"Big" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cried Alicia Gaines, the one person in the world who didn't call me Miss Smith. "Oh, Sophy, it's like a fairy-story come true! Think of falling heir to an old, old, old lady's old, old, old house, in South Carolina! I hope there's a big old door with a fan-light, and a Greeky front with white pillars, and a big old hall, and ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... advanced between ten and twenty paces, but they approached cautiously, for a superstitious fear of the "Mzimu" and downright terror before the elephant impeded their steps. The sight of Saba startled them anew as they mistook him for a "wobo," that is, a big, yellowish-brown leopard, which lives in that region as well as in Southern Abyssinia, and whom the natives fear more than a lion, for it prefers human flesh above all other, and with unheard-of daring attacks even armed men. They quieted, ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... Brown. It was only a few minutes after Buster's disappearance that Farmer Brown's footsteps were heard coming down the Lone Little Path, and of course that ended school for that morning. But the next morning all were on hand again at sun-up, for every one wanted to hear about Buster Bear's big cousins. ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... heads, in memory of Smith's alleged single-handed victory over that number of Saracens. As Selden pointed out, when Englishmen came home from fighting the Saracens, and were beaten by them, they, to save their own credit, pictured their enemy with big, terrible faces, such as frowned at Dickens from so many coigns of vantage ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... bewilderment; and General Ople ever footed with the utmost caution to avoid that quagmire of the ridiculous. The extremer quags he had hitherto escaped; the smaller, into which he fell in his agile evasions of the big, he had hitherto been blest ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Major Lance Cooper, a big man with space-tanned features, stood in the shadow of the control bunker and watched the swarm of ground crewmen working at last-minute speed atop the loading tower. Inside him ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke
... the matter over, he said, "I'll tell you what I will do. I will hire the big fellow for driver at one hundred and twenty-five dollars per month, and the little fellow for night herder at one hundred dollars a month, and yourself for cook for one mess of twenty-five men and for driver in case of sickness or death, ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... and ale having received due attention, Mr Hall paid the bill, and slunk out of the door, with the stealthy air and conscious face of a man engaged in the commission of a crime. Mrs Hall, on the contrary, took up her big basket with the open, leisurely aspect of virtue which had nothing to fear, and marched after her husband out of ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... back, and in a cart followed the show and the ape—a big one, without a tail and with buttocks as bare as felt, but not vicious-looking. As soon as Don Quixote saw him, he asked him, "Can you tell me, sir fortune-teller, what fish do we catch, and how will it be with us? See, here are my two reals," and he bade Sancho give them ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... over the ice, past the bows, and washed past the bends on either side in froth rising as high as the channels. I noticed a great quantity of broken ice sinking and rising in the dark green curls of the billows, and big blocks would be hurled on to the schooner's bed and then be swept off, sometimes fetching the bilge such a thump as seemed to swing a bellow through her frame. It was only at intervals, however, that water fell upon the decks, for the ice ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... yellow blossoms. Leaving the flower garden, we enter a labyrinth, and arrive at a small hut, with a closed door, upon the threshold of which we have scarcely pressed, when the wicket flies open, and a big brown friar, with long beard and sandals, starts up in act to frighten us, which he succeeds in doing. This automaton Schedoni might really well produce abortion, and would not care if he did: he cannot, we suppose, be placed there as a lawful instrument of relief, for all the donzelle of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... the saddles and bridles, and once I painted 'G. O.' with green paint on the white mare's haunch. There was a squall when that was found out, but it was nothing to the storm that burst upon me when I wrote something in my mother's big Bible. As true as I am here, I don't remember what I wrote, but I know it was something about the devil, and I signed it 'Gethin Owens,' and a big 'Amen' after it. Poor old man, he was shocking angry, and he wouldn't listen to no excuse; so after a good thrashing ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... sweetbreads or hare are served; but he rushes in, and fills himself up with pea soup or salt fish, till he is fit to burst. Well, the man I spoke of gives the most unconvincing wounds and singular deaths: some one has his big toe injured, and dies on the spot; the general Priscus calls out, and seven-and-twenty of the enemy fall dead at the sound. As to the numbers killed, he actually falsifies dispatches; at Europus he slaughters 70,236 of the enemy, ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... anything. And I have known children who, though their parents were very rich and they lived very grandly, had really a great deal to bear from cross or unkind nurses or maids, whom they were frightened to complain of. For children, unless they are very spoilt, are not so ready to complain as big people think. I had nothing to complain of, but if I had had anything, it would have been easy to tell grandmamma all about it at once; it would never have entered my head not to tell her. She knew ...
— My New Home • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... the women here gossip a great deal, and the girls naturally copy their elders and gossip too; but, when preparing for Purim, they are all too busy to talk or even to ask questions. The boys, too, up to the age of twelve, are allowed to help. Some break up the big pieces of loaf-sugar, and beat up the eggs, and take the cakes, when ready, to the public ovens, for here there are no proper ovens as there are in London houses, so a public oven is built not far from the Synagogue. It is very large, and each ...
— Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago • Hannah Trager
... never saw such activity of military preparation: such Artillery, "2,000 big pieces in the Park here;" Regiments, Wagon-trains, getting under way everywhere, no man can guess whitherward; "drawn up in the Square here, they know not by what Gate they are to march." By three different Gates, I should think;—mysteriously, in Three Directions, known only to King ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... its fierce gloom? Has your heart broken As those waves break out there? Can you lie down And sleep, as a lion-cub by the old lion, When it shakes its mane out over you to hide you, And leap out with the dawn as I have done? These are big words; but, see, my hand is red: You cannot torture me, I have borne all that; And so I have some kinship with the sea, Some sort of wild alliance with its storms, Its exultations, ay, and its great wrath At last, and power upon ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... castle of Carbonek. Presently Mallory heard the clip-clop of approaching hoofbeats, and not wanting to risk an encounter in his weakened condition, he encephalo-guided the rohorse off the highway and into the deep shadows of a big oak. There was something tantalizingly familiar about the horse and rider coming down the highway. Small wonder: the "horse" was Easy Money and the rider was himself. He was on his way to the castle of Carbonek ...
— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young
... Scotswoman refrained from uttering her belief that he knew only too well, but by the time all this had been said Barbe was obliged to leave them, having arranged for the night that Eleanor should sleep in the big bed beside her sister, and their lady across it at their feet—a not uncommon arrangement in ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... one asked him to dinner, and the other to spend a week at his country-seat. And amidst these congratulations at the stroke that left him penniless, the distinguished pamphleteer left the room. How he cursed big John Burley! ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... think, before answering. As Mytyl's big brother, he felt it his duty to know everything; but her questions often puzzled him. Then he reflected that, as the Dead live under ground, they can hardly eat anything that is above it; and so he ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... not happen; so I hoped, if ever I were freed, whilst I was used well, it should be by honest means; but, as I could not help myself, he must do as he pleased; I could only hope and trust to the God of Heaven; and at that instant my mind was big with inventions and full of schemes to escape. I then appealed to the captain whether he ever saw any sign of my making the least attempt to run away; and asked him if I did not always come on board according to the time for which he gave me liberty; and, more particularly, ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... amazement—'she offend me? I like her in her tantrums; it reminds me of her when she was a baby. Lord bless you! when I go to bid her good-night, she'll give me a big kiss, poor dear—and say, Nurse, I didn't mean it! About this money, Master Henry? If I was younger I should spend it in dress and jewellery. But I'm too old for that. What shall I do with my legacy when ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... slowly, sitting down again, "I have something to tell you, inspector. My friend Hilliard—Claud Hilliard of the Customs Department—and I have made a discovery. We have accidentally come on what we believe is a criminal conspiracy, we don't know for what purpose, except that it is something big and fraudulent. We were coming to the Yard in any case to tell what we had learned, but this murder has precipitated things. We can no longer delay giving our information. The only thing is that I should have liked Hilliard ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... common playground of these narrow streets, and one sees in them pretty well every form of animal life represented, except horses. Now a long cart, drawn by oxen and well filled, toils up the hill, and not long after follows one drawn by a big dog. At a pump two tiny girls are busily employed filling stone jars, which by the beauty and purity of their outlines might have been Etruscan. Mothers beat mats at their cottage doors, and shrilly scream ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... merely remarking, with a small sigh, "You can't think how refreshing it is to get a little real talk sometimes with a cultivated man who is neither a soldier nor a civilian. Even in a big station, we're so boxed in with 'shop' and personalities. The men are luckier. They can escape now and then; shake off the women as ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... of a country bookseller, and he was born at Lichfield in 1709. He was a big, strong boy, but he suffered from a dreadful disease, known then as the King's Evil. It left scars upon his good-looking face, and nearly robbed him of his eyesight. In those days people still believed that this dreadful disease would be cured if ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... said they wanted nothing but a tent and a cooly. Well, they set out; but the Indrasan Raja forgot to put flowers on his ears, and after some days the Indrasan Raja was very, very tired, so he said, "We will sit down under these big trees and rest awhile. Our baggage will soon be here; it is only a little way behind." So they sat down, and the Raja said he felt so tired he must sleep. "Very well," said the Rani; "lay your head in my lap and sleep." After a while a shoemaker's wife came by to get some ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... other one, "I am thinking that I am quite big enough as I am—one cannot always be a giant. And as to the rest, why should you find fault that I go here hunting for snails? Surely snails do not belong to the game which your high mightinesses consider that you alone have a right to follow! Now, on the ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... port. Being an expert operator on the big calculators she found jobs wherever she cared to stay for a time. And she came to be something like the master-minded machines she tended—smooth, gray, without much personality ...
— All Cats Are Gray • Andre Alice Norton
... the boundary. I had turned off from the fence to see that dead pine with the big ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... the sides of the hills of a very brown colour, and not very deep, but rocky underneath, yet excellent planting land; the trees in general are neither very straight, thick, nor tall, yet appear green and pleasant enough; some of them bear flowers, some berries, and others big fruits, but all unknown to any of us; cocoa- nut trees thrive very well here, as well on the bays by the sea-side, as more remote among the plantations; the nuts are of an indifferent size, the milk and kernel very thick and pleasant; here are ginger, yams, ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... fortune, but through ill-luck, he soon lost it all, and was driven to beg. As he had a smooth tongue and good manners, he really did very well in his new profession, and he devoted himself specially to making friends with the servants in big houses, so as to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... face of the big, earnest man before him; he felt suddenly very grown up. His father had seldom talked ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... and his wife, in a tiny house at the end of Cheyne Walk. On misty evenings we used to sit, all three, on the sill of the bow-window, watching the big barges float by, while our legs swung dangling from the high sill, and we talked of many things in the desultory way born of easy intimacy, and I used silently to marvel at the sharpness of his mind and the gentleness of hers. She was very gentle. It even irritated me, faintly, to observe ...
— The Tale Of Mr. Peter Brown - Chelsea Justice - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • V. Sackville West
... don't understand; these great, big, famous men ain't like me and you. They—they forget and—" Tears gathered in the red rims of Miss Nippett's eyes. Mavis wiped them gently away and softly ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... your 'Introduction,' for which very many thanks; I am surprised to see how big it is: I shall not be able to read it very soon. It was very good of you to send Naudin, for I was very curious to see it. I am surprised that Decaisne should say it was the same as mine. Naudin ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... gone than Blennerhassett's courage collapsed. He flung himself into a big chair, and yielded to the pressure of despondency. His wife came into the study and discovered him with his ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... I rode with Wulfhere and Wislac to right and left, came my six men, big powerful housecarles, all in black armour and carrying red and black shields, and with a red cross on their helms' fronts. And the squarest of these six, he who seemed to be their leader, looked up at me, when I turned again, with a grin that I seemed to ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... slaves, with most obedient fears, Came with the sack the lady to enclose; In vain from her stag-eyes "the big round tears Coursed one another down her innocent nose"; In vain her tongue wept sorrow in their ears; Though there were some felt willing to oppose, Yet when their heads came in their heads, that minute, Though 'twas a piteous case, they put ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... Apaches? The Shoshones would then have more than 30,000 warriors; they would sweep the country, from the sea to the mountains; from the river of the north (Columbia) to the towns of the Watchinangoes. When the white men would come in their big canoes as traders and friends, we would receive them well—if the come as foes, we will laugh at them, and whip them like dogs. These are the thoughts which I wanted to make known ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... garrison, at or near Salkehatchie Bridge, were threatening a raid up in the Fork of Big and ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... fabrication of every sort, man's Want is supplied by true Ware; how far by the mere Appearance of true Ware:—in other words, To what extent, by what methods, with what effects, in various times and countries, Deception takes the place of wages of Performance: here truly is an Inquiry big with results for the future time, but to which hitherto only the vaguest answer can be given. If for the present, in our Europe, we estimate the ratio of Ware to Appearance of Ware so high even as at One to a Hundred (which, considering the Wages of a Pope, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... somewhat military in big nature not to be subdued, always manly and able, but rarely tender, as if he did not feel himself except in opposition. He wanted a fallacy to expose, a blunder to pillory, I may say required a little sense of victory, a roll of the drum, to call his powers into full exercise. It ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... he said. "Everybody is so busy here to-day that I'm not able to get what I need about the Home. It seems a pity," he added disappointedly, "because it's so well done that people ought to know about it." He frowned at the big hospital buildings. It was apparent that the ignorance of the public concerning their excellence ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... "There's a putty big crop of patrits this season, ain't there, Squire?" sez I, when ANOTHER crowd of offiss seekers pored in. The house, dooryard, barng & woodshed was now all full, and when ANOTHER crowd cum I told 'em not to go away for want of room as the hog-pen was still empty. ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... and there were festoons of wampum, curiously made bead and shell curtains interspersed with gun racks, great moose horns and deer heads, and antlers. Tables and chairs curiously made and a great couch big enough for ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... Joyce, glancing from the rose on the dressing-table to the soft curtains of the windows, which all opened towards the morning sun. "What a change it will be from that big bare dormitory with its rows of narrow little cots." She tiptoed around the room, admiring everything, and smiling over the happiness in store for poor old Number Thirty-one, when she should find herself in ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... tremor shake the big steel fabric and the despairing shouts of the men in the stern rang in his ears. At the same moment he dived and began swimming with all his strength away from the doomed ship. Suddenly came a shock that even under water seemed to drive ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... room with big closets, and a bed which might have served for a whole boarding-school, to say nothing of a couple of oaken presses that would have held the baggage of a small army; but what struck Tom's fancy most was a strange, grim-looking, high backed chair, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... painful by the scorpions of administrative caprice. Wholesale expulsions of Jews took place in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Kharkov, and other forbidden centers. The effect of these expulsions upon the commercial life of the country was so disastrous that the big Russian merchants of Moscow and Kharkov appealed to the Government to relax the restrictions surrounding the visits ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... a big man, I'm going to be a missionary," said Robert, "and preach to the black people ...
— White Queen of the Cannibals: The Story of Mary Slessor • A. J. Bueltmann
... besides her grandfather, and that was a big, awkward boy named Christopher Nubbles, called Kit for short. He had a very large mouth and a turned-up nose, and when he spoke he had a habit of standing sidewise and twisting his head back over his shoulder. Everything he did seemed funny, and little Nell laughed at him all the while, though ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... a wall twelve yards high, forming a polygonal inclosure. At each corner of the polygon was a bastion, in which were stationed the big guns. The wall connecting the bastions is called a curtain. The bastions protected the curtains, and were themselves protected by sixteen detached forts, built on all the eminences around Paris. The ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... came to the toymaker's cottage, with the mechanical cuckoo and the windmills and the basket of soldiers and animals and the old Swiss toymaker himself, sitting like a big toy, in ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... we got into Joyce's Country, and had hot potatoes and cold milk, and Renvyle cold fowl at The Lodge, as it is styled, of Big Jacky Joyce—one of the descendants of the ancient proprietors, and quite an original Irish character. He had heard my name often, he said, from Mr. Nimmo, and knew I was a writing lady, and a friend to Ireland, and he was civil to me, and I was ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... get poor Allan out of my head. When I come up, intend to go and see his wife. What a woman! I hope our book will be successful. If so, shall put another on the stocks. Capital subject; early life, studies, and adventures; some account of my father, William Taylor, Whiter, Big Ben, etc., etc. Had another letter from Ford; wonderful fellow; seems in high spirits. Yesterday read "Letters from the Baltic"; much pleased with it; very clever writer; critique in Despatch harsh and unjust; quite uncalled for; blackguard ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... the matter," he said at last, with some brusqueness. "There are certain subjects connected with psychic phenomena on which it is best to be silent; besides, what interest can such things have for you? You are a sportsman,—keep to your big game, ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... affair had been financial. He'd gone to Kenton, talked Baker's widow out of a couple of family photographs, and had hiked back to New York, hoping for a sale to a big daily. ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... The General's smooth big cheeks rested on the stiff collar of his uniform. He must have been already looking at Razumov, because that last saw the pale blue ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... with childlike solemnity out of his big blue eyes, listened to both sides of the story, and to Henry's miscalculation, at no time during the recital did he laugh uproariously, or exclaim compassionately, or indicate that he ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... argued on grounds of national interest and justice against the passion of the moment could scarcely obtain a hearing. An appeal for a second day's discussion was rejected; the debate abruptly closed; and the declaration of war was carried against seven dissentient votes. It was a decision big with consequences for France and for the world. From that day began the struggle between Revolutionary France and the established order of Europe. A period opened in which almost every State on the Continent gained some new character from the aggressions of France, from the ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... two steps at a time, and went into a room on the second floor, a room furnished something after the fashion of a library in which her father sat in a big leather chair chewing ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... teenchy, weenchy bit of a thing! Ef he ain't the very littlest! Lordy, Lordy, Lordy! But I s'pose all thet's needed in a baby is a startin'-p'int big enough to hol' the fam'ly ch'racteristics. I s'pose maybe he is, but the po' little thing mus' feel sort o' scrouged with 'em, ef he's got 'em all—the Joneses' an' the Simses'. Seem to me he favors her a little thess ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... Magnus. "Only the owners of the houses don't know it. There is a big pond in the Chapel. That's ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... with a big blue envelope in his hand, and, as the young man wheels round, he reveals the uniform and bright facings of ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... to publish the book. They think, down there, that it will have a very pretty success—not be a big seller, of course, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... bear in mind that to obtain money somehow or other—and I see no other way than by marriage—is necessary to me, and that with as little delay as possible. I am not at all likely to get a big editorship for some years to come, and I don't feel disposed to make myself prematurely old by toiling for a few hundreds per annum in the meantime. Now all this I have frankly and fully explained to Marian. I dare say she suspects what I should do if she came ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... owing to the altitude and the north-eastern exposure, but a large furnace is one of the more modern changes. Milan itself is not materially unlike the smaller Ohio towns of its own time or those of later creation, but the venerable appearance of the big elm-trees that fringe the trim lawns tells of its age. It is, indeed, an extremely neat, snug little place, with well-kept homes, mostly of frame construction, and flagged streets crossing each other at right angles. There ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... might have thought that the whole castle was in flames; but they were only letting down a drawbridge. As I was going over this bridge, a casement window opened in the castle; and a voice, which I knew to be old Ellinor's, exclaimed, "Mind the big hole in the middle of ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... starling are laid in the knot-hole of the pollard elm—common eggs, but within each a speck that is not to be found in the cut diamond of two hundred carats—the dot of protoplasm, the atom of life. There was one row of pollards where they always began laying first. With a big stick in his beak the rook is blown aside like a loose feather in the wind; he knows his building-time from the fathers of his house—hereditary knowledge handed down in settled course: but the stray things of the hedge, how do they know? The great blackbird has planted his ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... how words fail upon occasion; and on this occasion the silence lasted some considerable time. And then Philip put Lois into one of the big easy-chairs, and went down on one knee at her feet, holding her hand. Lois tried to collect ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... packed up, those guys with the big hollow instruments all had the laugh on me," he said. "Now I've got it on them. I ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... so big with menace and with storm; this but, which made the heart of Raoul beat, such griefs did it presage for her whom lately he loved so dearly; this terrible but, so significant in a woman like Montalais, was interrupted by a moderately loud noise heard by the speakers proceeding ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... dangerous rocky precipices by the side of the way to be daringly scaled and slid down? Do not the geese live in this pasture, and the sheep and the one solitary pig in that? The raspberry vines droop their rosy fruit into her hand, the tall, big, golden-rods snap their stalks so unexpectedly when she bends them, while she finds herself unable to gather the slender grasses. Then there are such charming nooks for hiding, among the ferns and hazel-bushes, and the bits of mica glistening all along the road are each of ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... and the angels mind it. God, of whom the children always hear so much, plays a very large part in these conceptions, and is made directly responsible for all cosmic phenomena. Thus thunder to these American children was God groaning or kicking or rolling barrels about, or turning a big handle, or grinding snow, or breaking something, or rattling a big hammer; while the lightning is due to God putting his finger out, or turning the gas on quick, or striking matches, or setting paper on fire. According to Boston children, God is a big, perhaps a blue, man, ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... neckties, gloves, ribbons, and dresses. Silk cloth is woven from the cocoons made by silkworms. A silkworm is about as big as your largest finger. It grows to this size from the egg in one month. In three or four days it spins a shell of silk thread completely surrounding itself. This shell is called a cocoon. Within this it ...
— Health Lessons - Book 1 • Alvin Davison
... on horseback with a short stabbing-spear. There he met the mahseer of the Poonch, beside whom the tarpon is as a herring, and he who lands him can say that he is a fisherman. This was as new and as fascinating as the big-game shooting that fell to his portion, when he had himself photographed for the mother's benefit, sitting on the flank ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... day Charles Babcock and Albert Button, two of our big boys, suddenly appeared at the school-house door with their best teams hitched to great bob-sleds, and amid much shouting and laughter, the entire school (including the teacher) piled in on the straw which softened the bottom of ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... long. In these pools could be seen fish by the dozen from a foot to eight feet long. I was slightly troubled because it would muddy my shoes, but I began to try to get some of them out. I got one very big one by the gill slit, but could not manage him and had to let him go. I handled several in the dream, but do not know whether or ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... meet you all, and to meet you to-night, or, rather, this morning," said Dantes, warmly, "in order that I may render you an account of my stewardship for the past six hours. They have been hours big with fate; and the first day of Republican France has already commenced. Messieurs, we can no longer remain blind to the fact that the long looked for—hoped for—expected hour has come—the hour to strike—strike home for liberty and for France! To-morrow the streets of ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... must be so, why then so let it go, Let the giddy-brain'd times turn round; Now we have our King, let the goblets be crowned, And our monarchy thus we recover; Whilst the pottles are weeping We'll drench our sad souls In big-belly'd bowls, And our sorrows in wine shall lie steeping. And we'll drink till our eyes do run over, And prove it by reason, It can be no treason To drink or to sing A mournifal of ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... plentiful or so cheap as beauty to the lover of the beautiful. It may be had for the taking. We have fallen into the habit of looking to foreign lands for plants with which to beautify our gardens, thus neglecting and ignoring the beauty at our own doors. A shrub with a long name and a good big price attached will win our admiration, while a native plant, vastly more desirable, will be wholly overlooked. It ought not to be so. "Home first, the world afterward" is the motto of many patriotic men and women, and it ought to be the motto of ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... Millicent had been little more than a child; she had looked up to Mark as she might have done to a big brother, as something most admirable, as one whose dictum was law. During the last year there had been some slight change, but more, perhaps, on Mark's part than on hers. He had consulted her wishes more, had asked instead of ordered, and had begun to treat her as if conscious that she ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... thing of all, and though this M'bisibi is a wise man, as we all know, and indeed the only wise man of your people, has brought out this devil-child, and makes a killing palaver, then M'ilitani will come very quickly with his soldiers and there will be an end to little chiefs and big chiefs alike." ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... Hebron, in the plain of Mamre, where Abraham came to bemoan his loss. Venerable man! thine was no common mourning! Thou didst not merely sit upon the ground, assuming the customary attitude of grief; but thine were genuine sorrows! What big tears of undissembled pain poured down thine aged cheeks! How did affection recal the days, and months, and years of delightful union, which time had strengthened, but death had now dissolved! And yet, while nature demanded this tribute of ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... re-written again and again with the profoundest care. He was afraid that he might commit himself by an epithet. He dreaded even an adverb too much. He found that a full stop expressed his feelings too violently, and wrote the letter again, for the fifth time, because of the big initial which followed the full stop. The consequence of all this long delay was, that Miss Thoroughbung had heard the news, through the brewery, before it reached her in its legitimate course. Mr. Prosper had written his postscript by accident, and, ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... will render the human skin impervious to any metal point or sharpened edge of a knife or dagger, and calls himself the "Man with Iron Skin." He is now exhibiting himself, and his greatest feat is to pass with his entire body through a hoop the inside of which is hardly big enough to admit his body and is closely set with sharp knife-points, daggers, nails, and similar things. Through this hoop he squeezes his body with absolute impunity. The physicians do not agree as to his immunity, and some of them think that Rhannin, which is his name, is a fakir who has by long ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... buckshot in one barrel and ball in the other, and remained as quiet as a mouse. As the noise of the beaters and dogs approached me, I heard a crash in the bushes within about forty yards of me, and presently a magnificent stag as big as a cow came slowly out of the cover, looking behind him, evidently not expecting an enemy in front. As soon as he was well clear of the bushes, I fired at him with buckshot and killed him dead. I hardly had time to think, when, with a tremendous ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... this gate by night, that they durstna sae weel hae brought in by the main port and in open dayAnd some said that ane o' them turned a saint (or aiblins wad hae had folk think sae), and settled him down in this Saint Ruth's cell, as the auld folks aye ca'd it, and garr'd big the stair, that he might gang up to the kirk when they were at the divine service. The Laird o' Monkbarns wad hae a hantle to say about it, as he has about maist things, if he ken'd only about the place. But whether it was made for man's devices ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... were abandoned that the Newmarket programs were extended to take their place in some measure, and the headquarters of the turf became very busy. Racing men were thankful for small mercies; the extra meetings were well attended and big fields ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... ladies, and walked the whole circuit of the church. Our ladies talked meanwhile exactly as they might at an American watering-place, without apparently observing anything about them. When we came to the statue of St. Peter, P—— said, pointing to the big toe: "You see there the mischief that can be done by too much kissing." Nearly a third of the toe has been worn away by the oscular applications of ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... this moment seemed, to the man rowing stroke, who heard more than his mate, to apply to the thicker and taller man of the two. This one, who seemed to treat his pal as an inferior or subordinate, met his gaze, not flinching. His companion seemed less at his ease, and to him the big man said, scarcely moving his lips to say it:—"Steady, fool!—if you shy, we're done." On which the other remained motionless. What they said was heard by a boy close at hand; but for whose version, given afterwards, this story would have been in ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... more than a big kink in the long slope; but it is a very big one. It is an intellectual event. Emotionally the consumption that was wasting Europe continued to run its course; the Renaissance was a mere fever-flash. To literature, however, its importance is immense: for literature can ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... big wood; there he could baffle anybody following him, for while his pursuer would be going round one way he would be coming back the other. But it would be lonely in the big wood; and as he hurried down the old cart-track he thought how he might while away an hour among ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... and helped up the gangway by a wharfinger and a deck hand. The next morning he was asked to resign, and from that day his career was damned. From the command of a crack steamship to that of a tramp collier was a big come-down; but Proctor was glad to get the collier after a month's idleness. For nearly a year all went well. He had had a lesson, and did not drink now, not even on shore. A woman who had stood to him in his first disgrace had promised to ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... which he was supposed to preside was an empire. Perhaps the very worst polity ever devised by human perverseness was the system under which the great German race was then writhing and groaning. A mad world with a lunatic to govern it; a democracy of many princes, little and big, fighting amongst each other, and falling into daily changing combinations as some masterly or mischievous hand whirled the kaleidoscope; drinking Rhenish by hogsheads, and beer by the tun; robbing churches, dictating creeds to their subjects, and breaking all the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... slave chillun. He never sont us out to wuk in de fields 'til us was 'most growed-up, say 12 or 14 years old. A Nigger 12 or 14 years old dem days was big as a white child 17 or 18 years old. Why Miss, Niggers growed so fast, dat most of de Nigger nurses warn't no older dan de white chillun dey tuk keer of. Marster said he warn't gwine to send no babies to de fields. When slave chillun got to be 'bout 9 or 10 years old dey started 'em to ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... taken upon me (right Honourable) in manner of that unlearned and foolish Poet, Cherillus, who rashly and unadvisedly wrought a big volume in verses, of the valiant prowesse of Alexander the Great, to translate this present booke, contayning the Metamorphosis of Lucius Apuleius; being mooved thereunto by the right pleasant pastime and ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... lying off the harbour at Yokohama was brilliantly lit from stem to stern. Between it and the shore the reflection of the full moon glittered on the water up to the steps of the big black landing-stage. The glamour of the eastern night and the moonlight combined to lend enchantment to a scene that by day is blatant and tawdry, and the countless coloured lamps twinkling along the sea wall and dotted over the Bluff ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... is a gran' place! Jus' lak outside! Trader him live in great big house all make of smooth boards and paint' yellow and red lak the sun! Never I see before such a tall house, and so many rooms inside full of fine chairs and tables ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... in his pocket, completed packing his steamer trunk, wrote a letter to his landlord, enclosing a check for the last quarter's rent, and ran downstairs and over to the storage company, to leave an order to call for two big trunks of artist's belongings, ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... there were two brothers, who lived in the same house. And the big brother listened to his wife's words, and because of them fell out with the little one. Summer had begun, and the time for sowing the high-growing millet had come. The little brother had no grain, and asked the big one ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... with cannon-shot; there was a hole in the roof as big as a bushel-basket, where the shell went in, and in the gable an opening large enough for the passage of a cart and oxen, where it came out. It exploded, and tore the end of the ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... said slowly, "always when anything big comes along—always. And this is the biggest thing I've ever met. If only it had been some ordinary man ... but you, Peter, that I ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... street of the village—not on the sidewalks, but all over the street; everybody was lounging, loafing, chatting, waiting, alert, expectant, interested—for it was train-time. That is to say, it was diligence-time —the half-dozen big diligences would soon be arriving from Geneva, and the village was interested, in many ways, in knowing how many people were coming and what sort of folk they might be. It was altogether the livest-looking street we had seen in any village ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... many others it appeared that he studiously copied the manner of Johnson, though, indeed, upon a smaller scale." So on another occasion he calls him "one of the brightest ornaments of the Johnsonian school." "His respectful attachment to Johnson," adds he, "was then at its height; for big own literary reputation had not yet distinguished him so much as to excite a vain desire of competition with his ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... more bewitching than in her anger; her great blue eyes, open to their fullest extent, were flashing with scorn and wrath though the big tears still hung on their long lashes. The little curled upper lip showed glistening white teeth, the colour came and went in the pretty dimpled cheeks—cheeks that looked so soft and inviting. Mike bit his lips and thrust his hands in the depths of his ragged pockets, ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... and a lot of cartridges," he announced. "I'm not caring what kind it is, so long as it is a good one and not too big." ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... non-existent game of Gype and invented elaborate rules for it. Cecil came too and they played the War game Wells had invented. "Cecil," says Wells, comparing him with Gilbert, "seemed condensed: not quite big enough for ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... were great; and to those who believed that Providence sides with the big battalions, that numbers, armament, discipline, and tactical efficiency, are all that is required to ensure success, the fall of Richmond must ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... of Rome were increasing in number, and houses again appeared on either hand, at first at long intervals, and then in close succession. They were suburban houses, and there were yet more fields of reeds, quickset hedges, olive-trees overtopping long walls, and big gateways with vase-surmounted pillars; but at last came the city with its rows of small grey houses, its petty shops and its dingy taverns, whence at times came shouts and ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... English language, and seemingly upon a different design. Suppose we held our converse, not in words, but in music; those who have a bad ear would find themselves cut off from all near commerce, and no better than foreigners in this big world. But we do not consider how many have "a bad ear" for words, nor how often the most eloquent find nothing to reply. I hate questioners and questions; there are so few that can be spoken to without a lie. "Do you forgive me?" Madam and sweetheart, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... declaration poor Barbara gasped and leaned back against her pillow. Alan stood silent, though his lips turned white, while Jeekie thrust his big head through the tent opening ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... in the same order to the Council, or King's house,—as it was termed in ancient times, and drew up before it. The Big Warrior and the leading men were sitting there. The Shawnee chief sounded his war-whoop,—a most diabolical yell, and each of his followers responded. Tecumseh then presented to the Big Warrior a wampum belt of five different-colored stands, which the Creek chief handed to his ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... wonderful instrument to me; I feel we are only beginning to fathom its possibilities; not in a technical sense, but as a big avenue for expression. For me the piano is capable of reflecting every mood, every feeling; all pathos, joy, sorrow—the good and the evil too—all there is in life, all that one has lived." (This recalls a recently published remark of J. S. Van Cleve: "The piano can ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... in piquant sauce, in fat, square bottles. I make them in my factory. If you went over to the States you'd see my placards on every wall, and inside magazines, and on the back sheets of newspapers—a big, fat man eating a plate of cold meat with Ward's unrivalled piquants by his side. They used to be my father's: now they're mine. I am the Unrivalled Piquant Pickles. I run the factory. The profits grow more e-normous ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... I, however, afterward adopted various methods of improving my hand. The most successful, was copying the italics in Webster's spelling book, until{134} I could make them all without looking on the book. By this time, my little "Master Tommy" had grown to be a big boy, and had written over a number of copy books, and brought them home. They had been shown to the neighbors, had elicited due praise, and were now laid carefully away. Spending my time between the ship yard and house, I was as ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass |
