"Verge" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... word, of Christ's nature and work. And now, as I believe, to a very large extent, the foremost and best thinking of the Christian Church is being occupied with that last problem, the nature and work of that Divine Spirit. I believe that we stand on the verge of a far clearer perception of, and of a far more fervent and realising faith in, the Spirit of God, than ever the Churches have seen before. And I pray you to remember that however much your Christian thought and Christian faith may be centred upon, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... stumbled eagerly after him. In a few moments they were at the camp. Trent roused his companions, packages were hastily undone and a meal prepared. Scarcely a word was said or a question asked. One or two of the Kru boys seemed on the verge of insanity—Francis himself was hysterical and faint. Trent boiled a kettle and made some beef-tea himself. The first mouthful Francis was unable to swallow. His throat had swollen and his eyes were hideously bloodshot. Trent, who had seen men before in dire ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... will happen now?" she said, her voice faltering, her eyes filling, and seemingly on the very verge of hysterics. "What if Blackadder should find that I am ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... because he had bequeathed her nothing but memories full of fragrance, yet full of torment. And there she was, sitting in her lonely room amongst the faded mementoes of a youth that had passed unprofitably and friendlessly; there she was, on the verge of the time when there would be no more hopes and no more desires—life had slipped through her fingers, and she was thirty ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge; So sad, so fresh, the ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... Anselmo would keep his word and free him; but gradually this hope vanished, and as the column marched into Toulon on the 28th of January, Benedetto was on the verge of despair. ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... his accustomed sense of critical values has to our notion definitely summed up the question: "His classicism is absolutely unacademic, his romanticism unreal beyond the verge of mysticism and so preoccupied with visions that he may almost be called a man for whom the actual world does not exist—in the converse of Gautier's phrase. His distinction is wholly personal. He lives evidently ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... and later, when the promise of his youth had begun to blossom, he sent him to Paris, although the expenditure just at that time demanded a sacrifice which might have been the ruin of Maurice's own career. Francis's promise had never come to entire fulfilment. He was always trembling on the verge of a great success without quite plunging into it. Despite the joy which his presence gave his brother and sister-in-law, most of his time was spent abroad, where he could find just the atmosphere that suited ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... last; Then, trembling, back unto the bed she crept, And lay down by his side, and no more wept, Nay scarce could think of death for very love That in her faithful heart for ever strove 'Gainst fear and grief: but now the incense-cloud The old familiar chamber did enshroud, And on the very verge of death drawn close Wrapt both their weary souls in strange repose, That through sweet sleep sent kindly images Of simple things; and in the midst of these, Whether it were but parcel of their dream, Or that they woke to it as some might ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... a later day; and at the period of his accession to the Throne was, without and beyond question, the best liked Prince in Europe—the most universally popular man in the United Kingdom and its external Empire. Upon the verge of His Majesty's Coronation there occurred that sudden and dramatic illness which proved so well the bravery and patience of the man, and increased so greatly the popularity ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... bravo, you are always true to yourself, Kosinski. I have always known you as a confirmed misogynist, and I see you still resist all temptations to reform. You carry boorishness to the verge ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... is unable to take any active part in life. The attempt to eat is attended with such severe pain that he avoids taking food. In some cases the suffering is so great that the patient only obtains sleep by the use of hypnotics, and he is often on the verge of suicide. ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... very probably be broken down, perhaps even on the verge of hysteria. Such an experience would upset any woman, I don't care how robust she may have been. She'll need rest and care. You must bring her to ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... commanded them on their lives to hold. So soon as a glance from one to the other had ascertained to him whom he had to deal with, he demanded, "Whether the devils of Woodstock, whom folk talked about, had got possession of them both, that they were tilting at each other within the verge of the royal liberties? Let me tell both of you," he said, "that while old Henry Lee is at Woodstock, the immunities of the Park shall be maintained as much as if the King were still on the throne. None shall fight duellos here, ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... of course, missed the ball, while the umpire dispassionately cried, "Strike two." The batter grieved loudly and bitterly. He accused the umpire of having eyes like a codfish, and of being stampeded by "some guy in the stand." He declared him to be incompetent to the verge of insanity, and wondered, in a voice that could be heard all over the field, how he had kept out of the asylum so long. His team mates supported him loyally, and incidentally demanded of the Toronto team's manager that William, whom they had discovered as the source of the heavy ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... from the quality of humour, one is much struck by the evidence that in Holland during the present day there is a genial literature, of which we have known nothing at all. The pictures, just on the verge of caricature mostly, are ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... consider themselves civilized should be thus acting: so contrary to the natural laws and instincts of humanity that often in order for a bayonet charge men must be primed with liquor to the verge of intoxication . ...
— NEVER AGAIN • Edward Carpenter
... they jobbed and traded in Republicanism, and either parted with it, or at the present day are eager to part with it for a consideration. In order to get the Whigs into power, and themselves places, they brought the country by their inflammatory language to the verge of a revolution, and were the cause that many perished on the scaffold; by their incendiary harangues and newspaper articles they caused the Bristol conflagration, for which six poor creatures were executed; they encouraged the mob to pillage, pull down and burn, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... his window he was recalling the separate events of the day. The court room had been crowded to the verge of suffocation; when he entered it a sudden hush and a mighty craning of necks had been his welcome, and he had felt his cheeks redden and pale with a sense of shame at his hapless plight. Those many pairs of eyes that were fixed on him seemed to lay bare ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... town that spends many tens of thousands of taels each year upon these guardians of the people's peace. It seems to me that this should tell the world that the force of China is not a physical force, but the force of the law-abiding instinct of a happy common people, who, although living on the verge of misery and great hunger, live upright lives and do not try to break ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... their shovels bore down into the precious pocket. The earth flew. They worked like madmen, with nervous energy and power of will; and when the chest finally came into sight, rotten with age and the soak of earth, they fell back against a tree, on the verge of collapse. The hair was damp on their foreheads, their breath ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... vast crowd. Everybody repeated them, some with a growing delight, others with a sense of impending disaster to the wild hopes they had been so ardently cherishing; all according to the viewpoint they held. Scranton's register was rising, while Allandale visitors began to feel something was on the verge of happening to crush the budding paean of victory that was ready to ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... of a tie in nature betwixt those who are born for worthy actions, and those who can transmit them to posterity; and though ours be much the inferior part, it comes at least within the verge of alliance; nor are we unprofitable members of the commonwealth, when we animate others to those virtues, which we copy and describe ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... strife of modern nations, the deeds of statesmen, and the affairs of the financial world. And yet in the sale of this farm in an obscure country place the secret springs of life, even though on a small scale, were laid bare. The pathos of a happy home on the verge of destruction, with a loving mother and an invalid child in danger of being cast out upon the cold world, and to see this tragedy so narrowly averted through one staunch champion successfully beating back pride and greed as represented in the person of ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... himself in his own way. It was his hand that saved the man on the very verge of disgrace. I see you know that you, Nina, are the woman, and you, Prosper, the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... really was a little wooden hut, being what was left of an old-fashioned farmhouse, built before the stone age. It lay on the verge of the marshes in an isolated position and was placed in the middle of a square garden, protected from the winter floods by a low stone wall solidly built, but of no great height. The road to the Fort ran past the front part ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... The dizzy whirl of events that had snatched her from the beaten path and deposited her somewhere out upon the rim of the world had come upon her so suddenly and with such stupendous import that it beggared any attempt to forecast its outcome. With a shudder she recalled the moment upon the verge of the bench when in a flash she had realized the true character of Purdy and her own utter helplessness. With a great surge of gratitude—and—was it only gratitude—this admiration and pride in the achievement of the man who had rushed to ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... But I must not conceal the fact that, in many cases, great cowardice was exhibited; as, when the report got current and the cry was rife that "the French were coming"—a cry that used to frighten naughty children to the verge of terror—numbers of the inhabitants became panic-struck, and actually packed up their furniture and valuables, and commenced a hasty exodus believing that they would be safer inland than by the ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... lesson the next morning. Equally inadequate is it to relate in full how he became so confused among the wax-works that he pinched the solemnest showman's legs to see if he was real, and perplexed the beautiful Circassian to the verge of idiocy by telling her he had read all about the way they sold girls like her ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... inflamed that every step was torture. Ulcers, which opened and left gaping wounds, next made their appearance. It was said that in earlier years he had taken the place of an unfortunate man who had been condemned to the galleys and who was in consequence on the verge of despair, and that the malady from which he suffered had been caused by the heavy fetters with which his legs had been chained to the rowers' bench. It was several months, ran the tale, before his ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... competent judges had examined it in all its bearings, pronounced it the work of the Holy Spirit, and decided that she ought to carry it out without delay. Her vocation received its final confirmation in a dangerous illness which brought her to the very verge of the tomb. When the last hope had vanished, and her soul seemed on the very point of hearing the great summons to eternity, she felt inspired to vow that if her life were spared, she would build a church in Canada in honour ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... men. The only way to escape from him was to move—but then, as likely as not, he'd help pack up and come along with his portmanteau right on top of the last load of furniture, and drive you and your wife to the verge of madness by the calm style in which he proceeded to superintend the hanging ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... so busy running after work, and working for the benefit of others, that they had overlooked the fact that they were only earning a bare living for themselves and now, after forty years' hard labour, the old man was clothed in rags and on the verge of destitution. ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... surround it on every side. It is, above all, rich in public walks and promenades, one of these, the Promenade Chamart—a corruption of Champ de Mars—possessing some of the finest plane trees in Europe—a gigantic bit of forest on the verge of this city—of wonderful beauty and stateliness. These veteran trees vary in height from thirty to thirty-five yards. The Promenade Micaud, so called after its originator, Mayor of Besancon, in 1842, winds along ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... into his mind. Why had she come to the very verge of death, with the rope around her neck rather than reveal her identity, knowing, as she must know, that in the mountain desert men feel some touch of ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... 1663, he travelled over Persia, the Mogul Empire, the Indies as far as the frontier of China, and the Islands of Sunda. Dazzled by the immense fortune which his traffic had obtained for him, Tavernier would play the lord, and soon saw himself on the verge of ruin, which he hoped to avert by sending one of his nephews to the east with a considerable venture, but instead, his ruin was consummated by this young man, who, judging it best to appropriate the goods which had ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... verge shall mortals tread, Where ruin's gulf, unfathom'd, yawns beneath? Shall life, shall liberty be lost," he said, "For the vain toys that Pomp and Power bequeath? The car of victory, the plume, the wreath Defend not from the bolt of fate the brave: ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... brave the scorn and contempt, the daily jeers, and the cut direct from his schoolfellows? All was soon made plain. This boy's parents were old and very poor—so poor, helpless, and friendless that they were often brought to the verge of starvation. In those days, remember, there was not the same attention paid to the poor of all classes, nor loving provision made for their wants, as there is now. So the noble son—for truly noble he was—submitted cheerfully to every trouble and shame that could fall upon himself, in ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... latter part of the year 1860, the air was full of threatenings. The country was clearly on the verge of civil war, and the feeling almost as intense as it was in the following April, after the flash of Edmund Ruffin's gun had ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... quite given him up," said Miss Giddings; "he says he passed long since the verge of healthy thought and speculation. I used to think that possibly some new and powerful stimulus, such as might spring from some ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... were surprised to observe that a grave was dug close by the foot of the rock with great neatness and regularity, the green turf being laid down upon the one side, and the earth thrown out in a heap upon the other. A mattock and shovel lay by the verge of the grave. ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... lives each a series of great successes and great disasters, mighty acquisitions and tremendous losses of power, sudden overthrows, followed by unexpected recoveries, but they died, also, Demetrius in actual captivity to his enemies, and Antony on the verge ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... had said, all New Jersey was roused to action. Harassed and harried as no other state had been, with the exception of South Carolina, at this time it seemed on the verge of extinction, and its condition was in truth deplorable. In the earlier years of the war it had been swept like a plague by the horde of hireling Hessians and the British army. In addition, the main ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... Sheffield, the scenery became softer, gentler, yet more picturesque. At one point we saw what I believe to be the utmost northern verge of Sherwood Forest,—not consisting, however, of thousand-year oaks, extant from Robin Hood's days, but of young and thriving plantations, which will require a century or two of slow English growth to give them much breadth of shade. Earl Fitzwilliam's property lies in ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to banish Chloe from the room, lest the noisy manifestation of her joy should injure her nursling, yet trembling upon the very verge of the grave; and as he did so, he cautioned her to refrain from yet communicating the glad tidings to any one, lest some sound of their rejoicing might reach the sick-chamber, and disturb the ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... had been sorely tried. Dropping his pick, he gripped the tempter by the shoulder with fingers that held him like a vice. He pressed Melhuish backward until they stood within a foot of the verge of the black rift. Melhuish's face was gray in the candle-light as he heard the dislodged pebbles splash sullenly into the water, fathoms beneath. He had heard stories of the vagaries of the Thurstons of Crosbie, and it was most unpleasant to stand ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... As a natural result, when all minds were directed to one channel, as they were by prayer, the superstitious feeling which possessed them passed away, and the household, which a few moments ago was on the verge of hysteria, became more calm, and when all rose from their knees, Mrs. Parris asked her visitor to spend ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... not a motion of the arm, not an inch of the foot, pass the verge of the ring; and if the fluid be thus unhappily stinted, reserve all that is left for the protecting circle and the twelve outer lamps! See how the Grand Work advances, how the hues in the caldron are glowing blood-red through ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... am very glad, on my father's account. He is so aggressive in his opinions that whenever there is any excitement of this kind I am anxious about him until the trouble is over." She hesitated a moment, her lips trembling on the verge of further speech, and he waited for her to go on. "Mr. Wellesly," she said, a note of uncertainty sounding in her voice, "you are not prejudiced by the political feeling which colors people's opinions here. I wish ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... Peru and Bolivia as allies on the other. In Peru unstable and corrupt governments had contracted foreign loans under conditions that made their repayment almost impossible and had spent the proceeds in so reckless and extravagant a fashion as to bring the country to the verge of bankruptcy. Bolivia, similarly governed, was still the scene of the orgies and carnivals which had for some time characterized its unfortunate history. One of its buffoon "presidents," moreover, had entered into boundary agreements with ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... of the country were in a state of the utmost disorder. A profuse and corrupt monarch, whose profuseness and corruption were imitated by almost every functionary, from the highest to the lowest grade, had brought France to the verge of ruin. The national debt amounted to 3000 millions of livres, the revenue to 145 millions, and the expenses of government to 142 millions per annum; leaving only three millions to pay the interest ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... putting the transportation in good working order, giving each regiment its proper quota of wagons, and turning the surplus into the general supply trains of the army. In accomplishing this I was several times on the verge of personal conflict with irate regimental commanders, but Colonel G. M. Dodge so greatly sustained me with General Curtis by strong moral support, and by such efficient details from his regiment—the Fourth Iowa Volunteer Infantry—that I still bear him and ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... the neck of the domestic bull, the same character in even more pronounced form in the case of the bull buffalo and the musk-ox, and in varying degrees in other animals conspicuous for their vitality and energy-all this seemed to indicate that I was on the verge of a remarkable discovery. When you think of a fiery steed, in every instance you bring to mind the arched appearance of the neck. The tight reins that are sometimes used to give a horse a pleasing appearance, are based upon the same ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden
... feel so ill!" faintly exclaimed Miss Tag-rag, turning deadly pale. Titmouse was on the verge of dropping on his knees and confessing the trick, greatly agitated at the effect unexpectedly produced on Miss Tag-rag; when Tag-rag's heavy hand was suddenly placed on his shoulder, and he whispered in a fierce ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... a Dream, which was not all a Dream. (By Somnus and old Nox I fear 'twas not!) Common-sense was extinguished, and Good Taste Did wonder darkling on the verge of doom. I saw a Monster, a malign, marine, Mysterious, many-whorled, mug-lumbering Bogey, Stretched (like Miltonian angels on the marl) In league-long loops upon the billowy brine. Beshrew thee, old familiar ocean Bogey, Thou spectral spook of many Silly Seasons, Beshrew thee, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 21, 1893 • Various
... might safely be shown, for he would use them not speculatively but practically. "Nothing almost sees miracles but misery," perhaps because to misery alone, save it be to the great unselfish joy, is it safe to show miracles. Those who must see ere they will believe, may have to be brought to the verge of the infinite grave that a condition fit for seeing may be effected in them. "Blessed are they who have not seen and ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... exceedingly diminutive Eels, rather less, to the best of my recollection, than three-quarters of an inch long, and almost transparent, but exhibiting in every respect the true form of the mature Eel. They had evidently followed the water to its extreme verge, where it could not have been more than an inch deep, and that they must have been very numerous was clear from the large numbers which were left behind and had perished—for that they did perish I found on the following day, when ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... pavilion of Chantebled, on the verge of the woods, where they had now been installed for nearly a month, Mathieu was making all haste in order that he might catch the seven-o'clock train which every day conveyed him from Janville to Paris. It was already half-past six, and there were fully two thousand paces from the pavilion to ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... said Governor Manco; he gave orders, and immediately a gibbet was reared on the verge of the great beetling bastion that overlooked the Plaza. "Now," said he, in a message to the captain-general, "hang my soldier when you please; but at the same time that he is swung off in the square, look up to see your Escribano dangling against ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... interest now was in her sons' possible marriages, and it was a little painful to her that Henrietta should be so much excited about what had never after all been more than a potential love affair. To tell the truth, she thought it a trifle petty and not worthy the dignity of one on the verge of old age. She wanted to be sympathetic, and she was too kind to say anything that would wound, but Henrietta could see that Evelyn did ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... fertile meadow-land before flowing back into the narrow gorge past Intombi Spruit Camp. How the Boers got there one can only imagine, for neither the Imperial Light Horse pickets on Waggon Hill, nor the Manchesters holding the very verge of that cliff which we call Caesar's Camp and the Kaffirs Intombi, nor the mixed force of volunteers and police watching the scrub lower down, saw any form or heard a movement during the night. It was intensely dark for two or three hours, but in that still air a steenbok's light ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... surely it is one of the most appalling lapses of genius which could be indicated. Even the beautiful song in the third scene of the first act, "There's a woman like a dew-drop, she's so purer than the purest," is, in the circumstances, nearly over the verge which divides the sublime from the ridiculous. No wonder that, on the night the play was first acted, Mertoun's song, as he clambered to his mistress's window, caused a sceptical laugh to ripple lightly among the tolerant auditory. It is with diffidence I take so radically ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... near approached the verge of life, Some kind relation (for I'd have no wife) Should take upon him all my worldly care, Whilst I did ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... clouds of wool gathered about her face. She was fighting for her life, and for years it seemed to be; though indeed it was only seconds before her will reasserted itself, and light broke again upon her way. Even on the verge of the last ambushed passage her senses came back; but they came with a stark realization of the peril ahead: it looked out of her eyes as a face shows itself at the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to seize him. His lips shut and his figure stiffened with determination. "But it has to be—it has to be," he declared abruptly. His air was forceful to the verge of aggressiveness as he turned to ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... apparent cause; not necessarily from a charitable desire to give him another chance. Also, the pleasing Indian characteristic of regard for family relationship, which is so strong, leads to an anxiety to belittle the wrongdoings of anyone who can claim kinship, and this may be carried even to the verge of distortion, or suppression of the truth. Anyhow, the conclusions of the Christian Panchayat are, not unfrequently, singularly at variance with what would appear to be the ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... A distant verge morosely gray Appears, while clots of flying foam Break from its muddy monochrome, And a light blinks up far away. I sigh: "My eyes now as all day Behold her ebon loops of hair!" Like bursting bonds the wind responds, "Nay, wait for tresses ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... were standing in Lily's eyes and her mouth quivered a little. George could not see, for the life of him, why she should be on the verge of tears. He felt a little impatient, but at the same time she became more interesting to him. He had never seen Lily weeping since the time when she was a child at school, and used to conceal her weeping little face in a ring of her right arm, as was the fashion ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the States on the verge of bankruptcy, extensive recourse was had to sales taxes and, as an offset to these in favor of the local economy, "use" taxes on competing products coming from sister States. The basic decision sustaining the use tax, in this novel employment of it, was Henneford ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... have been struck by his openness in some respects and the absolute mystery with which he surrounded himself in others. Where he lived, what he was doing, what his life was like—all these facts were hidden from his companion, till he revealed himself at last, on the verge of his hoped-for triumph. But, on the other hand, the sentiments and impressions of which M. de Petigny read afterwards in Balzac's books seemed to him only a pale, distant echo of the rich and vivid expressions which fell from his ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... of the indigent Ibycus, at length put an end to your wickedness, and your infamous practices. Cease to sport among the damsels, and to diffuse a cloud among bright constellations, now on the verge of a timely death. If any thing will become Pholoe, it does not you Chloris, likewise. Your daughter with more propriety attacks the young men's apartments, like a Bacchanalian roused up by the rattling timbrel. The love of Nothus makes her frisk about like a wanton ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... white man knows this river as I do, and I do not recommend it. Look at me—on the verge of jaundice—look at this wound on my arm; it began with a scratch and has never healed. All that comes from a month up this cursed river. Take ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... party's wonder grew. Most of them dragged themselves forward with stumbling footsteps. Their faces were haggard, their hands moving restlessly and their features twitching. They looked like men who had been for days undergoing severe mental and physical strain and were on the verge of collapse. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... one thing, however, which, if it did not throw the laird into a passion—nothing, as I have said, did that—brought him nearer to the outer verge of displeasure than any other, and that was, anything whatever to which he could affix the name of superstition. The indignation of better men than the laird with even a confessedly harmless superstition, is sometimes very amusing; and it was a point of Mr. Galbraith's poverty-stricken ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... pronunciation of the name of the city which the old Arabic writers call Saburkan and Shaburkan, now called Shibrgan, lying some 90 miles west of Balkh; containing now some 12,000 inhabitants, and situated in a plain still richly cultivated, though on the verge of the desert.[1] But I have seen no satisfactory solution of the difficulties as to the time assigned. This in the G. T. and in Ramusio is clearly six days. The point of departure is indeed uncertain, but even if we were to place that at ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... hoping and fearing that Pepeeta would be asleep. He had a vague presentiment that he was on the verge of some great event. The guilty secret so long hidden in the depths of his soul seemed to have festered its way dangerously near to the surface, and he felt that if anything more should happen to irritate him he might do ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... of medieval torture. The prisoners denied their guilt with indignation, and, when confronted with Terentyeva, denounced her vehemently as a liar. The excruciating cross-examinations brought some of the prisoners to the verge of madness. But as far as Strakhov was concerned, the hysterical fits of the women, the angry speeches of the men, the remarks of some of the accused, such as: "I shall tell everything, but only to the Tzar," served in his eyes as evidence of the Jews' ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... for two distinct bodies, and named it differently according to the time of its appearance. The evening star they called Hesperus, and from its place on the western horizon, fabled an earthly hero of that name, the son of Atlas, who from the slopes of that mountain on the verge of the known world used to observe the stars until eventually carried off by a mighty wind, and so translated to the skies. These divine honors were earned by his piety, wisdom, and justice as a ruler of men, and his name long shed a shimmering glory over those Hesperidean ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... this evil. By famine funds and relief works it strives, as it did the last famine, to reduce the mortality and suffering arising from these seasons of drought. But the constant penury of the people, and the fact of their always living upon the verge of hunger and want, make it almost impossible to save many from the terrible result of such visitations. Perhaps there is no other thing, at present, which occupies more of the time and thought of the Imperial Government than this; but, to drive entirely away this hideous demon from a land ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... Verge, placed for the time under the orders of General Douay, entered the gate at half-past three in the afternoon, and took possession of Point du Jour, after having taken several barricades; at one of these, Ducatel was sent with ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... ordinary days it provoked wild excitement, which forced him to take special measures; and what would now happen, as it wended its way through this dense multitude of thirty thousand persons, consumed by such a fever of faith, already on the verge of divine frenzy? Accordingly, in a sensible way, he took advantage of this opportunity to give Abbe Judaine ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Its church is a spacious structure, with a nave, north and south aisles, and a chancel, and a tower at the west end. In the floor is a stone with a Latin inscription, in black letter, round the verge, to the memory of one Gilbert West, who died in 1404. The church is dedicated to St. Helen. In the village the Wesleyan Methodists also have a place of worship. According to the parliamentary returns ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... she entered the shop and introduced herself. The introduction was needless. Mr Blurt recognised her at once, dropped his paper, extended both hands, gave her a welcome that brought even Jiggs back to the verge of sanity, and had her into the back shop, whence he expelled Mrs Murridge to some other and little-known region of ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... whether he slept or woke, for the events of the past days, coupled with the disappointment of not being set ashore as he had hoped, had brought even his determined courage to a low ebb. He was on the verge of a fever, and Bob's prescription of rest and sleep was what he most needed. Made snug at the back side of the berth, where little or no light came, he fell into a fitful slumber. Bob took a last look to see that his friend was comfortable and went ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... that Ned's letter had been inspired by his admiration of her, and that this seemed to her selfish. She wondered how a father could consider his wife before the child, but when she said this she did not feel she was speaking quite sincerely, and this troubled her; she was on the verge of tears, and the nurse came in and said she had spoken enough that afternoon, and the priest bade her good-by. The doctor came in soon after; there was some whispering, and Ellen knew that the woman ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... utmost verge of a high bank, By craggy rocks environ'd round, we came, Where woes beneath more cruel yet were stow'd: And here to shun the horrible excess Of fetid exhalation, upward cast From the profound abyss, behind the lid Of a great ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... should expect to find stars presenting every stage of development—some in an embryo state and others more advanced; stars in full vigour and activity, stars that have passed the meridian of life, and stars in a condition of decay and on the verge of extinction. The observations of astronomers have led them to conclude that this condition of 'youth and age' exists among the stellar multitude; but the characteristics by which it is distinguished are ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... Still uncertainty—even on the verge of eternity—strange, doubtless, and reprehensible to Right Reverend persons, who never 'cast away' anything; to whom a religious profession has been a highway to pleasure and preferment, who live in the comfortable assurance that ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... the barge with oar and sail Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere Revolving many memories, till the hull Looked one black dot against the verge of dawn, And on the mere ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... the verge of investigating when she denied the fact—in person. "Where am I? In the name of Saint Peter, what ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... Osorkon II., the Sheshonk dynasty rapidly declined in power. A system of constituting appanages for the princes of the reigning house grew up, and in a short time conducted the country to the verge of dissolution. "For the purpose of avoiding usurpations analogous to that of the High-Priests of Ammon," says M. Maspero, "Sheshonk and his descendants made a rule to entrust all positions of importance, ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... ethereal blue—the "love-color" of Egypt, as the Egyptians often call it—still adhered to the stone. This hall, dignified, grand, but happy, was open on all sides to the sun and air. From it I could see tamarisk- and acacia-trees, and far-off shadowy mountains beyond the eastern verge of the Nile. And the trees were still as carven things in an atmosphere that was a miracle of clearness and of purity. Behind me, and near, the hard Libyan mountains gleamed in the sun. Somewhere a boy was singing; and suddenly ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... remembering always that your ears should serve you much more often than your eyes. And in woodland hunting that which you thus see and hear is likely to be your amusement for the day. There is "ample room and verge enough" to run a fox down without any visit to the open country, and by degrees, as a true love of hunting comes upon you in place of a love of riding, you will learn to think that a day among the woodlands is a day not badly spent. At first, when after an hour and ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... the appeal of Christ's love hardens where it does not soften. That gentle voice drove the traitor nearer the verge over which he fell into a gulf of despair. It should have drawn him closer to the Lord, but he recoiled from it, and was thereby brought nearer destruction. Every pleading of Christ's grace, whether by providences, or by ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... voice of the sufferer—though uttered loudly in that paroxysm of an emotion which, in another, would almost have touched the verge of despair—was yet rendered more uncertain and indistinct from the condition of exhaustion in which he hung; and so, amid the darkness, and confused noise, and dull footsteps of the moving multitude, there were some who did ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... said that these are more to be feared than the white men, for they are terribly cruel, and when they get a victim he is tortured with all the horrible rites of the true savage. They know that the moment they are caught that is the end for them, so that they are reckless to the verge ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... leatherne coat Almost to bursting, and the big round teares Cours'd one another downe his innocent nose In pitteous chase: and thus the hairie foole, Much marked of the melancholie Iaques, Stood on th' extremest verge of the swift brooke, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... school!" cried Miss Wadsworth, on the verge of tears. "Of course they don't mean ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... not wish to force myself upon you," I said icily as I left. The poor man appeared to be on the verge of having ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... which the predictions of these prophets were circulated and viewed as a Gospel, though at the same time they lost their effect by being so treated. The confessors at Lyons openly expressed their full sympathy with the movement in Asia. The bishop of Rome was on the verge of acknowledging the Montanists to be in full communion with the Church. But among themselves there was no longer, as at the beginning, any question of a new organisation in the strict sense of the word, and of a radical ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... the Assistant Scout-Master, "I don't want to raise any false hopes in you, but I think we're on the verge of finding out something about you—about who you really are, ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland
... let us consider the curious fact that a moth always lays its eggs on that particular plant upon which the caterpillars, when they hatch out of these eggs, must feed. The study of the Life History of Insects has always been of great interest to me, as I firmly believe that we are on the verge of a great discovery, and that the first indications are being revealed to us through the investigation of the Biology of Insects. Some of you may, perhaps, have watched this progress of ovipositing, ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... sauciest—so saucy, indeed, that the doctor did not repeat it, but flushed and kept silent. And now the coast knew of the open war; and great tales came to us of Jagger's laughter and loose-mouthed boasting—of his hate and ridicule and defiant cursing: so that the doctor wisely conceived him to be upon the verge of some cowardly panic. But the doctor went about his usual work, healing the sick, quietly keeping the helm of our business, as though nothing had occurred: and grimly waited ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... Sinclair protested, "while that sort of philanthropy is very delightful when one can afford the luxury, it is scarcely practical when one is teetering on the verge of financial ruin. After all, Bryce, self-preservation is the first law of human nature, and the sale of those farms would go a long way toward helping the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company out of the hole ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... so charming and considerate, uncle Rutherford had the most exasperating way of exciting one's curiosity and interest to the verge of distraction, ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... its source is not in the matter through which it is manifested, though inseparable from it. The material substance of life, like the rain-drops, is in perpetual flux and change; it hangs always on the verge of dissolution and vanishes when the material conditions fail, to be renewed again when they return. We know, do we not? that life is as literally dependent upon the sun as is the rainbow, and equally dependent upon the material elements; but ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... awake at night and fret and fume, to think Of bank officials on a spree with what he's toiled to get. He is not driven by his woe quite to the verge of drink By wondering if his balance in the bank ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs
... to these measures was their bearing on the general politics of Christendom. The adhesion of England to the Protestant cause came at a moment when Protestantism seemed on the verge of ruin. The confidence of the Lutheran princes in their ability to resist the Emperor had been seen in their refusal of succour from Henry the Eighth. But in the winter of Henry's death the secession of Duke Maurice of Saxony with many of his colleagues from the League of Schmalkald so weakened ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... who had once run the yard engine was building bridges in France. Hutchinson had heard the call, and was learning to fly in Florida, The service flag over his office door showed hundreds of stars, and more were being added constantly. Joey dead. Graham wounded, his family life on the verge of disruption, and Audrey— ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... form of renewed orders from his principals. Many of the faces that fringed the inner circle of that crowd were frightful to look upon, some white as though just lifted from hospital pillows, others red to the verge of apoplexy—all strained as though awaiting the coming of the jury with a life or death verdict. They all knew that Bob had sold more than a hundred thousand shares of Sugar upon which the profits must be more than four million dollars. Would he ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... of one-sixth of their payments to their unemployed members; but these measures—and others—were inadequate to maintain the unions in a sound financial condition, and many unions trembled on the verge of bankruptcy.[1] Such a condition of affairs was viewed with apprehension not only by the trade union movement, but by the State, with the result that at the beginning of October the Government subsidy of one-sixth was under certain conditions increased.[2] ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... from the southeast coast of Florida. Being so close, it was but natural that our people should take an interest in the struggle at hand. Everybody sympathized with the Cubans, and some made offers of assistance. Then, when many Cubans were on the verge of starvation, we voted to send them relief in the way ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... as well as their condition materially benefited by the necessary expenditure that must be laid out locally in labour and materials, giving work to the needy, and so helping to cure Erin's chief disease,—poverty to the verge of famine. As to actual life-peril,—every due precaution being taken,—the happy result of such a humanising experiment might fairly be left to the generous native loyalty of a kindly treated people, and to the gracious guardianship of God's good providence. ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... night's sport to hold me as chief mourner; and, indeed, poor wretch, I had much to mourn for. The great plumed hat they had put upon me flapped and swaled over my eyes so as almost to blind me. My foot was for ever catching in my great mourning cloak, and I on the verge of tripping myself up; and there was a hot smoke sweltering from the tapers, and a dreadful smell of new black cloth and sawdust and beeswax, that was like to have suffocated me. Infinite was the relief when ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... through the jungle. An elephant always puts his foot into the hole which another elephant's foot has made, so that a frequented track is nothing but a series of pits filled with mud and water. Trying to get along one of these I was altogether baffled, for it had no verge. The jungle presented an impassable wall of dense vegetation on either side, the undergrowth and trees being matted together by the stout, interminable strands of the rattan and other tenacious creepers, including a thorn-bearing one, known ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... hearing little more, understanding only that a feud had ceased, that two enemies on the verge of the long parting had held each other's hands, slapped each other's backs with crude, embarrassed emotion, for the sake of the memories that lived in the shadow of a name. And something like a lump rose again in Dink's throat. He no longer thought of his loneliness. He felt in him the ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... their more advanced civilization, finally carried sun-worship to a very high point of perfection. The hymns to Ra, the sun-god, reached the verge of monotheism and are ethically high, yet traces of the physical side of the sun appear throughout.[1220] The same thing is true of the old Semitic sun-cult. The Babylonian and Assyrian Shamash is in certain respects an independent deity with universal attributes, but retains ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... neither hardship nor prosperity had touched his character. Years ago his emigrant team had broken down in this wild but wooded defile of the Sierras, and he had been forced to a winter encampment, with only a rude log-cabin for shelter, on the very verge of the promised land. Unable to enter it himself, he was nevertheless able to assist the better-equipped teams that followed him with wood and water and a coarse forage gathered from a sheltered slope of wild ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... verge of war with another race, the Jarmuthians, descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel, when Nelson is transported to Heliopolis, the Atlantean Capital, for trial. All strangers must prove their value to the State or be condemned to feed the ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... human interest story. Sometimes the purpose is pathos and sometimes it is humor, but, whatever it may be, if it is clever and interesting it gets its place in the paper, a place entirely out of proportion to its true news value. The results sometimes verge very close upon nature faking, but after all they are only the result of the "up-lift" idea of looking at all life in a more sympathetic way. Several of the beginnings quoted earlier in this chapter belong to animal stories and the following is a ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... written, of her message. The words almost passed her lips, but again she refrained, she obeyed her super-senses. She was convinced that Michael, when his blood was up, ran terrible risks, that he was reckless to the verge of folly. She had heard a letter read in the hospital which had been written to a mother about her son. His Colonel had said, "There are some men who will storm hell, there are others who will follow, and there are some who will lag behind. Your son belongs to the first of the three. ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... future this must be the burning question of politics and statesmanship, as it is at present in Great Britain. The agitations in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales have long been on the verge of bloody conflict, and a Land League has been formed in Germany at Berlin, of which Dr. A. Theodor Stamm is president, having for its object the transfer of land ownership from individuals to the State. A newspaper at Berlin is devoted to ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... the chaos of greed, Canim eagerly intent, Li Wan weak and listless. She knew she had been on the verge of disclosure, and she felt that she was still on the verge of disclosure, but the nervous strain she had undergone had tired her, and she passively waited for the thing, she knew not what, to happen. ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... never spoken to her. I was just on the point of saying to her that she was to give me some small coins, when she bent swiftly down to my hand, and tried to kiss it, evidently imaging that I had given her the ruble. I muttered something, and quitted the kitchen. I was ashamed, ashamed to the verge of torture, as I had not been for a long time. I shrank together; I was conscious that I was making grimaces, and I groaned with shame as I fled from the kitchen. This utterly unexpected, and, as it seemed to me, utterly ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... Peter which Pope Julius had wished upon his innocent successors, although only half begun, was already in need of repair. Alexander VI had spent every penny of the Papal treasury. Leo X, who succeeded Julius in the year 1513, was on the verge of bankruptcy. He reverted to an old method of raising ready cash. He began to sell "indulgences." An indulgence was a piece of parchment which in return for a certain sum of money, promised a sinner a decrease of the time which he would have to spend ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... others. In non-commercial architecture Chicago may point with some pride to its City Hall, its University, its libraries, the admirable Chicago Club (the old Art Institute), and the new Art Institute on the verge of Lake Michigan. Of its churches the less said the better; their architecture, regarded as a studied insult to religion, would go far to justify the highly uncomplimentary epithet Mr. ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... making sure that her husband was no more than slightly dazed, had been forced to turn her attention to Barby and Jan. The two girls were on the verge of sheer hysteria with fear for their fathers. Scotty had joined Mrs. Brant, in an effort to soothe the girls' frayed nerves. Now, as Rick opened the library door, he could see that the two pretty young ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine
... alone, the enterprise for which he had risked all on the verge of failure. By a master-stroke his ranks were repleted, his position recovered, his authority secured ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... approach near enough to shoot his prey with a rifle, or strike it with a seal spear or oo-nar. Often, however, just as he is about to shoot or spear his game, it slips suddenly into the sea through its hole, upon the very verge of which it rests, seldom venturing further than a foot or two from its safe retreat. If they could only rest contented with a fair shot, the Inuits would probably secure more game than they now do, for the most of those I have seen them lose in this way went down after the hunter ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... such pursuit I too must think of adopting," replied Fitzroy, "else I shall sink into the gulph of ennuit to the verge of which I am fast approaching. Independent of the frequent ruinous consequences of the gaming-table, I have taken a dislike to its associates, and therefore abandoned their society; nor will you be surprised ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... his sensibility was at the mercy of such trifles.... Yes; that, and the cold and fatigue, the absence of hope and the haunting sense of starved aptitudes, all these had brought him to the perilous verge over which, once or twice before, his terrified brain ...
— The Triumph Of Night - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... this, putting off the reading of it until the latest possible moment, only a girl like Dorothy Broughton could have told. And even when she broke the seal it was with apparently reluctant fingers. It was so delightful not to know, yet to be upon the verge of knowing! But as soon as the first words met her eyes there was no longer any delay. She read rapidly, her glance drinking in ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... during the hours of a solitary life; in this case, however, to supplant them, when she left his parish, by those others of a more aching nature which accompany an over-full one. In short, he had been on the verge of feeling towards her that passion to which his dignified self-respect would not give its true name, even in the privacy ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... a grandmother!" roared the King, upon the verge of madness, as the Crown Prince, at the head of six Army Corps surrounded the building and captured ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 36, December 3, 1870 • Various
... he crept back from Monte Carlo with his poor tail between his poor legs. As far as I can make out she cut short his first mumblings and his first attempts at affectionate speech with words something like: "We're on the verge of ruin. Do you intend to let me pull things together? If not I shall retire to Hendon on my jointure." (Hendon represented a convent to which she occasionally went for what is called a "retreat" in Catholic circles.) And poor dear Edward knew nothing—absolutely nothing. He did not know how much ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... her in a curious kind of way, like a broadside of stoniness, but Caroline did not seem to mind it at all. Then the boarder changed her tactics like a general on the verge of defeat. She sidled up to Mr. Spear, the chief engineer, who was giving orders to drag home the engine, and said in an unexpectedly sweet voice, like a trickle of honey off the face of a rock: "My good man, am I to understand ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... with a sudden emotion. His eye lit up, and he thrust one hand into the breast of his coat while he raised the other in a sweeping gesture. For an instant he appeared on the verge of a flood of eloquence. And then, as if he had been made sharply aware of what it was that he intended to do, he suddenly sagged. The gleam died out of his eyes. He ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... [1] that excellent architect, caused the latter to get work taken from him which he had previously procured for him from Messer Agnolo da Cesi; and after this San Gallo used his influence so strenuously against him that he must have been brought to the verge of starvation, had not I pitied his condition and lent him some scores of crowns to live upon. So then, not having been repaid, and knowing that he held employment under the King, I went, as I have said, to look him up. I did ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... city of Prague seemed on the verge of a bloody conflict. As in former ages, God's servant was accused as "he that troubleth Israel."(132) The city was again placed under interdict, and Huss withdrew to his native village. The testimony so faithfully ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... the verge of the Terai, that low malarious belt which skirts the base of the Himalaya, from the Sutlej to Brahma-koond in Upper Assam. Every feature, botanical, geological, and zoological, is new on entering this district. The change is sudden and immediate: sea and shore are hardly more conspicuously ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... was on the verge of banishing it from his thoughts, a solution of the name's persistence flashed upon him. It had been used by Dennison that day at the Polo Club. He had called it after Ashton-Kirk ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... pretended to love a person and then run away and left them to—to suffer," said little Margery, on the verge of sobs again. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... troubles, rather than to make money out of them. Many a puzzled farmer he had saved from losing in an unjust bargain when the opposite course would have meant money for himself. Many a family on the verge of disintegration over a will had been brought together and made happy, because their lawyer was more bent on their welfare than his own. Roderick intended fully to keep up the fine old standards of the firm as far as possible. But he was determined to be much more than the legal adviser of ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... service of our Master." What greater aid could be given to a lone far off Indian mission, than "a man of faith and prayer." When an observer in the vast panorama of the West and North has seen a poor missionary and his family, living five-hundred miles from the nearest verge of civilization, solitary and desolate, surrounded with heathen red men, and worse than heathen white men, with none out of his little circle to honor God or appreciate his word, it is presumable to him that any reinforcement of help must be hailed as cold water to a parched tongue. ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... Whether it was wise to give so much at so short a notice may be doubted. What is beyond dispute is that it was unwise to expect so great and so unexpected a gift to be used at once to full advantage. A man who had grown accustomed to semi-darkness would be dazzled to the verge of blindness if he were suddenly taken out into broad daylight. This is what was done in 1895 to the teachers of England, and it is not to be wondered at that many of them have been purblind ever since. For thirty-three years they had been treated as machines, and they were suddenly asked ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... to tremble. She grew deadly pale: she might have been on the verge of a fainting fit. She had realised the incredulity of the man to whom, in her chaste innocence, she had given her heart. In the pure soul of this loving girl an immense void made itself felt. It was as though a flashlight had revealed to her the lamentable ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... overtopping its tallest trees! We might have fancied that we were threading our way through some extended nursery. The trail led directly across its central part; and ere we had reached its furthest verge, the moon's rays were mingling with the purple ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... open-mouthed. A shivering thrill passed through him, such as shakes a man on the verge of a great discovery. ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... making a bolder request than you think, Mr. Vanstone. I never do things by halves. When I am acting with my customary candor, I am frank (as you know already) to the utmost verge of imprudence. When exceptional circumstances compel me to take an opposite course, there isn't a slyer fox alive than I am. If, at your express request, I take off my honest English coat here and put ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... nosegays, and came near losing my character by them, as nobody would believe I was so gallant to myself out of my own pocket. My room is always full of them here, and in spite of recollecting (which I always do in the very act of sticking flowers in my hair) that I am upon the verge of thirty, they are still my ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... and therefore thought the poetry was good. She let the visitor go on to pour out his heart; until at last came a climax that Thyrsis had been expecting all along. The man explained that he was a bookkeeper, out of work, and with a wife and three children on the verge of starvation; and then he tried to borrow some ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... sons of greedy and ferocious pirates. They were all alike, they took everything they could carry; they burned, harried, violated, tortured, and killed, until everything English was brought to the verge of ruin. Such, however, is the illusion of antiquity and wealth, that decent and dignified men now existing boast their descent from these filthy thieves, who showed a far juster conviction of their own merits by assuming ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... when no one answered he grunted and tied up the hole. There was a silence, and the crowd began to filter away—all but Lynch, who stood staring like an Indian. Then he too turned away, his haggard eyes blinking fast, like a woman on the verge ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... patient would slip through her hands into the next world before she had time to even attempt to save her. And Cyrillon Vergmaud, unhappy and restless, wandered up and down outside the house, where this life, so secretly dear to him, was poised as it were on the verge of death, not daring to enter, or even enquire for news, lest ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... squaw, brilliant in her scarlet dress and silver tassels, the pappoose piously quiet in his perpendicular cradle on her back, slipped with gingerly caution to the verge of the precipice ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... Pompeii possessed many local advantages. Upon the verge of the sea, at the mouth of the Sarno, with a fertile plain behind, like many an ancient Italian town, it united the conveniences of commerce with the security of a military station. According to Strabo, Pompeii was first occupied by the Oscans, subsequently ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... the very circumstance which has been the foundation of the importance of Timbuctoo to the traders of Barbary, and consequently of a great portion of its fame amongst us, its frontier situation on the verge of the desert, at the extreme northern limits of the negro population, will of necessity have a contrary operation now, since a shorter and securer channel for European enterprise into the central regions of Africa has been opened by the intrepidity and perseverance ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... relatively active brains and mental fertility. Certainly, most of the Seminole I met cannot justly be called either stupid or intellectually sluggish, and I observed that, when invited to think of matters with which they are not familiar or which are beyond the verge of the domain which their intellectual faculties have mastered, they nevertheless bravely endeavored to satisfy me before they were willing to acknowledge themselves powerless. They would not at once answer a misunderstood or unintelligible question, but would return inquiry upon inquiry, before ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley
... it in various Courts of Europe, but always without success. Things were becoming awkward. The firm had borrowed heavily to pay for the stones, and anxiety seems to have driven Bohmer to the verge of desperation. Again he offered the necklace to the King, announcing himself ready to make terms, and to accept payment in instalments; but again it ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... ascertain in what direction they were leading him, but he soon gave this up as useless. He was on the verge of despair, when suddenly out of the gloom came a startlingly familiar call—-the call of ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler |
