"Ladder" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... saucer which Grandet had put away and placed it on the table, looking calmly at her father as she did so. Most assuredly, the Parisian woman who held a silken ladder with her feeble arms to facilitate the flight of her lover, showed no greater courage than Eugenie displayed when she replaced the sugar upon the table. The lover rewarded his mistress when she proudly ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... at home, Mrs. Norris said. Katherine ascended the steep ladder-like stair, and having knocked at the door, entered the room. Rachel was seated in the window, which was wide open. Her elbows rested on a small table, and her chin on her clasped hands, while her large blue eyes looked steadily out over the bay, which slept blue and peaceful ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... something they were about. But I must return to my dream; for the most remarkable thing in it I have not yet told you. In one corner of the ceiling there was a hole, and through that hole came down a ladder of sun-rays—very bright and lovely. Where it came from I never thought, but of course it could not come from the sun, because there he was, with his bright coat off, playing the father of his family in the most homely Old-English-gentleman fashion ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... She suggests herself that she can know them better than we do, because she can get the true dimensions and appreciate more immediately the solid nature of a sculptured figure. When she was at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston she stood on a step-ladder and let both hands play over the statues. When she felt a bas-relief of dancing girls she asked, "Where are the singers?" When she found them she said, "One is silent." The lips of ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... of law at Christiania. In some lands to be a barrister, civil engineer, physician, or merchant, entitles one to a place on the upper rounds of the social ladder. It is different in Norway, however. To be a professor there is to be at the top of ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... glad!" cried Patsy, clapping her hands with a delighted gesture. "It's a splendid way to do good—to help young men to get a start in life. Without capital, you know, many a young fellow would never get his foot on the first round of the ladder." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... I know that, for we used to try it. Somebody always had to put down the long pole that we made into a ladder," declared Will. ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... the three eldest of whom were hard at work with their mother in matting chair-bottoms, and the fourth, though a mere child, was nursing the youngest; while the poor carpenter himself was confined to his bed, in consequence of a fall from a ladder while working at Violet-Bank, by which he was covered with wounds and contusions, and an object ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... Zealand from an agrarian economy dependent on concessionary British market access to a more industrialized, free market economy that can compete globally. This dynamic growth has boosted real incomes (but left behind many at the bottom of the ladder), broadened and deepened the technological capabilities of the industrial sector, and contained inflationary pressures. Per capita income has been rising and is now 80% of the level of the four largest EU economies. New Zealand is heavily dependent ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... mind or matter are often violated where things, true under one condition, are represented as being so universally. Our American cousins supply us with many illustrative instances. "A man is so tall that he has to go up a ladder to shave himself." Generally we require to mount, to reach anything in a very high position, but if it were our own head, however lofty we carried it, we should not require a ladder. Somewhat similar is the observation "that a young lady's head-dress is now so high, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... welcome to ma hoose,"—and I entered to inspect his gallery of pictures: among them I noticed, with surprise at such an incongruous subject for a painting, an ugly red factory in course of building, and a man on a ladder leaning against it, with a hod on his shoulder. To my inquiry about this, he replied, "Yon's mysel',—I'm proud to say; that's what I was, and this is what I am." He had made, while yet a workman, some discovery about cold blast or hot blast ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... person in the room. I then examined the skylight, only to find that, owing to the sharp inclination of the roof, it would be an utter impossibility for anyone to reach it from the outside without the aid of a ladder. I investigated this source further, thinking to find the reflection on the film to be from some street in the city below, but on account of the extent of the roof, no street was visible ...
— Zarlah the Martian • R. Norman Grisewood
... write and thus open to themselves the door of knowledge not by force but by the promise of a privilege all intelligent citizens enjoy, we are benefactors, not tyrants. To stimulate them to climb the first rounds of the ladder that they may reach the divine heights where they shall be as gods, knowing good and evil, by withholding the citizen's right to vote for a few years will be a blessing to them as well ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... unnecessary hush, "Follow me." He led to the other end of the orchard where stood the old log house that had been the home before the building of the brick one. It was now used as a tool house. Sam led up a ladder to the loft (this was all wholly delightful). There at the far end, and next the little gable pane, he again cautioned secrecy, then when on invitation Yan had once more "swelped" himself, he rummaged in a dirty old box and drew out a bow, some arrows, a rusty steel trap, ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... foot upon the ladder, then turned his eye steadfastly upon the officer. Every one present shuddered to behold its expression—it was that of ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... heard without. It was the colonel, bringing his sister-in-law to see his horse, as a sort of relief to the strain on his feelings, consequent upon his interview with Wilkinson. Mr. Pawkins had only got Timotheus' flannel shirt on, when the stable door opened. "Shin up that ladder into the loft, Mr. Pawkins," cried the benevolent Pilgrim, and the spectacle of a pair of disappearing shanks greeted the visitors on their entrance. Timotheus had escaped into the coach-house, ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... boy living in this house, named Isaiah. Isaiah was the farmer's brother. He worked hard all day on the farm, and at night he slept in a sort of garret, which they called the loft. The way to get up to the loft was by a ladder on ...
— Forests of Maine - Marco Paul's Adventures in Pursuit of Knowledge • Jacob S. Abbott
... to bring a ladder," said mamma. "He will be here in a moment, Charles. You can't pick cherries without a ladder, ...
— The Nursery, September 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 3 • Various
... afternoons, to fill up his time, and satisfy his craving for some kind of occupation, he had imposed upon himself the task of pasting paper over the broken panes of the church windows, This had kept him for a week mounted on a ladder, arranging his paper panes with great exactness, and laying on the paste with the most scrupulous care in ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... in a country village, particularly where the building is a prominent one, is sure to attract a large part of the resident population. Men, women, and children, as well as the hook and ladder company, hurried to the scene of conflagration. Everybody felt a personal interest in Crawford's. It was the great emporium which provided all the families in the village with articles of prime and secondary necessity. If Paris can ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... Sharp whistle blasts rang out along the trench, and with a cheer the men scrambled up the ladders. The bullets were cracking overhead, and occasionally a machine gun would rip and tear the top of the sand bag parapet. How I got up that ladder I will never know. The first ten feet out in front was agony. Then we passed through the lanes in our barbed wire. I knew I was running, but could feel no motion below the waist. Patches on the ground seemed to float to the rear as if I were on a treadmill and scenery was ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... blew his whistle. Mr. Hamilton Fynes made his way quietly to the lower deck, which was almost deserted. In a very few minutes he was joined by half a dozen sailors, dragging a rope ladder. The little tug came screaming around, and before any of the passengers on the deck above had any idea of what was happening, Mr. Hamilton Fynes was on board the Anna Maria, and on his way down the river, seated in a small, uncomfortable ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Kit, stripping off his coat, "if the two of you got them up a ladder inside, and down the steps to this point I reckon three of us can get them across that little level on record time. Say, your crew will think it magic when guns and ammunition are let fall for you by angels outside of ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... light rack along its centre dangled two beautifully chased speaking trumpets, and a row of heavy red-leather helmets. Axes nestled in sockets. A screaming gilt eagle, with wings outspread, hovered atop. Alongside the engine stood the hook and ladder truck and the hose cart. These smaller and less important vehicles were painted in the same scheme of colour, were equally glittering and polished. Keith commented on all ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... clanged. DeCastros, that gross, terrifying clown of a man, clumped down the ladder from the bridge to defeat the enchantment of the moment. DeCastros held sway. He was captain. He did not want Mr. Wordsley to forget ...
— The Marooner • Charles A. Stearns
... Durian trees, when ordered, and sent down some of the fruit in a few minutes—an operation which his human companions could not have accomplished without tedious delay and the construction of an ingenious ladder having slender bamboos for one of its sides, and the tree to be ascended for its other side, with splinters of bamboo driven into it by way ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... rapid ascension the stakes to which they were tied. All this is true. But here are two stories which may be doubtful, just to show what anecdotes are current in California. "A man was on top of a California pumpkin chopping off a piece with an axe, when it dropped in. He pulled up his ladder and put it down on the inside to look for it. While groping about he met a man, who exclaimed, 'Hello! What are you doing here?' 'Looking for my axe.' 'Gosh! you might as well give that up. I lost my horse and cart in here three days ago, ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... with food and water, and pulled the ladder up on board, and settled themselves each man to his oar, and kept time to Orpheus' harp; and away across the bay they rowed southward, while the people lined the cliffs; and the women wept, while the men shouted, at the starting ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... in the middle, Who makes no use of his Bladder; Although his Lady lie so near him, And so we go up a Ladder. ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... Philip, with the result that the next time the Chaplain peered down upon a private conference he found, at its close, the door by which he had gained access to the roof chamber barred on the outside, and, forcing it, he was in no better case, the ladder which connected it with another disused chamber below having been removed. Thereafter Father Benedict watched the Bishop, and his guest, partake of three meals, before he could bring himself to make known his predicament, and ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... on, or disporting with opera-dancers at a Trois Freres banquet, which some old gentleman of his father's age had taken the pains to order. If his lordship Count Almaviva wants a friend to carry the lanthorn or to hold the ladder; do you suppose there are not many most respectable men in society who will act Figaro? When Farintosh thought fit, in the fulness of time and the blooming pride of manhood, to select a spouse, and to elevate a marchioness ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the running water; I go on voyages of discovery among the ruins; I dive into the underground vaults; I scale the shattered steps of the belfry, and being unable to come down again the same way, I remain astride a gargoyle, cutting a rather sorry figure, until the miller brings me a ladder. I wander at night through the forest, and I see deer running by in the moonlight. All these things have a soothing effect on my mind, and produce the effect of ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... mountain-ridges, described at the commencement of the third stanza of this Ode as a kind of Jacob's Ladder, leading to Heaven, is produced either by watery vapours or sunny haze; in the present instance by the latter cause. Allusions to the Ode, entitled 'Intimations of Immortality,' pervade the last stanza ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... the farther end of the cabin marked the confines of a bedchamber for the "old folks." The older children climbed the ladder nailed to the wall to get to the loft floored with loose clapboards that rattled when trodden upon. The straw beds were so near the roof that the patter of the rain made music to the ear, and the spray of the ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... Gwin Harley the use of her father's library; and when she entered the room now, with that delicious faint smell of leather which all libraries possess, she sniffed first with ecstasy, and then climbing on the ladder secured the volume of the "Encyclopaedia" which she required, and seating herself at one of the center tables, was soon lost in the fascinations of her subject. After a time a little cough, very gentle, however, ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... have no fancy for nursing infant geniuses. I suppose there are some stray gleams of mind and soul among these wretches. The Lord will take care of his own; or else they can work out their own salvation. I have heard you call our American system a ladder which any man can scale. Do you doubt it? Or perhaps you want to banish all social ladders, and put us all on ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... the hatch cover was lifted, a short ladder was let down, and Evan was bidden to come up. He mounted smiling. What that smile cost him none but he knew. But he also knew that with six or more against him to show truculence would only have been to make himself ridiculous. He ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... thou ladder wherewithal The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne, The time shall not be many hours of age More than it is, ere foul sin gathering head Shall break into corruption. Thou shalt think, Though he divide the realm and give thee half It is too little, helping him to all; And he shall think that ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... make one suffer, brings with it an- other lesson, - that gluttony is a sensual illusion, and 222:1 that this phantasm of mortal mind disappears as we better apprehend our spiritual existence and ascend the ladder 222:3 of life. ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... in fact a decided similarity between the lives of Carlyle and Hawthorne, in spite of radical differences in their work and characters. Both started at the foot of the ladder, and met with a hard, long struggle for recognition; both found it equally difficult to earn their living by their pens; both were assisted by most devoted friends, and both finally achieved a reputation among the highest in their own time. If there is sometimes a melancholy tinge in their writings, ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... speculative turn of mind. Inheriting his estate burdened with debt, his grand ambition was to increase his small available income by his own exertions; to set up an establishment in London; and to climb to political distinction by the ladder of Parliament. An old friend, who had emigrated to America, had proposed to him a speculation in agriculture, in one of the Western States, which was to make both their fortunes. My father's eccentric fancy was struck by the idea. For more than a year past he had been away ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... changing character, and the sea which nurtured him is still the supreme factor in his life. Feet vie with fingers in marvellous capacity, and to see a native cocoanut gatherer run up the polished stem of a swaying palm, with greater ease and swiftness than anyone shows in mounting a ladder, transports thought to the distant past, when the ancestral stock, disembarking from the rude canoes at nightfall, sought an evening meal on the edge of the palm-forest, bowed beneath the weight of green and yellow nuts a hundred feet overhead. What wonder if ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... promenade; they are very useless in a society where their learned writings are of no account." But Voltaire was a courtier, and, in spite of his frequent revolts against patronage, was not at all averse to the incense of the salons and the favors of the great. It was another round in the ladder that led him ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... wanted not a Quarter of being perfect, when Don Henrique came; and having fixed his Rope-Ladder to that Part of the Garden-Wall, where he was expected, Ardelia, who had not stir'd from that very Place for a Quarter of an Hour before, prepar'd to ascend by it; which she did, as soon as his Servant had returned and fixed it on the inner-side of the Wall: On the Top of which, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... cycle. Here sat the Gods on high—and they were dreams of dreams. Here was our Heaven and the world of the demi-Gods—horsemen fighting among the hills. Here were the agonies done upon the beasts, souls ascending or descending the ladder and therefore not to be interfered with. Here were the Hells, hot and cold, and the abodes of tormented ghosts. Let the chela study the troubles that come from over-eating—bloated stomach and burning bowels. Obediently, then, with bowed head and brown finger alert to follow the ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... have you down," said Mr. Brennan cheerfully. "Don't cry any more, Trouble. Here come Ted and Tom with the ladder. I'll soon get ...
— The Curlytops and Their Playmates - or Jolly Times Through the Holidays • Howard R. Garis
... he's got me to thank for it. Only thing is, I pretty near got into a dam' mess myself that time. You see, I'm captain of the hook an' ladder. Well, I says to my boys, says I:—I don't know but I must ha' had more'n I could carry. The whole crowd was pretty well full!—Well, I says to my boys: Sail right in an' see that there ain't a stone left standin', 'cause if there is, Grabow'll get one ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... ordered a beautiful colored poster, "The Clifton Family, Trick Cyclists," with a portrait in the corner of his own strong face and bristling mustache—"P. T. Clifton, Manager"—one more rung in the ladder of life mounted, ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... after the accident, the chief's boat came off from the shore, the damage having been speedily and neatly repaired. Little Bahi stood on the top of the accommodation ladder as they approached, and addressed them with great asperity, using much gesticulation with ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... giving a kind of spring, it so strained the rope that, on some people pulling him by the legs, it broke and he fell down, after he had remained about four minutes suspended. His fall stunned him a little, but as soon as he was taken up, he recovered himself so far as to be able to ascend the ladder a second time, which he did with very little concern, dying with the same brutal ferocity which animated all his actions while alive. His body hangs in chains over against Greenwich, as that of Williams ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... attended only by those of ability who were likely to enter the service of Church or State, or who intended to pass on to the University. This last was to cover the period from eighteen to twenty-four. Unlike all educational practice of his time and later, Comenius here provides for an educational ladder of the present-day American type, wholly unlike the European two-class school system which (p. 353) ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... which Burton used to mesmerise his wife. From the ceiling hung a quaint Moorish lamp with many branches, and its softened rays often fall on a Damascene silver gilt coffee service studded with turquoises." At the top of the house and approached by a narrow staircase and a ladder was a large loft, built by herself, for storing her husband's manuscripts and books. On one side glittered a "small but tastefully decorated altar," while scattered around were the many relics which have since drifted ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... had gotten my speech all ready, in the launch. But as I went up the ladder I knew that I had forgotten it. Saint-Avit was in the smoking-room, with the Captain of the boat. It seemed to me that I could never find the strength to tell him, when I saw him all ready to go ashore. ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... superstitious than you are, when you refuse to pass under a ladder, or to begin a voyage on a Friday," Fil's mother answered. Then I realized that every person, every race, and every nation, and every color of mankind have their faults as well as their virtues, weak points as well as strong and good ones. There ...
— Fil and Filippa - Story of Child Life in the Philippines • John Stuart Thomson
... is a ladder somewhere," added Mary Bell, after a short pause. "Perhaps we can find a ladder that the carpenters have left somewhere about. If there is, we can put it out the window, and then climb down upon it. Let ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... once the name of the nearest minister and a rope ladder—you have no idea how primitively these matters were arranged in those days in the United States. I daresay that may be so still. And at one o'clock in the morning of the 4th of August I was standing in Florence's bedroom. I was so one-minded in ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... court. Prying open the window of an empty building, he crept in and silently slid the sash back in its place. Tiptoeing across the hall with the lightness of a cat, he crept up the dusty stairs. One, two, three flights he ascended, then feeling for the rounds of a short ladder, he climbed still higher, to lift a trapdoor at last and creep ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... frequency of these raids, it would seem, the building of Round Towers is to be attributed; they were at once belfries and places of refuge. We find, therefore, that the door is almost always many feet above the ground, being reached by a ladder afterwards drawn up by those inside. The number of these Round Towers all over the country, and the perfect preservation of many of them, show how universal this precaution was, and how effective were the refugees thus provided. It is instructive to read under this same year, ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... says I to myself, "that seems the best investment on board." So I sidled up to the old gentleman, got into conversation with him and so with the damsel; and thereupon, having used the patriarch as a ladder, I kicked him down behind me. Who should my damsel prove, but Amy Sinclair, daughter of Sir Tollemache. She certainly was the simplest, most naive specimen of girlhood ever I saw. By getting brandy and biscuit and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lighter on the River Maas at Rotterdam, without windows, without doors, with only an open hatchway from which a ladder descends, several hundred fugitives spend their nights and the best parts of their days in the iron hold, forever covered with moisture, leaky when rain comes, with the floor never dry, and pervasive with a perpetual smell like the smell of a cave which never gets the light ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... put the soiled bedding out in the late sunshine to dry and air. We strolled about the clearing, remarking again that it seemed out of sight from any possible inhabited or travelled viewpoint. Agathemer fetched a rough ladder he had seen in the cow-shed, set it against the hut, which was highest on the slope, and climbed to the top of its roof. From there, he said, he could descry nothing in any direction which looked like a town, village, farmstead or bit of highway. ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... whole history of his love, and how carefully they had concealed it from the duke her father, and told him, that, despairing of ever being able to obtain his consent, he had prevailed upon Silvia to leave her father's palace that night, and go with him to Mantua; then he showed Proteus a ladder of ropes, by help of which he meant to assist Silvia to get out of one of the windows of the palace after ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... out a hand to me, or I should have lost him in the darkness. We were in a grove of lofty trees, and at the foot of one of these, Godfrey paused. "Up with, you," he added; "and don't lose any time," and he placed my hand upon the rung of a ladder. ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... said that he had prepared a ladder, by which he had ascended into heaven and had seen the Almighty. This made the disciple still more obedient to Zerdusht. One day he asked Gushtasp why he condescended to pay tribute to Arjasp; "God is on thy side," said he, "and if thou desirest ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... flushed and excited, her hair slightly askew, her diamond eardrops flashing, directed the moving, wrapped in her great fur coat; but on the third morning we gasped when she appeared out-of-doors, carrying a little household ladder, a pail of steaming water, and sundry voluminous white cloths. She reared the little ladder against the side of the house, mounted it cautiously, and began to wash windows with housewifely thoroughness. Her stout figure was swathed in a gray sweater and on her ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... window, before which hung a dilapidated shutter by a rusty hinge. The door opened, Billy knew, into a little passage from which the room door opened, and from which a rickety ladder led up to a loft, ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... who gives way to such overstrained delicacy. Excess of conscientiousness degenerates into infirmity. Scruple is one-handed when a sceptre is to be seized, and a eunuch when fortune is to be wedded. Distrust scruples; they drag you too far. Unreasonable fidelity is like a ladder leading into a cavern—one step down, another, then another, and there you are in the dark. The clever reascend; fools remain in it. Conscience must not be allowed to practise such austerity. If it be, it will fall until, from transition to ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... yet relying on this promise, put his legs out of the window and stood on the ladder. "Now go down," said the abbe, folding his arms. Understanding he had nothing more to fear from him, Caderousse began to go down. Then the count brought the taper to the window, that it might be seen in ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... so common that they were looked upon as weeds. And though nothing remained of the brotherhood but old tales, these lingered, and were handed on; and when the children played with the lilies and bickered over them, crying, "My ladder has twelve white angels and yours has only eight," they would often call them Brother Benedict's flowers, adding, "but the real right name of ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... social strata and showed the poet that this step would raise him many rungs higher in the ladder. Seizing the moment, she persuaded Lucien to forswear the chimerical notions of '89 as to equality; she roused a thirst for social distinction allayed by David's cool commonsense; she pointed out fashionable society as the goal and the only stage for such a talent ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... too, Jean lived with his auntie, and some of our boys do that too. His father and mother were dead, and that is true here sometimes, isn't it? But in some ways things were quite different with Jean. In the first place his auntie was very, very cross, and she often made him climb up his ladder to his little garret room to go to sleep on his pallet of straw, without any supper, save a dry crust. His stockings had holes in the heels, and toes and knees, because his auntie never had time to mend them, and his shoes would have been worn out all the time ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various
... if the creative power, having discovered that it was going in a wrong direction, had retraced its steps; if it be allowable to apply common ideas and expressions to our conceptions of that Great Intelligence which has arranged the plan of the mysterious ladder ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... Mr. George Kylmer for Sir George his bokes. Nov. 30th, I cam home. Dec. 1st, Katharyn Dee her nurse was payd 6s. so nothing is owing to her. Dec. 5th, Elen my mayden fell sick. Dec. 7th, George my man had the great fall of the ladder, hora 10 fere mane. Dec. 8th, I sent a letter to Mr. Kylmer. Dec. 22nd, my Lord Chanceler's sonne, Mr. Bromley, and Sir William Herbert cam to me. Helen Cole was payd her wages and reckening tyll this Christmas, and so discharged my servyce, being newly recovered ...
— The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee - And the Catalog of His Library of Manuscripts • John Dee
... the narrow, metal ladder of the windmill, Warde following. Upon the top was a tiny platform, and here he turned on his flashlight. Crouched in a heap was their friend Blythe. He was in a state of frantic agitation, his whole form trembling ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... professor carrying his shoes under his arms and looking wise, followed by cronies, fairies, goblins, and all the troops just loosed from Noah's storm-tossed ark. They walked, they strutted, they soared, they swam, and some came in through fire. One sprite climbed up to the moon on a ladder made of leaves and frozen dew-drops. A peacock with a great hooked bill flew in and out among the branches of a pomegranate-tree pecking the rosy fruit. He screamed so loud that Apollo turned in his chariot of flame and from his burnished bow shot golden arrows at him. ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... about the lawns in the sunshine, saw him come careering past, making heavy weather of it, and smiled in salute; Shiela on a rustic ladder, pruning-knife in hand, gazed over her garden wall until the woods swallowed rotund rider and steed. As she turned to descend, her glance fell upon Hamil who was crossing the lawn directly below. For a moment they looked at each other without sign of recognition; ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... There were fabulous stories about his wealth, about his luck. This also was Margaret's world. Her ambition expanded in it with his. The things he set his heart on she coveted. Alas! there is always another round to the ladder. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the ladder-like path to the top of Clovelly, to go back to Apollo again, the sun came up out of the sea, where the blue line of water marked the edge of the world, and spilt floods of gold over it, like a tilted christening ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... came down, and went to borrow a ladder from the door-keeper, after having explained that he had obtained the favors of the old woman by painting the portrait of her cat exhibited ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... much that, Admiral Blue; or past six bells; as any one may see by the ship's clock on the great companion ladder; six bells, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... giant. Over the base rise the round pillars which support the dome and inclose the three great pipes already mentioned. Graceful as these look in their position, half a dozen men might creep into one of them and lie hidden. A man of six feet high went up a ladder, and standing at the base of one of them could just reach to put his hand into the mouth at its lower part, above the conical foot. The three great pipes are crowned by a heavily sculptured, ribbed, rounded dome; and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... anybody in this town! WHY can they? Because the men of those families made money and gave their children everything that makes life worth living! Why can't we hold our heads up? Because those men passed you in the race. They went up the ladder, and you—you're still a clerk ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... and Mrs. James Gann returned to England and occupied a house in Thames Street, City, until the death of Gann, Sr., when his son, becoming head of the firm, mounted higher on the social ladder and went to live in the neighbourhood of Putney, where a neat box, a couple of spare bedrooms, a good cellar, and a smart gig made a real gentleman of him. About this period, a daughter was born to him, called Caroline Blandenburg ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... equally necessary for a well-ordered life. What it seems to me we need is to teach the facts of life-giving, or, in other words, of sex, as a great, wide, open-air law, running right through animated creation, an ever-ascending progression forming a golden ladder leading up to man. ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... ravine on the left, steep, crooked, and cumbered with bowlders which have tumbled from somewhere and lodged in the most extraordinary groupings, became my favorite walk of a morning. There was a footpath in it, well-trodden at first, but gradually fading out as it became more like a ladder than a path, and I soon discovered that no other city feet than mine were likely to scale a certain rough slope which seemed the end of the ravine. With the aid of the tough laurel-stems I climbed to the top, passed through a cleft as narrow as a doorway, and presently found myself ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... Across on the other side of the mill was a steel shaft, which turned one of the largest of the rollers. It was high up in the air, and revolving with unimaginable speed, and Montague saw a man with an oil-can in his hand rest the top of a ladder upon this shaft, and proceed to ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... do anything that keeps them moving freely. There are countless ways of rousing their interest in measuring, perceiving, and estimating distance. There is a very tall cherry tree; how shall we gather the cherries? Will the ladder in the barn be big enough? There is a wide stream; how shall we get to the other side? Would one of the wooden planks in the yard reach from bank to bank? From our windows we want to fish in the moat; how ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... swathed in napkins, rushed from barber-shops, lathered to the eyes or with one cheek clean shaved and the other still bearing a hairy stubble. Horses broke from stables, and a frightened dog rushed up a short attic ladder and out on to a roof, and when his scare was over had not the nerve to go down again the same way he ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... have I seen!' I whispered, recovering from the fascination that held my gaze fast to the topmost rounds of the ladder, that disappeared in the darkness above the open door in ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... window, quick!" Winifred responded in an anxious whisper. "The ladder wiggles about, and ...
— A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia • Alice Turner Curtis
... that you are at the foot of the ladder, and at the same instant you stipulate that I shall lift you at a bound to the top. Either you are a lunatic, or you are ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... me what you want," he said, "I'll get it for you. I know where they all are. If it is French you want, they are up there. I like going up the ladder," ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... cavaliers approached the town at a place considered inaccessible from the steepness of the rocks on which the wall was founded, which, it was supposed, elevated the battlements beyond the reach of the longest scaling-ladder. The Moorish knights, aided by a number of the strongest and most active escaladors, mounted these rocks and applied the ladders without being discovered, for to divert attention from them Muley Abul Hassan made a false attack upon the ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... Europe we will say, to begin with—and he has an idea that he is going to be richer, smarter, happier, more on an equality with every other man than ever he was before. He comes here, and what does he find? He finds a ladder, reaching higher into the clouds, perhaps, but the lower rounds are just as near the earth as over there, and he is on the lowest round still. He sees his next-door neighbor has more money than he has, is better educated, and commands ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Irishwoman. Poor Suzanne! how distressed she was not to be able to speak English! So, while I was taking off my capotte—as the sun-bonnet of that day was called—and smoothing my hair at the glass, she had already tossed her capotte upon papa's bed and sprung up the ladder that led to the deck. (Each room had one.) I followed a little later and had the satisfaction of seeing Madame Margaretto Gordon, commonly called "Maggie" by her husband and "Maw" by her son Patrick. She was seated on a coil of rope, her son on the boards ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... but three or four to be admirals. Those who object to promotion otherwise than by mere seniority should reflect upon the elementary fact that no business in private life could be successfully managed if those who enter at the lowest rungs of the ladder should each in turn, if he lived, become the head of the firm, its active director, and retire after he had held the position a few months. On its face such a scheme is an absurdity. Chances for improper favoritism can be minimized by a properly formed board; ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Nemo went towards the panel, and disappeared down the ladder. I followed him, and went into the large drawing-room. The screw was immediately put in motion, and the log gave twenty miles ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... comparison have the greatest value. Some minds are always looking on the fortunes that are above them and comparing their own penury with the opulence of others. A wise nature will take an opposite course and will cultivate the habit of looking rather at the round of the ladder of fortune which is below our own and realising the countless points in which our lot is better than that of others. As Dr. Johnson says, 'Few are placed in a situation so gloomy and distressful as not to see every day beings yet more forlorn ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... had a ladder put over the gangway and threw a rope to the boat as it came alongside; and the next moment the stranger sprang upon the deck of the ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... which I did, and reached the house of a German from Eisenau, with a sweet young wife and a venerable mother-in-law. Though the house was very poor, it was made attractive by ornaments, and the simple, loving, German ways gave it a sweet home atmosphere. My room was reached by a ladder, but I had it to myself and had the luxury of a basin to wash in. Under the kindly treatment of the two women my feet came to themselves, but with an amount of pain that almost deserved the name ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... guide; 'no more of them ugly buckets, Mr. Neverbend; we can trust to our own arms and legs for the rest of it, and so saying, he pointed out to Mr. Neverbend's horror- stricken eyes a perpendicular iron ladder fixed firmly against the upright side of a shaft, and leading—for aught Mr. Neverbend could ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... homeward, some distance away, to partake of a little nourishment and obtain repose, as night was closing in. Turning his eyes to one side he descried a wretched house which he did not remember to have visited that day. To satisfy himself of this he mounted a few steps of the ladder, and looking from the door into the interior of the house beheld a man stretched upon the floor. Upon approaching he found him motionless and almost dead, but with enough consciousness to answer "No" to the father's query if he desired baptism. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... that happened. The woman that had taken the dollars come aboard with me, but her hands were so full that she gave me a part of the money to hold, while she climbed from the boat to the ship's side. And as she stepped on the ladder, her foot slipped, and she fell into the sea and sank like a stone; for she had dollars sewn up in her clothes so heavy, that down she went and never come up again. So there was I left with what she give ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... London for July? And, moreover, they didn't ask me. It is rather curious when one comes to think of it. I brought the Aspreys and Mercedes together, I gave her to them, one may say, but, I am afraid I must own it, they seized her and looked upon me as a useful rung in the ladder that reached her. It has been a disillusionizing experience, I can't deny it; but passons for the Aspreys and their kind. The fact is," said Miss Scrotton, dropping her voice a little, "the real fact is, dear Mrs. Forrester, that the Aspreys aren't responsible. It wasn't for them she'd have ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... old man heard her demand they went out hunting, and before evening they had killed threescore cattle. They made quarters of them, as the Eagle told them, and then the old man asked her to lie down, till they would get it all heaped up on her back. First of all, though, they had to get a ladder of fourteen steps, to enable them to get on to the Eagle's back, and there they piled up the meat as well as they could. Then the old man told the Irishman to mount, and to remember to throw a quarter of beef to her every time she looked round. He went up, and the ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... shed littered with paint-cans, tools, a lawn-mower, and ancient wisps of hay. Above it was a loft which Cy Bogart and Earl Haydock, young brother of Harry, used as a den, for smoking, hiding from whippings, and planning secret societies. They climbed to it by a ladder on the alley side ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... spaces with two groups of wrestling angels, the one bearing a huge cross, the other a column, in the air. The cross and whipping-post are the chief emblems of Christ's Passion. The crown of thorns is also there, the sponge, the ladder, and the nails. It is with no merciful intent that these signs of our Lord's suffering are thus exhibited. Demonic angels, tumbling on clouds like Leviathans, hurl them to and fro in brutal wrath above the crowd of souls, as though to demonstrate ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... replied Mr Sawbridge, as Mr Biggs stood on the plane shear of the sloop where the hammock netting divides for an entrance, with his shirt tails fluttering in the sea breeze; but Mr Sawbridge could not contain himself any longer; he ran down the ship ladder which led on the quarter-deck, choked with laughter. Mr Biggs could not descend until after Mr Sawbridge, and the conversation had attracted the notice of all, and every eye in the ship was ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... melting in the sun. They grow so soft and rosy, I watch them fascinated. It seems as if they were giving way and I find myself expecting to see them slowly turn back. Oh," impulsively, "I want them to turn back! Couldn't we get a ladder and row out there some day and climb ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... low-living foreigners will cause a perceptible fall in the entire wages of the neighbourhood in the employments which their competition affects. It is true that the Jew does not remain a low- skilled labourer for starvation wages. Beginning at the bottom of the ladder, he rises by his industry and skill, until he gets into the rank of skilled workers, or more frequently becomes a sub-contractor, or a small shopkeeper. It might appear that as he thus rose, the effect of ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... up and down his ladder on Mr. Tulkinghorn's side of the Fields when that high-priest of noble mysteries arrives at his own dull court-yard. He ascends the door- steps and is gliding into the dusky hall when he encounters, on the top step, a bowing and ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... before you become clearly aware of its existence; and if you wish to know anything of its appearance, you have either to turn the head violently off its regular axis, or cross the street and ask somebody for a step ladder. The facade of the building is not very prepossessing; the large arch, which has given way at some of the joints considerably, and has been doing its best to fall for about six years, does not look well—it is too high and ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... right, and we sat down to our rude and homely meal in the little broiling hot cabin. We were all in a very good humor. I flattered myself that my conduct in our late combat with the slaver, would advance me several steps up the ladder of promotion, whilst my friends were overjoyed at the thoughts of soon being on terra firma ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... were evidences of the reborn war of semi-movement. One day I would see a battery of light guns swing into position by a roadside, see an observing officer mount by ladder to a tree top and direct the firing of numberless rounds into the rumbling east. By the next morning, they would have changed position, rumbled off to other parts, leaving beside the road only the marks of their cannon wheels and mounds ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... sixteen, an olive-complexioned Egyptian, with keen, eager black eyes, who had listened sharply to every word spoken by the treasurer and his master, quietly rose from his squatting posture as soon as they had quitted the office, and, stole, unobserved into the anteroom. From thence he flew up the ladder-like steps which led to the dovecote of which he had the care, sprang on to the roof of the lower story, and crept flat on his face till he was close to the edge of the large square opening which ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... stretched out in front of him, for it was very dark and the turns were short. On the fourth floor he fell headlong over a bucket with a broom sticking in it, and cursed whoever left it there. There was a ladder leading from the sixth floor to the roof, and he ran up this and drew it after him as he fell forward out of the wooden trap that opened on the flat tin roof like a companion-way of a ship. The chimneys would have hidden him, but there ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... much of a size, and all opening into the kitchen. Up above, under the sloping thatch was the great solie or loft, entered from the outside through the door-window in the gable by means of a short wooden ladder. ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... Theatre and Factory Acts, &c. In New York the building code (parts 19, 20 and 21) deals with fire appliances, escapes, and fire-proof shutters and doors, fire-proof buildings and fire-proof floors, and requires that all tenement houses shall have an iron ladder for escape. A section somewhat similar to the last came into force in London in 1907 under the London Building Act, being framed with a view to require all existing projecting one-storey shops to have a fire-resisting roof, and all existing buildings ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... overwhelming disgrace, his imminent peril of death, his irretrievable ruin. There was no great probability, therefore, of his volunteering information, out of his dungeon, that should elevate me still higher on the ladder of prosperity. But the moment has now come when he must give ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ran up the gangplank with a paper in one hand and a malacca cane in the other, and I recognized him as Mr. Trego, the man to whom I had been introduced in the bank. He met Harris at the foot of the ladder to the hurricane-deck, and they were right below me, so I could not avoid hearing ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... climbing the ladder, but harder still to stand on the top," remarked the Cardinal, and he asked me to tell him something of my family history. So, as we walked through the silent streets of the slumbering city, I described sadly how the broad acres of my forefathers had ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... personal misfortune and public inconvenience of being thrown out of party connection; but a man at the bottom of the well must not try to get out, however disagreeable his position, until a rope or a ladder is put down to him. In this case my clear opinion was that by joining the government I should shock the public sentiment and should make no essential, no important, change ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... ladder was got, and papa climbed up and put poor Tip-Top safely into the nest. The cat had shaken all the nonsense well out of him; he was a ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... peculiar happiness about Margaret Rivers; her vexations were but ripples, rendering the sunny course of her life more sparkling, and each exertion in the way of goodness was productive of so much present joy that the steps of her ladder seemed, indeed, ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... more often, I think, the dreams of youth circle round the work itself. We will be of use in the world, we will find new paths and make them safe for those coming after us to walk in, we will get rid of that evil and set up a ladder towards that good; we will heal, teach, feed, amuse, uplift or cherish the other human beings round about us. We will store only for the sake of distributing; we will climb only to be better able to give ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... would explode one way or t'other afore long. He must on deck for a fresh breath o' the wet night, says he, or smother; an' he would presently drop below again, says he, in command of his temper an' restlessness. I seed, too, that the lad wished t' follow—he watched the skipper up the ladder, like a doubtful dog, an' got up an' wagged hisself; but he thought better o' the intrusion an' set sail on another vast whopper in praise o' the father whose ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... was one day descending a ladder, when one of the rounds of the latter broke and his body received a nasty jerk. He placed his hand on his heart and muttered. "I have felt something, I have felt something here." Two days afterwards he died ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... every man has his price? Or shall we say that love—the love of God and man—is the highest and divinest motive of labour—a motive possible not only to the sons and daughters of genius, but accessible to the plainest, humblest man or woman who suffers and toils on the lowest round of the ladder of life. ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... of a perfectly indolent man rising higher and higher every year on the ladder of professional advancement. I can only attribute it, my dear LAZINESS, to your beneficent influence, which preserves the great barrister from the weary labours to which his rivals daily submit. They say of him that he knows nothing of law. If I grant that, it merely proves that a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 12, 1891 • Various
... beauty and her grace, and who now as warmly applauded her execution. On reaching the foot of the scaffold she perceived the Tuileries, and appeared to be moved; but she hastened to ascend the fatal ladder, and gave herself up with ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... The ladder was nearest Slafe, but working more furiously than ever, he waved it impatiently aside and so I grasped it and started upward. The terror of the ascent paradoxically was a welcome one, for it was the common fear which comes to men on the battlefield or in the creaking hours of the night, ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... across the court yard, and approached the square tower. The guide explained to the boys that formerly the entrance was in the second story, through an opening in the wall, which he showed them. The way to get up to this opening was by a step ladder, which could be let down or drawn up by the people within, by means of chains coming down from a window above. The step ladder was, of course, entirely gone; but deep grooves were to be seen in the sill of the upper window, which had been worn by the ...
— Rollo in Scotland • Jacob Abbott
... to South America. Sweetwater can't stop them. He has barely time to get off the ship himself. There goes the last rope! Have they forgotten him? They're drawing up the ladder." ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... send you our detailed proposals; tonight let us speak of our responsibility to redefine government's role: not to control, not to demand or command, not to contain us, but to help in times of need and, above all, to create a ladder of opportunity to full employment so that all Americans can climb toward economic power and justice on ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... for deliberation. They were all obliged to take their seats as the conductor called off the names from his way bill. The two ladies entered the coupe in company with the Russian, while Mr. Howland ascended by the step ladder to his seat on the banquette. While the passengers were thus getting seated the postilions were putting in the horses, and in a moment more ...
— Rollo in Rome • Jacob Abbott
... behind the head, and from the deck a great yellow King's frigate could be plainly seen standing south to meet us, followed by her smaller consort. Presently she hove to, and through our glasses we discerned a small boat making for her side, and then a man clambering up her sea-ladder. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... unbarred below by Fortemani, who had led the way with a half-dozen of the men; and a huge scaling ladder that lay in readiness in that subterranean gallery was rushed out across the moat, which at this point was a ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... a room that seemed to occupy most of the small house. One half of it was covered with a wooden ceiling which served as the floor of a loft, while for the rest of the way there was nothing beneath the sloping rafters of the roof. A ladder reached from the floor to the loft, and at one end, that nearest the outer door, a fire ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... afternoon that he was going out of town to a place called Cavite. Departing that afternoon, he returned at night. Having notified the guards and soldiers to that effect, he climbed over the wall by means of a ladder, and went to the house of one of the companions who went with him (for many of his adherents went with him, and some who were hired). Going with them from this house, he stationed men at the place where he had planned that his wife would come with a young boy whom she sheltered ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... crew, for only the steersman and the lookout would stay on deck. Bob, somewhat recovered from his seasickness, lay wide-eyed in his bunk and heard such tales of plunder and savagery on the high seas as made his blood run cold. When Jeremy came dripping down the ladder, early that afternoon, he found the Delaware lad staring at Pharaoh Daggs with a look of positive terror. The buccaneer's evil face was lit up by the rays of the smoky lantern, hung from a hook in one of the deck beams. He ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... with the secretary, the judge of the Inquisition, the surgeon, and another masked man in an underground vault faintly lit by hanging lamps. On one side were the massive doors studded with rusty knobs, of airless cells; on the rough, spider-webbed wall opposite, against which leaned an iron ladder, were fixed iron rings at varying heights. A thumbscrew stood in the corner, and in the centre was a small writing-table, at which the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... moment as if he had not quite taken in his father's words, then, leaving his supper untouched, he rose slowly, and without a word climbed the ladder to the loft. The mother followed him a moment with her eyes, and then once more turning to Billy Jack, held him with calm, steady gaze. Her immediate fear was for her eldest son. Thomas, she knew, would ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... in spite of his faults, an honest and kind-hearted man, and his death, caused by a fall from a ladder, was much regretted by his good vicar. On his death-bed the old clerk sent for his favourite grandson, who succeeded him in his office, and made this pathetic request: "Thou'lt dig my ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... year's. We are falling out of Scylla into Charybdis. Oho! I drown. Confiteor; one poor word or two by way of testament, Friar John, my ghostly father; good Mr. Abstractor, my crony, my Achates, Xenomanes, my all. Alas! I drown; two words of testament here upon this ladder. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... successful man of letters and of the world though he was, he had gone out of his way to stretch a hand to the gifted starveling he had discovered struggling for a foothold on the bottommost rung of the ladder of literary fame, and had not only helped him up the ladder but had drawn him, in his weakness and his strength, into the circle of his friendship, and now he had no idea of letting him go. Mr. ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... many hours, so much did he admire it. One evening he remained later than usual. The Angelus had sounded, and the Sacristan wished to close the church. He asked the painter why he lingered so long. He responded, "I am waiting until those men have brought the body of our blessed Lord down the ladder." When Murillo died he was buried, according to his wish, immediately under ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor
... a person who has broken through the ice, you should first tie a rope around your own body and have the other end tied or held in shore. Then get a long board or a ladder, or the limb of a tree, crawl out on this and push it out so that the person in the water may reach it. If nothing can be found on which to support your weight don't attempt to walk to the person to be rescued, ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... arms, begrimed and bleeding, face smoked, hair and eyebrows black with coal-dust, and eyes flaming like red coals. He sprang with one fearless bound down to the coal-truck, and caught up his wife in his arms, and held her to his panting bosom. Ropes, ladder, everything—and they were saved; while the corpse of the assassin whirled round and round in the subsiding eddies of the black water, and as that water ran away into the mine, lay, coated with mud, at the feet of those who had saved his ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade |
