"Floating" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the South-Enders the next day, when they spied our snowy citadel, with Jack Harris's red silk pocket-handkerchief floating ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... Sir Lionel looked from the window of the tower, the walls of which were washed by a river, they descried a boat richly ornamented, and covered with an awning of cloth of gold, which appeared to be floating down the stream without any human guidance. It struck the shore while they watched it, and they hastened down to examine it. Beneath the awning they discovered the dead body of a beautiful woman, in whose features Sir Lionel easily recognized ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... white shirts drawn over their armor; she seemed to read the murderous features, lighted up by the gleam of lamps—the stealthy step, and the sudden gleam of sabres; then the yell of assault, the scream of agony, the camp floating with blood; the fury, the vengeance, the pursuit;—all these circumstances of scenes at that time too familiar to Germany passed rapidly before ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... last, of his friends, the fairies. 'Ah! Solon,' he heard them whisper, in tones that sounded like the distant tinkling of silver bells, 'this land is nameless; but those whom we lead hither, who tread its soil, and breathe its air, and gaze on its floating sparks of light, are poets forevermore!' Having said this, they vanished, and with them the beautiful indefinite land, and the flashing lights, and the illumined air; and the hunchback found himself again in bed, with the moonlight quivering on the floor, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... her; another glow, warming her floating fancy, mingled with it, giving her every-day purpose the trait of heroism. The old spirit of the dead chivalry, of succour to the weak, life-long self-denial,—did it need the sand waste of Palestine or a tournament ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... her arms, and followed the maid-servant, who had likewise taken two, to the adjacent mansion, which, though ornate and imposing, showed traces everywhere on this side that some occupant of its chambers could bend to the love of dumb creatures—feathers floating within view of the front, and hen-coops standing ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... after arch the reaches of the gently-winding street, alive from end to end with waving flags, green boughs, and fanciful devices, till the quiet golden light in the western sky closed the vista, and glorified with such a touch of its own mellow splendour the ranges of brown gables and their floating banners, that for a moment we half dreamed ourselves spectators of an historic pageant in some "dim, rich city" of old-world renown. Only for a moment, though; for when we drop our eyes to the street below us, those are our own townsfolk, well-remembered ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... of the British army, under the immediate command of General Howe, was entrenching itself strongly on Bunker's hill. Three floating batteries lay in Mystic river, near the camp, and a twenty gun ship below the ferry, between Boston and Charlestown. A strong battery on the Boston side of the water, on Cop's or Cope's hill, served to cover and strengthen the post on Bunker's hill. Another ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... me have the most beautiful ship that ever was built, all manned and ready for sea.' And there was the ship, with a flag floating from its mast on which were the words, 'King with the three crowns.' Then Bensurdatu climbed on board, and sailed away to the city where the three princesses dwelt; and when he reached the harbour he blew trumpets and beat drums, so that every one ran to the ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... as evening drew on, another wonderful spectacle presented itself, similar to that which I described at Sakkiazung, but displayed here on an inconceivably grander scale, with all the effects exaggerated. I saw a sea of mist floating 3000 feet beneath me, just below the upper level of the black pines; the magnificent spurs of the snowy range which I had crossed rising out of it in rugged grandeur as promontories and peninsulas, between which the misty ocean seemed ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... and on; after all, I have already slept, and so broken the back of the day. I will push on till I am at the end of my tether, then I will find a wood and sleep.' Within four miles my strength abandoned me. I was not even so far down the lake as to have lost the sound of the band at Lugano floating up the still water, when I was under an imperative necessity for repose. It was perhaps ten o'clock, and the sky was open and glorious with stars. I climbed up a bank on my right, and searching for a place to lie found one under a tree near a great ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... artists had become so engrossed in their occupation that they ceased to converse, and for a considerable time profound silence reigned—at least on their part, though not as regarded others, for every now and then the faint sound of laughter came floating over the tranquil lagoon from that part of the coral strand where Captain Roy was still tickling the fancies and expanding the imaginations and harrowing or soothing the feelings ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... these poems which were written by cultivated men, many poems and fragments of verse were floating about the land, come over from the old native country with the first Angles and Saxons who made their home in Britain. These were dear to the people and dear, as we shall see, to the greatest among their kings, Alfred, who was, ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... harness, as she shook his head or shifted his feet at the gate where he had been left standing. The rooks wheeled above her head in a clear blue sky, the little birds answering each other from the high furze-bushes, and the pee-wits came careering near her with their broad wings, floating movement, and long melancholy ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wasn't worth noticing. But, if they put it the other way, and ask "Can an Attribute exist without any Thing for it to belong to?", we may say at once "No: no more than a Baby could go a railway-journey with no one to take care of it!" You never saw "beautiful" floating about in the air, or littered about on the floor, without any Thing to ...
— The Game of Logic • Lewis Carroll
... was now as of a thousand heavily laden trains rumbling over hollow bridges, and the professor could only nod his approval when thus aroused from the dangerous fascination. Another minute, and the air-ship was floating towards the rear of the balloon-shaped cloud itself, each second granting the passengers a varying view of ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... of magnetism is that we cannot develop north magnetism in a bar without developing south magnetism at the same time. If it were otherwise, important consequences would result. A separate north pole of a magnet would, if attached to a floating object and thrown into the ocean, start on a journey towards the north all by itself. A possible method of bringing this result about may suggest itself. Let us take an ordinary bar magnet, with a pole at each end, and break it in the middle; then would not the north end be all ready to ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... Again, a well-known ethnologist, Mr. Westropp, informs me that he observed in Vienna a bear deliberately making with his paw a current in some water, which was close to the bars of his cage, so as to draw a piece of floating bread within his reach. These actions of the elephant and bear can hardly be attributed to instinct or inherited habit, as they would be of little use to an animal in a state of nature. Now, what is the difference between such actions, when performed by an uncultivated ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... Brussels with Julius Van Hee, the acting Consul-General of the United States at Ghent, we passed a little hillock of ground upon which was a small square slab of stone, topped by a pair of sticks—hardly more than sticks—in the shape of a cross. There was a yarn floating around the neighborhood, which had almost crystallized into legend, that this was the fresh grave of a child murdered by the Germans because it refused to salute. They said the feet had been cut off and ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... the life aboard the steamers became a passion. To be even the humblest employee of one of those floating enchantments would be enough; to be an officer would be to enter heaven; to be a pilot was to be ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... his arms, looking into the silence and mist. His hand mechanically dropped to his sword, and he glanced up proudly to the silver flag with its golden lilies floating softly on the slight breeze ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... keep floating!" she whispered. "They float slowly, but they are on their way. By and by they will meet the ship. Then everything will be crushed or frozen. I try to make them stay still, but they won't do it, and I'm so tired—oh, I'm so terribly ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... the face of the earth." True, the seeds, the animals came by natural causes: but who was the Cause of those causes? Who sent the things thither, save God? And who gave them life? Who kept the life in floating seeds, in flying spores? Who made that life, when they reached the barren shore, grow and thrive in each after their kind? Who, but the Spirit of God, the Lord and Giver of life? God let His Spirit proceed and go forth from Himself upon ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... of a week he found himself growing quite fleshy, but the big red object was not beating with the same regularity as at first. At last it ceased, and the whale lay floating on the water, dead. The whale's friends declared that their late comrade had died suddenly from heart failure, induced by a cold in the nose and ...
— Short Sketches from Oldest America • John Driggs
... before nor expect to see again. I was surprised to see a light, apparently on the shore, in the direction of the marsh. It looked exactly like a lantern carried by a man. It was very indistinct, but wavered about, always floating about a foot or two from the surface, sometimes standing still as though he was looking for something on the ground, and sometimes moving very quickly. It was ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... down into the pan of dough—with sufficient success to ruin the new suits they wore as well as Aunt Malinda's "risin'." Having discovered that sugar was sweet they emptied a jar of what looked like it into a fine "floating island" and turned the custard to brine. They hid Ephraim's glasses, and Dinah's bandana; they unloosed the dogs, let the chains be fastened ever so securely; they opened the gate to the "new meadow" and let ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... seem a most exaggerated deviation from the smooth course of the narrative, but in reality it is not so. The little reflections made may serve to remind the reader, that those great universal movements, social, political and religious, floating as they are at random in the atmosphere, cannot fail, when breathed by our youth to develop into substance with their growth, and to manifest their poisonous influences later, in the lives of their wretched victims. After pondering over such reminders ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... numbers of the New York Ledger containing a long serial story by Mrs. Anna Cora Mowatt. As I remember, it was a story of the French Revolution, and the last number that I was allowed to read ended with a description of a dance in an old ch[^a]teau, when the Marquise, who was floating through the minuet, suddenly discovered blood on the white-kid glove of her right hand! I was never permitted to discover where the blood came from; I should like to find out now if I could find the novel. I remember that my mother ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... Spercheus, and reclined On restless rocks Enipeus, whore the winds Scattered above the weeds his hoary hair. Then, with Pirene and with Panope, Evenus, troubled from paternal tears, And last was Achelous, king of isles. Zacynthus here, above rose Ithaca, Like a blue bubble floating in the bay. Far onward to the left a glimmering light Glanced out oblique, nor vanished; he inquired Whence that arose, his consort thus replied - "Behold the vast Eridanus! ere long We may again behold him and rejoice. Of noble rivers none with mightier force Rolls his unwearied torrent ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... unbroken forests. Yet he turned eagerly to listen to another sound that came from human-kind. It was the wild music of the boatman's horn winding its way back from the little ship, now far away and rounding the dusky bend. Partly flying and partly floating, it stole softly up the shadowed river. The melody echoed from the misty Kentucky hills, lingered under the overhanging trees, rambled through the sighing cane-brakes, loitered among the murmuring rushes—thus growing ever fainter, ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... Floating away like the fountains' spray, Or the snow-white plume of a maiden, The smoke-wreaths rise to the starlit ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... so Strett Lords of Thought, male and female, were floating about in the atmosphere—which was not air—of their Assembly Hall. Their heads were globes of ball lightning. Inside them could be seen quite plainly the intricate convolutions of immense, less-than-half-material brains, shot through and through with rods and pencils and shapes ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... unique personal experience of welcoming it on that eve of 1902, gazing at the vast expanse of the brilliant skies through the windows of a sleeping-car, had its claim to beauty and sacredness. The rush of the train gave a sense of almost floating out into the ethereal spaces. There was a detachment from earth that hardly comes even in the sacred service of the church on that mystic midnight of a New Year. One seemed alone with the infinite Powers, and a new and deeper trust in the Giver of all Good was inspired. The beautiful lines ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... feeling some actual particles of brain and nerve are dissolved, and sent floating on this crimson current. With every motion of a muscle, whether great or small, with every process that can take place in the body, this ceaseless change of particles is going on. Wherever oxygen finds admission, its union with carbon to form carbonic acid, or with hydrogen to form water, ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... move along the promenades of the Nevskoi; gilded and glittering equipages pass over the bridges and disappear in the shadowy recesses of the islands. Whatever may be unseemly in life is covered by a rich and mystic drapery of twilight. The floating bath-houses of the Neva, with their variegated tressel-work and brilliant colors, resemble fairy palaces; and the plashing of the bathers falls upon the ear like the gambols of water-spirits. Not far from the Izaak Bridge, the equestrian statue of Peter the Great ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... "The floating clouds their state shall lend To her; for her the willow bend; 20 Nor shall she fail to see Even in the motions of the Storm Grace that shall mould the Maiden's ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... better provide themselves with articles for their support in the water. At six o'clock the Gneisenau heeled over suddenly. Clouds of steam sprang forth. Her stem swung up into the air, and she sank. Large numbers of her crew could be seen floating in the icy waves, hanging on to pieces of wreckage, and uttering terribly uncanny cries. The sea was choppy. Drizzling rain was falling. The British steamed up immediately. All undamaged boats were got out. Ropes were lowered. Lifebuoys and spars were thrown to the drowning ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... conversation, because, as he observes, "If it is not yet registered, it is possible that it might have died with the tongue from which you took it, and so have been lost for ever." "I believe," he adds, "the number of good old saws still floating as waifs and strays on the tide of popular talk to be much greater ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... got down to the pavement the door opened agreeably and a second respectful manservant stood ready. Then came the large hall, with its noiseless carpets and great Chinese jars, its lacquered cabinets and the wide staircase, and floating down the wide staircase, impatient to greet him, light and shining as a flower petal, sweet and welcoming, radiating a joyfulness as cool and clear as a dewy morning, came his mother. "WELL, little man, my son," she would cry in her happy ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... hall after performing this ceremony, Lancelot heard that a miracle had occurred, and rushed with the king and his companions down to the riverside. There the rumor was verified, for they all saw a heavy stone floating down the stream, and perceived that a costly weapon was sunk deep in the stone. On this weapon was an inscription, declaring that none but a peerless knight should attempt to draw it out, upon penalty of a grievous punishment. ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... of the lane was marked by some insignificant though very abrupt depressions and elevations of the surface. Occasionally he of the floating apparel was lost to sight; then he would appear all glorious on some small height, while the mind was compelled to revert irreverently to the picture of Moses on Mount Pisgah. He was the personification of impudence, withal, looking back and showing ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... without replying. An instant afterward, the white flag was floating over the heads of the four friends. A thunder of applause saluted its appearance; half the camp ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... stuff drooping around him; his twigs held little gold nuts and pink, rosy balls and silver stars; he had pretty little pink and white candles in his arms; but last, and most wonderful of all, the children hung a beautiful white, floating doll-angel over his head! The Little Fir Tree could not breathe, for joy and wonder. What was it that he was, now? Why was ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... fully two months, seeing that he did not return, she caused the broker to break open the store-rooms. And trying first of all the casks, she found them full of sea-water, save that in each there was perhaps a hog's-head of oil floating on the surface. Then undoing the bales, she found them all, save two that contained stuffs, full of tow, and in short their whole contents put together were not worth more than two hundred florins. Wherefore Jancofiore, knowing ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... do, boys," said Fred, returning from his boat with a long stout stick and a spade, and in a short time the noble flag of noblest Britain, the beautiful red, white, and blue, with its mingled crosses telling so much of Britain's fame and story, was floating over Havnholme. ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... down in a steady drizzle; we discovered that the waterproof cloaks which we had borrowed from Nish were not very weathertight. We climbed right up into the clouds, but still the rain held on. From the floating mist jutted great boulders and huge red cliffs. Our guide put up an umbrella and rode along crouching beneath it. At 1400 metres we reached an inn, where we lunched. A Montenegrin commissioner ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... mother must long ere this have been satisfied by Leonard, who left us to go to her, that our success has been achieved without danger, and, what she will value almost as much, without scandal; now that your foe is powerless as a reed floating on the water towards its own rot, and the Prince Von ———-is perhaps about to enter his carriage on the road to Dover, charged with the mission of restoring to Italy her worthiest son,—let me dismiss you to your own happy ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... long channel and branches inward into three bays; it is of little service for navigation, being blocked with ice all the year except in June, July, and August, and even when open encumbered with floating ice, and often enveloped in mists at the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... blind or indifferent to the danger into which he might be hurled if the channel of the river should be found lower down to be broken with rocks, or should a waterfall unexpectedly appear. After floating down a sufficient distance to render pursuit out of the question, he struck into the bank opposite to that from which he had plunged, and clambering up to the greensward above, stripped off the greater part of his clothing and hung it on the branches of a bush to dry. Then he sat down on ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... for, heeding his voice no longer, the Divine Figure passed beyond sight. And presently Ivan, lost in new meditation, perceived that he was floating softly upward, through space. About him, close as in his long-past babyhood, were clasped his mother's arms; which drew him at last into that peace that ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... seem to feel that those who wrote and sung them (the early minstrels) lived in the open air, wandering on from place to place with restless feet and thoughts, and lending an ever-open ear to the fearful accidents of war or love, floating on the breath of old tradition or common fame, and moving the strings of their harp with sounds that sank into a nation's heart. How fine an illustration of this is that passage in Don Quixote, where the knight and Sancho, going in search of Dulcinea, inquire their way ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... Stranger! Mist and Snow, And it grew wond'rous cauld: And Ice mast-high came floating by As green ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge
... for the night. And I slept, the dark hours; but restlessness took possession of me the moment I awoke. Dr. Sandford's last words rung in my heart. "It is a floating community." "Nobody else is going to stay." I must see Mr. Thorold. What if he should be ordered on, away from Washington somewhere, and my opportunity be lost? I knew to be sure that he had been very ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... nothing is recorded of any means or of any necessity for its occupants navigating it to any particular place, or from one place to another; no intention of this sort is apparent, the ark being merely a vast shelter, rendered capable of floating ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... out to avenge the affronts and ignominy which the English nation had encountered on the Island of Re, and afterwards by the shameful retreat of their armament in the month of May." But it was too late coming; the mole was finished, and the opening in it defended by two forts; and a floating palisade blocked the passage as well. The English sent some petards against this construction, but they produced no effect; and when, next day, they attacked the royal fleet, the French crews lost but twenty-eight men; "the fire-ships were turned aside by men who feared fire as little ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... warm weather had even ignited the aire and prepar'd the materials to conceive the fire, which devour'd after an incredible manner houses, furniture, and every thing. Here we saw the Thames cover'd with goods floating, all the barges and boats laden with what some had time and courage to save, as, on ye other, ye carts etc., carrying out to the fields, which for many miles were strew'd with moveables of all sorts, and tents erecting to shelter both people and what goods they could get away. Oh the miserable and ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... have company where you're goin'; for the Red Rapparee tould me to tell you that he'd wait for you. Hallo!—what's that?" he exclaimed as he cast his eye to the distance and discovered a horseman riding for life, with a white handkerchief, or flag of some kind, floating in the breeze. The elevated position in which the executioner was placed enabled him to see the signal before it could be perceived by the crowd. "Come, Sir Robert," said he, "stand where I'll place you—there's no use in asking you to hould up your head, for you're not able; but ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... of the hills," but no aunt Martha appeared. The children clambered out at last, and Susy chained the boat to a stick, which she drove into the sand. But the sand was light, and the boat was heavy, and the current strong; so before the children had walked a dozen rods, the Water-Kelpie was floating down stream of ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... which it abounded. And it was inaccessible in consequence of the large number of (slain) men, elephants, and steeds (that fell in it). And the impetus of the shaft shot constituted its current. And the slain bodies themselves constituted the timber floating on it. And cars constituted its tortoises. And heads constituted the stones scattered on its banks and bed, and scimitars, its fish in profusion. And cars and elephants formed its lakes. And it was decked with many adornments. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... contemned inferior, in moral standing, of those that surrounded him, it was difficult to be honest, and impossible to be independent. By a sort of law of nature, too, his tarred repute attracted to it every floating feather of suspicion, no less than of guilt, as to its natural seat; and thus it happened that the lofty genius of Mirabeau, under the "grand hests" of a hateful necessity, like the "too delicate spirit," Ariel, tasked to the "strong biddings" of the "foul witch Sycorax," was condemned ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... him!" exclaimed Caroline in amazement. "Alas! good dame, you little know how lighter than thistledown floating on the wind is my influence ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... gathered; but he as well would share in their displeasure, in their punishment: for he was a party to the thing of which they disapproved. All the day, from the time the Indian had called and almost simultaneously, vague rumours of trouble had come floating in the visitor's wake; he had been in anticipation; and now the thing anticipated had become a certainty. Answering he felt the cold perspiration come pouring out on his forehead; and absently, he wiped it away with the palm of his hand. Following ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... strong contrary wind kept us tacking to and fro the whole day, till the darkness made it impossible to reach Hebron, which lies in a little side bay to the north of the great fjord. There were many large icebergs around us, and we passed quite close to some floating fragments, which proved to be great lumps of ice, necessitating a turn of the helm to avoid collision with them. It was evident from the number of these, that a berg had recently broken up. I was told that yesterday a large piece fell off one near us with a crack ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... couples. Again and again he tried to catch Judith's eye, but her glance never once met his. Her great, wide eyes had a far-away look as if they saw some tragedy, the shadow of which would never fall from her. She was, indeed, the tragic muse in her floating white drapery, the tragic muse whose grief is too deep for tears. He watched her as she swept towards him in the figure of the dance, the head thrown back, slightly foreshortened, the mouth smiling with the smile that knows all things, the eyes holy ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... ultimate escape might exist; and he accordingly lost not a moment in disengaging himself from the life-buoy that still supported him, and adjusting it beneath the unconscious body of the woman in such a manner that she sat within it almost as though it were an armchair; the buoy floating aslant in the water, with its lower rim supporting the weight of the body, while its upper rim, which rose several inches above the surface of the water, pressed against and supported the woman's shoulders. ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... herself and sat up, something strange was passing in her, her face changed, her wet eyes grew dry and shining, her brows were bent and her lips compressed. Another half-hour passed. Elena, for the last time, strained her ears to listen: was not that the familiar voice floating up to her? She got up, put on her hat and gloves, threw a cape over her shoulders, and, slipping unnoticed out of the house, she went with swift steps along the road leading to ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... Peterborough, the traveller will do well to stop at Wansford for the sake of one of the best inns in Europe, well known under the sign of "The Haycock at Wansford in England." This sign represents a man stretched floating on a haycock, apparently in conversation with parties on a bridge. It is intended to illustrate the legend of Drunken Barnaby, who, travelling during the time of the plague from London northward, tasting and criticising the ale on the road, drank so much of the Northamptonshire brewst that ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... les revenus futurs, remises aux fournisseurs et autres creanciers du Tresor et negociables entre leurs mains." Clamageran, iii. 30. Necker, Compte rendu, 20. Stourm (ii. 200) thinks the amount not excessive, while acknowledging that it was so considered. The Anticipations formed in fact the floating debt of the government. Gomel, 287.] These were securities with a limited time to run, payable from a definite portion of the future revenue. They were a favorite form of investment with certain people, ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... the additional reason of higher insurance rates for the transportation of money across the Channel,—a channel infested with mines and submarines. It is no uncommon thing for boats crossing the Channel to sight floating mines, and the wonder is that disasters therefrom have ...
— The Audacious War • Clarence W. Barron
... village of West Roxbury. He went into Boston, about ten miles distant, to talk with Brownson, and to Concord to see Emerson. He entered into the working life at the Farm, but always, as it seemed to me, with the same reserve and attitude of observation. He was the dove floating in the air, not yet finding the spot on which ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... 15th, or Amhersts', with some Rangers, marched to Point Levi, having numerous skirmishes on the way. Captain Campbell posted his company in St. Joseph's church, and there fired a volley upon an assaulting party. On Sunday, July 1st, the regiment was cannonaded by some floating batteries, losing four killed and eight wounded. On the 9th, before daylight, the Highlanders struck tents at Point Levi, and marched out of sight of the town. On the 11th three men were wounded by the fire of the great guns from ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... easy, you may be sure,' replied Fotis. 'My mistress never runs any risks. A cup of water from a spring, with some laurel leaves and anise floating in it, is all that she needs. I have seen her do it ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... serious question arose as to whether judgment should not also be given against John and Antony de Mauprat by default. There was apparently no doubt that they had fled; the pond in which Walter's body was found floating had been drained, yet no traces of the bodies had been discovered. The chevalier, however, for the sake of the name he bore, strove to prevent the disgrace of an ignominious sentence; as if such a sentence could have added aught to the horror of the name ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... tribe The Mohawks' war array Comes floating down, where broad St. John Reflects the ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... protection of men on board ships; but at the same time, it must be conceded that they utterly fail in all the other requisites for men-of-war and sea-going vessels. They are deficient in buoyancy and speed. In truth they are nothing more than floating batteries, useful in the defence of harbors or the attack of forts. The melancholy end of the Monitor shows too plainly that vessels of her character cannot be safely trusted to the fury of the open sea. They may do well in ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... course, we passed a long range of nets kept afloat by logs of wood every thirty or forty yards; and near Goat Island we observed a large number of planks floating by for several hours, the cargo of some unfortunate vessel. Here we saw three gulls, the only birds we had observed in all our passage, and no fish, not even a porpoise, which should more readily be excused as they are ...
— A Journey in Russia in 1858 • Robert Heywood
... with such providential helps, in a biography. The absurdity of the tradition, equally defiant as it is of the consistencies of character and the facts of chronology, is a warning to those who rely on these floating confoundings of fact and fiction, which, as some one has said, "are almost as misleading as history." Two hundred years and more had seen that manor-house deserted of its former occupants. The neighboring residents had kept their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... her that some day he would be a great man, and she would be paid back a hundredfold. And he had worked hard at school, very hard. But one cold day of spring a message came to the school, and he sped homewards to the house beside the dark river down which the ice was floating,—he would remember that floating ice to his last day, and entered a quiet room where a white-faced woman was breathing away her life. And he fell at her side and kissed her hand and called to her; and she waked for a moment only and smiled on him, and said: "Be good, my boy, and God will ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... that I took an early walk next morning before breakfast. No sooner had I made my escape from Aunt Horsingham's room, than, in utter defiance of the cold thaw just commencing, I put my bonnet on and made the best of my way to the moat. Sure enough, large fragments of ice were floating about where the surface had been broken, close to the side farthest from the Hall. There were footprints on the snow though, leading away through the Park in the direction of Muddlebury, and I came back to breakfast with a heart lightened of at least half ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... too much prejudice against a negro's understanding, who, though he might well wonder at the bulk and swiftness of the first ship, would scarcely conceive it to be either a bird or a fish, but having seen many bodies floating in the water, would think it, what it really is, a large boat; and, if he had no knowledge of any means by which separate pieces of timber may be joined together, would form very wild notions concerning its construction, or, perhaps, suppose it ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... Alps was itself of a blue that was almost white, as if the snow had tinted it; some silvery clouds were floating just over the pale summits, and on the other side of the gulf Nice, lying close to the water, stretched like a white thread between the sea and the mountain. Two great sails, driven by a strong breeze, seemed to skim over the waves. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... in the middle of the bay, towered a gigantic statue, many times higher than the masts of our ship. Beyond, from behind this statue, came the broad river upon whose waters we were floating, its surface all a-glitter with the rising sun. To the East, where Nofuhl was pointing, his fingers trembling with excitement, lay the ruins of an endless city. It stretched far away into the land beyond, further even than our eyes ...
— The Last American - A Fragment from The Journal of KHAN-LI, Prince of - Dimph-Yoo-Chur and Admiral in the Persian Navy • J. A. Mitchell
... a little town at the bottom of a pretty amphitheatre of hills. There was a floating photographer there, as we passed, with a gang-plank run out to the shore, and framed specimens of his work hung along the town side of his ample barge. Men with teams were getting wagon-loads of sand ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... snow? The gray clouds floating high in the air seemed to promise a fall of the white flakes, but though the Curlytops and their playmates, the Taylor children, strained their eyes and made their necks ache looking up, not a feathery crystal ...
— The Curlytops and Their Playmates - or Jolly Times Through the Holidays • Howard R. Garis
... schools, primitive and inadequate, indeed, as we shall presently see, but "the little red schoolhouse on the hill," with the stars and stripes floating proudly above it, was not of that day. There were itinerant preachers who went from one locality to another, holding "revival meetings." But church buildings were rare and, to say the least, not of artistic design. There were no ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... curious that more embarrassments, and queer contre temps do not take place in the routine of human affairs, when we find so many persons floating about of one and the same name. It must be shocking to be named John Brown, troublesome to be called John Thompson, but who can begin to conceive the horrors of that man's situation, who has at the baptismal font received ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... that's not a place to bathe in, nor would it be pleasant to tumble overboard hereabouts," observed Tom, gravely. "I never can see those black monsters, with their wicked eyes, floating near and looking up at ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... had taken a sample of the surrounding ether through his laboratory test-vestibule; and shortly announced that they were now floating in ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... you lost anything he could find it for you. He didn't find it by floating a few tea-leaves in a cup. Or by trying to match cards. Or by fooling with silly things like ghosts. He didn't even find it with his legs. He found it with his head. He found it by thinking very ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... way of looking at the question, what constitutes the power of a fleet, is to consider the warship as merely a floating gun-platform. Even though this floating platform is the most complex piece of mechanism that was ever contrived by man, nevertheless its general function is simple. The war has given us enough experience to convince us that the backbone ...
— The Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner • Georg-Guenther von Forstner
... the gods, or one of them, should have evolved out of nothing all that exists: the creation was for them merely the setting in motion of pre-existing elements, and the creator only an organizer of the various materials floating in chaos. Popular fancy in different towns varied the names of the creators and the methods employed by them; as centuries passed on, a pile of vague, confused, and contradictory traditions were amassed, no one of which was held ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... herself with a little gasp. He urged her no more, but stared almost unseeingly out of the window at the roofed farmhouses, and the yellow hills, like reclaimed desert, with bright patches of cultivation, and a far, floating background of ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... nothing to recommend it but the general consent of mankind. It is universally understood that, as if it were nothing more substantial than vapour floating in the sky, every emotion of a woman is bound to end in a shower. And it is very probable that had Stevie died in his bed under her despairing gaze, in her protecting arms, Mrs Verloc's grief would have found relief in a flood of bitter and pure tears. Mrs Verloc, in ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... blue, the nearer mountains pansy purple where the pine trees stood, the foothills shaded delicately where canyons swept down to the gray plain. To the south was the sagebrush, a soft, gray-green carpet under the sun. The sky was blue, the clouds were handfuls of clean cotton floating lazily. Of the night's storm remained no trace save slippery mud when his horse struck a patch of clay, which was not often, and the packed sand still wet and ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... anchor, as if it had been cast from a ship, for there was a cable to it, and the fluke of the anchor caught in the arch of the church-door, and all the people went out of church, and wondered, and looked up into the air after the cable. There they saw a ship floating above the cable, and men on board; and next they saw a man leap overboard, and dive down to the anchor to free it. He appeared, from the motions he made with both hands and feet, like a man swimming in the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... up into a starlit heaven! He had reached the mouth of the sewer and was in the river. For a moment he lay still, floating upon his back to rest. Above him he heard the tread of a sentry along the river front, and the ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... not uncertain just then," she maintained; "the mist had gone and it had not begun to get dark. And then I saw him so plainly! If it had been a fancy ghost it wouldn't have looked like that—it would have had a long white thing floating over it, and a face like a skeleton perhaps. But to see somebody just like a regular gentleman—I could never ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... estimate formed of her worth by the friend of her brother; neither is it to be understood, Sir Everard suffered this fair vision of his fancy to lead him into the wild and labyrinthian paths of boyish romance; but certain it is, the floating illusions, conjured up by his imagination, exercised a mysterious influence over his heart, that hourly acquired a deeper and less equivocal character. It might have been curiosity in the first instance, or that mere repose of the fancy upon an object of its own creation, which was ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... night before. The use to which it was to be put was soon shown by Roy. Having reached the spot where the experiment was to be tried, and having observed that there were many ducks, large and small, floating about among the reeds, he got Nelly to hold the basket, if we may so call it, as high as she could raise it. There was a hole in the bottom of it. Through this Roy thrust his head, so that the machine rested on his shoulders, his head being ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne
... proportion of those present in the Christian host, had seen the enemy in force, and they eagerly watched the vast array. It was picturesque in the extreme, with a variety and brightness of colour rivalling that of the Christian host. In banners and pennons the latter made a braver show; but the floating robes of the infidel showed a far brighter mass of colour than the steel ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... except as regards the soup. This soup was botvinya. A Russian once obligingly furnished me with a description of a foreigner's probable views on this national delicacy: "a slimy pool with a rock in the middle, and creatures floating round about." The rock is a lump of ice (botvinya being a cold soup) in the tureen of strained kvas or sour cabbage. Kvas is the sour, fermented liquor made from black bread. In this liquid portion of the soup, which is colored with strained spinach, ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... of hoof-beats which they were relentlessly urging forward. Then dawn flashed up over the chaos of rocks, pursuing night with the sweep of its broadening, translucent wings across the valley to the other range. The tops of the cotton-woods rose out of the sparkling sea, floating free of any visible support of trunks, and the rescuers saw that they were near ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... their own funds, and to the funds permanently confided to their prudence from foreign correspondents, amounting to three or four millions, the brothers, Benjamin and Abraham Goldsmid, commanded for many years, from day to day, the floating balances of the principal London bankers; and they were among bankers, what bankers are among private traders. It was their daily practice to visit most of the bankers' counting-houses, and address them briefly—"Will you borrow or lend fifty ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... the ruby; but out from the mass of the molten red, broke coruscations of all prismal hues, shooting, shifting, in a play that made the wavelets them selves seem living things, sensible of their joy. No longer was there scum or film upon the surface; only ever and anon a light rosy vapour floating up, and quick lost in the haggard, heavy, sulphurous air, hot with the conflagration rushing towards us from behind. And these coruscations formed, on the surface of the molten ruby, literally the shape of a Rose, its leaves made distinct in their outlines by sparks of emerald ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that they were exposed for a time naked to the air, but this caused no movement; yet these glands were [page 29] in an efficient state, for after 24 hrs. had elapsed, they were tried with bits of meat, and all became quickly inflected. It then occurred to me that particles floating on the secretion would cast shadows on the glands, which might be sensitive to the interception of the light. Although this seemed highly improbable, as minute and thin splinters of colourless glass acted powerfully, nevertheless, after it was dark, I put on, by the aid of a single tallow ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... favourite, and there is always competition for her. In early morning I see the brown heads and blue bathing-dresses, a- mermaiding, as they call it, in the cove below, and they come in all glowing, with the floating tresses that make Metelill look so charming, and full of merry adventures at breakfast. We all meet in the great room at the hotel for a substantial meal at half-past one, and again (most of us at least) at ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... third day of the voyage they saw a coffin with iron bands floating on the waves. The two eldest brothers sailed past without heeding it, but as soon as Sila Tsarevich saw the coffin, he ordered the sailors to pick it up, lay it on board his ship, and carry it to land. The next day a violent storm arose, by which Sila's ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... to bed she could not sleep at first. Then came a drowsing, a floating between waking and sleeping, in which a hundred swift images of her short ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... every instant upon the variations, which physical sensations oblige his organs to undergo. It will not therefore appear strange that these opinions should be fluctuating, when they depend upon the state of the nervous fluid, upon the greater or less portion of igneous matter floating in the sanguinary vessels. ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach |
