"Balloon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in imagination, ascend in a balloon over this region and hover there, seeking to reconstruct, by mental images, the appearance it must have assumed and the action that took place in the ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... ballast is no good; masculine ballast is the only kind that's safe if you want to make life's journey in a love balloon. [SHE turns to RUTH CHESTER.] Ruth—the trouble with you is, you're too sad lately, and show such a lack of interest. I should think you might be in love, only I haven't been able to find the man. Anyway, if you aren't in love, you must pretend an interest in things. ...
— The Girl with the Green Eyes - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... drummed the tambourine And stamped his feet, which made the workmen passing grin, While his mouth-organ changed to a rascally Bacchanal dance "Over the hills and far away." This and his glance Outlasted all the fair, farmer and auctioneer, Cheap-jack, balloon-man, drover with crooked stick, and steer, Pig, turkey, goose, and duck, Christmas Corpses to be. Not even the kneeling ox had eyes like the Romany. That night he peopled for me the hollow wooded land, More dark and wild ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas
... breathe, although so useful to us, that we could not live two minutes without it. We do not pay for it, because Nature furnishes it without the intervention of man's labor. But if we wish to separate one of the gases which compose it, for instance, to fill a balloon, we must take some trouble and labor; or if another takes it for us, we must give him an equivalent in something which will have cost us the trouble of production. From which we see that the exchange is between troubles, efforts, labors. It is certainly ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... of the mountain, Judge Wickersham's party unfortunately attacked the mountain by the Peters Glacier and demonstrated the impossibility of that approach, being stopped by the enormous ice-incrusted cliffs of the North Peak. Judge Wickersham used to say that only by a balloon or a flying-machine could the summit be reached; and, indeed, by no other means can the summit ever be reached from the north face. After a week spent in climbing, provisions began to run short and the party returned, descending ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... a giant cat winked golden eyes, two brilliant boxers fought an endless round, a dazzling girl put on and took off illuminated gloves; a darky's head, as big as a balloon, ate a special brand of pickled melon; a blue umbrella opened and shut; a great gilded basket dropped ruby roses (Buy them at Perrin Freres); a Japanese Geisha, twice life-size, told you where to get kimonos; a trout larger ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... down to his desk. Then he unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves. He placed his elbows on the desk and his enormous folded chin in his two hands. So he sat, a monstrous figure, with his great paunch filling his white shirt like a concealed balloon, with his hideously hairy arms naked halfway, and his thick hands purple beneath the weight of his amorphously fat face, his little reptilian eyes ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... his hopes. He had loved one who had loved another. Misery, but scarcely humiliation. And yet 'tis a bitter pang under any circumstances to find another preferred to yourself. It is about the same blow as one would probably feel if falling from a balloon. Your Icarian flight melts into a grovelling existence, scarcely superior to that of a sponge or a coral, or redeemed only from utter insensibility by your frank detestation of your rival. It is quite ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... England for fear of being arrested?" Lord Lyons coughed discreetly, and the King went on: "If I remember rightly, the Duke, who was in the royal box, shot at and killed a danseuse who was on the stage! And did he not leave England in a balloon? It always seemed such an extraordinary thing. Was it true?" Lord Lyons cautiously answered that people had said all that; but it was some time ago, and added, diplomatically, that he had forgotten all ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... performer in tune, and time, must have been unknown;" and that "if L500 had been offered to any individual to perform a solo, fewer candidates would have entered the lists than if the like premium had been offered for flying from Salisbury steeple over Old Sarum without a balloon." For ourselves, we do not hesitate to acknowledge that, in our opinion, the services of these patriarchs of the English school surpass the great majority of similar productions by our later masters. They may, indeed, suffer when compared ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... bewildered! As you know, I am rather proud of my descent from families which, if not noble themselves, are allied to nobility,—and as to my 'rise in the world'—if I had risen, it would have been rather for balloon-like qualities than for mother-wit, to being unencumbered with heavy ballast either in my head or my pockets. However, it was my cue to agree: so I ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... unexpected uses. During the siege, it was converted into a vast military storehouse and filled with a heterogeneous mass of goods. After the siege the building fell into the hands of the Commune and the roof was turned into a balloon station. The ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... Mind, we do not say that this is possible: we merely ask for the sake of information; and if any little boy will favour us with his opinion, we shall take it very kind. Come and let us fancy that it is possible. The traveller feels much more comfortable than in the car of a balloon, for he knows he can go pretty nearly in what direction he chooses, and that he can hasten or check the pace of his horses, and bring them to a stand-still at pleasure. See him, therefore, boldly careering through the air at the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... stage of prosperity, as in a balloon ascent, the fortunate person passes through a zone of clouds, and sublunary matters are thenceforward hidden from his view. He sees nothing but the heavenly bodies, all in admirable order, and positively as good as new. He finds himself surrounded ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... like a downward jerk on a balloon. Dunham suddenly remembered the memoranda and his employer's ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... in the air, apparently over a point midway between what had been the first-line trenches of the opposing armies, a stationary balloon showed where Jerry and an observation officer were doing duty on that fateful day. Jerry was operating a telephone that ran directly to division headquarters, and hardly a moment passed when he was not repeating some observation of the other man ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... once again at the Government Head Quarters. As I could get no better conveyance, I inflated my canvas carpet-bag with gas, and used it as a balloon. I found it most valuable in crossing the battery which now masks the remains of what was once Government House. The President, after having organised a band of pic-pockettini (desperadoes taken from the gaols), has ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... Anders met a very old, old woman who curtsied till her skirts looked like a balloon. She called him a little gentleman and said that he was so fine that he might go to the royal ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... of science,' he observed, waving his hook towards the stock-in-trade. 'Look'ye here! Here's a collection of 'em. Earth, air, or water. It's all one. Only say where you'll have it. Up in a balloon? There you are. Down in a bell? There you are. D'ye want to put the North Star in a pair of scales and weigh it? He'll ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... had asked me any more questions, I should undoubtedly have betrayed myself, for I was even then on the point of mentioning that there was a balloon in the yard, and should have hazarded the statement but for my invention being divided between that phenomenon and a bear in the brewery. They were so much occupied, however, in discussing the marvels I had already presented for their consideration, that I escaped. ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... course; he had to gulp desperately, to keep from being choked; and pretty soon the water filled him up, and then began the most fearful agony he had yet endured. It was like the pain of the ether-gas, only infinitely worse. He was blown out like a balloon; his insides were about to burst; his whole body was one sore boil—and Connor, sitting on his stomach, sat a little harder now and then, to make sure the water got jostled into place. Jimmie could not scream, but his face turned purple and the cords stood out on ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... my father; "what can you, a stupid old woman, know about my inside? I tell you the gas is generating fast, and even now I can hardly keep on my chair. I'm lifting—lifting now; and if you don't tie me down with cords, I shall go up like a balloon." ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... to be a Thursday, Paul started on his travels. He started buoyantly, but by evening he was as a punctured balloon. Every dealer had the same remark to ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... an air-balloon; just as I once did see a tiny review, by passing one accidentally on Hounslow-heath. I was going last night to Lady Onslow at Richmond, and over Mr. Cambridge's field I saw a bundle in the air not bigger than the moon,(525) and she herself could not have descended with more ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... noticed, in the direction of the stockyards, a gigantic pillar of smoke. At the next crossing several similar smoke pillars were rising skyward in the direction of the West Side. Over the city of the Mercenaries we saw a great captive war-balloon that burst even as we looked at it, and fell in flaming wreckage toward the earth. There was no clew to that tragedy of the air. We could not determine whether the balloon had been manned by comrades or enemies. A ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... on topside,' replied Roy coolly. 'They can't get above us there unless they raise a balloon. Come on, old man, we can dodge in ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... Wharf on the right, round to the warship Illinois on the left, and from the latter a search light, an omnipresent eye, swept the crowd with rapidly veering glance, till it concentrated its gaze on the dark balloon which rose so mysteriously from the water. Suddenly from this balloon was suspended the Stars and Stripes in colored lights. The crowd cheered like mad, the boats whistled, and ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... coolly, 'I'm goin' ter tie it to Poll's balloon, an' let go of the string, an' then it'll go straight to heaven,' and, with the letter reposing in his cheek, he ...
— A Princess in Calico • Edith Ferguson Black
... the Spaniards had in the use of smokeless powder were conspicuous throughout the scenes of fighting both at Santiago and Manila. We had, however, at Santiago a war balloon of the actual service, of which General Shafter says: "General Kent forced the head of his column alongside of the cavalry column as far as the narrow trail permitted, and thus hurried his arrival at the San Juan and the formation beyond that ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... everything. One student's appreciation of this latter quality found whimsical expression in a cartoon which was delightedly passed from hand to hand in the class, and which represented Dr. Cairns cordially shaking hands with the Devil. A "balloon" issuing from his mouth enclosed some such legend as this: "I hope you are very well, sir. I am delighted to make your acquaintance, and to find that you are not nearly so black as ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... questionable business altogether. The washing, as soon as she made certain no one saw her, gave place to another manoeuvre. She stretched as though her bones were of the very best elastic. Gathering herself together, she arched her round body till it resembled a toy balloon straining to rise against the pull of four thin ropes that held it tightly to the ground. Then, unable to float off through the air, as she had expected, she slowly again subsided. The balloon deflated. She licked her chops, twitched her whiskers, curled ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... and there was a grand wedding, at Grey's Park, and the supper was served on the lawn, where there was a dance, and music, and fireworks in the evening; and Sam Lawton, a half-witted fellow, went up in a balloon, and came down on a pile of rocks on the Jerrold farm, and broke his leg; and people were there from Boston, and Worcester, and Springfield, and New York, but very few from Allington, for the reason that very few were bidden. Could Lucy have had her ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... Royal Navy was further manifested by the presence in the Bay, behind the IX. Corps, of a cruiser and some smaller craft. From one of these a sausage-shaped balloon occasionally ascended some few hundred feet and afforded observation of the enemy's rear lines. A glance down the ravine of the Chailak, between Bauchop's Hill and Table Top, revealed H.M.S. "Grafton," a second class cruiser, anchored about two miles from the shore, whose 9.2 and 6-inch ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... the window, stared out at the bleak landscape, watched the great bluish globe of earth, hanging like a huge balloon in the black sky. He saw the myriad pinpoints of light in the blackness on all sides of it, and shook his head, trying to think. So many things to think of, ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse
... addressing a bow-legged friend, "are them legs of yourn natural or artificial?" "Artificial, me lad. I went up in a balloon, and ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... boy, "couldn't we ride on the elephant's back?" and he was so excited, this little boy was, that he danced up and down with his red balloon. All the children ...
— Tum Tum, the Jolly Elephant - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum
... resulting from the nature of things. Far from it. On the contrary, it supplies a solid basis to intellectual investigations, and, so to speak, an answer for all the moral sciences, to this saying of Roederer: "Politics is a field which has been traversed thus far only in a balloon; it is time to put foot ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... party was to ride To see an air balloon; And all the company beside Were dressed and ready soon: But she a woful case was in, For want of ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... it stopped repeatedly to question Kaffirs or country folk, and to communicate with the cyclists and other patrols who were scouring the country on the flanks, reached Chieveley, five miles from Colenso, by about three o'clock; and from here the Ladysmith balloon, a brown speck floating above and beyond the distant hills, was ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... you cannot see the formation very well from the sea, Dick. If one were in a balloon it would be different. You must remember that there are many hundreds of islands scattered in that part ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer
... the pen must needs go and drop a blot like a balloon right over his name, so that the whole letter had to be copied out again before his mother would say that she was satisfied, by which time the yellow sky was dun and the magpies were ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... from the armies, near or remote. But there was some alarm in the upper portion of the city about 9 P.M. last night, from a signal seen (appended to a balloon) just over the western horizon. It was stationary for ten minutes, a blood-red light, seen through a hazy atmosphere. I thought it was Mars, but my eldest daughter, a better astronomer than I, said it was neither the time nor place for it to be visible. The air was still, and the dismal barking ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... I assure you that aristocrat has become essential to me, and he can be made to further the success of our plans. Besides, to shoot a mere amateur in Chouannerie would be as absurd as to fire on a balloon when a pinprick would disinflate it. For heaven's sake leave cruelty to the aristocracy. Republicans ought to be generous. Wouldn't you and yours have forgiven the victims of Quiberon? Come, send your twelve men to patrol the town, and dine with me and bring ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... molehill, yet no man is knighted for climbing a molehill. One little drop of water and one little grain of sand are essentially as wonderful as 'the mighty ocean' or 'the beauteous land' to which they contribute. A balloon is no more wonderful than an air-bubble, and were you to build an Atlantic liner as big as the Isle of Wight it would really be no more remarkable than an average steam-launch. Nobody marvels at the speed of a snail, yet, given ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... taken weeks of careful planning by members of MIT's Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. The device consisted of a weather balloon, a hydraulic ram powered by Freon gas to lift it out of the ground, and a vacuum-cleaner motor to inflate it. They made eight separate expeditions to Harvard Stadium between 1 and 5 A.M., locating an unused 110-volt circuit in the stadium and running ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... one ought to defer the examination of regions like those around the Pole, beset, as they are, with so many difficulties, till new means of transport have been discovered. I have heard it intimated that one fine day we shall be able to reach the Pole by a balloon, and that it is only waste of time to seek to get there before that day comes. It need scarcely be shown that this line of reasoning is untenable. Even if one could really suppose that in the near or distant future ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... few of the peculiarities of the London multitude, when no riot, no execution, no murder, no balloon, disturbs the even current of their thoughts. These are the whimseys of the mass - the harmless follies by which they unconsciously endeavour to lighten the load of care which presses upon their existence. The wise man, even though he smile at them, will not altogether withhold his sympathy, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... into the room, and through the window Peter saw the familiar slopes of the Park, sleeping mistily under its shimmer. He could also see the furniture of the room with tolerable distinctness—the old balloon-backed chairs, a four-post bed in a sort of recess, and a rack against the wall, from which hung some military clothes and accoutrements; and the sight of all these homely objects reassured him somewhat, ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... is a fellow with a head like a balloon, not in size, but in contents, yes. Have you ever had a real jag on you, not the big dinner, big bottle, big cigar sort of imitation, but ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... Florence, a splendid supper was served in the garden, under military tents, draped with flags, and ornamented with groupings of arms and trophies, each lady being accompanied and served at table by an officer in uniform. When the King and Queen of Etruria came out of their tent, a balloon was released which carried into the heavens the name of ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... dining-hall amongst other things. The long line of portraits fascinated her, but not as it fascinated Peter. The significance of the change in the costumes of the portraits struck him for the first time—first the cope and mitre and cross, then the skull-cap and the tippet, then the balloon-sleeves and the wig, then the coat and breeches and white cravat, then the academic robes, and then a purple cassock. Its interest to Julie was other, however. "Peter," she whispered, "perhaps you'll be there ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... in trouble of some sort—couldn't get her hair braided, or her shoes on the right feet. Consequently, her dream book was very monotonous. The only thing worth mentioning in the way of dreams that Sara Ray ever achieved was when she dreamed that she went up in a balloon and fell out. ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of a purgative life after death is so natural, so certain, that all religions assume it. All consider the soul is a sort of air balloon, which cannot mount and attain its last end in space except by throwing away its ballast. In the religions of the East, the soul is re-incarnistic; in order to purify itself it rubs itself against a new body, like a blade in sandstone troughs, to brighten ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... would intently watch its approach. It was coming over to deal death or destruction of some sort, possibly to attack our anchored observing balloon, ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... passed the Christmas week of 1913 together, as joyous guests of the American chatelaine Mrs. Julia Park. She has given the spacious, lovely house for a military hospital. And there, while the German guns thundered a few kilometres away from us and a German sausage balloon floated in the sky, I watched the skilful ministrations of French and American doctors ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... his hands looked more alive than dead. Also did the whole scene change as sky and earth increased their fury in this blending of the real and unreal; for, now added to the noises and fitful lights, were huge balls of white smoke, and brown, springing into quick existence; some expanded to balloon size and swept majestically onward, upward; some, caught in a vortex of madness,—swirling, writhing, darting,—formed devilishly gruesome arabesques that yet were formless; some burst like pon-pons; some ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... shiver through him. Great, gorgeous galaxies! He had forgotten ... had Koa and the others? He turned so fast he lost balance and floated above the surface like a captive balloon. Santos, who had been standing near by to help if requested, hooked a toe on a ground spike, caught him, and set him upright ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... harbour. It came to him that he had bungled the matter from first to last, and that Bud or Bennietod would have used greater shrewdness. And while he was in the midst of anathematizing his characteristic confidence he stepped in the outer hallway and saw that which caused that confidence to balloon smilingly ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... the pleasures and the exquisite beauties of the lower regions—though they, too, are most fully enjoyed when they have a contrast with beauties of a different, and pleasures of a keener excitement. When first debarred, at any rate, one feels like a balloon full of gas, and fixed by immovable ropes to the prosaic ground. It is pleasant to lie on one's back in a bed of rhododendrons, and look up to a mountain top peering at one from above a bank of cloud; ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... remarkable that only one woman ever joined this community. Mrs. Lamb merely followed wheresoever her husband led,—"as ballast for his balloon," as she said, in ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... where nothing unclean or vicious could live. A few of the select spirits of the race may painfully climb on high by thought and effort. Get God into your hearts, and it will be like filling the round of a silken balloon with light air; you will soar instead of climbing, and 'dwell on high.' When you are up there, the things below that look largest will dwindle and 'show,' as Shakespeare has it, 'scarce so gross as beetles,' looked at from the height, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... closed behind Sam, and Eustace Hignett, lying on his back, gave himself up to melancholy meditation. He was deeply disturbed by his cousin's sad story. He knew what it meant being engaged to Wilhelmina Bennett. It was like being taken aloft in a balloon and dropped with a thud ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... clear to me that the insensibility which came upon Glaisher, and in a lesser degree upon Coxwell, when, in 1862, they ascended in a balloon to the height of thirty thousand feet, was due to the extreme speed with which a perpendicular ascent is made. Doing it at an easy gradient and accustoming oneself to the lessened barometric pressure by slow degrees, there are no such dreadful symptoms. At the same great height I found that even ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... youth of these days chooses to be sentimental in the years to come over the good old days of Urban scenery and Olive Thomas, the Balloon Girls of the Midnight Frolic and the chorus of the Winter Garden, he will be obliged to give way to the mood at home in front of the fire, see the pictures in the smoke, and hear the tunes in the dropping of the ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... kind reader, in a flying cloud or balloon (pardon the figure), driven by the wind, and knowing not where I should land—whether in slavery or in freedom—it is proper that I should remove, at once, all anxiety, by frankly making known where I alighted. The flight was a bold and perilous one; but here I am, in the great city of New York, ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... quantity to allow of its being important as an article of food. In swimming, they usually gulp down air, and, thus distending their capacious stomachs, enlarge themselves into a rounded half-floating mass, much in the same manner as the globe of balloon fishes. Their nearest affinity is to the fishes known as anglers, with which they agree in the form of their gill-openings and fins, and in the possession of filaments on the head; but the monstrously ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 564, September 1, 1832 • Various
... she continued to make the public stare for a series of years. We say stare, for we can find no more appropriate word for expressing the feelings which her fictions are calculated to excite. With plots of almost incomprehensible absurdity, they combine a style more inflated than any balloon in which Madame Blanchard ever sailed through the regions of air—a language, or rather jargon, composed of the pickings of nearly every idiom that ever did live, or is at present in existence, and sentiments ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... at work to bring your balloon to the ground, that you may quit it for them to ascend. Tiddler has enemies, like the best of mines: or they may be named lovers, if you like. And mines that have gone up, go down for a while before they rise again; ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... name tells us, is one of these. He is a small fish, living in warm seas. No doubt he has many enemies, eager to meet him and eat him. But, when they see this little fish puff out his sides like a balloon, and when pointed spines rise up all over the balloon, they think better of it! They leave him alone; and the Porcupine-fish goes back to his usual shape, the spines lying flat until wanted again. He is sometimes called ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... seen a balloon—the reader, however impatient, must listen to this allusion—whoever has seen a balloon, may have observed that in its flaccid state it can be folded and unfolded with the greatest ease, and it is manageable even by a child; but ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... more than float with the wind. It is probable that an engine sufficiently strong, built of the best steel, and propelled by the explosive power of gun cotton, or some similar explosive, would overcome the difficulty. If I were to construct such an engine I would substitute for the lifting power of a balloon that of a sail acting ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... sold by shops of prey are not proportioned nor balanced; this is probably in some way connected with the circumstance that they are made to sell, not fly. The monster kite, constructed by the light of Euclid, rose steadily into the air like a balloon, and eventually, being attached to the chair, drew Mr. Arthur at a reasonable pace about half a mile over a narrow but level piece of turf that was on the top of the downs. Q.E.D. This done, these two patient creatures had to wind the struggling monster in, and go back again ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... steadily more misty even down near the water, and now as the released balloon shot up into an altitude of five, ten, and presently twelve thousand feet, everything in Heaven and earth disappeared except that white and clammy fog. By a simultaneous impulse he lit a cigarette and I a pipe, and I remember very plainly wondering whether he felt any touch of that self-conscious ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... that Andree and his two brave companions, Strindberg and Fraenckell, who sailed away in the balloon "Oreon" from the northwest coast of Spitzbergen on that Sunday afternoon of July 11, 1897, are now in the "within" world, and doubtless are being entertained, as my father and myself were entertained by the ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson
... there came no suggestion worthy of notice, until at last there occurred to me a notable idea, and I called out suddenly that we should make a small fire balloon, and float off the line to them by such means. At that, the men about the fire were silent a moment; for the idea was new to them, and moreover they needed to comprehend just what I meant. Then, when they had come fully at it, the one who had proposed that they should make spears ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... were over a hundred spindles on each side of the frame, each revolving with the rapidity of an incipient cyclone and snapping every now and then the delicate white thread that was spun out like spiders' web from the rollers and the cylinders, making a balloon-like gown of cotton thread, which settled continuously around ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... muslin—so pulled in at the waist, and so inflated every where else, that she looked—as you saw only her neck and shoulders emerging from the enormous circle in which the rest of her was buried—like an intrepid aeronaut who has fallen by some accident through a hole in the balloon, and you were lost in calculations of the length of darning-needle that would be needed to reach to the vera superficies. Now if I invent, I like to have the honour of the invention entirely to myself; and I found it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... between the States had begun. He was made bearer of despatches by General Scott; he fought at Bull Run as lieutenant in the Second United States Cavalry, to which he had been assigned; he conducted successfully balloon reconnoissance along the Confederate lines, and so inspired General McClellan by his energy, courage, and persistence that he was appointed aide-de-camp to the general, with the rank ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... says that on the night of September 14th the inhabitants of a little village saw a balloon which was believed to be that ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 48, October 7, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... puffy rocking-chair near, sat Trixy, her chestnut hair crepe to her eyebrows and falling in a crinkling shower down to her waist. Her voluminous draperies balloon over the carpet for the space of a couple of yards on either side, and she looked from top to toe the "New Yorkiest of New York girls." They made a very nice contrast if you had an eye for effect—blonde and brunette, dash and dignity, style and classic simplicity, gorgeous ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... the oil and gas and smelter people and the coal magnates may have received the Van Dorns—still they were under the social ban of the only social Harvey that Captain Morton knew. So as a man falling from a balloon gets his balance, the Captain gasped as he came up from his low ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... they called him "Uncle" because of his shock of white hair. The Highland division, under his command, fought many battles and gained great honor, even from the enemy, who feared them and called the kilted men "the ladies from hell." It was to them the Germans sent their message in a small balloon during the retreat from the Somme: "Poor old ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... hanging in the Lydford house. She now resumed her labors unflaggingly, waving away to the closet a mauve satin, and beckoning into a trunk a favorite black-and-white chiffon. To Sylvia she said, "Now I know exactly how a balloon feels when ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... packing—weighing it and trying it in the canoe, while line of Newfoundland salts looked on, commented, and asked good-natured questions. Canoe 18 feet, guide's special, Oldtown, canvas. Weight about 80. Tent—miner's tent, pole in front, balloon silk, weight 6 lbs., dimensions 6 1/2 x 7. Three pairs 3-lb. blankets; two tarpaulins about 6 x 7; three pack straps; two 9-inch duck waterproof bags, hold 40 lbs. each; three 12-inch bags; 3 1/4 x 4 1/4 kodak; 30 rolls films, one dozen exposures each, in tin cases with electrician's ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... less for it, it was a pretty woman's weakness—she was fond of dress; and often, when she was making up her own economical millinery, she had romantic visions how nice it would be to put on really handsome stylish things—to have very stiff balloon sleeves, for example, without which a woman's dress was nought in those days. You and I, too, reader, have our weakness, have we not? which makes us think foolish things now and then. Perhaps it may lie in an excessive admiration for small ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... that people thought out the underlying principle of the law of flotation, and reduced it to the generalized statement that anything will float, the weight of which is less than that of the mass displaced by it, whether it be an iron ship floating in water, or a balloon floating in air. So long as we restrict ourselves to the mere recollection of observed facts, we shall make no progress; but by carefully considering why any force acted in the way it did, under the particular conditions observed, we arrive ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward
... for calm reflection. We are not justified, perhaps, in attributing to McClellan all the evils and errors that disfigure his tenure of office. Intellect equal to the position he could not create for himself, and ninety-nine out of one hundred men of average ability would not have descended from his balloon-like elevation with any better grace. It is in the last degree unjust to brand with disloyalty, conduct that seems to be a result natural enough to incompetency. That upon certain occasions he may have been used for disloyal ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... and Bishop Wilkins. Joseph Glanvill's prophecies. Sir William Temple's satire. Study of the flight of birds by Borelli. Lana's aerial ship. The discovery of gases. Soap-bubbles filled with hydrogen in 1782. The Montgolfier hot-air balloon, 1783. The hydrogen balloon of Professor Charles. The first aeronaut—Pilatre de Rozier. First ascents in Great Britain; James Tytler and Vincenzo Lunardi. Lunardi's narrative. Dr. Johnson and Horace Walpole on balloons. The Great Nassau. The balloon as a spectacle. Scientific work of James ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... in this and that, if you consider this and that separate and unaffected by any kind of visual medium; and measurable distances also between this point and the other, if you look down upon it as from a balloon. But, like a real landscape, it may also be seen from different points of view, and under different lights; then, according as you stand, the features of the scene will group themselves—this ridge will disappear behind that, this valley will open out before you, that other ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... just like a map!" exclaimed Peter, as he knelt up at a window. "I'm certain if I was up in a balloon it would look like a map with all those funny ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... "A balloon your granny!" exclaimed Walter, tying the legs of the antelope to his saddle pommel. "Go ahead, girls. I'll be ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... they turned away, up the gradual slope. Sophia knew no longer what she was doing. For some minutes she was as helpless as though she had been in a balloon with him. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... said Madelaine, laughing, to her brother, "you will see a beautiful balloon rising." Raphael turned quickly, and beheld a large silver ball rising slowly and majestically above the mountains. It ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... said Tom enthusiastically. "I knew Pete would come out strong. It will take a good while to get him up there. I say, boys, let's sing 'Up in a Balloon.' It will ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... gals (soon ez we split) 'll make head, An' gittin' some Miss chief or other to lead 'em, 'll go to work raisin' permiscoous Ned,' Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;— 'Yes, the North,' sez Colquitt, 70 'Ef we Southeners all quit, Would go down like a busted balloon,' sez he. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... slammed down again. He didn't have to invite the law. It arrived in three ground cruisers and two jetcopter emergency squads that came closing in like a collapsing balloon. ...
— Stop Look and Dig • George O. Smith
... such garments as are sold from the dead-house, staggered along holding each other's arms, propped one against another. Every reach-me-down that had been hanging these twenty years flapped about their limbs, hindering their progress. Trousers with baggy ankles or with gaiter tops, balloon-shaped or close-fitting, made of loose-woven stuff or so shrunk that they would not meet the boot, displaying feet where the elastic sides wriggled like living vermin, and ankles covered with vermicelli dipped in ink; then the most impossibly threadbare and discoloured ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... "this is folly and madness. For me, a humble clerk, to connect myself, even in imagination, with her! What have I to offer her? Or what even in prospect? I have been sailing in the clouds, and my tattered balloon is precipitated to the earth—I have been dreaming. How delicious was the dream! But I am now awake, and will never expose myself to the mortification of ——. I have been foolish. No, not so; for, who could come within the range of such fascinations, and not ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... it's a balloon. Are the Yankees smart enough to catch the stars?" It is enough to say the man carried the name of "balloon" during the rest of ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... route by which he had been driven, and it was only after looking for some time at the houses about him that he discovered where he was, for he felt as perplexed and confused as though he had been voyaging through the air in a balloon. Slowly he recognized his surroundings—he was close upon the confines of Victoria Park. Not a sound broke the silence, not a form was visible, the dawn was brightening rosily in the east. He drew out his watch; it was just three o'clock ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... so happy, so happy I'm afraid I'll just burst like a circus balloon. Oh, dear darling, you're so good to me. And I suppose you're sick to death of the same old thing, and dread the thought ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... polished silver, shining like a mirror, while all around was dark blue ripple,—a puff of fat black smoke, denser than any we had yet seen, suddenly emerged with a loud gurgling noise, from out the deep bosom of the calmed sea, and rose like a balloon, rolling slowly upwards, until it reached a little way above our mastheads, where it melted and spread out into a dark pall, that overhung the scene of death, as if the incense of such a horrible and polluted sacrifice could not ascend into ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... no new thing under the sun," said the Preacher. He would not say so now, if he should come to life for a little while, and have his photograph taken, and go up in a balloon, and take a trip by railroad and a voyage by steamship, and get a message from General Grant by the cable, and see a man's leg cut off without its hurting him. If it did not take his breath away and lay him out as flat as the Queen of Sheba was ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. |
