"Pell-mell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... army like those would drive them pell-mell; For safety they'd Hazen, and think they did well To escape from the jury of women turned loose Who have drank to its dregs the ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... was so loud, his manner so imperative, that the startled boy, without stopping to argue, stuffed the clothes pell-mell into the bag again and departed. A farewell glance at the clock made him look almost as horrified ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... food. After I had eaten in this old town I was preparing to make for Calestano and to cross the first high spur of the Apennines that separated me from it, when I saw, as I left the place, a very old church; and I stayed a moment and looked at carvings which were in no order, but put in pell-mell, evidently chosen from some older building. They were barbaric, but one could see that they stood for the last judgement of man, and there were the good looking foolish, and there were the wicked being boiled by devils in a ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... but it was reached at last. With a deep sigh of satisfaction they crossed the quiet street in leisurely fashion to their own front door, where, summoning what energy they had left, they gave a friendly "whoop!" to let their arrival be known, and burst into the house pell-mell; then stopped abruptly, almost tumbling over each other with the shock, and stared before them in silent, speechless amazement at a pile of luggage which filled the centre of the hall. Betty stepped ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... king roared to the officers to knock them down. This was no sooner said than done, by the attendants in a body shoving on and trampling them under, as an elephant would crush small trees to keep his course. So pushing, floundering through plaintain and shrub, pell-mell one upon the other, that the king's pace might not be checked, or any one come in for a royal kick or blow, they came upon the prostrate bird. "Woh, woh, woh!" cried the king again, "there he is, sure enough; come here, women—come and look what ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... aback. Not a shot was fired for a space of time almost long enough to let the Americans reach the trench, and then the rifles broke out and the brown uniforms fell like leaves in autumn. But not all. They rushed on pell-mell, cutting wire, pouring irresistibly into the German trench. And the Guards, such as were not mown down, lost courage at the astounding impetus of the dash, and scrambled and ran from their trench. They took it—our boys took that trench—this old ditch. ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... from one spot to another in wildest despair. He recalled the purchase price of each article, added up the figures, counted his losses, pell-mell, in confused words and unfinished phrases. He stamped with rage; he groaned with grief. He acted like a ruined man whose ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... scatter and scamper as men fled for their horses. Barebacked, many with the bridle scarcely secure, all without weapons, the men of Waroona raced pell-mell down ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... to articulate more vividly the nature of reality than such "reality" can get itself articulated in the confused pell-mell of ordinary experience. The unfortunate thing is that in this process of articulating reality philosophy tends to create an artificial world of its own, which in the end gets so far away from reality that its conclusions ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... anything and was shouting at her for a whole hour and then gave orders that Dounia should be packed off at once to me in a plain peasant's cart, into which they flung all her things, her linen and her clothes, all pell-mell, without folding it up and packing it. And a heavy shower of rain came on, too, and Dounia, insulted and put to shame, had to drive with a peasant in an open cart all the seventeen versts into town. Only think ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... two in the morning:" but the Prince has not the least notion to fight. Prince leaves Zittau to capitulate,—quits silently the Heights of Zittau at two A.M. (Winterfeld, very lively in the rear of him, cutting off his baggage);—and so tumbles, pell-mell, through the Passes of Gabel, home to Bohemia again. Let us save this poor ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... tribes of Indians in their ranks and made full use of the Indian habits of warfare. The braves would steal like snakes about the pathless forests, and dashing unexpectedly on the outposted redcoats, kill a handful in one fierce charge, and then retreat pell-mell back into their shelter, whither to follow them was to court certain death. The injuries thus inflicted were not overwhelming, but they were teasing for all that. Day by day the waste went on—loss of sentinels, of stragglers, sometimes of whole detachments, and all this was more galling from ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... ambush in the brush, the Indians fired their guns as the whites approached, just at nightfall, and rose up and charged with a wild yell. The drunken volunteers at once turned and fled, the panic gathering force as they went. The fugitives rushed through the camp pell-mell, and all who were left there joined in the stampede. In their desperate fear, every soldier thought every other an Indian and fired hither and yon. Eleven were killed, probably only one by the redskins. The survivors for the most part continued their flight, spreading ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... rolls swashing 'gainst the side! Stand by for reefing, hearties! the winds are just crossing swords, pell-mell they'll ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... their place empty, then the body was laid in, the lid put down, and the care of covering them with sand left to the winds. The lid is fastened with the same mortar which is used in the brick masonry surrounding the coffin, where such a receptacle has been made for it; but they more usually lie pell-mell, separated only by thin layers of loose sand. There are mounds which are, as one may say, larded with them: wherever you begin to dig a trench, the narrow ends stick out from both sides. In these coffins also various articles were buried with the ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... work is one of the most singular of his characteristics. He hardly seems to have known at all what he was about. He wrote feverishly, desperately, under the impulsion of irresistible genius. His conceptions crowded upon him in vivid, serried multitudes—the wildest visions of fantasy mixed pell-mell with the most vital realizations of fact. It was not for him to distinguish; his concern was simply, somehow or other, to get them all out: good, bad, or indifferent, what did it matter? The things were in his brain; and ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... discover a landscape ever renewing itself in a thousand fashions. We have palaces and ruins; gardens and solitudes: the horizon lengthens in the distance, or suddenly contracts; huts and stables, columns and triumphal arches, all lie pell-mell, and often so close that we might find room for all on the ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... took his name, Few critics can unriddle; Some say from pastry-cook it came, And some from Cat and Fiddle. From no trim beaus its name it boasts, Gray statesmen or green wits; But from this pell-mell pack of toasts Of old Cats ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... the curb is no good," shouted Nipper Knapp, starting to run. Next moment there was a scurry of scouts through the snow that covered the square and a pell-mell race to the curb where Bruce drew up the panting Blossom with a jingle of bells and a ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... Pell-mell went the rout over the hill and across the moorland to Strathavon, through which the Life Guards had marched but a few hours before in all their bravery. As their captain passed by the place where his prisoner of the morning, John King, was now lustily chanting a psalm of triumph, ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... is not too good to keep," shouted Josie Jordan, rushing in pell-mell, and seizing the pair with a lustiness peculiar only to a maiden ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... retreat after Little Shikara had heard the two reports of the rifle. At first there were only the shouts of the beaters, singularly high-pitched, much running back and forth in the shadows, and then a pell-mell scurry to the shelter of ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... then! Pell-mell! To your graves! Back! back to the hills, old limpers! I do not think you belong ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... sight of his four neighbors, he sang the Silly Song, after which the six birds ran races on the water. They all started about the same time and went pell-mell in one direction, their feet and wings going as if they hardly knew whether to swim or fly, and ending by doing both at once. Then they would all stop, as suddenly as if one of them had given a signal, and turning, would ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... for breakfast; arms were stacked and the men became scattered over the fields. Suddenly, General Dobbins, at the head of a superior confederate force, made an attack upon them; the confederates at first formed no regular line of battle, but rushed pell-mell on the scattered federals, intending, doubtless, to annihilate them at once. The Union men soon recovered their arms, but before they got into line, their commander, Colonel Brooks, had been killed, and Captain Ransey of Co. ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... from their leading ship." He then said, "What do you think of it?" Such a question I felt required consideration. I paused. Seeing it he said, "But I will tell you what I think of it. I think it will surprise and confound the enemy. They won't know what I am about. It will bring forward a pell-mell battle, and that is what ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... mule and came hither, in haste, to tell you." When my master's wife and daughters heard this, they shrieked aloud and tore their clothes and buffeted their faces, whilst the neighbours came round them. Then my mistress overturned the furniture of the house, pell-mell, tore down the shelves, broke up the casements and the lattices and smeared the walls with mud and indigo. Presently she said to me, "Out on thee, O Kafour! Come and help me tear down these cupboards and break up these vessels and porcelain!" So I went ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... But the resolution taken by the king spread with the rapidity of lightning among those immediately around him; and, when the soldiers saw the confidants of the king packing in all haste, they too were seized with a panic. No one was willing to be the hindmost in decamping; all, high and low, ran pell-mell like startled deer; no authority, not even that of the king, was longer heeded; and the king himself was carried away amidst the wild tumult. Lucullus, perceiving the confusion, made his attack, and the Pontic troops allowed themselves to be massacred almost without offering ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the present geological epoch from that which immediately preceded it. And there can be no doubt that the physical geography of Europe has changed wonderfully, since the bones of Men and Mammoths, Hyaenas and Rhinoceroses were washed pell-mell ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... babble of voices, some shrieks, and more confusion, and the guests ran pell-mell down the great stairs and out the castle door. To Peter's dismay, Aunt Jane was not among them. So into the castle he rushed again, calling at the top of his voice, "Aunt Jane! Aunt Jane!" He ran through the brilliantly lit and deserted ballroom; he saw himself running in the great mirrors of the ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... we shape plans, perhaps as we fly; we pick up a stick on the run, hoping to escape but preparing for the reaction of fight if cornered. "What shall I do—what shall I do? finds no conscious answer if the emotion is overwhelming or the instinctive flight a pell-mell affair; but ordinarily memories of other experiences or of teaching come into the mind and some effort is made to meet the situation ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... impressed, were looking at the dance with absorbing interest, a sudden hue and cry was raised about half a block off. A commotion was started among those who had been quietly enjoying the sights and all ran pell-mell in every direction. Some one was heard saying "fight!" Then the younger brother of Red Shirt came running forward through ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... no time. With a hook-like clutch that was almost a blow, so swift was it, he flung me bodily out of the rear end of the wagon. I had barely time to crawl out from under when father, mother, and the baby came down pell-mell ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... not a religious goat! She remembered the glimpse she had had the night before of green things growing in the garden and suddenly bolted down the steep path at a break-neck speed. All the rest of the flock followed pell-mell after her, and the children were obliged to cut short their prayers in order to save the carrot-tops ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... on the following morning, and, after an early breakfast, set out for Mr Radlett's shipyard at Millbay. He found the old man busily engaged upon certain papers in the little room which he dignified with the name of "office"; but upon George's appearance the old fellow hastily swept the documents pell-mell into a drawer, which he locked. Then, pocketing the key, he led the way to the back door of the house, which gave upon the shipyard, upon passing through which young Saint Leger immediately found himself in the midst of surroundings that were as familiar ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... post In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell; Not a head in white and black On a single fishing smack, In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrack 15 All that France saved from the fight whence England bore the bell. Go to Paris: rank on rank Search the heroes flung pell-mell On the Louvre, face and flank! 20 You shall look long enough ere you come to Herve Kiel. So, for better and for worse, Herve Riel, accept my verse! In my verse, Herve Riel, do thou once more Save the squadron, honor France, love thy wife ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... only know this by the noise, but we saw him at once upon the bank or dam, and distinctly perceived that he took a survey of the gutter, after which he instantly gave with all his force four blows with his tail; and had scarce struck the fourth, but all the beavers threw themselves pell-mell into the water, and came upon the dam: when they were all come thither, one of them muttered and mumbled to the {128} rest (who all stood very attentive) I know not what orders, but which they doubtless understood well, ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... savages were flying pell-mell across the bridge with Gascoyne and Henry close on their heels, and the stout merchant panting after them, with his victorious band, as fast as his less agile ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... living being had ever heard before. Poor old Joan thought her last hour had really come, and gave herself up for lost, for when she looked round she saw the fearful great creature she had been riding, disappearing in the distance in flames of fire, and tearing after it, helter-skelter, pell-mell, was a horrible crew of men and dogs and horses. Two or three hundred of them there must have been, and not one of the lot had a head on ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... in a lonely dell, A peanut woman sat—her wares to sell. But brave PELLEAS, turning not aside, O'er that poor woman and her stall did ride. And as he wildly dashed along, pell-mell, To all the night-bugs thusly he ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 13, June 25, 1870 • Various
... gave it them, however! The old hard-listed veterans held out bravely for a while, but we pushed on, fired away, and laid about us, till they made wry faces, and their lines gave way. Then Egmont's horse was shot under him; and for a long time we fought pell-mell, man to man, horse to horse, troop to troop, on the broad, flat, sea-sand. Suddenly, as if from heaven, down came the cannon shot from the mouth of the river, bang, bang, right into the midst of the French. These were English, who, under Admiral Malin, happened to be sailing past from Dunkirk. ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... the landmark? What,—the foolish well Whose wave, low down, I did not stoop to drink, But sat and flung the pebbles from its brink In sport to send its imaged skies pell-mell, (And mine own image, had I noted well!) Was that my point of turning? I had thought The stations of my course should rise unsought, As altar-stone, ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... poet, 'were frightfully distorted: they glared, they grinned, they spat, they railed, and hissed, and roared; they gnashed their teeth, and bit, and butted with their foreheads at each other; his arms, wielding swords and spears, were fighting pell-mell together; his legs, in like manner, were indefatigably at variance, striding contrary ways, and trampling on each other's toes, or kicking each other's shins, as if by mutual consent.' Such would be the true representative of an organ that adequately represented ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... of those poor wrecked villages deserted after the German bombardment—villages roofless and grey and gaunt and wan, from which the population fled in July, 1914, and from which the Germans themselves a few weeks later were forced to flee, running pell-mell as they scurried before the wrath of ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... derive facts bearing on handwriting, language, style, doctrines, customs, events. The Mesha inscription furnishes facts bearing on Moabite handwriting and language, the belief in the god Chemosh, the practices belonging to his cult, the war between the Moabites and Israel. Thus the facts reach us pell-mell, without distinction of nature. This mixture of heterogeneous facts is one of the characteristics which differentiate history from the other sciences. The sciences of direct observation choose the ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... the smoke of the gunpowder cleared away, the different points of the struggle could be clearly picked out by reason of the heaps of corpses and dead horses, piled beneath overturned cannon and broken limbers, shattered needle- guns and chassepots, all of which were scattered around pell-mell in endless profusion. ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Teutons better than did his chums. And he was mentally figuring on just when the bitter blast would break forth that was going to mow down those valiant men with the red trousers and the blue tunics rushing pell-mell forward with such ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... the last, so fast and fierce did the blows of King Arthur's men fall, and so stubbornly did they press on, that Sir Mordred's host gave way. Pouring forth by the upper gate, they ran pell-mell northwards, and the knights and fighting men of Arthur kept up with them for many miles, and there was a running fight and much wounding and slaying all through the fresh green countryside, where the hedges were laden with May-blossoms, and in the ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... climbed, aided by its prehensile tail. Its progeny crowded busily round the foot of the tree, uttering plaintive cries. The opossum then came down again, and scarcely had it put foot to the ground before its disconsolate family rushed pell-mell into the maternal pouch. Thus loaded, the animal climbed the tree more slowly, and sat herself quietly on one of the lowest branches. We could see nothing but the pointed muzzles and black eyes of the little ones, which seemed as if they were looking down ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... her to lead her gently back to the tent, Sahwah began to raise her arms slowly above her head, palms together. "Mercy!" exclaimed Katherine, "she's going to dive off the cliff!" And rushing up pell-mell she seized her around the waist and dragged her back unceremoniously, regardless of the accepted rule ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... narrowed, the stream-bed deepened. I had to slow down to get through the trees and rocks. And suddenly I was overjoyed to ride pell-mell upon R.C. and Teague with half the panting hounds. The canyon had grown too rough for the horses to go farther and it would have been useless for us to try on foot. As I dismounted, so sore and bruised I could hardly stand, old Jim came limping in to fall into the brook where he lapped and lapped ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... for a generation coming. [Guerre de Boheme, ii. 23, &c.] And one hears in the mind a clangorous nasal eloquence from antique gesticulative mustachio-figures, witty and indignant,—who are now gone to silence again, and their fruitless bivouacs, and frosty and fiery toils, tumbling pell-mell after them. This of Pisek was but one of the many unwise hysterical things poor Broglio did, in that difficult position; which, indeed, was too difficult for any mortal, and for Broglio ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... faintly in the heavy mist. When the swift crescendo had reached its climax, the missiles zipped just overhead, as if piercing an invisible curtain. A battery on the hill was crashing with such tumult that it was as if the guns had quarrelled and had fallen pell-mell and snarling upon each other. The shells howled on their journey toward the town. From short range distance there came a spatter of musketry, sweeping along an invisible line and making faint ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... all the time. His tongue was decidedly Hanoverian, with its repetitions, its catchwords—"That's quite another thing! That's quite another thing!"—its rattling indomitability, its loud indiscreetness. His speeches, made repeatedly at the most inopportune junctures, and filled pell-mell with all the fancies and furies that happened at the moment to be whisking about in his head, were the consternation of Ministers. He was one part blackguard, people said, and three parts buffoon; but those who ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... object seen upon a high ridge against the skyline; and when Scipio stood erect in all his gigantic proportions and waved both arms to welcome his beloved master, the Diehards turned with a yell and fled. Vainly their comrades of Troy called after them. Back and down the hill they streamed pell-mell, one on another's heels; down to the marshy bottom known as Trebant Water, nor paused to catch breath until they had placed a running brook between them and ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... that the earlier scenes of the play resounded with rumours of him—accounts of the great deeds he had done, and of the yet greater deeds that were expected of him. And at length there was a procession: white-bearded priests bearing wands; maidens playing upon the sackbut; guards in full armour; a pell-mell of unofficial citizens ever prancing along the edge of the pageant, huzza-ing and hosanna-ing, mostly looking back over their shoulders and shading their eyes; maidens strewing rose-leaves; and at last the orchestra crashing to a climax in the nick of which ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... deep voice the French rushed to the attack again, and with such enthusiasm that the enemy wavered—fell back—then fled, pell-mell, toward Milan. The victors followed in hot pursuit, with the peerless knight far in ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... ain't no use in all this strife, An' hurryin', pell-mell, right thro' life. I don't believe in goin' too fast To see what kind o' road you 've passed. It ain't no mortal kind o' good, 'N' I would n't hurry ef I could. I like to jest go joggin' 'long, To limber up my soul with song; To stop awhile 'n' chat the men, 'N' drink some cider now an' ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... needs to think about," with the discreet addition, "Not a book for little girls, though." If we find in our circle of poets a certain stateliness of style scarcely to be looked for in a somewhat new republic that might be expected to rush pell-mell after an idea and capture it by the sudden impact of a lusty blow, after the manner of the minute-men catching a red-coat at Lexington; if we observe in their writing old world expressions that woo us subtly, ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... Fourteenth running confusedly toward the summit. Without a word the brigade commander struck spurs into his horse and dashed up the long slope at a run, closely followed by his enemy and aid. What they saw when they overtook the straggling, running, panting, screaming pell-mell ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... same people, which was the first of any to conceive magnificence, whose gods and kings were formerly surrounded with an over-powering splendour, contrives, to live to-day, pell-mell with its sheep and goats, in humble, low-roofed cabins made out of sunbaked mud! The Egyptian villages are all of the neutral colour of the soil; a little white chalk brightens, perhaps, the minaret or cupola of the mosque; but except for that little refuge, whither folk come to ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... rigorously are the laws enforced now against gambling, betting, swearing or any other form of innocent amusement.... Why! two wenches were whipped at the post by the public hangman only last week, because forsooth they were betting on the winner amongst themselves, whilst watching a bout of pell-mell.... And you know that John Howthill stood in the pillory for two hours and had both his hands bored through with a hot iron for allowing gambling inside his coffeehouse. ... And so, mistress, you will perceive that I am speaking but ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... out at least a third of the thoughts and scenes he inserted. As it was, he threw all his thoughts and all the matters he had learnt about the politics, cities, architecture, customs, war, gardens, religion and poetry of North Italy in the thirteenth century, pell-mell into this poem, and left them, as it were, to find their own places. This was very characteristic of a young man when the pot of his genius was boiling over. Nothing bolder, more incalculable, was ever done by a poet in the period of his storm and stress. ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... added surprise when he noted through the closed curtains of his litter that several patricians passed by and smiled and nodded to the speaker while he poured forth his diatribes. Now, however, a new commotion seemed to agitate the throng, who, turning suddenly, ran pell-mell in one direction, almost overturning the litter—a catastrophe from which it was only saved by a vigorous use of the bearers' staves upon the ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... shouting vociferously as they came. The soldiers, alarmed and already disheartened, imagined that these eager enemies were but forerunners of a large reinforcement. Hastily they disengaged themselves from the outlaws, and, gathering up Master Carfax, rushed pell-mell with him backward to the woods on ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... We entered pell-mell into the city, and passed over the dead bodies, and some not yet dead, hearing them cry under our horses' feet; and they made my heart ache to hear them. And truly I repented I had left Paris to see such a pitiful ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... had to be taken in the open. They did it under fire, on the run, with a dozen riflemen aiming at them from the fringe of blackberry bushes that bordered the mesa. Up the ridge they went pell-mell, Reeves limping the last fifty feet of the way. An almost spent bullet had struck him in the fleshy part ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... and sponsors of their victims. When word first went round, on the last day of February, that a lamb had unexpectedly turned upon these two practised and confident wolves, and had torn an ear from each of them, and driven them pell-mell into a "corner," it was received on all sides with ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... Tommy began to worry Farmer Green's Spot. He delighted in barking at Spot. And Spot would always stop what he was doing and rush pell-mell after Tommy Fox. ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... men are deserted or killed. The Courant is sometimes ten deep, his ranks close: the Postboy[415] is generally in files, for greater exactness; and the Postman comes down upon you rather after the Turkish way, sword in hand, pell-mell, without form or discipline; but sure to bring men enough into the field; and wherever they are raised, never to lose a ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... the enemy retire, Their Delhis[390] manned some boats, and sailed again, And galled the Russians with a heavy fire, And tried to make a landing on the main; But here the effect fell short of their desire: Count Damas drove them back into the water Pell-mell, and with a ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... really this matter must be cut short—summon pell-mell all the actors and actresses who have ever strutted their little hour on the stage, and put to them the following comprehensive question: Is there in your midst one who had an honest, hearty, downright pride and pleasure in your calling, or ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... for a time; then there arose a tumult of cries, oaths, and yells. The captain gave the order, and pell-mell down the rift we clambered, some dropping their muskets in their hurried descent, one of which exploded in its fall. The bo's'n had found the beach and our boat guarded by six pirates, who were asleep. Four of these ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... first tamed his army, and was now taming the Dantzigers. He had effected discipline in his own camp by getting his regiments into shape, by establishing hospitals (which were immediately filled), and by protecting the citizens from the depredations of the starving fugitives who had been poured pell-mell into the town. ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... to keep away from his friend. He stayed at home longer than usual on purpose. Finally he grew afraid of being late and tumbled pell-mell downstairs, intent on turning to his old route by way of East Long Street. But no sooner had he reached the lane than his legs seemed to be moving regardless of his will, and they took the familiar turn toward the Quay. ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... on Christmas morning, when the young Van Johnsons rushed pell-mell, helter-skelter, into the room prepared for his call, a new jacket hung on one chair, a new pair of trousers on the other; a doll's head peeped out of Queen Victoria's stocking; a new sled, gayly painted, announced ...
— Harper's Young People, December 30, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... crusaders of two hundred years. The crusaders numbered many heroes, but scarcely a single general. There was no military discipline among them: they knew nothing of tactics or strategy; they fought pell-mell in groups, as in the contests of barons among themselves. Individually they were gallant and brave, and performed prodigies of valor with their swords and battle-axes; but there was no direction given to their strength ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... building was put. On the first floor (above the ground-floor) was one room and the kitchen; on the floor above that were two bedrooms. The garret was used to put away articles more choice and delicate than those that lay pell-mell about the shop. ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... We found that the bridges could be made, and returned to announce this to M. de Joyeuse. Accordingly, on the 20th of July, the army put itself in movement. The march was made in the utmost confusion. Everything was in disorder; the infantry and cavalry were huddled together pell-mell; no commands could be acted upon, and indeed the whole army was so disorganised that it could have been easily beaten by a handful of men. In effect, the enemy at last tried to take advantage of our confusion, by sending a few troops to harass us. But ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... large band of Indians and would soon be upon them. The alarm was spread through the valley, and men, women, and children gathered up what articles of value they could take with them in their hurried flight, and rushed pell-mell to the forts. During the evening some carried off a portion of their household effects in small boats. In the meantime Caldwell, commanding a party of rangers, with Indians under Brant, had come to the outskirts of the settlement. Then, even before the first gleam of daylight had begun to ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... casual laborer, working on a scaffolding, fell five stories to the ground. As his horrified mates rushed down pell-mell to his aid, he picked himself up, uninjured, from a great, ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... others who have their hair arranged as in the time of Raphael, others as in the time of Christ. So the homes of the rich are cabinets of curiosities: the antique, the gothic, the style of the Renaissance, that of Louis XIII, all pell-mell. In short, we have every century except our own—a thing which has never been seen at any other epoch: eclecticism is our taste; we take everything we find, this for beauty, that for utility, another ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Weltschmerz than I have ever experienced at a performance of "Tristan und Isolde." It was the fact of those little children advancing in unison; that is the word. If they had trudged or scurried along, pell-mell, I should not have minded. But May parties move forward in procession, and the movement of a compact crowd is, to ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... tornado, an entire caravan, disorganized, broken, and overthrown, was disappearing beneath an avalanche of sand. The camels, flung pell-mell together, were uttering dull and pitiful groans; cries and howls of despair were heard issuing from that dusty and stifling cloud, and, from time to time, a parti-colored garment cut the chaos of the scene with its vivid hues, ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... on their prey, the band stormed the door, and thrust and struggled and battled a way down the narrow staircase, and along the narrow passage. "A bas les Huguenots! Mort aux Huguenots!" they shouted; and shrieking, sweating, spurning with vile hands, viler faces, they poured pell-mell into the street, and added their clamour to the boom of the tocsin that, as by magic and in a moment, turned the streets of Paris into a hell of blood and cruelty. For as it was here, so it was in a ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... except the violin case—were thrown pell-mell on to a piece of furniture in the entrance-hall. Monsieur Foa, instead of being in evening dress, was in exactly the same clothes as he had worn at his ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... two men could hardly pass abreast. There was a terrible collision there, and the conflict began among friends who should have been united against the enemy. Finally, the two troops, leaving behind them some corpses stifled in the press, or even killed by their companions, passed through the defile pell-mell and were lost sight of in the ravine. But during this struggle Seyton and Arbroath had lost precious time, and the detachment sent by Murray, which had taken the road by Glasgow, had reached the village beforehand; it was now necessary not to ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... does not proceed with sureness, and that in his numerous productions, some of which appear to us almost admirable, at any rate touching and delicious or piquant and finely comic in observation, there is a dreadful pell-mell. What a throng of volumes, what a flight of tales, novels of all sorts, droll, philosophic, and theosophic. There is something to be enjoyed in each, no doubt, but what prolixity! In the elaboration of a subject, as in the detail of style, Monsieur de Balzac ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... which, always taken by the natives, led equally to the drawbridge and main entrance. To our extreme regret, however, we soon found our course impeded by the huge trunks of mighty pine trees lying in a perfect pell-mell above and on both sides of us. A glance up the hillside showed scores more of these slain giants. To proceed was almost hopeless, and we were forced to rest upon some timber and mark our future course between ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... indicate by calling them Venetian. Observe the rare fidelity which has contributed its weight of sincerity to this admirable relief. Every prominent head of the many members of the Assembly, who nevertheless rally behind Mirabeau with a fine pell-mell freedom of artistic effect, is a portrait. The effect is like that of similar works designed and executed with the large leisure of an age very different from the competition and struggling hurry of our own. In every respect ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... bullet and rifled barrel, opposed at Inkermann to the antiquated Russian musket, tore through the dense columns which had forced their way to the brow of the plateau, driving the stolid Muscovites, "incapable of panic," back into the ravine pell-mell—how, at many periods of the siege of Sebastopol, the rifle-pits did more to cripple the defence than did the mortars and battering-guns—we need not recount. These pits, and the rope mantlets wherewith they obliged the Russians to cover their ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... 'strengthless heads,' as Homer has it, others fresh, with substance yet in them, Egyptians chiefly, these—so long last their embalming drugs. But to know one from another was no easy task; all are so like when the bones are bared; yet with pains and long scrutiny we could make them out. They lay pell-mell in undistinguished heaps, with none of their earthly beauties left. With all those anatomies piled together as like as could be, eyes glaring ghastly and vacant, teeth gleaming bare, I knew not how to tell Thersites from ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... labels that I wrote for them, I obtained fortunately a cutlet now and then and a pear picked in the hospital orchard. I was, then, on the whole, the least to be pitied of all the soldiers packed together, pell-mell, in the wards, but during the first days I could not succeed even in swallowing the meagre morning dole. It was inspection hour, and the doctor chose that moment to perform his operations. The second day after my arrival he ripped a thigh open from top to bottom; I heard a piercing ...
— Sac-Au-Dos - 1907 • Joris Karl Huysmans
... was not the intention of the hunters to leave things thus. They had planned a way by which the quaggas, at a certain moment, would be thrown into a complete panic, and thus forced pell-mell upon the pit. In this lay their hopes of securing a ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... thoughts that were always hovering dust outside the doors guarded by Common Sense, and watching for a chance to squeeze in, knowing perfectly well they would be ignominiously kicked out again as soon as Common Sense saw them, flocked in pell-mell,—misty, fragmentary, vague, half-ashamed of themselves, but still shouldering up against his inner consciousness till it warmed with their contact:—John Wilkes's—the ugliest man's in England—saying, that ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... wrong lane, and has been going that way pell-mell ever since. Yet so close is the wrong lane to the right that a single step will change lanes. Though many results of being in the wrong lane will not be changed by the change of lanes. It takes time to rest up the feet made sore by the roughness of the wrong lane. And some of the scars, where men ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... of sabers, the jets of white smoke from rifle or pistol, and then the Northern line was cut through. But new regiments came up, threw themselves upon the cavalry, and all were mingled in a wild pell-mell among the thickets and through the forests. Clouds of smoke, thick and black, settled down, and horse and foot, saber and gun were hidden from ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... the barrier and the fires like a yelling flood. But now, finding all opposition so suddenly withdrawn, the flood divided upon the massive, thrusting figure of Ook-ootsk as upon a black rock in mid-stream. It united again behind him, surging pell-mell for the Cave-mouths, where in the crush the weaker and lighter were savagely ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... secure in every one's conniving, A long account of nothings paid with loss, Where we poor puppets, jerked by unseen wires, After our little hour of strut and rave, With all our pasteboard passions and desires, 85 Loves, hates, ambitions, and immortal fires, Are tossed pell-mell together in the grave. Ah, there is something here Unfathomed by the cynic's sneer, Something that gives our feeble light 90 A high immunity from Night, Something that leaps life's narrow bars To claim ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... difficult to say who was first, for Henri, Adolphe, and nearly a dozen others, galloped across the bridge together, and the whole troop followed them pell-mell into the town. The two cannons were soon taken; the irresolute blues, who, with only half a heart, had attempted to defend themselves, were driven from their positions, and Henri at once found himself master of ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope |
