty; but the counsel for the defendant (they would not call him prisoner) offered to fight the judge upon the point: and as this was said literally, not metaphorically, and the counsel was a stout fellow, the judge gave in. The two dollars damages were not paid after all; for the defendant challenged the foreman to box for double or quits, and the foreman was beaten. ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... Ponentem, sumpta una Lebeccio quarta. Ponente is the West in Italian, and Lebeccio the south-west; but it is difficult to express in English nautical language the precise meaning of the original, which is literally translated in the text.—E. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... exhibited things and passions, but even the most delicate distinctions of passions, and the slightest circumstances of facts. We must not, however, imagine, at least, in my opinion, that the pantomimes did literally represent regular tragedies or comedies by the mere motions of their bodies. We may justly determine, notwithstanding all their agility, their representations would, at last, be very incomplete: yet we may suppose, with good reason, that their action was very lively, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... narrow streets, the whitewashed cottages with their large chimney-stacks and leaded windows—than the aspect of modern Minehead would lead one to expect. It was here, indeed, that the sea broke in the great gale of 1860, when the shipping in the harbour tore from its moorings, and was driven literally upon the houses of Quay Town, as the sea-wall gave way under the pounding of the waves, and the Royal Charter, getting clear from Culver Cliff, was driven on to the rocks off Anglesea, and lost ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... that the Emperor Alexander, who tendered inestimable aid to the President of the United States, was the Lincoln of Russia, having given freedom to millions of serfs in his empire; and, further than that, he was, like Lincoln, the victim of assassination. He was literally blown to pieces by a bomb thrown under his carriage while riding through the streets near the Winter Palace at ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... of the New Testament would not be written till some time after their fulfilment; and that, if all the conjectures of the learned divines were inserted in the new edition of the Bible, the declaration in John would be literally verified, and that "the world itself would not contain all the books which ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... that final statement, whether intentional or not, is something I shall remember to my grave. I don't think that Carse meant it literally—on my own head—but I was unable to shake his words out of my ears, and throughout the night and the following day they hung about me ...
— The Homicidal Diary • Earl Peirce
... joined the centre Division from Lower Canada, and to his quick and comprehensive mind it immediately suggested itself, that if the attack of the American army should be awaited, the result, under the circumstances already alluded to, and in the position occupied by the British force (literally a Cul-de-Sac) must inevitably be attended by their utter discomfiture, if not annihilation. On the contrary, he felt persuaded that, even with the small force at the disposal of the British General, there was every probability ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... the blue sky overhead gave an azure tint to the whole surface which no art could imitate. Over several parts of the rim the water was flowing down into other basins. I climbed up and looked over into one of the pools, which was literally hanging on to the one above it like a bird's nest to a wall; while beautiful stalactites were suspended below it, caused by the water which flowed over the sides. The temperature of the water when it came out of the side of the mountain was high, but in ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... tenderness than the former, took place between the two cousins. The chief hung, as before, in an agony of affection, on the neck of his relation; and "as for the woman," says Nicholas, "she was so affected that the mat she wore was literally soaked through with her tears." A passionate attachment to friends is, indeed, one of the most prevailing feelings of the savage state. Dampier tells us of an Indian who recovered his friend unexpectedly on the island of ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... was through beating the carpets. It was a pretty tight squeeze for Zip, but he never thought of that until he had himself wedged into it. Neither did he think of his clean white coat. All he thought of was to catch the mice. So in he rushed, but he had to crouch down and literally squeeze himself through. And once or twice he thought he would suffocate from the amount of soot he shook down. He grew so tired creeping with his legs doubled up under him that when he was half way through he gave up ...
— Zip, the Adventures of a Frisky Fox Terrier • Frances Trego Montgomery
... belligerent tribes, such as assemble on large rivers. Cattle find these places and come from stations often many miles distant, attracted by the rich verdure usually growing about them, and by thus treading the water into mud, or by drinking it up, they literally destroy the whole country for the aborigines, and thereby also banish from it the kangaroos, emus, and other animals on which they live. I felt much more disgusted than the poor natives, while they were thus exploring in vain every hollow in search of water for our use, that our ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... of May", that ode on the death of Napoleon, which, if not the most perfect lyric of modern times as the Italians vaunt it to be, is certainly very grand. I have followed the movement and kept the meter of the Italian, and have at the same time reproduced it quite literally; yet I feel that any translation of such a poem is only a little better than none. I think I have caught the shadow of this splendid lyric; but there is yet no photography that transfers the splendor itself, the life, the light, the color; I can give you the meaning, but not the feeling, ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... little folks, did you ever hear of such a pitiable case in all your lives? Here was literally the richest breakfast that could be set before a king, and its very richness made it absolutely good for nothing. The poorest laborer, sitting down to his crust of bread and cup of water, was far better off than King Midas, whose delicate ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... first to leave the nest. From the thorn tree they worked their way to the dead sycamore; but there the lack of foliage made them so conspicuous that their mother almost went into spasms from fright, and she literally drove them back to ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... credited it without the evidence of my own eyes." The gorgeous curtains had just descended upon a narrow parlor, which a Japanese necromancer had literally filled to overflowing with colored cardboard boxes produced from the interior of one single top hat. "See! Watch 'em, Mav." Footmen were coming in front of the curtains to remove the plethora of cardboard boxes. "They're real ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... large and admirable book.... Interesting as fiction, scientifically exact, simply expressed, this well-prepared volume will almost literally repeople the earth for many readers. Those who already love natural history will rejoice in its fascinating richness of information, while it would be difficult to imagine a more readable and comprehensive introduction to the numerous big and little brethren of ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... belligerency of the Confederacy. This beginning of a new education tore up by the roots nearly all that was left of Harvard College and Germany. He had to learn — the sooner the better — that his ideas were the reverse of truth; that in May, 1861, no one in England — literally no one — doubted that Jefferson Davis had made or would make a nation, and nearly all were glad of it, though not often saying so. They mostly imitated Palmerston who, according to Mr. Gladstone, "desired the severance as a diminution of a dangerous power, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... anticipating a trip to distant Burmah for the same purpose. Rupees 8,000—about $2,300.00—lie in the treasury as the first year's response, much of it given in contributions of a few cents each from women in deep poverty, to whom such gifts are literally the ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... corner and sighed. He was a heavy man, and he had not known sentiment for years; he was a big man, and it took much to move him, literally and figuratively; he was a man in whom the dreams of God that haunt the soul in youth, though overlaid by the scum that gathers in the fight for money, had not, as with the majority, ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... at home then, my good girl, and boil the dumplings," said Flora. "Indeed, I cannot imagine what induced you to come up here to offer me your services. You literally can do nothing, for which you expect exorbitant wages. Why do you wish to leave your friends, to go ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... Sanskrit word that may be translated as place, world, land, so that Kamaloka is literally the place or the world of Kama, Kama being the name of that part of the human organism that includes all the passions, desires, and emotions which man has in common with the lower animals.[15] In this division of the universe, the Kamaloka, dwell ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant
... this! all along the road between Boston and Springfield are ancient moraines and polished rocks. No one who had seen them upon the track of our present glaciers could hesitate as to the real agency by which all these erratic masses, literally covering the country, have been transported. I have had the pleasure of converting already several of the most distinguished American geologists to my way of thinking; among others, Professor Rogers, who will deliver a public lecture upon the ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... marry me? Consider how it is. I lay it all before you. I am not in love with you, and I have not a penny in the world. Literally, I ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... ready, and the importance of this announcement overweighed, for a short period, the claims of scandal and ill-nature. The company quickly found their way to the tables, which, as the "Pekin Gazette" of the next morning said, in describing the fete, "literally groaned beneath the weight of the delicacies with which they were loaded." The consultations of the Ning-po cook and his confederates had produced great results. The guests seated themselves, and delicately tasted the slices of goose and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... reasonable man claims to be all that I have avowed myself to be. If this is to be a transcendentalist, then I am one. When I read that I must hate my father and mother before I can be a disciple of JESUS, I do not understand that passage literally; I call to mind other precepts of CHRIST; I remember the peculiarities of eastern style; I compare these facts together, and deduce therefrom a very different principle from that apparently embodied in the passage quoted. When I see the Isle ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... dark and evil spirit that was in him. But Christine never seemed to see him like that. There was some borrowed halo about his head that blinded her. It did not matter how bad he was, she had always love and excuses ready for him. And she was literally all he had ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... thrown himself forward upon me with such force and fury, that, as I got out of his way, his fore feet went completely through the bottom of the boat. I never in my life saw an animal in such a paroxysm of rage. He curled up his lip till his whole range of teeth was visible, his eyes literally shot fire, while the foam flew from his mouth, and he gave a wild screaming neigh that had something quite diabolical in its sound. I was standing perfectly thunderstruck at this scene, when one of the party ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... their counting-house the next morning, the partners found the streets literally blocked up with enterprising cat-sellers. Huge negroes were there, each with ten or fifteen sage, grave tabbies tied together with a string. Old market-women had brought thither whole families of the feline ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... should take in consequence of the disavowal of Erskine; yet I am satisfied that both the proclamations have been sound. The first has been sanctioned by universal approbation; and although it was not literally the case foreseen by the legislature, yet it was a proper extension of their provision to a case similar, though not the same. It proved to the whole world our desire of accommodation, and must have satisfied every candid ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... tree, and came in haste to the neighboring branches, and with spread plumage and a sharp note demanded plainly enough what my business was with his drum. I was invading his privacy, desecrating his shrine, and the bird was much put out. After some weeks the female appeared; he had literally drummed up a mate; his urgent and oft-repeated advertisement was answered. Still the drumming did not cease, but was quite as fervent as before. If a mate could be won by drumming, she could be kept and entertained by ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... leg, and deep enough to allow the wounded part to be on a level with the surface of the ground. He then surrounded the limb with the live coals or charcoal, which was replenished until the leg was literally burnt off. The cauterization thus applied completely checked the hemorrhage, and he was able in a day or two to hobble down to the Sound, with the aid of a long stout stick, although he was more than a week ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... be expected, however, that Orsino should take Maria Consuelo literally at her word, and cease from visiting her all at once. If not really in love with her, he was at least so much interested in her that he sorely missed the daily half hour or more which he had been used to spend ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... catch her at Platonic love: but as she seldom stops there, the poor man will be frightened out of his senses when she shall break the matter to him; for he never dreamt that her purposes were so naught. Lady Mary is so far gone, that to get him from the mouth of her antagonist she literally took him out to dance country dances last night at a formal ball, where there was no measure kept in laughing at her old, foul, tawdry, painted, plastered personage. She played at pharaoh two or ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... and Mrs Grantly, though there was left about her something of an old softness of nature, a touch of the former life which had been hers before the stream of her days had run gold, yet she, too, had taken kindly to wealth and high standing, and was by no means one of those who construe literally that passage of scripture which tells us of the camel and the needle's eye. Our Henry Grantly, our major, knew himself to be his mother's favourite child,—knew himself to have become so since something of coolness had ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... of Fundy tide rises to such a height that it flows up the St. John River channel to some distance, silencing the roar of the Calls, which pour over a great ledge of rock left by the ebbing sea. Taken very literally from a tale in the "Amaranth ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... gun, which stood only a stone's throw from the house, and on the same rock." The lady, as a soldier's wife, ought to have been less alarmed; but she was in a land where every thing was strange. "We were literally sleeping out in the open air; as there were no doors, windows, or venetians to close, and every breath of wind agitated the frail walls of bamboo and matting, I was awoke in the night by the musquitto curtains blowing up; the wind had risen, and came every ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... thus literally spun up into water; and were they not constantly recruited from the atmosphere as the storm-centre travels along,—was new wool not forthcoming from the white sheep and the black sheep that the winds herd at every point,—all rains would be brief and local; the storm would quickly exhaust ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... were gone fore and aft, and one saw her bare deck low-lying like a raft and swept clean of boats, spars, houses—of everything except the ringbolts and the heads of the pumps. I had one dismal glimpse of it as I braced myself up to receive upon my breast the last man to leave her, the captain, who literally let himself ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... trust herself with the boys that morning; she literally hated them. Still, she must master herself before she could master them, and show once and for all that she was able to deal with the situation. Shutting herself into the parlour, she sat quiet, trying to think and plan, but in vain—she could ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... said, as he finished. The idea of anybody passing up a chance like that to enrich himself literally smote him to the vitals. "I see the British Society for Psychical Research checked that case, and got verification from a couple of independent witnesses. If the S.P.R. vouches for a story, it must be the McCoy; they're the toughest-minded gang of confirmed skeptics anywhere in Christendom. ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... Following him was the Viceroy and the two took the chairs placed on the dais. His Excellency, as Grand Master of the Order, then went through the ceremonial of opening the Chapter and then, from out the tented field of, literally, cloth of gold which surrounded the Royal pavilion, came one by one the Knights to be. Each in turn left his tent with stately accompaniments, approached, bowed and knelt at the footstool of His Royal Highness who spoke certain prescribed ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... occupied by troops, and field-pieces be placed on the bridges of the Inn. Let patrols march through the streets all night, and every citizen who is found in the street after nine o'clock, or keeps his house lighted up after that hour, shall be shot. Make haste, gentlemen, and carry my orders literally into execution. Have the patrols call upon all citizens to keep quiet and not appear in the streets after nine o'clock. Sentence of death will be passed upon those ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... days to let our horses rest up a little. While here we had all the fish that we wanted to eat, for the lake was literally full of ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... culture, spent their time in conversation change of jest and earnest. As eating small part of such entertainments, it not difficult to keep at a distance those who sought society for these objects. If we are to take the writers of dialogues literally, the loftiest problems of human existence were not excluded from the conversation of thinking men, and the production of noble thoughts was not, as was commonly the case in the North, the work of solitude, but of society. But we must here limit ourselves ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... was horrid; the soldiers had fired point blank into the dense crowd, and not a bullet had fallen idle to the ground. A terrible scream followed the discharge of musketry; the dying and the wounded literally covered the space round the soldiers, but they were quickly dragged into the back ground, and their places filled by men who were evidently determined that they would ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... judging from descriptions of it which I have read. The nut is much smaller than that of Hobson, as grown here. This small tree bore a tremendous crop in 1946, more than I thought any tree of its size could support. The tree was literally covered with burs. The nuts were very small, not larger than a small native chestnut. They ripened early, beginning to drop from the burs by September 25th. I stratified most of the nuts in pots of soil and planted 206 nuts from this little tree, which is only about ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... Creed of Christendom says that much of the Old Testament which Christian divines, in their ignorance of Jewish lore, have insisted on receiving and interpreting literally, the informed Rabbis never dreamed of regarding as anything but allegorical. The literalists ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... discriminates in drawing any distinction between good and bad trusts; but let me say further, that it is my definite opinion that the Sherman Act, as it now stands, is a menace to the country. That Act, literally interpreted, would break up every trust into smaller corporations. It is based on a hasty inference that great consolidations are of necessity monopolies. Even if we disintegrated a great corporation like the Consolidated Companies, for instance, into ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... from England what the French party, the forerunners of the Jeffersonian Democracy, demanded. But the Jeffersonians were separatists and State's-rights men. They believed in a government so weak as to be ineffective, and showed a folly literally astounding in their unwillingness to provide for the wars which they were ready to provoke. They resolutely refused to provide an army or a navy, or to give the Central Government the power necessary for waging ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... but lately struggling along the chequered field, now moving literally towards the king-row. In a few subsequent weeks, with a well-filled purse, he was enjoying life and his art like a true gentleman, and was the envy of every artist in Florence; and yet they all strove to do him honor, at least; ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... shook his head. "What on earth has happened?" he said to himself. "A few weeks have hardly passed since they told me that this child could not be set to rights, and I have myself seen how stubborn she was and how strangely she behaved. And what a change already! However, I must not take literally what has probably been written in a moment ...
— Cornelli • Johanna Spyri
... to Chinese literature, history, or tradition. By most of the learned men the name, or allegation of the existence, of these had never been heard of. The puzzle is, of course, well known. It is called in Chinese ch'i ch'iao t'u; literally, 'seven-ingenious-plan' or 'ingenious-puzzle figure of seven pieces.' No name approaching 'tangram,' or even 'tan,' occurs in Chinese, and the only suggestions for the latter were the Chinese t'an, 'to extend'; or t'ang, Cantonese dialect for 'Chinese.' It ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... will it be to our flying machine to start it in this way?" "Stop and think, my boy," said the professor. "Just as an aeroplane can literally be shot into the air within a very short space, so can your airship. Of course, this is not necessary, but we will be able to start the ship much faster that way than ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... Ink—According to experiments which have recently been completed at Berlin and Leipzig by the leading bacteriologists of Germany the ordinary inks literally teem with bacilla of a dangerous character, the bacteria taken therefrom sufficing to kill mice and rabbits inoculated therewith in the space of from one to three days." * * * ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... to feed themselves out of the bountiful earth which would give everything we need almost for the asking. The air is full now of rumors of a Spanish war, and a Natchez-Chickasaw alliance. If these things are true we would find ourselves entirely cut off from French supplies, and this colony would literally starve to death. Yes, starve to death with untold millions of fruitful acres all about us. Had we strength to fight I would not care so much. With but two companies of undisciplined troops, a mere straggling handful, officered by drunkards, we could ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... Christian Scientists, claiming, as they do, that good is infinite, All. [5] Our Master, in his definition of Satan as a liar from the beginning, attested the absolute powerlessness—yea, nothingness—of evil: since a lie, being without founda- tion in fact, is merely a falsity; spiritually, literally, it ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... to take some of these folk-lore stories too literally, we of this "practical" age, do not ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... offer can hardly be appreciated. It was literally laying his life on the altar of freedom for the despised and oppressed whom he had never seen, whose kins-folk even he was not acquainted with. At this juncture even Peter was not prepared to accept ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... their bearing; sometimes they bear heavily and again they forget to bear. The Stabler doesn't bear at all for me. I just know they are Stablers because someone told me so. I have them labeled. I have Creitz black walnut. I got five from TVA four or five years ago, and they just literally bear themselves to death. They're about so high and bear every year, very nice nuts. I will have to pull the walnuts off long enough to make them grow up and make real trees. I think they are ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... the way, rather resented my asking him if he came of one of the Cromwellian English families so numerous here, and informed me that his people came over with Strongbow—assures me that but for these works of * * * * these men under him would be literally without occupation. In addition to these there are about a dozen more men employed * * as gamekeepers and plantation-men. At the * * places belonging to * * * * * * * * * * above eighty men find constant employment, ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... you to tell me something, Jasper. How much longer shall you look to mother for support? I mean it literally; let me have an idea of how much longer ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... put figures like these before my eyes, and then change and turn them into what they please. In truth and earnest, I assure you gentlemen who now hear me, that to me everything that has taken place here seemed to take place literally, that Melisendra was Melisendra, Don Gaiferos Don Gaiferos, Marsilio Marsilio, and Charlemagne Charlemagne. That was why my anger was roused; and to be faithful to my calling as a knight-errant I sought to give aid and protection to ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... and rivets. Others were employed near them, on an engine more advanced, in putting on the wheels and placing the boilers and fire-boxes, while another gang were busy covering the boiler of a third engine with a coating of wood and felt, literally for the purpose of keeping it warm, or preventing its heat from escaping. Farther on, three beautiful new engines, that had just been made and stood ready for action, were receiving a few finishing touches from the painters. Fresh, spotless, and glittering, these were to make their debut ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... keep some sort of bounds in the democratic and levelling principles which are expected from their titled pulpits. The new evangelists will, I dare say, disappoint the hopes that are conceived of them. They will not become, literally as well as figuratively, polemic divines, nor be disposed so to drill their congregations, that they may, as in former blessed times, preach their doctrines to regiments of dragoons and corps of infantry and artillery. Such arrangements, however favourable ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... Dragon hasn't drag-ged once, yet! And, by the way, till he does so, I think I won't call him Dragon again. It's rather gratuitous, as I'm eating his bread—or rather, his perfectly gorgeous a la cartes, and am literally smeared with luxury, from my rising up until my ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... tent so small that he cannot stand upright in it. Now, as the earth was very damp, those who did not take the precaution of choosing a little mound, and removing a portion of the wet soil, soon found themselves literally in the mud, and were obliged to get up, and walk about ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... was much applause, and then the negro, who was an ex-sailor, was pressed, very literally, for another song. One digger gripped him around the waist, and another seized his woolly poll ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... camp, and Siringo and I separated for the time being. In '84 Dodge, the Port Said of the plains, was in the full flower of her wickedness. Literally speaking, night was turned into day in the old trail town, for with the falling of darkness, the streets filled with people. Restaurants were crowded with women of the half-world, bar-rooms thronged with the wayfaring man, while in gambling and dance halls the range men congregated as if on special ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... of life pursued at Gidding, the strictness of their rules, their prayers, literally without ceasing, their abstinence, mortifications, nightly watchings, and various other peculiarities, gave birth to censure in some, and inflamed the malevolence of others, but excited the wonder and curiosity of all. So that they were frequently visited ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... Browne, who follows Stewart very closely, gives[189] the first paragraph of the above quotation, but makes no reference to the exploit of Macneil. Keltie who copies almost literally from Dr. Browne, also gives[190] the first paragraph, but no reference to ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... letter to his brother. He begged for a distinct statement whether, as John at first supposed, Bob's verbal renunciation of Anne on the quay had been only a momentary ebullition of friendship, which it would be cruel to take literally; or whether, as seemed now, it had passed from a hasty resolve to a standing purpose, persevered in for his own pleasure, with not a care for the ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... to speak; but it was difficult to speak when she literally knew nothing, so she contented herself with going about her work with unusual energy, while the rest stood around and watched her, deeming this an occasion when idleness was to be taken quite as a ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... contact 4 of the drop shown diagrammatically in Figs. 274 and 275 would, if taken literally, indicate that the shutter itself actually forms one terminal of the circuit and the contact against which it falls, the other. This has not been found to be a reliable way of closing the night-alarm contacts and this method is indicated in these figures and in other figures in this work merely ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... the midst of a desert, we saw the white temples glittering in the sunshine. The blue Tyrrhene sea filled up the outline of this scene, which, though so beautiful, was not calm; there was a heavy breeze which blew full from the southwest; it was literally a zephyr, and its freshness and strength in the middle of the day were peculiarly balmy and delightful; it seemed a breath stolen by the spring from the summer. I never saw a deeper, brighter azure than that of the waves which rolled towards the shore, and ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... and a little fish and fruit; now, however, they were put to work at a pressure which made a very different kind of feeding necessary to them, and this they did not get. Now and then a handful of pork would be divided among a dozen of them, but they were literally starved, and were accustomed to scramble like dogs for the bones that were thrown from the tables of the Spaniards, which bones they ground up and mixed with their, bread so that no portion of them might be lost. They died in numbers under these hard conditions, ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... ran, literally, across the whole of the upper portion of his face,—remember, the face was unwontedly small, and the columna of the nose was razor-edged. They were long, and they looked out of narrow windows, and they seemed to be lighted by some internal radiance, ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... (Literally, seafoam, and by many erroneously supposed to be made of it.) A fine white clay, which for convenience in coloring it brown is made into tobacco pipes and smoked by the workmen engaged in that industry. ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... this the shrieking of the tempest, and the frenzied moanings of the wounded beasts, and the reader will have some faint idea of the fearful scenes of danger and carnage ... the dead beasts, advanced, perhaps, in decomposition before death ended their sufferings, are often removed literally ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... old proverb which declares that there is many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip. The boys were playing in the back court behind the house, and Bet, having tidied up her very humble apartment, until, literally, there was not a pin in the wrong place, had risen to go downstairs, when she heard a lumbering, rolling, and very heavy step ascending. There was no mistaking who was coming to pay her a visit—no one but Mother Bunch could so bang herself against the sides of the slimy wails, or cause the ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... his old age, married a Christian and a Catholic. He had only one son, who was brought up in his mother's faith. At his father's death young Salomon purchased what was known at that time as a savonnette a vilain (literally a cake of soap for a serf), a small estate called Villenoix, which he contrived to get registered with a baronial title, and took its name. He died unmarried, but he left a natural daughter, to ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... problematical future was laid before him, clearly and in detail, as it had been constructed, during years of consideration, in his father's brain. It was the one plan of Michael Gregoriev's life which was destined to prove an absolute waste of energy. Still, there were to be two years of it literally fulfilled, wherefore we touch upon its preliminaries. Moreover, as Prince Michael spoke plainly, so we; though Ivan expended little amazement on the revelation, and appreciated remarkably little of the powerful influence that had been already brought to bear on his unimportant behalf. ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... class of men trained in soul-craft, whom they call straighteners, as nearly as I can translate a word which literally means "one who bendeth back the crooked." These men practise much as medical men in England, and receive a quasi-surreptitious fee on every visit. They are treated with the same unreserve and obeyed just as readily as our own doctors—that is to say, on the whole sufficiently—because ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... sunkekalummenon]) which shall not be revealed, and hid, which shall not be known.' It would, of course, be affirmed that this was evidently a combination of two verses of our first Gospel quoted almost literally, with merely a few very immaterial slips of memory in the parts we note, and the explanatory words, 'which is hypocrisy,' introduced by the Father, and not a part of the quotation at all. The two verses ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... 'un," not only a "good 'un," but a "good 'un" preceded by the adjective that in the East bestows upon its principal every admirable quality that can possibly apply. Under the circumstances it likewise fitted me literally; but I knew it was intended rather in its ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... of justice. A desire to be the friend and counsellor of every boy must always govern his action. He will always have the interest and welfare of every individual boy at heart, realizing that parents have literally turned over to his care and keeping, for the time being, the bodies and souls of their boys. To be respected should be his aim. Too often the desire to be popular leads ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... career in China, is the entire devotion with which the native soldiers served him, and the implicit faith they had in the result of operations in which he was personally present. In their eyes General Gordon was literally a magician to whom all things were possible. They believed him to bear a charmed life; and a short stick or rattan cane which he invariably carried about, and with which he always pointed in directing the fire of artillery or other operations, was firmly looked on as a wand or ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... gift. She was a born singer; poetry was her natural language, and to write was less effort than to speak, for she was a shy, sensitive child, with strange reserves and reticences, not easily putting herself "en rapport" with those around her. Books were her world from her earliest years; in them she literally lost and found herself. She was eleven years old when the War of Succession broke out, which inspired her first lyric outbursts. Her poems and translations written between the ages of fourteen and seventeen were ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... valleys, so much as the human endurance, suffering, and faithfulness of the people who have lived in them in past times, and of which so many interesting remnants still survive. For Dauphiny forms a principal part of the country of the ancient Vaudois or Waldenses—literally, the people inhabiting the Vaux, or valleys—who for nearly seven hundred years bore the heavy brunt of Papal persecution, and are now, after all their sufferings, free to worship God according to the ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... Dominick, on leaving the spot after completing their task. "One would have expected that, with a wrecked ship to fall back upon, they would have left behind them evidences of some sort— implements, or books, or empty beef-casks,—but there is literally nothing." ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... was the indefatigable supporter of the Netherland inquisition, which Philip declared with reason to be "the more pitiless institution" of the two. He was the author, not of the edicts, but of their re-enactment, verbally and literally, in all the horrid extent to which they had been carried by Charles the Fifth; and had recommended the use of the Emperor's name to sanctify the infernal scheme. He busied himself personally in the execution of these horrible laws, even when judge and hangman ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... chapter so-and-so gentlemen of the jury commonly known as the Maine Liquor Law which has created great feeling throughout this Commonwealth some very good men were in favor of it and some very good men were against it read literally part of it would be ridiculous and you may take your seats if you please gentlemen of the jury I shall be occupied some time in my charge and I do not care to keep you standing and some of it would be absurd and some of it reads very ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... rank madness!" retorted the earl. "No man in his senses could leave a child to the mercy of the world, as he has left her. She has not a shilling—literally, not a shilling in her possession. I put the question to her, what money there was in the house when the earl died. Twenty or twenty-five pounds, she answered, which she had given to Mason, who required it for housekeeping purposes. If the girl wants a yard of ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... of God die away upon their pallid lips, and, sighing, they veil their holy faces." Leigh Hunt, in one of his essays, thus describes the playing of this greatest of all virtuosos: "Paganini, the first time I saw and heard him, and the first moment he struck a note, seemed literally to strike it, to give it a blow. The house was so crammed that, being among the squeezers in the standing room at the side of the pit, I happened to catch the first glance of his face through the arms akimbo of a man who was perched up before me, which made a kind ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... Therefore, he cherished it: triumph for its own sake. Alternatively, he'd end at the bottom in a burlesque clutter of chrom-alum splints and sticks, with maybe a broken bone to clinch the decision. For some men, death is literally more ...
— A Matter of Proportion • Anne Walker
... so filled, so to speak, so saturated, with the idea, that it was perfectly even with itself, though raised to an immensely higher level. In smaller minds an idea seizes upon one part of them, thus inequalizing it with the rest, and so, throwing them off their balance, they are literally de-ranged (or disarranged) with excitement. It was so with Herndon. For a minute he stared at me in stupefied astonishment, and then burst into a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... Such was the case at Cissbury, which we have already mentioned as one of the early British towns. Mines had been dug within the walls inclosing the town. The surface of the ground near the old mines at this place is literally covered by splinters of flint in every stage of manufacture, "from the nodule of flint fresh out of the chalk, spoilt by an unlucky blow, to the article nearly finished and accidentally broken." Here the flint was mined ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... spiritual beings' is, literally, 'the hundred spirits,' meaning the spirits presiding, under Heaven, over all nature, and especially the spirits of the rivers and hills throughout the kingdom. Those of the Ho and the lofty mountains are mentioned, because if their spirits Were satisfied with ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... style must not be understood literally. As I have noted, it is intended by the writer to show the Kingship and the majesty of the "Vicar ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... watched by Montesquieu's death- bed, was a friend of Charles. She and Madame de Talmond literally 'pull caps' for him in d'Argenson's play. But she was in favour of his going to Fribourg with a pension after the Peace: Madame de Talmond encouraged resistance. Louis's minister, M. de Cousteille, applied to ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... did not amuse himself for long. He could not hold out for four months, and was soon flying back to Skvoreshniki. His last letters consisted of nothing but outpourings of the most sentimental love for his absent friend, and were literally wet with tears. There are natures extremely attached to home like lap-dogs. The meeting of the friends was enthusiastic. Within two days everything was as before and even duller than before. "My friend," Stepan Trofimovitch ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... at the point of the sword to bring them back again. A later attempt was made by an Ottoman chief-of-police to deport these canine "white wings" to Asia Minor: he threw them overboard when out of sight of land, and when this was made public the mob literally tore him limb from limb. So it does not pay to monkey with the Sultan's pets in the home of their nativity. Although no one would suspect it, they have a high order of intelligence and an acute instinct for local government. By some unwritten law ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne |
