"Oar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... material in him was of the fine-grained fibre in which quality counts for more than quantity. Lacking something in mass, the lack was more than compensated by the alertness and endurance which had made him at once the best man with the foils and the safest oar in the boat in his college days. None the less, the first night out of New Orleans, with its uncounted plantation landings, had tried him keenly, and he was thankful when the second day brought fewer stopping places and longer ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... my steward, and Jose the nigger," said he. "That's quite enough, Mr. Cole, for I ain't above an oar myself; but, by God, I'm skipper o' this here ship, and I'll skip her as long as I ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... sails so swiftly? And why is it that, for all their crowding, the ship's company [9] cause each other no distress? Simply that there, as you may see them, they sit in order; in order bend to the oar; in order recover the stroke; in order step on board; in order disembark. But disorder is, it seems to me, precisely as though a man who is a husbandman should stow away [10] together in one place wheat and barley and pulse, and by and by when he has ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... and I laughed. "Oh, yes I have. I am young and this wound is nothing. I may be a bit stiff in the shoulder for a few days, but I can pull an oar with one hand. That never will stop ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... introduced into the boiler or pot and steam was generated, she was again ready to start on another expedition." The boat was a yawl about eighteen feet in length and six feet beam. She was started at the buoy with a small oar when the propeller was used. The boiler was a ten or twelve gallon iron pot. This boat with a portion of the machinery was abandoned by Fitch, and left to decay on the muddy shore. Shortly after this he died in Kentucky in 1798. Had he lived, or, had the fortune like Fulton, ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... guardian of the Trojan state, Then rush'd impetuous through the Scaean gate. Him Paris follow'd to the dire alarms; Both breathing slaughter, both resolved in arms. As when to sailors labouring through the main, That long have heaved the weary oar in vain, Jove bids at length the expected gales arise; The gales blow grateful, and the vessel flies. So welcome these to Troy's desiring train, The bands are cheer'd, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... up my oar once more, when the sea was calm, I was amused by disturbing the innumerable young star fish which floated just below the surface; I had never observed them before, for they have not a hard shell like those which I have seen on the seashore. They look like thickened water with ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... in embarking, as was intended, nor was there more than a score or two finally amissing. To accomplish their voyage, however, even the Prince of Otranto himself, and most of his followers, were obliged to betake themselves to the unknightly labours of the oar. This they found extremely difficult, as well from the state both of the tide and the wind, as from the want of practice at the exercise. Godfrey in person viewed their progress anxiously, from a neighbouring height, and ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... both her arms in a sudden spasm, attempting to climb out upon her as a drowning man might try to climb out on an oar and sinking her down under him. In the struggle under water, before he permitted her to wrench clear, her rubber cap was torn off, and her hairpins pulled out, so that she came up gasping for air and half-blinded by her wet-clinging hair. Also, he was certain he ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... have you here, and if a word from me to the Council—but is there really nothing else but this? Why, I'm counting the days to my own deliverance now, and it's odd to find some one asking me to recommend him for my oar and chain! No, no, a dashing young fellow like you, sir, can do better for himself than a junior mastership for his final goal. Take warning by me, as I used to tell you—do you want to come to this sort of thing? sitting from morning to noon in this stifling den, filled ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... sailed, as you call it, many a mile in my lifetime, but never in such a thing as this. I own it will serve very well where one has a great many things to carry from place to place; but to be labouring thus at an oar when one intends pleasure in sailing, is in my mind a most ridiculous piece of slavery."—"Why, pray, madam, how would you have me sail? for getting into the boat only will not carry us this way or that without using some force."—"But," says she, "pray, where did you get this boat, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... this way," said Winthrop, and drawing one of the oars into the boat, he laid a lighted firecracker on the blade and pushed it out again. The firecracker went off with a bang, and in great glee Patty pulled in the other oar and ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... in mine; and the sun went down and down, and it didn't make me feel any better to think that I was smudged all over with grease, and that my hands and nails were something awful—while if ever there was a galley-slave at the oar, it was the ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... years in money return. It is just possible, of course, that the workman may do as much, or nearly as much, in the shorter period as he did in his longer hours. Still, there is the positive gain in his being less time at his task, which many of the classes still tugging lengthily day by day at the oar would appreciate." ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... his oar suspended to listen. He remembered the song perfectly. He had heard her sing it in many places—Rome, Naples, Syracuse. It was a great favourite with her mother, for whom the national upheaval of Italy—the heroic struggle of the ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Cresswell, who still had the oars out, "it will take us all our time to get back. Are you ready to take an oar, old man?" ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... would understand me go to the heights or water-shore, The nearest gnat is an explanation, and a drop or motion of waves key, The maul, the oar, the hand-saw, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... steering oar and was trying to hold the longboat into the wind. He had stood there since sundown, huge and untiring, legs braced and the bucking wood cradled in his arms. More than human he seemed, there under the icicle loom of the stern-post, his gray hair and ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... made their marks upon him; but not as with those of Occidental race. It may be that his bronze skin does not show so plainly the pallor of suffering; but, at all events, he still looks lithe and life-like, supple and sinewy, as if he could yet take a spell at the oar, and keep alive as long as skin and bone held together. If all are destined to die in that open boat, he will certainly be the last. He with the hollow eyes looks as if he would be ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... perfect afternoon—we took tea at Runswick, from which charming little village the Whitbys take their second title, and had ourselves rowed round the cliffs to Staithes, which we reached just before sunset; Chips and his sister also taking an oar between them, and I another. There, on the brink of the little bay, with the singularly quaint and picturesque old village behind it, were fifty fishing-boats side by side waiting to be launched, and all the fishing population of Staithes were there to launch them—men, women and children; ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... the man who has once been swept down the stream of intemperate excitement, almost to the verge of ruin, dream of any point of security for him. He is like one who has awakened in the rapids of Niagara, and with straining oar and wild prayers to Heaven, forced his boat upward into smoother water, where the draught of the current seems to cease, and the banks smile, and all looks beautiful, and weary from rowing, lays by his oar to rest and dream; he knows not that under that smooth ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... navigation is contemporaneous with the first use of the wind; the name of the inventor, "unrecorded in the patent-office," is lost in the lapse of ages. The first motor was, undoubtedly, the hand; next followed the paddle, the scull, and the oar; sails were an after-thought, introduced to play the secondary part ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... hired a skiff and rowed out to about the middle of the river. From there Hervey was greatly surprised at what he saw. His bantering mood was quieted at last and he became sober as Tom, holding the oar handles with one hand, pointed up to a mountain behind the bordering heights along the river. Upon this, as upon others, were the faintest suggestions of lines. No trails were to be seen, of course; only wriggling lines of shadow, ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... so deeply, that, while the hemlock-tassels were swinging on the trees around its border, all would be still at its springy bottom, save that perhaps a single fern would wave slowly backward and forward like a sabre with a twist as of a feathered oar,—and this when not a breath could be felt, and every other stem and blade were motionless. There was an old story of one having perished here in the winter of '86, and his body having been found in the spring,—whence its common name of "Dead-Man's Hollow." Higher up there were huge cliffs ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... evidence which I could never understand, Dominic detected something suspicious. Perhaps it was by virtue of some sixth sense that men born for unlawful occupations may be gifted with. "There is a smell of treachery about this," he remarked suddenly, turning at his oar. (He and I were pulling alone in a little boat to reconnoitre.) I couldn't detect any smell and I regard to this day our escape on that occasion as, properly speaking, miraculous. Surely some supernatural power must have struck upwards the barrels of the Carabineers' rifles, for they ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... of the stream is spent, And Romara's boat outstrips its speed,— For his stalwart arm to the oar is bent, And ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... said this his eyes rested upon Hermione with an expression in them that revealed much that he never spoke in words. She put out her hand, and took his, and pressed it, holding hers over it upon the oar. ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... directs you to say to Gen. Pershing that he awards the medal to the commander of our armies in the field as a token of the gratitude of the American people for his distinguished services and in appreciation of the successes which oar armies have achieved ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... disposition, and to following without regularity the impulse of the moment. When the weather was calm, I frequently went immediately after I rose from dinner, and alone got into the boat. The receiver had taught me to row with one oar; I rowed out into the middle of the lake. The moment I withdrew from the bank, I felt a secret joy which almost made me leap, and of which it is impossible for me to tell or even comprehend the cause, if it were not a secret congratulation on my being out of the reach of the wicked. ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... board he found that she was water-logged. She seemed to have been kept afloat either by her cargo, or else by some peculiarity in her construction, which rendered her incapable of sinking. He tore open the hatchway, and pushing an oar down, he saw that there was no cargo, so that it must have been the construction of the vessel which kept her afloat. What that was, he could not then find out. He was compelled, therefore, to leave ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... oar he began to row with all his strength. Cato had the bow oar. The next wave came, and its sweep, communicating itself to the water, rolled on, dashing against the ship and moving under it, rising up high, lifting the boat with it, and bearing it along. But the boat was now under ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... low; For the barge, the eight, the Isis, and the coach's whoop and shout, For the minute-gun, the counting and the long dishevelled rout, For the howl along the tow-path and a fate that's still in doubt, For a roughened oar to handle and a race to think about In the land where ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... Forester's hand. He had never seen one before. He said that they always used oars, not paddles, in New York harbor. A paddle is shaped very differently from an oar. It is much shorter and lighter,—though the blade is broader. A paddle is worked, too, differently from an oar. An oar acts as a lever against the side of the boat,—the middle of it resting in a small notch called a row-lock, or between two wooden pins. But ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... go without saying a word.... You have been so beset with people all the afternoon that I never got a chance to put my oar in. Dear Reverend Mother, everything has gone off so well. No clergyman will ever preach again about Providence spreading a table in the wilderness without my coming back in memory to to-day. May we walk back together? I am a mass of ants, and mosquito-bitten to a degree, but I don't ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... hear At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep The song and oar of Adria's gondolier, By distance mellow'd, o'er the waters sweep; 'T is sweet to see the evening star appear; 'T is sweet to listen, as the night-winds creep From leaf to leaf; 't is sweet to view on high The rainbow, based on ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... half hour he was entirely missing upon my return. And, bless me, sir, where do you imagine I discovered him? A half mile out in the ocean, sir, in one of the lifeboats, rowing away for dear life. I do not know how he attained even that magnificent distance from shore, for he had but a single oar, with which he was ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Greece, thus, as Plato says, from steady soldiers he turned them into mariners and seamen tossed about the sea, and gave occasion for the reproach against him, that he took away from the Athenians the spear and the shield, and bound them to the bench and the oar. These measures he carried in the assembly, against the opposition, as Stesimbrotus relates, of Miltiades; and whether or no he hereby injured the purity and true balance of government, may be a question for philosophers, but that the deliverance ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... a poisoned nail and stuck it in the handle of the oar in such a way that the knight would be sure to scratch his hand when he picked up the oar. Then she went home laughing, very much pleased ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... ship, called Ellida, which was rowed by fifteen men on each side, and each oar required the strength of two men to pull it; but Frithiof was so strong that he would ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... is at the base of every great achievement. We too often forget this, and yet no truth needs more to be kept in mind, particularly in the troubled eras of history and in the crises of individual life. In shipwreck a splintered beam, an oar, any scrap of wreckage, saves us. On the tumbling waves of life, when everything seems shattered to fragments, let us not forget that a single one of these poor bits may become our plank of safety. To ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... for half a century, he begins to think that he may possibly grow old some day, and I would provide myself with a young partner, who may take the laboring oar in my business when age compels ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... caught eider-ducks, by which, and their eggs, he kept himself alive; in the night, he crept under an overhanging rock to sleep. At length he discovered a piece of wood floating to the shore; of this he made an oar, and, getting on a flake of ice, rowed himself to an island nearer the main land, whence he reached two more islands nearer still. About the beginning of August, he observed two boats steering towards the south, and made signals: these ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... movement; the little fingers crumpled the message; then one of them thrust it within her glove. She continued to sit motionless, how long? The small boat, with sail at the bow and plodding oar at stern, at length drew out of sight; the paper made itself felt in her warm palm. Why did not her uncle return? He had been gone some time ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... into the boat and at once began to bale out the puddles with his saucepan. He then drew the boat alongside of the jetty, helped Hortense in and used the one oar which he shipped in a gap in the stern ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... encourage expansiveness on the other's part, and little more was said whilst they unmoored the boat and rowed across, so the engineer had good opportunity for taking stock of his companion. The water was rough, and he judged from the clumsy way in which Garstin handled his oar and his apparent powerlessness to impart vigour to the stroke that muscular development had not formed part of his education. Trevannion stood six-foot-one in his stockings, and his frame was well knit with muscles ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... answer to the law for the atrocious crime of carrying off a Senator's niece and affianced bride who was a minor, and the law would not have been tender to the Sicilian; the least penalty he would have suffered would have been to be chained to an oar on a government galley, and it was quite possible that he might have been hanged. Most people would prefer to be run through with a rapier, and it was therefore clear that Stradella ought to be satisfied. As for such weakness as a qualm of conscience, Pignaver was as far above such childishness ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... be helped out of my ingratitude and discontent at finding the cage-door shut, and myself chained to the oar; for as things are left, I could not get it off my hands without giving up my mother's interests and my aunt's. Besides, my poor uncle left me an entreaty to keep things up creditably like himself, and do justice by the bank. It is as if, poor man, it was an idol that he had been ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... translated into crawling towards the middle). Meanwhile Obanjo performed prodigies of valour all over the place. He triced up the mainsail, stirred up his fainthearted crew, and got out the sweeps, i.e. one old oar and four paddles, and with this assistance we solemnly trudged away from danger at a pace that nothing slower than a Thames dumb barge, going against stream, could possibly overhaul. Still we did not feel safe, and I ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... and later on of Denny Shane, the picturesque old fisherman, they had the beginnings of the mysterious secret. And in solving it, they bested the land-sharpers, and came upon the real knowledge of the value of the red oar. ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... a triumph to get him away from Miss Vernor for once, though I suspect I'll have to pay for it by doing more than half the rowing myself. I don't suppose he would exert his precious self to pull an oar more than five minutes at a time. Amy tried her best to get Mr. Halloway, and so did the Dexters. The way those girls run after him is a caution even to me; but they didn't get him. He's monstrously clever ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... of my age I was never last, or even among the last, in anything; but I was never first. If I trained for a race, I was sure to sprain my ankle on the day when I was to run. If I pulled an oar with others, my oar was sure to break. If I competed for a prize, some unforeseen accident prevented my winning it at the last moment. Nothing to which I put my hand succeeded, and I got the reputation of being ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... Dickie noticed he carried a heavy oar which he had fashioned into a rude crutch, a number of small strips of wood and a ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... The straining oar and chamois chase Had formed his limbs to strength and grace: On wave and wind the boy would toss, Was great, nor knew how great ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... slow river. They were toil-worn and stained; their clothing was in rags. But beneath their sandy hair more than one pair of eyes gleamed from time to time with a sudden anger, with an intelligence made for higher things than spade and oar. As they sat there they were like the notes of a piano, and Kosmaroff played the instrument with a sure touch that brought the fullest vibration out of each chord. He was a born leader; an organizer not untouched perchance by that light of genius which enables some ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... of Guernsey, to the worthy Bailiff, DANIEL DE LISLE BROCK. Happy is he who labours to promote the happiness of his fellow citizens. He will secure their eternal gratitude. They will unceasingly exclaim: 'May God preserve oar friend, our benefactor, ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... gold, a richly chased and adorned scimiter at his side, and a red fez jauntily set on one side of his misshapen head. But Alexander's attention was arrested by the ladies, or rather by one of them, as the caique passed within oar's length of ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... like any child; For, lo! a mighty swan, With radiant plumage undented, And folded airy van, With serpent neck all proudly bent, And stroke of swarthy oar, Dreams on to me, by sea-maids sent Over the ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... sniffed the fellow. "Say, just because you've got corns on your palms as big as pancakes, you needn't think you're the only human that ever pulled an oar. I was the first man through Miles Canon. During the big rush in '98 I ran the rapids for a living. I got fifty dollars a trip, and it only took me three minutes by the watch. That was the only easy ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... thee well, May joy be thine in the Sunless Houses! For thine is a deed which the Dead shall tell Where a King black-browed in the gloom carouses; And the cold grey hand at the helm and oar Which guideth shadows from shore to shore, Shall bear this day o'er the Tears that Well, A Queen of women, ...
— Alcestis • Euripides
... visited Aldington in one of the very severe winters but managed to elude all pursuers. It has been said, and also contradicted, that the woodcock when rising from the ground uses its long bill as a lever to assist its starting, just as an oarsman pushes off from the bank with a boat-hook or oar; I myself have seen one rising from a bare and marshy place, and the position of its bill certainly gave me the impression that the ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... Town, the Provost Marshal and his Officers, etc. with Two Ministers,[3] who took great pains to prepare them for the last Article of their Lives. Being allowed to walk on Foot through the Town, to Scarlets Wharff,[4] where, the Silver Oar being carried before them, they went by Water to the place of Execution, being Crowded and thronged on all sides with Multitudes of Spectators. The Ministers then Spoke to the Malefactors, ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... brigades by the company was, "push on!" They argued: The summer in these high latitudes is short; we must make the most of it. Every day tells, and there must be no lagging by the way. The result was, that the men were worked to the last degree of endurance. Many failed at the oar, while others dropped under the heavy loads on the difficult portages. "Fill up the ranks quickly, and push on," was the order. It was all excitement, and rush, and high pressure, from the beginning of the tripping ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... perspiring, he brings back alone against the current the heavy bark, worried, at every stroke of the oar, by the small, disclosing grating that a fine ear over there might so well perceive. And then, one can see nothing more, through the rain grown thicker and which confuses the eyes; it is dark, dark as in the bowels of the earth where the devil ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... grimly orders Dante back to earth, Virgil silences him with the brief statement: "so 'tis will'd where will and power are one." So, without further objection, Charon allows them to enter his skiff and hurries the rest of his freight aboard, beating the laggards with the flat of his oar. Because Dante wonders at such ill-treatment, Virgil explains that good souls are never forced to cross this stream, and that the present passengers have richly deserved their punishment. Just then an earthquake shakes the whole region, and Dante ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... quake! our doughty Drake a royal swan is tested, On wing and oar, from shore to shore, the raging main who breasted:— But never needs to chant his deeds, like swan that lies a-dying, So far his name, by trump of fame, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... profaned. If any edifice remained standing, it was overwhelmed, and its turrets lay hid beneath the waves. Now all was sea, sea without shore. Here and there an individual remained on a projecting hilltop, and a few, in boats, pulled the oar where they had lately driven the plough. The fishes swim among the tree-tops; the anchor is let down into a garden. Where the graceful lambs played but now, unwieldy sea calves gambol. The wolf swims among the sheep, the yellow ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... tiller, allowing the raft to rise and fall on the waves. The wind being aft, and the sail square, all he had to do was to keep his oar in the centre. ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... lead in the darkest night, as well as in the day-time; who can use the palm and needle of a sail-maker; and who are versed in every part of a ship's rigging, in the stowage of the hold, and in the exercise of the great guns. Of course, an A.B. must be able to pull an oar, as well as use it in sculling, understand the management of a boat under sail, and know how to cross a surf. He must also learn the art of placing an anchor in a boat, in order to its being laid out; and how to get it in again when weighed. ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... was sitting in an open boat, listening to the measured oar-strokes of the boatmen who were rowing him out to the nearest stopping-place of the steamer. The mountains lifted their great placid heads up among the sun-bathed clouds, and the fjord opened its cool depths as if to make room for their vast ...
— A Good-For-Nothing - 1876 • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... day we used oar and sail, and at night had again a delightful camping ground, and a ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... die for the open sky When the great sun beats abroad, For the foam-fleck and the narrow deck, The life of oar and sword. ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... of a sudden, Macey threw up the blade of his oar, and at a pull or two from Vane, the boat's keel grated on ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... breeks up with an oar and skelps a splash o' water at the old woman, and laughed at her with the wind blowing her skirts, and ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... farmers, and Joseph Garrison was a man of unusual force and independence of character. The life which these early settlers lived was a life lived partly on the land and partly on the river. They were equally at home with scythe or oar. Amid such terraqueous conditions it was natural enough that the children should develop a passion for the sea. Like ducks many of them took to the water and became sailors. Abijah was a sailor. The amphibious habits of boyhood gave to his manhood a restless, roving character. ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... gained strength and hardness by rowing. It was his constant habit of an evening, when well away from the crowded canals in the gondola, with Giuseppi, the son and assistant of his father's gondolier, to take an oar, for he had thoroughly mastered the difficult accomplishment of rowing well in a gondola; but he only did this when far out from the city, or when the darkness of evening would prevent his figure from being recognized by any of his acquaintances, for ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... mean them little 'orns stickin' out on 'er? Bly-mee, sir, I thought I'd knocked 'em all hoff afore I lashed her alongside. But 'ave no fear, sir, there's only two of 'em left, and I'll bloomin' well soon"—he reaches for an oar and went bouncing aft—"bloomin' well soon ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... a-shovin' in me oar," returned Bill, with a grotesque tug at his forelock. "I seen som'at o' the sort done once, though, an' if so be as you ses so, I'll do me ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... your loach should not be abroad when first you come to look for him, but keeping snug in his little home, then you may see him come forth amazed at the quivering of the shingles, and oar himself and look at you, and then dart up-stream, like a little grey streak; and then you must try to mark him in, and follow very daintily. So after that, in a sandy place, you steal up behind his tail to him, so that he cannot set ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... was put over the side and "Long Tommy" went down it, taking with him a piece of line; this he slipped under the arms of Rowland, the forecastle man, who had struck an oar on the way down, and was hurt. The man was soon hauled up on deck. The other four were also rescued. One went floating calmly off on the life buoy and was picked up by the gig, and the rest caught rope-ends and were safely hauled aboard, none ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... sir; he's too weak," cried Pete eagerly; and the overseer's face contracted. "But I can. Best man here with an oar. I can pull, ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... intricate machines, set with knives and saws and planes, which cut smooth and straight here, and slantwise there, and now cut such a depth, and now miss cutting altogether, according to the predestined requirements of the pieces of wood that are pushed on below them: each of which pieces is to be an oar, and is roughly adapted to that purpose before it takes its final leave of far-off forests, and sails for England. Likewise I discern that the butterflies are not true butterflies, but wooden shavings, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... but I'm up to my ears in debt, and as I said, I'd just about split even at sixty-five dollars a day. But I can't go it alone. The old man he'll just fade away and die, if you don't mind my puttin' in my oar about it. When he gits these idees about somebody goin' to his island, and then it falls through, he ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... camp-kettles over the fire by their bucket handles, from the tripod or other means of getting over the fire. Sometimes the bough of a tree high out of the reach of the flames will do. Sometimes a stick or oar thrust into the bank or in a crevice of the wall behind the fire is more convenient than a tripod. Again, you can do without any hanging at all, making a little fireplace of bricks or stones and standing ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... the direction pointed out by his chum. Both saw a small rowboat sweep out from under some brushwood. In it stood the wild man, using an oar as a ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... foreign force, since it is employed entirely on the horse. Nor can it be employed on the foreign fulcrum, the ground, through the medium of your reins; as much as you pull up, so much you pull down. If a man in a boat uses an oar, he can accelerate or impede the motion of the boat, because his strength is employed through the medium of the oar on the water, which is a foreign fulcrum. But if he takes hold of the chain at the head of the boat, his whole ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... mind. It carries me back to the times when, beset with difficulties and dangers, we were fellow-laborers in the same cause, struggling for what is most valuable to man, his right of self-government. Laboring always at the same oar, with some wave ever ahead threatening to overwhelm us, and yet passing harmless under our bark, we knew not how, we rode through the storm with heart and hand, and made a happy port. Still we did not expect to be without rubs and difficulties; and we ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... lives have they Who help him in war, Can run to the mast-head Or manage the oar; Make the row-locks to creak, And the row-bench to crack, And in their lord's service Are ...
— The Nightingale, the Valkyrie and Raven - and other ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... falls, vibrates the light guitar. She listens—hark! that sound that echoes dull and low. Is it the beat upon the Archipelago Of some long galley's oar, from Scio ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... my father's halls; Fled to the sea; and in my fragile bark I heaped a few fresh fruits, and bore a vase Filled with fresh water,—this was all my store. I loosed my shallop from the anchoring rock, And, as it drifted out upon the tide, I leaned upon the single, slender oar Whose aid was all I asked upon the deep. Before my yearning vision lay my home, Fading away from sight as the full tide Went murmuring back from its delightful shores. The loveliest hour of all the twenty-four Charmed earth and ocean, that eventful time. Moonlight and morning, softly blending, ...
— The Arctic Queen • Unknown
... sisters and their dolls, without living to repent it in maturity. These precocious little sentimentalists wither away like blanched potato-plants in a cellar; and then comes some vigorous youth from his out-door work or play, and grasps the rudder of the age, as he grasped the oar, the bat, or the plough-handle. We distrust the achievements of every saint without a body; and really have hopes of the Cambridge Divinity School, since hearing that it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... away, whither away? Fly no more! Whither away wi' the singing sail? whither away wi' the oar? Whither away from the high green field and the happy blossoming shore? Weary mariners, hither away, One and all, one and all, Weary mariners, come and play; We will sing to you all the day; Furl the sail and ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... are applicable to the purpose of the taxidermist, though some of the oar-weeds can be used, and many of the red sea-weeds (Rhodosperms) can be floated out in water and carelessly arranged on paper, if wanted for fitting-up purposes, or more carefully arranged if for a collection. After washing, these small plants adhere by their natural mucilage ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... day, and dire the strife. It was bad work for Gunhild's sons, Leading their pack of Hungry Danes From out the south, to have to fly, And many a bonde leave to die, Leaning his heavy wounded head On the oar-bench for feather-bed. Thoralf was nearest to the side Of gallant Hakon in the tide Of battle; his the sword that best Carved out the raven's bloody feast: Amidst the heaps of foemen slain He was named bravest on ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... said, "you bore me!" She picked her way across the thwart to where Kinney sat at the stroke oar. ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... time and the seed of their sowing and of their birth. Then, bitterly weeping, they drew back all of them together to the evil bank, that waits for every man who fears not God. Charon the demon, with eyes of glowing coal, beckoning them, collects them all; he beats with his oar whoever lingers. ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... do, can death withstand; Whether the Sea, imprison'd in the land, A work imperial! takes a harbour's form, Where navies ride secure, and mock the storm; Whether the Marsh, within whose horrid shore Barrenness dwelt, and boatmen plied the oar, Now furrow'd by the plough, a laughing plain, Feeds all the cities round with fertile grain; Or if the River, by a prudent force, The corn once flooding, learns a better course. Nedum sermonum stet honos, et gratia vivax. Multa renascentur, quae jam cecidere; cadentque ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... no time for ceremony, Harry sprang into the boat, and, seizing an idle oar, pushed ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... when others will not. Another said he thought every minute they were going to be swamped. We heard later from Repetto that if one wave had broken a few feet nearer it would have done for them. Those in the last boat broke an oar and could make no headway. They tried in vain to put in at another point, and feared they would never get in, but happily the sea went down a little. It was the sweeping sea and the wind coming in gusts ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... difference of our years, Return again the glow of theirs. Ah, happy boys! such feelings pure, They will not, cannot, long endure; Condemned to stem the world's rude tide, You may not linger by the side; For Fate shall thrust you from the shore, And Passion ply the sail and oar. Yet cherish the remembrance still, Of the lone mountain and the rill; For trust, dear boys, the time will come When fiercer transport shall be dumb, And you will think right frequently, But, well I hope, ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... of Eirek, or to preserve the nomenclature of the artist, Lief Erickson, is described in the Sagas and other records as a large, strong man, of imposing appearance. The ships in which voyages were made by the Norsemen in those days were called drakkars, which were propelled both by oar and sail; at the ends rose wooden apartments called kastals. All the parts out of water were fashioned after the manner of monsters or drakkars (dragons, Drachen). The prow of the ship represented ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... had been dead since dawn. His scarred and shackled body swayed limply back and forth with every sweep of the great oar as we, his less fortunate bench-fellows, tugged and strained to keep time to ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... pistols Bob moved forward, put out a spare oar, and set to to row. Shot after shot came from the fort, and several from the sloop; but a boat, at that distance, presents but a small mark and, although a shot went through the sail, none struck her. Presently a gun boomed out ahead of them, high ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... hunter, and tugged at his oar, for the levers clanked too loud for this work. They crept along to another berth a little way off, and tied up in the shadow of the bank; and they had scarcely settled themselves when they heard again the beat of engines. ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... Crawshay declared, with vigour, "added to which I am not in a state of health to endure a voyage in a small boat. I have been this morning to look at our places, in case of accident. I find that I am expected to wield an oar long enough to ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... desires of each producer were realized, the world would rapidly retrograde towards barbarism. The sail would proscribe steam; the oar would proscribe the sail, only in its turn to give way to wagons, the wagon to the mule, and the mule to the foot-peddler. Wool would exclude cotton; cotton would exclude wool; and thus on, until the scarcity and want of every thing would cause man himself to disappear ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... watching the muscular development of the boatmen as they pulled at the oars, and in admiring the dexterity and skill with which they managed the boat, that I did not think of danger," remarked a man who had been stroke oar on a ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... schooner, cockleshell, vessel, tug, towboat, tow, cog, wangan, ferry-boat, dinghey, argosy, oomiac, junk, longboat, catboat, felucca, cutter, frigate, xebec, tartan, una boat, moses, raft, catamaran, sampan, lifeboat, caravel, trekschuit, masoola, argo, coggle. Associated Words: davits, oar, helm, stern, pilot, rudder, flotilla, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming |
