"Three-decker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... iron. It is not enough merely to have the right on our side, if we stick to the old flint-lock of tradition. I have observed in my parochial experience (haud ignarus mali) that the Devil is prompt to adopt the latest inventions of destructive warfare, and may thus take even such a three-decker as Bishop Butler at an advantage. It is curious, that, as gunpowder made armour useless on shore, so armour is having its revenge by baffling its old enemy at sea,—and that, while gunpowder robbed land-warfare of nearly all its picturesqueness to give even greater stateliness and sublimity ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... wish we had the man that planned her on board, that we might keel-haul him. I've sailed in a'most every kind of craft that floats—from a Chinese junk to a British three-decker, and between the two extremes there's a pretty extensive choice of washin'-tubs, but the equal o' this here Buss I never did see—no never; take another haul on the foretops'l halyards, boys, and shut your potato-traps for fear the wind blows ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... to be no fear of a demonstration against Law, Order, and Justice, a be-wigged gentleman who sat immediately in front of the Judge, in the manner that the clerk used to sit before the parson in the days of the three-decker pulpit, stood up, and after consulting various little bits of paper, called and empanelled the Grand Jury, a most important body of men, comprising all that was substantial and wealthy in Timber Town—short, fat men; tall, thin men; men of medium ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... This is the worst bit of coast in the country, The Creole was a three-decker," looking at it reflectively, "Lot ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... sawing went on—the three-decker was built. The master builder was a man of humble origin, but of noble loyalty; great power lay in his eyes and on his forehead, and Waldemar Daa liked to listen to him, and little Ida liked to listen too, the eldest ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... 1797, an English three-decker and a frigate menaced Aguadilla, but an attempt at landing was repulsed. Another attempt to land was made at Guayanilla with the same result, and in June, 1801, Guayanilla was again attacked. This time an English frigate sent several launches ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... Kentuckian colossal, who, touching at Madeira, The huge puncheon shipped o' prime Santa-Clara; Then rocked along the deck so solemnly! No whit the less though judicious was enough In dealing with the Finn who made the great huff; Our three-decker's giant, a grand boatswain's mate, Manliest of men in his own natural senses; But driven stark mad by the devil's drugged stuff, Storming all aboard from his run-ashore late, Challenging to battle, vouchsafing no pretenses, A reeling ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... heading one himself, while Collingwood, in the Royal Sovereign, led the other, which first entered into action. "See," cried Nelson, as the Royal Sovereign cut through the centre of the enemy's line, and muzzle to muzzle engaged a three-decker, "see how that noble fellow Collingwood carries his ships into action." Collingwood, on the other hand, said to his captain, "Rotherham, what would Nelson give to be here?" As the Victory approached an incessant raking fire was ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... quartermaster, "and it is furnished with a steel cutter as sharp as a razor and capable of cutting a three-decker in two if the Forward were thrown across her at ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... attain in the construction of such vessels, with their engines and armaments, the same preeminence which it attained when the best instrument of ocean commerce was the clipper ship and the most impressive exhibit of naval power the old wooden three-decker man-of-war. The officers of the Navy and the proprietors and engineers of our great private shops have responded with wonderful intelligence and professional zeal to the confidence expressed by Congress in its liberal legislation. We have now at Washington a gun shop, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... midway across it the huge ungainly figure of a polar bear, held at bay with the butt of an empty musket by a young middy whose name was Horatio Nelson? Was it the low sandy shores of Egypt that he saw, reddened by the flames of a huge three-decker, aboard of which the ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... after an hour spent in quieting his nerves he fell asleep. When he awoke, dressed and went on deck, all trace of the storm had gone. The Hawk swung quietly at anchor and to him she seemed the very finest ship that had ever sailed on any sea from the day of the galley to the day of the three-decker. He noticed with pleasure how trim everything was, how clean was the wood, how polished the brass, and how the flag of Britain snapped in the breeze overhead. He noticed too the eighteen pounders and he knew these were what had done the business for the slaver and ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the roof off—half blocking up the chancel: a thing to be forgiven then, for the lovely Duchess sat there, and the sight of her angel head was surely enough to give new zest to the congregation's prayers and praises. A church such as Hogarth often drew, with its 'three-decker' arrangement of desks: the clerk, the reader, and the preacher, rising one above the other, and, top of all, one of those old-fashioned massive, carved sounding-boards, which gave so queer a Jack-in-the-box aspect to the pulpit, and prompted dreamers ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... pretend, with a three-decker brain, That could harness a team with a logical chain; When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire, We called him 'The Justice,' but now ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... They tarred the rigging, stropped the blocks, and in monkey-like attitudes scraped the masts. Even the cook received a little instruction in his art, and estranged the affections of all hands by a "three-decker," made under ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... late.) Certainly he is no physician, they say. But, on the other hand, a conjecture that he has been before the mast is as plausible a one as that ever Herman Melville was; there is the true sailor's-roll about him; nobody less skilful than the captain of a three-decker could have run the Agra through such a gantlet of broadsides and hurricanes; the manoeuvring of the ship, when her master puts her before the wind that he may rake one schooner's deck and hurl the majestic monster bodily upon the other, is unequalled by anything in nautical ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... breadth of beam, and her tonnage, if registered—which it never was— would have been about half a pound avoirdupois. A small craft you will style her; but at that time, in my eyes, she was as grand as a three-decker. ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... captain, 'every lad like you, my lad, trained in the big ship, and he wouldn't capsize, and be found betrayed by his light timbers as I found you. Serve your apprenticeship in the Lord's three-decker; then to command ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was almost too much for her. To see him fumbling with the oars, made her tingle to take them herself; she could not abide the irritation of a return journey with such a boatman. This determination was hastened when she saw that instead of the three-decker steamer of her native land, the ferry at Wittisham was just like an ordinary row-boat; that one rang a bell hanging from a picturesque tower; that a nice young man with a sprig of wallflower in his cap rowed one across, and that each passenger handed out a penny to him ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... heart-felt melodies and surprising modulations. While neither sublime nor deeply introspective, they make the simple, direct appeal of a lovely flower. In the development of music they are as important as the modern short story in the field of literature; which, in distinction to the old "three-decker" novel, often really says more and says it so concisely that our interest never flags. This tendency to the short, independent piece had been begun by Beethoven in his Bagatelles (French "trifles"); but these, as has been aptly said, were "mere chips ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... drudgery which, it is said, compelled one lady novelist, of high rank for a time, to scribble her novels as she was actually receiving and talking to morning callers, the production of three or four novels a year—and those not the cock-boats we often see now but attempts at least at "the old three-decker" in its fullest dimensions—could leave little time or inclination for extensive letter-writing. There were, however, some exceptions. Charles Kingsley—who, though his novels were not very numerous, supplemented them with all sorts of miscellaneous ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... even long after "the Wilderness" had been mostly left behind. There is indeed less falsetto and less flippancy; perhaps Mr Arnold had silently learnt a lesson, perhaps the opportunities of regular essays in "three-decker" reviews—of a lay sermon to working men, of a speech at the greatest public school in the world—discouraged the playfulness which had seemed permissible in addressing a skittish young evening newspaper. But the unpracticalness—not ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... cray-fish, and sometimes, but not very often—for my purse was only half-flood in consequence of my expenses whilst on shore at the "Tap" at Sheerness—I had a drive upon Dock. The flag-ship in Hamoaze was the Salvador del Mundo, a three-decker taken from the Spaniards in the memorable battle of the fourth of February. The day after anchoring I was ordered by the captain to go with him on board the Sally-waiter-de-Modo. I reflected a short time, ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... beyond the ordinary sails, overshadowing the waters for a great distance, on either side of the vessel. During the moment of inaction that succeeded this sudden exertion, the breeze, which had brought up the three-decker, fell fresher on the sails of the frigate, and she started away from her dangerous enemy with a very perceptible advantage in point ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... amiss. Those in front shot side to side, those behind tried to drop back as, bearing straight down on the royal barge, there came a log of black wood twenty feet long and as thick as the mainmast of an old three-decker. ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... lies behind the Bear, the saddest little deserted place. Sorrels and grasses wave about its forgotten graves; you open the church door, and you are back in the days of Waterloo. The pews are square and high, the pulpit is a three-decker, the paint is that peculiar yellow dun which belongs to Georgian and early Victorian aesthetics. But the value of the church is that it is untouched. No restorer has laid a hand on the mouldering baize which lines the pews; no one has knocked down the hideous galleries; nobody has broken ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... listen to his verse tales we can never forget that it is the Rev. George Crabbe who is instructing us, or that his pedestal is the topmost story of his three-decker pulpit at Aldborough. Wordsworth's sympathy with the lives of the Cumberland peasantry is profound, and the time is surely not distant when such a poem as 'Michael' will win a place in the hearts of working men; but it is to be feared that in his ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman |
