"Float" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... congenial natures, who will sometimes, in our almost sullen moods or theirs, seem as if they were kindred and congenial no more—less devoted to Spirituals, that is, to Ideas, so tender, true, beautiful, and sublime, that they seem to be inhabitants of heaven though born of earth, and to float between the two regions, angelical and divine—yet felt to be mortal, human still—the Ideas of passions, and desires, and affections, and "impulses that come to us in solitude," to whom we breathe out our souls in silence, or in almost ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 348, December 27, 1828 • Various
... green water, changed to yeasty foam, ever churns and rushes by day and night, are common; and when storms arise it bellows and roars like an angry bull. Here the clinging rock-weeds and broad kelpie float and wave idly or are lashed in anger by the waves that seem always trying to tear them ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... got thus close to it that the strangeness of this object was at all evident to me. At the first glance it was really no more exciting than an overturned carriage or a tree blown across the road. Not so much so, indeed. It looked like a rusty gas float. It required a certain amount of scientific education to perceive that the grey scale of the Thing was no common oxide, that the yellowish-white metal that gleamed in the crack between the lid and the cylinder had an unfamiliar hue. "Extra-terrestrial" ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... altar hung a great cross six feet high, which seemed to float in the air. It was made of gas-drops that quivered into each other, and struck out colors that the fire seemed to have drank up from the flowers, and turned into light ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... often noble, although it is always sad. The upper air is still bright with sunlight; a glow still rests upon the Gabelano Peak; but the fogs are in possession of the lower levels; they crawl in scarves among the sandhills; they float, a little higher, in clouds of a gigantic size and often of a wild configuration; to the south, where they have struck the seaward shoulder of the mountains of Santa Lucia, they double back and spire up skyward like smoke. Where their ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "We'll float her, my hearties!" cried Wright. "All hands ashore in the small boats. Tie hawsers to her stern ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... on days when the water felt rather less cold than usual. To drive off thoughts of his poor distressed Erica, he sometimes hammered a little at his skiff; but it was too plain that no botching that he could perform in the cave would render the broken craft safe to float in. ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... have read little and thought little on the subject of America. I will be much obliged to you, if you will direct me where I shall find the best information of what is to be said on both sides. It is a subject vast in its present extent and future consequences. The imperfect hints which now float in my mind, tend rather to the formation of an opinion that our government has been precipitant and severe in the resolutions taken against the Bostonians[867]. Well do you know that I have no kindness ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... enquire into the origin of the merry-making on crossing the line. As the Arabs, an astronomical people, have it, it has probably some reference to their now-forgotten worship of the heavenly bodies. Like us, they set on fire some combustible matter or other, and let it float away, but they add some food to it, as if there had once been a sacrifice accompanying the festival. Such, at least, I have been assured by several gentleman well acquainted with the Arab traders in the Eastern sea, ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... me because the English and Canadian public are prejudiced against 'Yankee propositions.' You yourself couldn't float it in England. On the other hand, I'm Canadian-born, and my name carries weight both in ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... life is wrought In movements of melodious thought; In symphony, great wave on wave— Or fugue, elusive, swift, and grave; A singing land, whose lyric rhymes Float on the air like village chimes: Music and Verse—the deepest part Of a whole nation's thinking heart! * * * * * Oh land of Now, oh land of Then! Dear God! the dreams, the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various
... travelling one knows not where, into regions just falling asleep in the quiet dusk. Or there is a holiday crowd, a moonlit ferry, steep wooded hills, and songs and laughter which echo in the streets and float across the tide. Or the Alps, keenly cut against the infinite depth of blue, with a whiteness and a far-off glory no tongue can utter. Or a solemn cathedral, or a busy town piled up, with church and castle high aloft and a still, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... present himself. So I tried to explain the facts. But, confound it! she was so obtuse—for I couldn't blurt the truth right out—that, before she caught on, the procession arrived. The catechumen was seated upon an empty beer-barrel, placed upon a sort of float dragged by the boys. They had with them a big drum, that terrible bassoon of Uncle Jake's, and a cornet; the noise was something terrific. Well, Miss Birdie's a good plucked one! She stood on the steps and rebuked them. That voice of hers silenced the band. ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... "It can never float through this storm," Glaucon heard him crying between the blasts, but the Athenian ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... it was in those days, when the commodious "cotton-float" had not quite yet come into use, and Poydras and other streets did not so vie with Tchoupitoulas in importance as they do now, will recall a scene of commercial hurly-burly that inspired much pardonable vanity in the breast of the ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... when I saw such a rout, I began to cry out, 'Hold, hold!' and on approaching the water, I beheld it full of Spaniards and Indians in so dense a mass that it seemed as if there was not room for a straw to float. The enemy charged on the fugitives so hotly, that in the melee they threw themselves into the water after them; and soon the enemy's canoes came up by means of the canal and took ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... summer gales do the hybridizing. It will be remembered that the organs of procreation in the perfect strawberry blossom are the pistils on the convex receptacle and the encircling stamens. The anthers of the latter produce a golden powder, so light that it will float on a summer breeze, and so fine that insects dust themselves with it and carry it long distances. When this dust, which is called pollen, comes in contact with the stigma of a pistil, it imparts the power of development both to the seed and that which sustains ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... which is neither a lake nor a sea, neither a bay nor a sound. It is a link between the Black and Aegean Seas, connected by the Bosporus with the former, and by the Dardanelles, the Hellespont, with the latter. The Sea of Marmora is 130 miles long. Seven miles to the south the Princes' Islands float on the water like airy gardens, and beyond in the blue distance are seen the ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... upon the bank, at the bottom of the hill which slopes down from 'the Earl's home'; my float was on the waters, and my back was towards the old hall. I drew up many fish, small and great, which I took from off the hook mechanically, and flung upon the bank, for I was almost unconscious of what I was about, for my mind was not with my fish. I was ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... house, erected by Palladio for the Piepolo family, is a square building of the finest style of architecture. There is a stately staircase with a marble portico on each side; the vestibules are crowded with frescoes, and made light by sky-blue ceilings across which graceful figures float amid ornament rich in design, but so well proportioned that the building carries it, as a woman carries her head-dress, with an ease that charms the eye; in short, the grace and dignity that characterize the Procuratie in the piazetta at Venice. Stone walls, admirably ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... am. Either he'll have to let go or the bank will, one or t'other. United we sink, divided one of us may float, that's the way I look at it. Lute'll stay till we can locate somebody else to take his ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... put some arnica on his handkerchief, and started out. Ma told him not to drink anything, and he said he wouldn't, but he did. He was full the third place he went to. O, so full. Some men can get full and not show it, but when Pa gets full, he gets so full his back teeth float, and the liquor crowds his eyes out, and his mouth gets loose and wiggles all over his face, and he laughs all the time, and the perspiration just oozes out of him, and his face gets red, and he ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... profound attention. The suppleness of her motions sent a thrill of delight through my frame; my heart beat madly as she turned her beautiful eyes in the direction of the spot in which I stood. What would I not have given to have had the power to precipitate myself into that luminous ocean, and float with her through those groves of purple and gold! While I was thus breathlessly following her every movement, she suddenly started, seemed to listen for a moment, and then cleaving the brilliant ether in which she was floating, like a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... style—the one has as little mercy as the other has grace. By my soul, it is unhandsome to make personal reflections on an old acquaintance, who seeks a little civil intercourse with you after nigh twenty years' separation. On my soul, Master Sallust deserves to float on the Solway better than ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... the guillotine had cut a diplomatic knot which it might have been difficult to untie. In the intervals between the Beaune and the Champagne, between the ragout of thrushes and the partridge with truffles, he fervently preached his new political creed. "The vessel of the revolution," he said, "can float into port only on waves of blood. We must begin with the members of the National Assembly and of the Legislative Assembly. That rubbish ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... cloud," said Gypsy, suddenly, after a long silence. "A little white cloud, with a silver fringe, and not have anything to do but float round all day in the sunshine,—no lessons nor torn dresses nor hateful old ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... listening. The familiar room, the familiar voice of his wife and his children—he felt weak as if he were dying. He felt weak like a drowning man who acquiesces in the waters. His strength was gone, he was sinking back. He would sink back to it all, float henceforth like ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... same meridian as we were when we fell in with the last field of ice, five days before; so that had it remained in the same situation, we must now have been in the middle of it, whereas we did not so much as see any. We cannot suppose that so large a float of ice as this was, could be destroyed in so short a time. It therefore must have drifted to the northward: and this makes it probable that there is no land under this meridian, between the latitude of 55 deg. and 59 deg., where we had ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... it up, he again assailed the loosened pinnacle, which was of weight enough, if thrown down, not only to have destroyed the remnant of the drawbridge, which sheltered the two foremost assailants, but also to have sunk the rude float of planks over which they had crossed. All saw the danger, and the boldest, even the stout Friar himself, avoided setting foot on the raft. Thrice did Locksley bend his shaft against De Bracy, and thrice did his arrow bound back from the knight's ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... the mollusc,[1] the barnacle, and which was said to proceed from the mollusc or that of the bird of paradise, the feet of which were cut off by the Malay traders who sold the skins, and which were commonly reported never to have had feet, but to float perpetually ...
— Essays on early ornithology and kindred subjects • James R. McClymont
... than a day old. Ah! I see; the old trick of the cow bunting, with a stinging human significance. Taking the interloper by the nape of the neck, I deliberately drop it into the water, but not without a pang, as I see its naked form, convulsed with chills, float downstream. Cruel? So is Nature cruel. I take one life to save two. In less than two days this pot-bellied intruder would have caused the death of the two rightful occupants of the nest; so I step in and turn things into their proper ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... shall see that I know how to right myself, and whether I yield ground one inch to the English bandog.—Up, my lieges and merry men; up and follow me! We will—and that without losing one instant—place the eagle of Austria where she shall float as high as ever floated the cognizance of king ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... some weighty articles, amongst which were three or four immense boilers, intended for a sugar-manufactory. These we tied to some large empty casks, which we pitched completely over, and hoped they would be able to float in the water. ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... the doubts which you say are entertained by some, whether the upper waters of Potomac can be rendered capable of navigation, on account of the falls and rugged banks, they are answered, by observing, that it is reduced to a maxim, that whenever there is water enough to float a batteau, there may be navigation for a batteau. Canals and locks may be necessary, and they are expensive; but I hardly know what expense would be too great for the object in question. Probably, negotiation with the Indians, perhaps even settlement, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... will perhaps do as if I were spinning it in talk under the walls of the Cathedral. I dare not now even talk of going any visits: I can truly say I wish you could drop in here some Summer Day and take a Float with me on our dull River, which does lead to THE SEA some ten miles off. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... way up the slide Lennon had perceived the copper in the float rock. He was prepared for the trader's outburst. Farley's revolver lay ready in his grasp, behind the ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... with a good deal of satisfaction. I could kill this miscreant now, if I got a chance, and no one would know it. But this very reflection made me so lighthearted that my Conscience could hardly keep his seat, but was like to float aloft toward the ceiling like a toy balloon. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... splendour of the modern transept. In Holy Week, towards evening at the Tenebrae, the divine tenor voice of Padre Giovanni, monk and singer, soft as a summer night, clear as a silver bell, touching as sadness itself, used to float through the dim air with a ring of Heaven in it, full of that strange fatefulness that followed his short life, till he died, nearly twenty years ago, foully poisoned by a layman singer in envy of a gift not matched in the memory ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... into the river and compelling them to swim it. A party of Indians was concealed on the opposite bank, who took possession of the horses as they mounted the bank from crossing the river. Butler and his party seeing this, continued to float down the river on their raft without coming to land. They concealed themselves in the bushes until night, when they crossed the river, pursued their journey, and ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... merchant it is neither deep nor profound. Horrid visions float before his rapt senses—scenes of red carnage—causing him ever and anon to awake with a start, once or twice with a cry that wakes ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... she replied. "We therns are a holy race. It is an honour to a lesser creature to be a slave among us. Did we not occasionally save a few of the lower orders that stupidly float down an unknown river to an unknown end all would become the prey of the plant men ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... planisphere and Whitaker's Almanac, and for a time day and moonlight were mere blank interruptions to the one satisfactory reality in his life—star-gazing. It was the deeps that had seized him, the immensities, and the mysterious possibilities that might float unlit in that unplumbed abyss. With infinite labor and the help of a very precise article in The Heavens, a little monthly magazine that catered for those who were under this obsession, he had at last got his opera-glass upon the new visitor to our system ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... blissful sight believe It holds her as a body strained to breast, Down on the underworld's perpetual eve She plunges the possessor dispossessed; And bids believe that image, heaving warm, Is lost to float like torch-smoke after flame; The phantom any breeze blows out of form; A thirst's delusion, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... lie down flat in the boat, and hold on to the line about twenty feet from this end, which I am going to make fast to the ferry post. Keep it clear of the bank, and let the bait float well out in the stream. The minute the 'gator swallows it, do you give the line a jerk as hard as you can, so as to fix the stick crosswise ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... enclosed by the covering of iron which is too small for them, because the ice is larger in bulk than the water. You know very well that ice floats upon water: if a boy falls through a hole into the water, he tries to get on the ice again to float him up. Why does the ice float?—think of that, and philosophise. Because the ice is larger than the quantity of water which can produce it; and therefore the ice weighs the lighter, and the water is ...
— The Chemical History Of A Candle • Michael Faraday
... his saddle on the sea. That is his home; he would not care much, if another Flood came and overflowed the dry land; for what would it do but float his good ship higher and higher and carry his proud nation's flag round the globe, over the very capitals of all hostile states! Then would masts surmount spires; and all mankind, like the Chinese boatmen in ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... globe of water, equal in bulk to Saturn, would actually weigh more. If we could conceive a vast ocean into which a globe equal to Saturn in size and weight were cast, the great globe would not sink like our earth or like any of the other planets; it would float buoyantly at the surface with one-fourth of its bulk out of ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... reduced to a full 1/2 pint. Then strain this gravy, put it in another saucepan, make a thickening of butter and flour in the above proportions, and stir it to the gravy over a nice clear fire, until it is perfectly smooth and rather thick, care being taken that the butter does not float on the surface. Skim well, add the remaining ingredients, let the sauce gradually heat, but do not allow it to boil. If this sauce is intended for an entree, it is necessary to make it of a sufficient thickness, so that it may adhere to what it ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... shelter of a bush; a few strokes brought it alongside of the petala; and the serang, bending over, handed the folded paper to the boatman, and whispered a few words in his ear. The man pushed off, and the lascar watched the boat float silently down the stream until it ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... our heads. War. All Warwickshire will leave him for my sake. Lan. And northward Lancaster hath many friends.— Adieu, my lord; and either change your mind, Or look to see the throne, where you should sit, To float in blood, and at thy wanton head The glozing head of thy base minion thrown. [Exeunt all except King Edward, Kent, Gaveston, and attendants. K. Edw. I cannot brook these haughty menaces: Am I a king, and must be over-rul'd!— ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... a strait as that through which the galatea was gliding. The channel might widen below; and, after all, he might have steered in the proper direction. With such conjectures, strengthened by such hopes, he permitted the vessel to float on. ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... signs and charms he tested and handed down to his descendants are of marvellous efficacy in the chase. In the autumn, in "the moon of the falling leaf," ere he composes himself to his winter's sleep, he fills his great pipe and takes a god-like smoke. The balmy clouds float over the hills and woodlands, filling the air with the haze of ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... were shed softer than leaves from the pine, 310 And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine, That mingle their softness and quiet in one With the shaggy unrest they float down upon; And the voice that was softer than silence said, "Lo, it is I, be not afraid! 315 In many climes, without avail, Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail; Behold, it is here,—this cup which thou Didst fill at the streamlet for me ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... fence, landed the docile creature's forefeet upon the crown or arching centre of the road. The larger half of the little equipage had then cleared our over-towering shadow: that was evident even to my own agitated sight. But it mattered little that one wreck should float off in safety, if upon the wreck that perished were embarked the human freightage. The rear part of the carriage—was that certainly beyond the line of absolute ruin? What power could answer the question? Glance of eye, thought of man, wing of angel, which of these had speed enough ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... one time laughing, at another thoughtful, calm, and even indifferent—but always attractive! Her eyes, at one time wide open, clear and bright as day, at another time half shrouded by the lashes and deep and dark as night, seemed to float before his eyes, piercing in a strange sweet way across all other ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... his name was Sandy Fergoson, an' that he was harmless crazy. He used to float around doin' odd jobs an' talkin' nonsense about stealin'; but nobody knew where he had come from, so I chipped in a little something to help bury him, an' gave up the rest of my money for a ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... Avenue bridge now is at the boat landing. There were five or six small sluiceways built up above the river leading from the platform where the lumber from the mills was piled, down to where these scows were. These sluices were used to float the lumber down to the scows. A platform was built out over the river in a very early day and was, I should say, three hundred feet wide and one thousand feet long. As the lumber came from the mills it was piled in huge piles along ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... work of unloading the wreck. There was an inlet or mouth of a creek not far from the place where they first landed, and, constructing a raft on the wreck and loading it with arms, provisions, ammunition and tools, they took advantage of the tide to float it in to shore. This was repeated daily for weeks. Clothing, sails, provisions of all kinds, half a hundred guns and as many pistols and cutlasses, with other weapons, tools, books, writing material, and, in fact, everything ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... a certain obliviousness here; a mental haze, amid which the mingled airs of "Rule Britannia" and the "Marsellaise" float indistinctly. But above all, and through all, with terrible distinctness, tones the voice of Pimblebeck; his boyish form dilated into the dimensions of a Goliath, as he pours forth the words of a Prussian revolutionary song, some few of which stand out in letters ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... been embarrassed for funds. It was found next to impossible to float a loan of a paltry seven million dollars for war purposes. He borrowed one hundred and fifty million dollars next day at a fraction above the legal rate of interest in New York. He asked Congress for 400,000 ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... directly upward, ever waving back and forth to the breath of the night wind. Nor did this horrid figure remain one moment still. There upon the very edge of the precipice, it would leap high into the air, flinging aloft long gaunt arms, even appearing to float bodily forth into the space above us, to disappear instantly, like some phantom of imagination, amid the shrouding gloom of those rock shadows—flitting swiftly, and as upon wings, along the crest; now showing directly in our front, looming like ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... and that settled it. To permit us to ride would be to establish a precedent, and there weren't going to be any precedents. And still we went on eating. That was the terrifying factor in the situation. We were bound for Washington, and Des Moines would have had to float municipal bonds to pay all our railroad fares, even at special rates, and if we remained much longer, she'd have to float bonds ...
— The Road • Jack London
... blind, the hundred different head-dresses seemed to float around her. She clung to her father's arm for support. Her mother was in an agony ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... the dividing ridge, and for him the last silence is begun. Such then was the end of youthful ambition: for food a mouthful of ashes instead of the very marrow of joy; for home not the free ocean, but a stagnant pool ringed with weeping willows, a log's fit floating-place. Here to float, marking the weed creep onward until all from bank to bank was overfilmed, and there remained no clear water of space for reflection of a single star: to float, and feel the sodden fibres of life loosening in slow decay—this was to be the last state of the ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... themselves down there,—my grandfather was among the first to put out to the rescue of the crew and passengers. He got across to Brecqhou at risk of his life, and, from his knowledge of that ragged coast and its currents, managed to float a line down to the sinking ship by means of which every man got safe ashore. There was among them a rich merchant of London, a Mr. Peter Mulholland, and he would have done much for the man who had saved ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... music of thy soul Breathes in the cloud and in the skylark's song, That float as an embodied dream along The dewy lids of Morning. In the dole That haunts the west wind, in the joyous roll Of Arethusan fountains, or among The wastes where Ozymandias the strong Lies in colossal ruin, thy control Speaks in the wedded rhyme. Thy spirit gave A fragrance to all Nature, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... if pony and youth could not escape, Dave heard a whistle float across the prairie. Looking in the direction, he made out the form of Sid Todd, riding like the wind toward him. Behind him came Roger and Phil, but the two boys were soon stopped and told ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... not attempt to straighten out quickly enough. When he did, it was too late. Alternately in the air and buried, the boat angled the Mane and was sucked into and down through the stiff wall of the corkscrew on the opposite side of the river. A hundred feet below, boxes and bales began to float up. Then appeared the bottom of the boat and the scattered heads of six men. Two managed to make the bank in the eddy below. The others were drawn under, and the general flotsam was lost to view, borne on by the swift current ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... summerhouse stood, protected on the steeper side by a low stone wall. Below them lay the moat, green-scummed and starred with water-lilies; throbbing in the midday haze, the emerald sward of the parkland seemed to float. Against the wall she halted. "What makes you say ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... them off, and each of them seized a hand, pulled me to the round bench at the back of the control cabin. They stroked my cheeks, began to murmur their "magical" phrases in their mysterious mystic secret words, and my wits began to float into a very genuine paradise where their two faces, side by side, became flower and fruit and tree ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... going around through the streams to Benton," replied the elder boy. "Think there's water enough to float us?" ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... over Schwartz, he knew not why; but the thirst for gold prevailed over his fear, and he rushed on. And the bank of black cloud rose to the zenith, and out of it came bursts of spiry lightning, and waves of darkness seemed to heave and float between their flashes over the whole heavens. And the sky where the sun was setting was all level, and like a lake of blood; and a strong wind came out of that sky, tearing its crimson cloud into fragments, and scattering them far into the ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... courage to speak until some days later. He had asked her to come to his studio to see a picture he had begun. It was nearly six o'clock; Mildred had been there nearly an hour; the composition had been exhaustively admired; but something still unsaid seemed to float in the air, and every moment that something ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... and gentlemen, I hope you are satisfied,' he concluded, letting his performance float into the fire; 'the metaphors, to say the least, are startling, but that is ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... largely drawn from his beloved Chesapeake, and "dug-up dead things"—as he called the subject under discussion—didn't interest him. He wanted to laugh—came near it—then he suddenly remembered how important a man Hodges might be and how necessary it was to give him air space in which to float his pet balloons and so keep him well ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... has been done; when the wind is unfavorable, and I have known that happen more than once, it is usual to anchor to one of these blocks of ice; we should float more or less around with them, but we would wait for a fair wind; it is true that, travelling in that way, months would be sometimes wasted where we shall ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... memoir in 1795, the great astronomer declares himself convinced that the substance by the intermediation of which the sun shines, cannot be either a liquid, or an elastic fluid. It must be analogous to our clouds, and float in the transparent atmosphere of that body. The sun has, according to him, two atmospheres, endowed with motions quite independent of each other. An elastic fluid of an unknown nature is being constantly formed on ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... Chinese boats sent, as usual, beyond the circle limited by the ship's buoys, the defunct pig's friends set to work to prepare for her obsequies. The chief object was to guard against the ravenous natives hearing the splash, as she went overboard; and next, that she should not afterwards float to the surface. The first point was easily accomplished, as will be seen presently; but there was a long debate, in whispers, amongst the men, as to the most expedient plan of keeping the body of their late pet from once more showing her snout above the stream. At length, ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... he would find a place for Lucy to stand upon with it. So he went and pushed off this plank, and let it float down to where the children were standing; and then he drew it up upon the shore, and laid it along, so that Lucy could stand upon it safely, and ...
— Rollo at Play - Safe Amusements • Jacob Abbott
... dozen—about Lord Gervase's richly appointed board. In the soft candlelight the oval table shone like a deep brown pool, in which were reflected the gleaming silver and sparkling crystal that seemed to float upon it. ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... friends—Friends in creed as well as in deed—told to me, one of "the world's people," toiling over my benumbing examination papers, their secret find of a little river in South Jersey, less than an hour from Philadelphia, where one could float in a canoe through mile after mile of unbroken woodland, and camp at night in a bit of wilderness as wildly fair as when the wigwams of the Lenni-Lenape were hidden among its pine groves. The Friends said that they "had ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... is a strongly built hull of a ship, moored in a part of a river or harbour that will afford depth of water to float vessels of any size alongside. It has one stout mast, with two immense beams attached to it near the deck, and sloping outwards over the bulwarks in such a way that their ends overhang the deck of the vessel into which masts are to be ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... blood; take to your wings and surround them on all sides. Woe to them! let us get to work with our beaks, let us devour them. Nothing can save them from our wrath, neither the mountain forests, nor the clouds that float in the sky, nor the foaming deep. Come, peck, tear to ribbons. Where is the chief of the cohort? Let ...
— The Birds • Aristophanes
... outside. But as I sat there by the window there came upon me, for the second time that day, a mounting hurry to be gone. There was nothing to account for it, but I distinctly felt an inward "Hurry! Hurry!" So propelling was it that only the knowledge that the "Tillicum" would not float until high tide kept me from finding Desire and begging her to come away at once. I did go so far as to wander restlessly down into the garden where she had gone to feed the chickens. Perhaps I would have ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... blushing clouds which float in early morning across the blue heaven, the beautiful Dia gladdened the hearts of all who dwelt in the house of her father Hesioneus. There was no guile in her soft clear eye, for the light of Eos was not more pure than the light of the maiden's countenance. There was no craft ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... previously a key driver of the Thai economy-collapsed in 1996, resulting in growing doubts that the Bank of Thailand could maintain the baht's peg to the dollar. The Bank mounted an expensive defense of the exchange rate that nearly depleted foreign exchange reserves, then decided to float the exchange rate, triggering a sharp increase in foreign liabilities that cash-strapped Thai firms were already having trouble repaying. In August 1997, the government headed by Prime Minister CHAWALIT signed an agreement with the IMF for access ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... to some point below zero on the Centigrade scale, the following series of changes will in general be observed: On reaching a point below zero, the position of which is dependent upon the nature of the salt and the amount of dilution, it will be found that ice is formed; this will float upon the surface of the solution, and may be readily removed. If the ice so removed be afterward pressed, or carefully drained, it will be found to consist of nearly pure water, the liquid draining away being a strong saline ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... of nations begins to subside into its normal channels. The waves of the great movement abate, and on the calm surface eddies are formed in which float the diplomatists, who imagine that they have caused the ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... and are not; Worlds crumble and decay, creation runs To waste—then perishes and is forgot; Yet thou, all changeless, heedest not the blot. Heaven speaks once more in thunder; empty space Trembles and wakes; new worlds in ether float, Teeming with new creative life, and trace Their mighty circles, which ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... exceeded 400 feet, for upon the surface even of Number 5, in some parts of the island, lie huge erratics 20 feet or more in diameter, which imply that they were carried by ice in a sea of sufficient depth to float large icebergs. But these big erratics, says Puggaard, never enter into the fissures as they would have done had they been of date anterior ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... juniper berries in his dimly lighted den below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive the first line of the masterpiece. She told him of Johnsy's fancy, and how she feared she would, indeed, light and fragile as a leaf herself, float away when her slight hold ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... aspects. To us, who expected every moment to see it borne forward and crush the schooner, it was appalling. But the sea filling in on the south, added to the narrowness of the arm, prevented the jam from rushing through; though a great deal of ice did float out, and, caught in the swirling currents, bumped pretty hard against the vessel's sides. The schooner swayed about heavily; but the anchor held miraculously, as we thought. Once we fancied it had given way, and held our breath till the ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... of the greatest value at this time; for the burning ship became so hot, before the raft was ready, that the passengers were obliged to jump overboard and get upon it as they best could, or float about until there was room for them all. In these circumstances the buoys were the means of saving the lives of ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... far above me float and pause, Whose pathless march no mortal may control! Ye Ocean-Waves! that, wheresoe'er ye roll, Yield homage only to eternal laws! Ye Woods! that listen to the night-birds' singing, 5 Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined, Save when your own imperious branches swinging, Have made a solemn ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... and bravely; but at the last, I heard only Madeline's voice, it grew so surpassingly clear and sweet; it seemed to float solitary in the room, and to play triumphantly about the sleeper's lips—the voice, indeed, of a free spirit in its bliss, thrilled only with some plaintive memory of ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... idea came to me. "You need never fear a shipwreck. All you need do is just slip off some or all of your clothes, take the necessary amount of luggage in your hand, and float ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... some occasional batteries erected on the shore, and by two large frigates moored across the mouth of the harbour. Thus they were effectually secured from any attempts of small vessels; and as for large ships, there was not water sufficient to float them within fighting distance of the enemy. On the whole, this battle, in which a very considerable number of lives was lost, may be considered as one of the most perilous and important actions that ever happened in any war between the two nations; for it not only defeated the projected ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... date of the above, these unhappy people suddenly disappeared from their habitation. Reckless with homesickness, they had stolen away, and made a bold push for the sea, in the vain hope that on it they might float back to the Basin of Minas. This was in the depth of winter, February, 1757. They came to the coast at Weymouth. There they soon encountered the questioning of local authority, and to excuse their intrusion Melanson made complaint against his Lancaster guardians, the history of which is in ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... is greatly improved, and I hope in three days to be in the chalet. That is, if I get some money to float me there. ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... my health, the war for Independence was won. I pray God that time may soften the bitterness it caused, and heal the breach in that noble race whose motto is Freedom. That the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack may one day float together to cleanse this ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... rne," said Bella softly, "I accept and thank you for it, little teacher; I'll try to be a patient 'pussy-pillar' though it is dark, and I don't know what may happen to me; and I'll wait hopefully till it's time to float away ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott |
