"On and off" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... through Henry, into whose hands had fallen a letter in Cora's handwriting, bearing the Bellair postmark, and addressed to Lucian Davlin, who, so Henry said, "went down, on and off," and always appeared satisfied with the result ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... Acquaintance.—Attention may be directed, too, to the need of deliberately cultivating friendships and acquaintances, not only on these "dark runs," but wherever one goes—both on and off duty. In the stores, along the street, on the cars, at the club, the alert reporter gathers many an important news item. The merchant, the cabman, the preacher, the barkeeper, the patrolman, the thug, the club-man, the porter, all make valuable acquaintances, as they are ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... real logs," said he, and thought he should never tire of turning them on and off and making them sparkle and ...
— Rollo in Society - A Guide for Youth • George S. Chappell
... throw her into ecstasies. She would have Sophie to look over all her "toilettes," as she called frocks; to furbish up any that were "passees," and to air and arrange the new. For herself, she did nothing but caper about in the front chambers, jump on and off the bedsteads, and lie on the mattresses and piled-up bolsters and pillows before the enormous fires roaring in the chimneys. From school duties she was exonerated: Mrs. Fairfax had pressed me into her service, and ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... enclosure of stone dykes, within which the black tents were pitched. The dogs were of immense size, and ragged, like the yaks, from their winter coat hanging to their flanks in great masses; each was chained near a large stone, on and off which he leapt as he gave tongue; they are very savage, but great cowards, and ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... where his wife had attained a certain kind of social distinction in the army fast set. She was not especially enamoured of the prospect ahead of her in the Philippines; but the new colonel was a strict disciplinarian on and off the field. He expected to be a brigadier-general if fortune and favouritism supported him long enough. Mrs. Harbin could never be anything more than a private in the ranks, so far as his estimation of distinction was concerned. His daughter Ethel had, by means ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... electric street-car line, suspected at first, has gained the confidence of nearly all. Many Filipino families of the upper class permit their daughters to go to and from the American schools on the trolley car, and it is no uncommon thing to see three or four youngsters, all under ten, climbing on and off with their books, asking for transfers, and enjoying their liberty, who ten years ago would have been huddled into a quilez and guarded by ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... off slowly with the reins loose. Walk him around in the stable a few times until he gets used to the bit, and you can turn him about in every direction and stop him as you please. It would be well to get on and off a good many times until he gets perfectly used to it before you take ...
— The Arabian Art of Taming and Training Wild and Vicious Horses • P. R. Kincaid
... A.D. 1000, but the discovery of ancient Egyptian idols, and of coins of the early Persian and Chinese dynasties, goes to show that it must at different ages have been settled by people of the very earliest civilisations. Coming to more modern times, it was held on and off from 1505 to 1729 by the Portuguese, a permanent memorial of whose occupation remains in the shape of the grim old fortress, built about 1593—on the site, it is believed, of a still older stronghold. These enterprising sea-rovers piously named it "Jesus Fort," and ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... you to think of counting the tickets and finding out where people got on and off! I never should have ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... he was entrusted with secrets of the utmost value and took part in making the plans and procuring the dynamite to execute them. The quality of his nerve (as well as his foolhardiness) is shown by the fact that he once carried a dress-suit case full of the explosive around the city, jumping on and off street cars, and dodging vehicles. When the proper moment came and the dynamite had been placed in an uncompleted building on Twenty-second Street, Guthrie gave the signal and the police arrested the dynamiters—all of them, including Guthrie, who was placed with the rest in a cell ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... grates, And the loath cart-wheel screams in slippery ruts, 150 While firmer ice the eager boy awaits, Trying each buckle and strap beside the fire, And until bedtime plays with his desire, Twenty times putting on and off his new-bought skates;— ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... arrangements to infrequent times of call and departure. The more frequent a local service, the more it comes to be relied upon. Another point—and one in which the omnibus has a great advantage over the railway—is that it should be possible to get on and off at any point, or at as many points on the route as possible. But this means a high proportion of stoppages, and this is destructive to speed. There is, however, one conceivable means of transit that is not simply frequent but continuous, that may ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... my readers a glimpse of the passengers who got on and off my train between Manila and Daguban: Filipino women carrying baskets on their heads, smoking cigarettes, and looking after babies—in some cases doing all three at once; Filipino men, likewise ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... may turn off from the bed without arising combined with a light which may be turned on and off from a lying position, so one can see the time, is the device of H. E. Redmond, of Burlington, Wis. The alarm clock rests on ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... Sophocles and Thucydides. Of its essence, it is free from many of the conventions and restraining influences of earlier forms of literature, and enjoys much of the liberty of choice of subject and licence of method that marks present-day conditions of literary production both on and off the stage. Its very existence presupposes a fuller and bolder intellectual life, a more advanced and complex city civilization, a keener taste and livelier faculty of comprehension in the people who appreciate it, than could anywhere be found at an earlier epoch. Speaking broadly and ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... Ages. But Shakspere's unrivalled knowledge of stage-craft, as well as his own instinct for harmonizing lyrical with theatrical effects, enabled him to surpass all of his contemporaries in the art of using songs to bring actors on and off the stage, to anticipate following action, to characterize personages, to heighten climaxes, and to express motions beyond the reach of spoken words. [Footnote: These points are fully discussed in J. Robert Moore's Harvard dissertation (unpublished) on The Songs ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... was saying," continued the Poet, "most men hold Prospero to be a mere wonder-worker, a magician who puts his arts on and off with his robe; they do not know that he stands for the greatest force in the world. For the Imagination is not only the inspiring leader of men in their strange journey through life, but their nearest, most constant, and most practical helper and sustainer. That our souls would ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... tar-paper laid on to the rafters, which answers well if the wind doesn't blow the paper about, or that it has not any holes; but as the hen-house is only a lean-to of the stable, the roof of which we have been very busily painting, it has been trodden upon a good deal in getting on and off the roof, and, in consequence, the paper is much like a sponge, letting any rain in, and drenching the poor sitting fowls; but with the shingles overlapping each other on the tar-paper, the roof, will ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... a poet that whole pages of his are like so many litanies of alternating chants and recitations. His thoughts slip on and off their light rhythmic robes just as the mood takes him, as was shown in the passage I have quoted in prose and in verse. Many of the metrical preludes to his lectures are a versified and condensed abstract of the leading doctrine of the discourse. They are a curious ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... honour—but a grand dinner was also preparing on a large scale; for a wedding-feast was to be held in the house, in honour of Matty Dwyer's nuptials, which were to be celebrated that day with a neighbouring young farmer, rather well to do in the world. The match had been on and off for some time, for John Dwyer was what is commonly called a "close-fisted fellow," and his would-be son-in- law could not bring him to what he considered proper terms, and though Matty liked young Casey, and ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... little past ten, Miss," Adeline said in a low voice that shook a little. "On and off, I have been trying to wake you since eight o'clock. And there is a gentleman to see you in the sitting-room as soon as you have time—two gentlemen, ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... with absence of superficial and deep reflexes. Retention of urine. Great abdominal distension, pain, and vomiting. Bed-sores over the sacrum developed on the third day; meanwhile the vomiting continued on and off for a week, and very severe girdle ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... a welcome for him," he said, and so turned out the electric light at the end of the long flexible wire. He had arranged a neat little switch of the accumulator, and so snapped the light on and off at his pleasure, without the trouble of unscrewing the nuts which held in place one of the copper ends of the wire. Going to the edge of the stream and lighting his candle, he placed the glass bulb in the current, paid out the flexible line attached to it, and allowed the bulb to run the ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... Dawson blushed. He must have regretted many times that he had mentioned to me those unfortunate darbies. Now amid much laughter he was compelled to draw forth a pretty shining pair of steel wristlets and permit Jane to put them on. They were much too large for her; she could slip them on and off without unlocking; but as toys they were a delight. "I shouldn't mind being a prisoner," she declared, "if dear Colonel Dawson ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... great school for team spirit. To have a successful team, any coach will tell you, there must be a brotherly feeling among the members of the team. The men must chum together on and off the field. Team work on the field is made much easier if there is ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... worn-out and neglected field. A creek wound its way among the hills, deep and dark in places, but babbling out into a broad and shiny ford where we crossed. One moment the scene was desolate, with gullied hill-sides, but further on and off to the right I could see poetic strips of meadow land, and further yet, upon a hill-top, stood a grim old house of brick and stone. We turned off to the right before coming abreast of this place, and pursued a winding course along a deep-shaded ravine, not rough with broken ground, ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... the evening of the day; and June dressed Daisy for the party. This was a simple dressing, however, of a white cambrick frock; no finery, seeing that Daisy was to put on and off various things in the course of the evening. But Daisy felt a little afraid of herself. The perfected arrangements and preparations of the last few days had, she feared, got into her head a little; ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... Fourth Junior that afternoon lasted, on and off, from half-past four to half-past eight. Among the speakers were Bramble, Paul, and Stephen; while Padger, Walker, and Rook did very good execution with their fists. About half-past seven the dust was so dense that it ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... gently on and off, with a kind word that comforted her immensely, and gentle Ed would come and teach her new bits of music, while the other fellows were frolicking below. Ralph added his share to her amusement, for he asked leave to model her head in clay, and set up his work in a corner, coming to pat, scrape, ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... the crow's call, and the song-sparrow's ecstasy. Once or twice the notes of a bugle found their way down the hill, and reminded me that I was in a place of delightful novelty. It was just a fillip to my enjoyment, as I looked on and off my page alternately. ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... engine room they saw a queer sight. Washington was close to the buzzing dynamo which he had started to oil. His hands grasped two large copper switches used to turn the current on and off. ...
— Through the Air to the North Pole - or The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch • Roy Rockwood
... convened in Admiral Riveros' cabin on board the flagship; and Jim was one of the officers present. It was about seven o'clock in the evening, and darkness had already closed in, the fleet then steaming, in double column of line abreast, on and off, about two miles to seaward of their anchorage. As soon as all the Chilian officers had come aboard Riveros took his seat at the head of the cabin table, and ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... like a candle, as if somebody was continually blowing one out and blowing it in again. He observed this for about half an hour, when it began to look as if several gas-lights were in the room and some one was turning the gas on and off very rapidly. After this he went to bed, and was disturbed shortly before midnight by hearing that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... never!" said the waitress, tossing her head scornfully, and shaking back her little corkscrew curls. "What next, I wonder? That bun has been here on and off for seventeen years, and I never had a complaint about it before. Stale, indeed!" And she ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow
... of the boy chums' adventures on and off the Florida Coast describes many scenes of daring and adventure, in hunting for ships stranded and cargoes washed ashore. The boy chums passed through many exciting scenes, their conflicts with the Cuban wreckers; the loss of their ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... early morning hours following—while the rest of you were in the library, I looked through his room, and I found a pair of straw sandals in the closet—such as a man could slip on and off without having to bend down to adjust them. And they were ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... speaking of this, on and off, for a long time in the establishment; but when the rumours so unexpectedly, immediately right after the death of Jennka, turned into realities, the misses could not for a long time come to themselves for amazement and fear. They knew ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... up his hands. He went toward the spiral-ladder-with-handholds that led below. He went down into the main saloon. A tiny green light winked on and off, urgently, on the far side. Babs was seated at a tiny board, there. As Cochrane looked, she pushed buttons with professional skill. Bill Holden sat in a strap-chair with ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... reached the N.W. or lee-side, where anchorage and landing seemed practicable. In order to obtain a knowledge of the former, I sent the master with a boat to sound, and, in the mean time, we stood on and off with the ship. At this time four or five people were seen on the reef, which lies round the isle, and about three times that number on the shore. As the boat advanced, those on the reef retired and joined the others; and when the boat landed they all fled to the woods. It was ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... bang!! boom!!! as hard as it could for ten minutes on end. The flash of the guns lit up the whole sky for miles and miles, and the noise was far more penetrating than by day. Then you would see a great burst of flame from some poor devil, as the searchlights switched on and off, and then perfect ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... On and off for the last year or two she had posed for Drene, had dropped into his studio to lounge about when he had no need of her professionally, and when she had half an hour of idleness ...
— Between Friends • Robert W. Chambers
... up at the sky, again. The electric beacon of a weather observation satellite blinked on and off, moving slowly. Venus had long since set, with hard-to-see Mercury preceding it. Jupiter glowed in the south. Mars looked as remote and changeless as it must have looked in the Stone Age. The asteroids were never even ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... of the ketch had been drowned, we were told. They were bringing his body home. The helmsman indicated a form lashed in a sail-cloth to the hatch. They were standing on and off, waiting to get it over the bar. Yeo they knew so well that hardly any words passed between them. They were glad to put the piloting in his hands. He took the wheel of the Judy ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... concert-room, and gives her music without spirit and without making any apparent effort to please. We say that Madame or Mademoiselle is "not in the mood to-night." A lecturer has his moods, which, apparently, he slips on and off as he would a dressing-gown, charming the people of one town by his eloquence and elegance, and disgusting another by his dullness and carelessness. We are in the habit of saying that certain men are very unequal in their performances, which is only a way ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... which are provided with escort and routed in and out wholly from the Brest headquarters which is kept fully informed as to routes and positions of British-controlled convoys and as to locations of submarine activities and has to so adjust routes on and off the coast as to keep clear of both. Three out of eight escort units are provided by United States vessels for the coastal convoy system, which is operated by the French. Unity of purpose and sympathy of understanding have combined to make the handling of cargo convoys on and off the coast ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... no one actually knows." Peter pulled on his pipe. "Larry is on and off. Maclin, over to the mines, seems to do the ordering of Larry's coming and going. Darned funny business, I say. However, there you are. When Larry is home I guess the way Mary-Clare holds her head and laughs gets on his nerves. No man ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... It isn't something you can turn on and off, at will. We don't know enough yet for that. Aside from some believers and those individuals who do seem to attract psi forces, we don't know, yet, what to wrap around what. So, here's what you're to do: You're to keep a supply of these cylinders near you at all ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... smashed my umbrella completely, and left me with my remaining weapons, a stout Turkish pipe-stick about four feet long, and my fist. Parrying with the stick, thrusting in return at the face, and hitting sharp with the left hand, I managed to keep three or four of the party on and off upon their backs, receiving a slight cut with a sword upon my left arm in countering a blow which just grazed me as I knocked down the owner, and disarmed him. My wife picked up the sword, as I had no time to stoop, and she stood well at bay with her newly-acquired weapon that a disarmed ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... story of the masked ball. What new light is thrown, first, on the characters and, then, on the plot by means of these fragmentary bits of dialogue heard as the revellers pass on and off stage together. ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... party was accustomed to attend binges at the Casino in the ordinary evening-wear trouserings topped to the north by a white mess-jacket with brass buttons. And ever since I had stepped aboard the Blue Train at Cannes station, I had been wondering on and off how mine ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... force of his arguments as a kind of tendency to jump as the bellwether jumps, well known in flocks not included in the Christian fold. His bereaved congregation immediately began pulling candidates on and off, like new boots, on trial. Some pinched in tender places; some were too loose; some were too square-toed; some were too coarse, and did n't please; some were too thin, and would n't last;—in short, they ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... man who passed through the croft with his bundle of sticks. To you, Master Bennet, and to you, Miss Polly, I shall not give anything; because you showed, by your behaviour to the old man, that your good manners were all an outside garb, which you put on and off ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... sight; he speaks Spanish to Consuelo and calls her by her name when he first sees her, though he has not the faintest sane idea who she is or whence she comes; and he reduces his family to abject misery by ensconcing himself for days in a grotto which can be isolated by means of a torrent turned on and off at pleasure by a dwarf gipsy called Zdenko, who is almost a greater nuisance than Albert himself. Consuelo discovers his retreat at the risk of being drowned; and various nightmarish scenes occur, resulting in the slight return to sanity on Albert's part involved in falling in love with her, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Dick dryly. "These varmint are on and off like shadows, and as cunning as Old Nick. We two will walk on quite unconcerned like, and as soon as ever the varmint are at our heels you give us the office; and we'll pepper ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... Mitchell came up to me and said, "How on earth is it you had so much to say to that chap?" I said (still believing he was the manager) that he was an old acquaintance of mine, at least, I had known him a long time—on and off—and that he seemed very pleased to see me again. Mitchell said, "Oh, you met him before today, did you?" I answered, "Yes, rather," and I said, "He was very friendly, I must say. He's very pleased with my performance. I shouldn't be surprised if ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... Negroes so much as my gloves. Am obliged to put them on and off frequently a dozen times a day, for their especial gratification. My Leghorn hat, on the contrary, here, as in The Mountains, is an object of admiration, on account of the fineness of the platting. It astonishes them how it could ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... Ricci and La Cesari made their appearance, the former as Giulietta, the latter as Romeo. The Ricci is a thin young woman, with a long, pale face, black eyes and hair, long neck and arms, and large hands; extremely pretty, it is said, off the stage, but very ineffective on it; but both on and off with a very distinguished air. Her voice is extensive, but wanting cultivation, and decidedly pea-hennish; besides that, she is apt to go out of tune. Her style of dress was excessively unbecoming to her style of beauty. ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... most famous lover on and off the stage was the aforementioned Fritz Schnotter; he is treated lavishly in three volumes ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... no doubt that the drama was extremely popular both on and off the stage; and although it is now one of the scarcest of our old plays, it must have been a profitable speculation to the publisher. In order that the various parties interested might more effectually avail themselves of the favour ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... drowse if you have been waking, and wake if you have been in a doze; but in any case you are aware of the locomotive hissing and coughing beyond the station, of flaring gas-jets, of clattering feet of passengers getting on and off; then of some one, conductor or station master, walking the whole length of the train; and then you are aware of an insane satisfaction in renewed flight through the darkness. You think hazily of the folk in their beds in the town left behind, who stir uneasily at the sound of your train's departing ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... his conception of the strong man that he must needs become as water at some woman's touch and go dancing and babbling like a sylvan brook. Women were the light of life—he was willing enough to admit it, but one must be able to switch the light on and off at will. All these were reasons for not falling in love—they were not reasons for not marrying. And so, Amber being determined to marry him, there was really less difficulty than if it had been necessary for him to fall in ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... and laughed. The sort of a laugh that could be turned on and off, like a light. Rainsford assured him that the Fuzzies were ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... years, Elaine Kinslow of Indianapolis, Indiana was on and off welfare. Today she's a dispatcher with a van company. She's saved enough money to move her family into a good neighborhood. And she's helping other welfare recipients ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... electric-light smile was being turned on and off in the box opposite with unmistakable intention, and, glancing across, Craven noticed that the young men had disappeared, no doubt to smoke cigarettes in the foyer. Lady Wrackley and Mrs. Ackroyde were alone, and, seeing them alone, it ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... extraordinary good fortune that had delivered this perfect girl and her formidable parent almost into his hands. Under his sternly controlled exterior his spirits sang wildly that his luck had turned, and dazzling visions of swift success and fulfillment of all ambitions snapped on and off in his stimulated brain. ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... Dr. Aldis Wright was under the impression that the portrait was never finished; but Posh is very certain about it. "I mind settin' as still as a cat at a mouse-hole," says he, "for ten min't or a quarter of an hour at a time, on and off, and then a stretchin' o' my legs in the yard. Ah! I was somethin' glad when that wuz finished, that I was! Tired! Lor! I niver knowed as dewin' narthen' would tire ye like that. The picter was sold at Mr. FitzGerald's sale, and bought by Billy Hynes o' Bury ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... his sore and bruised muscles. Then when Zeke and George rode in with the horses the day's work began. During these weeks of his "hardening up," as Dave called it, Hare bore much pain, but he continued well and never missed a day. At the most trying time when for a few days he had to be helped on and off Silvermane—for he insisted that he would not stay in camp—the brothers made his work as light as possible. They gave him the branding outfit to carry, a running-iron and a little pot with charcoal and bellows; and with these he followed the riders at a convenient distance ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... The skin was tawny. The moustache was black and bristling, as was also the thick hair, which lay back like grass before a breeze. The shaggy eyebrows were parted by deep clefts, the dark corrugations of frowning. One wondered if the man did not turn the foreboding scowl on and off by design. But all these were matters that fitted in with the other striking "properties," and Jacqueline was fairly well satisfied with her Fra Diavolo. As she declared to herself, here was the very dramatic presence to mount upon a ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... opposite shadows of some elms lights twinkled in the sky, incontinent sparks, as though glow lamps on an invisible pattern of wires were being switched on and off by an idle child. That was shrapnel. I walked along the empty street a little to get a view between and beyond the villas. I turned to say something to my companion, and saw then my silent neighbours, shadowy groups about me, as though ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... this musical show had not so very far falsified its attractions. There was plenty of action in the piece, much trotting on and off the stage; a great many songs with an exceedingly active chorus doing its best, and the dancing was unusually good. It had a big company of principals, well costumed; and such music as was ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... Griselda, or that he ever had any fixed thought that he was doing so. Young men in such matters are so often without any fixed thoughts! They are such absolute moths. They amuse themselves with the light of the beautiful candle, fluttering about, on and off, in and out of the flame with dazzled eyes, till in a rash moment they rush in too near the wick, and then fall with singed wings and crippled legs, burnt up and reduced to tinder by the consuming fire of matrimony. Happy marriages, men ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... Corfield!" said Adelaide pityingly. "He has been a very faithful adorer, I must say. I believe that he has been in love with Leam all his life, while she has held him on and off, and made use of him when she wanted him, and deserted him when she did not want him, with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... establishment goes without saying. Only long purses could stand the strain. It was a favorite headquarters for Westerners who had "struck it rich," wealthy bachelors, and successful actors and opera singers who loved the limelight on and off the stage. ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... stay in England I searched for, but could not find, the self-effacing spinster of former days. In her place was a capable woman, bright-eyed, happy. She was occupied and bustled at her work. She jumped on and off moving vehicles with the alertness, if not the unconsciousness, of the expert male. She never let me stand in omnibus or subway, but quickly gave me her seat, as indeed she insisted upon doing for elderly gentlemen ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch
... "On and off the stage, I mean. And that's knowledge," said Rickman. "Anybody can know them on; but it's not one man in a thousand knows ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... way, standing on and off shore, when we got on board. We afterwards ran in closer, and, to my great joy, made out a boat pulling towards us, out of which presently stepped the doctor and the padre. The boat then pulled away; and we ran to the northward, ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... you all any day," she said cordially; "and I shall have a hole in the bottom of the boat for people to go in and out of, and a nice staircase down to it, so you needn't mind the notion of how you'll get on and off." ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... arms high for a languid, not unlovely yawn, that closed in blissful shuddering with the sensation of her lover's arms having wormed round her waist and taken her while she was defenceless. For surely they would. She took a jewelled ring, his gift, from her purse, and kissed it, and drew it on and off her finger, leaving it on. Now she might wear it without fear of inquiries and virtuous eyebrows. O heavenly now—if only it were an hour hence; and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... go on in that way about your part, I shall think you want to play Mr. Gabblewig. Your role, though a small one on the stage, is a large one off it; and no man is more important to the Guild, both on and off. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... unresolved; the UN is attempting to hold a referendum; the UN-administered cease-fire has been currently in effect since September 1991; Spain controls five places of sovereignty (plazas de soberania) on and off the coast of Morocco - the coastal enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla which Morocco contests as well as the islands of Penon de Alhucemas, Penon de Velez de la Gomera, and Islas Chafarinas Climate: Mediterranean, becoming more extreme in the interior Terrain: mostly mountains with ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... grapes at five or six shillings a pound; quaint Japanese knick- knacks; books and pictures, and photographs of celebrated men—great beetle-browed philosophers, and men of blood and thunder; also of women still more celebrated, on and off the stage. Mr. Starbrow would have nothing sent; the whole fun of the thing, he assured Fan, was in carrying all their purchases home themselves; and so, laden with innumerable small parcels, they would return chatting ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... neighborhood of Kagamale in quest of sea-otter and other furs, and he bore up for the island, with the intention of testing the truth of the tradition he had heard. He had more difficulty in entering the cave than in finding it, his schooner having to beat on and off shore for three days. Finally he succeeded in affecting a landing, and clambering up the rocks he found himself in the presence of the dead chief, his family ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... Nothin' mushy about glancin' casual at it now and then, was there? You know I ain't got any too many friends,—not so many I has to have a waitin' list,—and outside of Zenobia and Aunt Martha, and here and there one of the lady typewriters at the office that throws me a smile on and off, they're mostly men. And as for fam'ly, mother, or father, or sisters, or brothers, or real aunts—well, you know how I'm fixed. I'm the ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... passes our cook; Mataafa daily surrounded (when he awakes) with fresh "white man's boxes" (query, ammunition?) and professing to be quite ignorant of where they come from; marches of bodies of men across the island; concealment of ditto in the bush; the coming on and off of different chiefs; and such a mass of ravelment and rag-tag as the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... moved on and off the prairie—and those who stayed barely made a mark on the engulfing spaces. The unyielding, harsh life had routed the majority of homesteaders—they had shut the door behind them and left the ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... gently and not unpleasantly, as the contragravity field alternated on and off, occasionally varying its normal rate of five hundred to the second when some thermal updraft lifted the vehicle and the automatic radar-altimeter control acted to alter the frequency and lower it again. ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... summed once or twice again without difficulty. The time involved in drawing the four sum curves, for example, required in passing from the load curve to the deflection curve of a simple beam, if these curves were drawn on different pieces of paper and had to be shifted on and off cylinders, would probably be as long as the ordinary graphical processes. Coradi's integraph works on an ordinary drawing board, but since there are nearly 10 inches between the guide point and tracer, the sum curve is thrown 10 inches behind the primitive in each integration. Thus a double summation ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... for Hermione and Emilie, in Corneille's "Cinna," are not characters abounding in tenderness. Lady M—— saw her the other day in "Marie Stuart," and cried her eyes almost out, so she must have some pathetic power. —— was so enchanted with her, both on and off the stage, that he took me to call upon her, on her arrival in London, and I was very much pleased with the quiet grace and dignity, the excellent bon ton of her manners and deportment. The other ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... to the room, elbows on the mantel propping his head, face bent, oblivious to anything that I might do. It oughtn't to be hard to find the way this place could be entered and left by a man solid enough to cast a shadow, with quick fingers to snap the light on and off. But when I made a painstaking examination of a corner grate with a flue too small for anything but a chimney swallow to go up and down, a ceiling solidly beamed and paneled, the glass that formed the skylight set in firmly as part ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... the use of elevators, and which no doubt is common, is the habit many parties have of keeping a key or wrench to turn on and off the water at the curb. This we have sought to remedy by embracing in our plumbers' rules the following: "All elevator connections in addition to the curb stop for the use of the Water Company must be ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... of both. Bonaventure snatched Claude to his arms and kissed him. It was less than nothing to him that every eye on and off the train was on them. He relaxed his grasp. "Sidonie! tell him farewell!—ah! nay! shake not hands only! Kiss her, Claude! Kiss him, my own Sidonie, kiss ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... be turned in one direction and give a beautiful glow light, while if turned in the other direction, it instantly gave as beautiful a dark. My then 12 year old daughter used to surprise and please her visitors by suddenly turning on and off the 'glim.' It is not well to despise the day of small things, for although the dynamo had not at that date put in an appearance, and though I used thirty-six Smee cells of six gallons capacity each, yet I demonstrated then and there that the incandescent electric light ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... there on and off all the time we've been talking," said Robin. "I wasn't sure at first. But now I'm certain. He's ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... living conditions. Nationality is an index to nothing significant in America, where all race and nationality differences melt into Americanisms, all responding in about the same way to American opportunity. No, our test must be something that cannot be put on and off, cannot be left at home, cannot be concealed or pretended, something inseparable from the child and beyond his control. This test it has been conclusively proved in Chicago, Boston, Brookline, Philadelphia, and particularly ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... Considerable controversy has raged, on and off, but especially of late, in regard to the painted and etched portraits which Rosenthal produced nearly a generation ago, and in particular respecting portraits which were hung in Independence Hall, Philadelphia. Statements in the case by Rosenthal ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... he might never hope for a word from her; though he should learn in the coming moment that she was the other's promised wife; he could not for that reason banish her from his mind. His feelings were not to be put on and off, like clothes; he had no power over them. It was simply a case of accepting things as they were, and this he sought ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... On and off during the bitter night the white beam of light flashed out through the snow. For a few seconds it swept the sea close around and was then shut off. In the pall-like blackness which followed ears listened intently, but could distinguish nothing except ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... Fellow-Workers in the Realm of Dramatic Art how they killed 'em in Decatur and had 'em hollerin' in Lowell, Mass., and got every Hand in the House at St. Paul. Occasionally they would put a Card in the Clipper, saying that they were the Best in the Business, Bar None, and Good Dressers on and off the Stage. Regards to Leonzo Brothers. Charley Diamond ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... bad cannot be put on and off like a dress-coat; they are lasting qualities, the growth of years, the result of constant practice and self-denial or self-neglect. And, as I wish you success in life, allow me to conclude this lecture by recommending to you the assiduous cultivation of gentlemanly ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... their fellow-men. They have spiritual cold storage, in which are preserved their nervous systems. In such men there is little or none of that fluid sense and continuity of feeling known under those vague terms, speculation, poetry, philosophy. Men of facts and of decision switching imagination on and off at will, subordinating sentiment to reason... one does not think of them when watching wind ripple over cornfields, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... shepherding patients to an entertainment in town as an agreeable form of holiday. I have had some very pleasant outings of that sort myself. But not—I am thankful to recall, in the light of Corporal Smith's narrative—with blind men. One-legged men are often a sufficient care, in manoeuvring on and off omnibuses. Apparently helpless cripples have a marvellous gift for losing themselves, entering wrong trains, and generally escaping—as the hour for return draws nigh—from one's custody. And the city ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... {euperispastoi ta akra}, al. "they should be made so that the nets can be fitted on and off easily, with sharp points"; or "off the ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... to steady them. "On and off—at Mess. Touch of the sun, perhaps. I'll get to bed and souse ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... contaminates the stream it was soaked in into the bargain. The pipes are sometimes made of iron very neatly. I should imagine they smoked hot, but of this I have no knowledge. One of my Ajumba friends got himself one of these pipes when we were in Efoua, and that pipe was, on and off, a curse to the party. Its owner soon learnt not to hold it by the bowl, but by the wooden stem, when smoking it; the other lessons it had to teach he learnt more slowly. He tucked it, when he had done smoking, into the fold in his cloth, until he had had three ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... are arranged so as to switch on the electric lights if the house is entered. Special annunciators showing where the house has been entered are a part of the system. A clock which turns the alarm on and off at predetermined hours is ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... ere I could learn one to set in its place. It is but a chip here and a chip there, yet it may bring the tree down in time. Yet, on the other hand, I cannot but think it shame that a man should turn God's mercy on and off, as a cellarman doth wine with ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Sliver, crawling along at a bare three-hundred miles an hour, approached that transparent, brilliantly violet wall of destruction, a violet light filled her control room and as suddenly went out; flashing on and off again ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... he believed that everyone there present would agree with him, when he said that they should not let the occasion pass without drinking the 'ealth of their esteemed and respected employer, Mr Rushton. (Hear, hear.) Some of them had worked for Mr Rushton on and off for many years, and as far as THEY was concerned it was not necessary for him (Hunter) to say much in praise of Mr Rushton. (Hear, hear.) They knew Mr Rushton as well as he did himself and to know him was to esteem him. (Cheers.) As for the new hands, although they did not know Mr Rushton ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... strict inquiries made into the matter. The result, however, added little to what I had at first learned—except, indeed, that our old friend, the cat, bore a part in the transaction as I suspected; for the servant, who had been placed to sleep in the room, complained that something bounded on and off, and ran to-and-fro along the foot of the bed, in the dark. The same servant, while in the room, in the broad daylight, had heard the sound of walking, and even the rustling of clothes near him, as of people passing and repassing; ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... the Broadway crowd, dreaming on the music that eddied out of the cafes. New faces flashed on and off like myriad lights, pale or rouged faces, tired, yet sustained by a weary excitement. Amory watched them in fascination. He was planning his life. He was going to live in New York, and be known at every restaurant and cafe, wearing a dress-suit from early evening to early morning, sleeping ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... later before the town saw the flames. During that time John Markley had been walking to and from his midday dinner with Isabel Hobart, had been helping her on and off with her wraps in the office, and had been all but kicking up the dirt behind him and barking around her, as the clerks there told us, without causing comment. An honest man always has such a long start when he runs away from himself that no one misses him until he is ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... vigor through their barrack-yard, falling in for exercise or gymnastics or for school. She wondered what they were taught, and who had sufficient impertinence to teach giants, and were they ever slapped for not knowing their lessons? He told her of his daily work, the hours when he was on and off duty, the hours when he rose in the morning and when he went to bed. He told her of night duty, and drew a picture of the blank deserted streets which thrilled and frightened her ... the tense darkness, and how through the silence the sound of a footstep was ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... he is quite at home, and when he dialogues with the orchestra, he shews much energy and feeling. Independently of these gifts, Nature has granted to RAFFANELLI another most valuable privilege. She seems to have exempted him from the impression of time. In 1788 and 89, I saw him frequently, both on and off the stage; after a lapse of upwards of twelve years, he appears again to my eyes exactly the same man. I cannot perceive ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... sides and bits of grass before them, that sometimes were gay with late autumn flowers. A horse-car track ran up the middle, and the cars seemed to be tinkling by all the time, and people getting on and off. They were mostly ladies and children, and they were very well dressed. Sometimes they stared at Barker, as they crossed his way in entering or issuing from the houses, but generally no one appeared to notice ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... so, on hearing of the King's execution, it proclaimed the Prince of Wales King Charles the Second, on condition of his respecting the Solemn League and Covenant. Charles was abroad at that time, and so was Montrose, from whose help he had hopes enough to keep him holding on and off with commissioners from Scotland, just as his father might have done. These hopes were soon at an end; for, Montrose, having raised a few hundred exiles in Germany, and landed with them in Scotland, found that the people ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... by Captains of guns and boarders, as well as by small-arms men and the crews of field-howitzers; the frogs and boxes to hold the arms and ammunition being fitted with loops to slip on and off the belt as circumstances require, and in the ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... pleasant time with these people. They are the wildest of any people that I have yet come across in Luzon. But like all wild people, they are cordial and hospitable. I live in their houses and so have their presence day and night. I hunt, fish and hike with them, see them on and off their guard, observe them in all their varying moods—in short, I'm very close to them all the time. Some time I will tell you a ...
— The Negrito and Allied Types in the Philippines and The Ilongot or Ibilao of Luzon • David P. Barrows
... described him briefly but emphatically as honest, sober and willing. By way of the usual caution we wrote to this good lady direct and asked her to be so kind as to elaborate her views to us in confidence. In reply she wrote that James had been with her for eleven years on and off, had left her only because she was leaving "The Cottage," would be welcomed back by her when she settled down again, and meanwhile was very honest, very sober and very willing. There was that about the handwriting and style of this letter which made us ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... already working at capacity, transmitting the light and heat that filtered through the mirror-tone hull into stored, useful energy. Batteries were already overcharged and the voltage regulators snapped on and off like a crackling ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... one of general law to be decided by the federal courts in the exercise of their independent judgment. Citing Warren's discovery that Swift v. Tyson was an erroneous interpretation of the Judiciary Act of 1789, criticism of the Tyson doctrine both on and off the bench, and the political and social defects of the rule in working discriminations against citizens of a State in favor of noncitizens and in producing injustice and confusion, Justice Brandeis declared: "If only a question of statutory construction were involved, we should not be ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... was effected. Two people were silenced and uncomfortable, and a sort of mist hung over the spirits of the whole party. The dinner went on and off, like all other dinners; the ladies retired, and the men drank, and talked indecorums. Mr. Davison left the room first, in order to look out the word "truffle," in the Encyclopaedia; and Lord Vincent and I went next, "lest (as my companion characteristically observed) that d—d ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... USO dances and entertainments.[21-35] (p. 540) The committee also discussed discrimination in military police assignments, segregation in local transport and on school buses, and the commander's attitude toward interracial associations both on and off the military reservation. ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... peculiar as it was great. He did not think that Mr. Grey was so brave a man as his father. And then he could trace the payment of no large sum to Mr. Grey,—such as would have been necessary as a bribe in such a case. Augustus suspected Mr. Grey, on and off. But Mr. Grey was sure that Augustus suspected his own father. Now, of one thing Mr. Grey was certain:—Augustus was, in truth, the rightful heir. The squire had at first contrived to blind him,—him, Mr. Grey,—partly by his own acuteness, partly through ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... about nine inches apart. The plants are cleared when the leaves decay, and the ground is kept level instead of being earthed up. Pots and covers (called 'sea-kale pots') are placed over the plants, or patches of plants, and the cover (which goes on and off at pleasure) put on. These pots are of various sizes; usually from ten to fourteen inches in diameter, and from a foot to twenty inches in height. If proper sea-kale pots cannot be procured, large-sized flower-pots will answer as substitutes; ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... consider this a good opportunity for repeating his remark, with variations. "I shall sit here," he said, "on and off, for ...
— Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. With a Proem by Austin Dobson • Lewis Carroll
... preparation for the dramatic recital before him. "On Tuesday afternoon," he began again, with impressive slowness, "I was walking on Throgmorton Street, about four o'clock. It was raining a little—it had been raining on and off all day—a miserable, rotten sort of a day, with greasy mud everywhere, and everybody poking umbrellas into you. I was out walking because I'd 'a' cut my throat if I'd tried to stay in the office another ten minutes. All that day I hadn't eaten anything. ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... down next to the other one, and flicked the toggle for the air pumps, then put on the fishbowl and went about unattaching the suit from the ship. When the red light flashed on and off, I spun the door, opened it, and stepped out onto the rock, moving very cautiously. It isn't that I don't believe the magnets in the boot soles will work, it's just that I know for a fact that they won't work if I happen to raise both feet ...
— The Risk Profession • Donald Edwin Westlake
... 'tis very true, But took them as all wise men do, With an intent, if things should turn, Rather to temporise, than burn; Gospel and loyalty were made To serve the purposes of trade; 160 Religions are but paper ties, Which bind the fool, but which the wise, Such idle notions far above, Draw on and off, just like a glove; All gods, all kings (let his great aim Be answer'd) were to him the same. A curate first, he read and read, And laid in, whilst he should have fed The souls of his neglected flock, Of reading such a mighty stock, 170 That he o'ercharged the weary brain With more ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... the Elkhorn, as the hotel was called, grunted in discount of this anxiety as he turned his shifty eyes to the stranger, flicking them on and off like a fly. He saw the coins dropped by the cowboy, picked them up, put them in his pocket, face red from what evidently was unaccustomed effort ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... the mistake directly we understand that a genuine style is the living body of thought, not a costume that can be put on and off; it is the expression of the writer's mind; it is not less the incarnation of his thoughts in verbal symbols than a picture is the painter's incarnation of his thoughts in symbols of form and colour. A man ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes |
