"Surf" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... where we had said Good-bye, and burst out crying. What with the dreadful secret he had been telling me as we came along, and then the parting when I didn't expect it, all I had of the man about me gave way somehow in a moment. And I sat alone, crying and sobbing on the sand-hillock, with the surf roaring miles out at sea behind me, and the great plain before, with Matthew walking over it alone on his ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... of mine, I seek above the surf of hedgerow line Where peeping branches reach, and reaching twine Faint cherry or plum or eglantine. But with pretence of whisperings The year's young mischief-wind shall take By storm these shy striplings, And soon or later ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... evident marks of volcanic origin, and there are numerous volcanic cones on the north side of the chain, some of them active; many of the islands, however, are not wholly volcanic, but contain crystalline or sedimentary rocks, and also amber and beds of lignite. The coasts are rocky and surf-worn and the approaches are exceedingly dangerous, the land rising immediately from the coasts to steep, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... went out to the covered piazza to read the lesson. It was a fine, still morning. The pond rippled dreamily. The roar of the surf was subdued. From Jewel's seat beside her grandfather she could see her namesake glinting in the sun and gracefully rising and falling on the waves ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... like golden moonlight on the ocean. She could not define or trace the waves of color; they flowed in and out of each other with interchangeable movement. One half of the outer rim, which was transparently thin and curled like the fantastic edge of a surf wave, was flecked with a faint play of rose and cream and silver, that melted imperceptibly into the moonlit sea. When she turned the shell over she found that she could not see its heart. The blue-green ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... the weather did not keep truce very long. A wailing blast around the upper peaks produced a caterwauling to equal the voices of half a dozen Throg hounds. And in their poor shelter the Terrans not only heard the thunderous boom of surf, but felt the vibration of that beat pounding through the very ground on which they lay. The sea must have long since covered the beach over which they had come and was now trying its strength against the rock of the cliff ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... through the flat branches of the pine, would get a feeling of being the only creature in the world. The crinkled, silvery sea, that lonely pine-tree, the cold moon, the sky dark corn-flower blue, the hiss and sucking rustle of the surf over the beach pebbles, even the salt, chill air, seemed lonely. By day, too—in the hazy heat when the clouds merged, scarce drifting, into the blue, and the coarse sea-grass tufts hardly quivered, and sea-birds passed close above the water with chuckle and cry—it all often seemed ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Amazonian Dames Contrive whereby to glorify their names. A ruff for Boston Neck of mud and turfe, Reaching from side to side, from surf to surf, Their nimble hands spin up like Christmas pyes, Their pastry by degrees on high doth rise ... The wheel at home counts in an holiday, Since while the mistress worketh it may play. A tribe of female ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... chimney coughed in its throat. One heard outside the whistle of the wind, the moan of the surf far off in the night, and the snow ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... their swift voyage through the air, they had come within sight of the great ocean, and were soon flying over it. Far beneath them, the waves tossed themselves tumultuously in midsea, or rolled a white surf-line upon the long beaches, or foamed against the rocky cliffs with a roar that was thunderous, in the lower world; although it became a gentle murmur, like the voice of a baby half asleep, before it reached the ears of Perseus. Just ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... November sun shed its fallow light upon the still agitated sea and the high-running surf. Now and then a puff of wind came and carried the spray clear up to the table. There was lyme grass all around, and the bright yellow of the immortelles stood out sharply against the yellow sand they were growing in, despite the kinship of colors. Effi played the hostess. "I ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... were creamy like lather! O beers that were foamy like suds! O fizz that I loved like a father! O fie on the drinks that are duds! I sat by the doors that were slatted And the stuff had a surf like the sea— No vintage was anywhere vatted Too strong for ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... "BARK.—'The surf bark from the Nor'ard;' or, as was otherwise said to me, 'The sea aint lost his woice from the Nor'ard yet,'—a sign, by the way, that the wind is to come from that quarter. A poetical word such as those whose business is with the sea are apt to ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... what you hear. Only the musical plash of the fountains and the sonorous undertone of the organ, like the distant roar of surf upon the beach? Ah, me! ah, me! how materialistic you are, my children. Your old uncle hears in these myriad-voiced fountains the musical instruments which Boccaccio gave to the Satyrs; 'cymbals, pipes, and whistling reeds,' and the song of the nymphs. Did you note that startled ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... in the surf some two thousand yards east of the entrance to Ostend Harbor, which she failed so gallantly to block; and when, in the early hours of yesterday morning, the Vindictive groped her way through the smoke-screen and headed for the entrance, it was as ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... heavy, ominous thunder-clouds came rolling silently in from the west. Lightning played in fitful dashes. Then followed swirling wind gusts, which stirred up fantastic columns of whirling dust, roared down the ravines, and raised a surf which grated furiously on the shingle below. Thunder crashed and bellowed, and the whole weird fantasy of crag, cliff and cyclonic dust columns was terribly and wonderfully lit by the vivid and almost ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... support the crew for a few days, should they reach the rocks in safety. There seethed, however, a greet likelihood of their not doing that, as the raft must inevitably be turned over by the surf as it reached the rocks, and ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... the Captain and half of the people clambered ashore, Through the surf and the snow in the gloom of that horrible night, There's no one ever will know. For two days more The death-white shroud of the tempest ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... sensorium at this early stage. Take your daughter, who has always, we will suppose, lived in the country, on an excursion with you to the sea-shore, and allow her to witness for an hour, as she sits in silence on the cliff, the surf rolling in incessantly upon the beach, and infinitely the smallest part of the effect is the day's gratification which you have given her. That is comparatively nothing. You have made a life-long change, if not in the very ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... open field. A characteristic piece of ill-temper was her treatment of young ACTAEON. The latter, who was a respectable, though rather reckless young man, was once walking along the beach, when he suddenly came upon DIANA and several female friends in the act of taking the surf. Envious to behold the extremes of boniness, which then, as now, doubtless characterized the strong-minded females, he concealed himself in a neighboring bathing-house, and brought his opera-glass to bear on the group. He was, however, discovered, and DIANA and her friends ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various
... down grotesquely on his oar. He fired again, and one of the remaining two stood up, shook a fist towards the shore and, staggering backwards, capsized the boat in the surf. He must have sunk like lead with his wound, for he never rose to the surface; but the last man, who was Pierce, battled gallantly with the flood, and endeavoured to reach the boat, which was bottom upwards. In this, however, he failed, for the tide seemed to suck him away. The boat ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... rounded hills. Slowly finer points appeared, the ridge of mountains showed details and we could recognize the tops of the giant banyan trees, towering above the forest as a cathedral does over the houses of a city. We saw the surf, breaking in the coral cliffs of flat shores, found the entrance to the wide bay, noticed the palms with elegantly curved trunks bending over the beach, and unexpectedly entered the lagoon, that shone in the bright sun like a ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... bluff. From this point of vantage he could see the entire plain. To the very verge of the horizon the brown masses of the buffalo bands showed through the dust clouds, coming on with a thunderous roar like that of surf. Camp was a mile away, and the stampede luckily passed to one side of it. Watching his chance he finally dodged back to the tent, and all that afternoon watched the immense masses of buffalo, as band after band tore to the brink of ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... steed with his nostril all wide, But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride; And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,[mm] And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.[mn] ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... dearth of "C's." Not more than a dozen of the crowded Monarchic's passengers were dancing with impatience beneath the third letter of the alphabet, and Mr. Rolls, Jr., walked straight up to tall Miss Child without being beaten back by a surf of "C's." To be sure, Miss Carroll was under the same letter, and observed the approach of Peter with interest, if not surprise; but she was seated on a trunk at ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... Piquenais rocks at the very entrance are the abode of another familiar revenant. The Prophet assures me that thirty years ago a vessel and crew were wrecked there, and on every succeeding stormy evening since that day, the captain, with creditable perseverance, waves his light on that wind-and surf-swept rock. In this instance the prophetical authority is in dispute, for there are those who assert that the light is shown by fairies to toll boats to their doom on the foggy point. The more scientifically minded explain the mysterious light as ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... northward and eastward, had considerably increased, and her Majesty, upon the Duke's taking his leave, evinced very great anxiety respecting the safe landing of his Grace. Everybody who knows this coast is aware that when the wind is blowing at all from the eastward that there is a very heavy surf on the beach, and consequently great difficulty in landing. His Grace, however, on thanking her Majesty for the concern she evinced on his account, made light of the matter, and returned on board the Ariel, which brought him as near the shore as possible; ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... breadth of the strait, formed by the island and the western point of Maxwell Bay. We hauled our wind to the northward, just in time to avoid being embayed in the ice, on the outer edge of which a considerable surf, the effect of the late gale, was ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... encompassed him; and, by continually tormenting him, drove, him insensibly ashore. On grounding, the force with which he struck the ground with his fins is not to be expressed, neither can I describe the agility with which the Indians strove to dispatch him, lest the surf should set him again afloat, which they at length accomplished with the help of a dagger lent them by Mr Randal. They then cut him into pieces, which were distributed among all who stood by. This fish, though of the flat kind, was very thick, and had a ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... sea, sloping upwards with those grand and simple concave curves which betoken, almost always, volcanic land. Nearer still, the purple changed to green. Tall palm-trees and engine-houses stood out against the sky; the surf gleamed white around the base of isolated rocks. A little nearer, and we were under the lee, or western side, of the island. The sea grew smooth as glass; we entered the shade of the island-cloud, and slid along in still unfathomable blue water, close under the ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... the end of its chain cable, followed by a roughly-built "flatty" and a huge log of silkwood. A jolly red buoy, weary of the formality of bowing to the swell, broke loose from a sandbank's apron-strings, bounced off in the ecstasies of liberty, romped in the surf, rolled on the beach, worked a cosy bed in the soft warm sand, and has slumbered ever since to the soothing hum of the wind, indifferent to the perplexities of mariners and the fate of ships. The gilded ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... Lissa is a strong position, the usual comparison of it with Gibraltar is exaggerated. It ought to have been possible to land the Italian troops which Persano had with him under cover of his guns, and to take the island before Tegethoff came up. The surf caused by the rough weather, to which he chiefly attributed his failure, would not have proved an insuperable obstacle had the ships' crews been exercised in landing troops ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... which every gleaming particle was a burnished sun. I gazed spellbound until it was as the vision of an unfathomed sea, an ocean tide of light, where the shimmering foam was the rise and fall of single and multiple systems, the surf beat breaking on the shores of converging universes. I gazed on this wealth and congeries of far -flung worlds, in which some that appeared the most insignificant and twinkled and trembled as though each glimmer would be the last, were actually so great that beside them our own poor little world ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... all eyes that have deeply mourned and bitterly wept. The look was serene and youthful, with such happiness as might come from health and elemental life,—such as a Dryad might have in her songful bowers, or a Naiad plunging in the surf. But it was a shallow face, and pleased only as the sunshine does. For my part, I would rather listen to the sorrowful song of the pine-tree: that is the tune ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... a high chamber in the Hotel del Coronado, on the great and fertile beach in front of San Diego. It is the 2d of June. Looking southward, I see the great expanse of the Pacific Ocean, sparkling in the sun as blue as the waters at Amalfi. A low surf beats along the miles and miles of white sand continually, with the impetus of far-off seas and trade-winds, as it has beaten for thousands of years, with one unending roar and swish, and occasional shocks of sound as if of distant ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... addition to the pack she had slung over her shoulder. They finally started down a narrow path that led on down to the shore, leaving some of their equipment behind to be brought later on in the afternoon. As they neared the shore the boom of the surf grew ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... who doubtless had already dried their tears, the sky began to smile before we reached the treacherous pass in the outer reef. Beyond Moto Utu, the tiny islet in the harbor that had been harem and fort in kingly days, we saw the surf foaming on the coral, and soon were through the ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... was it yesterday We heard the sweet bells over the bay? In the caverns where we lay, Through the surf and through the swell, The far-off sound of a silver bell? Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep, Where the winds are all asleep; Where the spent lights quiver and gleam, Where the salt weed sways in the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the surf over yonder. If one should dive deep, And rise not—no more need he suffer or ponder O'er losses, or weep, But sink low and sleep While ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... at length, after nine harvests from its inception, is published when nine winters have gone by, whilst in the meantime Hortensius thousands upon thousands in one * * * * "Zmyrna" shall wander abroad e'en to the curving surf of Satrachus, hoary ages shall turn the leaves of "Zmyrna" in distant days. But Volusius' Annals shall perish at Padua itself, and shall often furnish loose wrappings for mackerel. The short writings of my comrade are gladsome to my heart; let the ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... rugosa" hung with berries like lumps of coral, out to the gray ships speeding fast through cataracts of sapphire spray. It was a wonderful sight and a wonderful day! The morning sun seemed to paint the rocks purple and turn the high spurting surf to fountains of diamonds. It lit the young gold of maple trees, and the delicate crysophrase green of weeping beeches that sweep the lawns along the twelve-mile drive (consoled Niobes weeping only happy tears!) and threw ladders of light down to the marshes. ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... one slept, for until two o'clock in the morning, troops were still being disembarked in the surf, and two ships of war had their searchlights turned on the landing-place, and made Siboney as light as a ball-room. Back of the searchlights was an ocean white with moonlight, and on the shore red ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... civilization has laid none of its heavier burdens, are naturally prone to amusement, and cultivate their numerous national sports with a good deal of energy and skill. Foremost amongst these is the well-known pastime of surf-swimming—a pastime the origin of which it is not difficult to understand. It is one in which both men and women join. Armed with a surf-board—a flat piece of wood, about four feet long by two feet wide, pointed ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... something dark in the hollow of a wave that swept to its fall. The moon came out as it broke, and the something was rolled in the surf up the shore. Donal stood watching it. Why should he move? What was it to him? The next wave would reclaim it for the ocean! It looked like the body of a man, but what did it matter! Many such were tossed in ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... incarnations of himself, who had gleaned it in their lives, from days when the world was young. He had a thousand souls, which had known great sorrows and joys and adventures. His blood seemed to smoke gold, like spray on rushing surf in sunshine. Never had he admitted any one he had known (except the people his own mind created for inhabitants of that kingdom) into his land; but now the girl whose name he scarcely knew stood at the door of the castle, asking to come in, saying with her eyes, which he had likened ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... wonder of the unknown. Beyond the water through which they slid, black and smooth as polished basalt, he saw a lighthouse winking. From his steamer time-table he learned that it must be Great Gull Island light. Great Gull Island! It suggested to him thunderous cliffs with surf flung up on beetling rock, screaming gulls, and a smuggler on guard with menacing rifle. He lost his fear of fear; he ceased to think about his accustomed life of two aisles and the show-case of new ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... was glowing over the steel blue sea. Not a sail broke the distance; only the ceaseless tossing of white foam above the rips, and close at hand a dory or two, rocking and rolling just outside the line of surf. In the foreground was a broad strip of sand and silvery beach grass then a narrower strip of sand without any grass at all, and then the huge breakers which came crashing in, wave on wave, mounting up, curling over, falling, breaking and racing ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... seems to be composed of ferruginous matter alone. Hand specimens fail to give a just idea of these brown burnished stones which glitter in the sun's rays. They occur only within the limits of the tidal waves; and as the rivulet slowly trickles down, the surf must supply the polishing power of the cataracts in the great rivers. In like manner, the rise and fall of the tide probably answer to the periodical inundations; and thus the same effects are produced under apparently different but really ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... misty and overcast. Heavy, wet clouds hung in the east. I heard the surf thundering against the cliffs, and the gray gulls squealed as they tossed and turned high in the sky. The tide was creeping across the river sands, higher, higher, and I saw the seaweed floating on the beach, and the lancons springing from ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... far as Junction Station, and from which much had been hoped, proved almost useless owing to shortage of rolling stock, and consequently supply depended almost entirely on motor lorry and camel from Railhead, or from the Wadi Sukharieh, where some supplies were being landed in surf boats. The question of supply had been most difficult, and water supply hardly less so, even for the one corps, and it looked as if we might come in for some scarcity when we got up nearer the front. In the pursuit of the portion of the Turkish Army, which was retiring on Jerusalem, ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... been crazy for travel. I used to read my geography book till I wore it out nearly; the exports and the imports, you know? And the pictures of those Arabian men with white turbans, and the South Sea Islanders riding on surf boards—I can see 'em now. There was a castle for Germany, with the moon behind it and the Rhine—do you know 'Bingen on the Rhine'? I love the sound of that. And the Black Forest! ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... in action, but not encouraging. He got off with Ken in his power boat in surprisingly short order. The coast guard, who had received a very urgent telephone message, launched the surf-boat, and tried vainly to pierce the blank wall of fog—now darkening to twilight—with their big searchlight. Lanterns, lost at once in the murk, began to issue from wharf-houses as men started on foot up the ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... prevent the execution of this project; but he slipped and went swishing full length along the floor, creating a little surf before him as he slid, to the demoniac happiness of Sam and Maurice. They closed the door, however, and, as other boys rushed, shouting and splashing, into the flooded dressing-room, Carlie began to hammer upon the panels. Then the owners of shoes, striving ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... we anchored on the eastern side of it in Seal Bay—a wild anchorage, the swell constantly rolling in with too much surf to allow of our commencing a series of tidal observations. This bay, in the mouth of which lies a small cluster of rocks, is separated from the one on the opposite side, by a strip of low sandy land, which, as I have said, ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... James, hopping up and down in the beach grass, squealing like a Guinea hen with a sore throat, and waving his gun with one wing—arm, I mean—and there in front of him, in the foam at the edge of the surf, was two ducks as dead as Nebuchadnezzar—two of Lonesome Huckleberries' best decoy ducks—ducks he'd tamed and trained, and thought more of than anything else in this world—except rum, maybe—and the rest of the flock was digging up the beach for home ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... proofs of military genius. At the same time the two other divisions, on the right and in the centre, commanded by the brigadiers Whitmore and Laurence, made a show of landing, in order to divide and distract the enemy. Notwithstanding an impetuous surf, by which many boats were overset, and a very severe fire of cannon and musketry from the enemy's batteries, which did considerable execution, brigadier Wolfe pursued his point with admirable courage and deliberation. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... nature are scattered with a more lavish hand across the country lying between the summit of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the shores where the surf romps and rolls over the auriferous sands of the Pacific, in Golden Gate Park, than in a journey of the same length in any other part of the world. Such, at least, is the verdict of many whose fortune it has been to traverse ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... forgotten. The caves were so high that my lanterns failed to reveal the roof. There were hordes of bats, some of them with wings that spread four feet. The noise of their countless wings, upon our intrusion, was like the roar of surf. Spiders of sinister aspect that have never seen the light of day, and formidable in size, were observed, and centipedes eight or nine inches long. In places we waded through damp bat guano up to our knees, the strong fumes of ammonia from ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... went calling in Cape Town, last night, without leave, stayed till past eleven and undertook to come in by sea. He shipped in a leaky boat with a crew composed of one Kaffir boy; the Kaffir funked the surf; they had an upset and Eaton-Hill waked up the picket by the fervor of his swearing at ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... surroundings from the eye, the mind might feed without any hindrance upon the ideas of old piety and the fervour of souls who, when Europe was like a troubled and forlorn sea, sought the quietude and safety of these rocks, lifted far above the raging surf. But the hindrance is found on every side. The sense of artistic fitness is wounded by incongruities of architectural style, of ideas which meet but do not marry. The brazen altar, in the Miraculous Chapel was well enough at the Paris Exhibition of 1889, where it could be admired as a ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... outflow of its current into the ocean that caused the break in the coral reef through which their boat had been enabled to pass. Otherwise they might have found no opening, and perished in attempting to traverse the surging surf. The madrepores will not build their subaqueous coral walls where rivers run into the ocean; hence the open spaces here and there happily left, that form deep transverse channels admitting the ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... anxiety. Then, after the boat had disappeared completely from sight, hidden by a huge grey wall of sea, she seemed suddenly to climb to the top of it, to hover there, to become mixed up with the spray and the surf and a great green mass of waters, and then finally, with a harsh crash of timbers and a shout from the fishermen, to be flung high and dry upon the stones. Philippa, clutching the iron railing, saw for a moment nothing but chaos. Her knees became weak. She was unable to move. There ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of the beach, the rollers break with great force, and the surf is very high. At one point is grouped a cluster of rocks, half in the water, half on the beach, among which, as the tide comes in, the waves break with furious force, dashing high over the outermost barrier, and then plunging and leaping forward, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... ran down the shore in long, hoarse strokes. Tiny seagulls, like specks of spray, wheeled above the line of surf. Their crying seemed larger than they. Far away the coast reached out, and melted into the morning, the tussocky sandhills seemed to sink to a level with the beach. Mablethorpe was tiny on their right. They had alone the ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... broke in a surf of splendor upon the great mountain-line that overhangs Puerto del Norte. Where, at the corporation dock, there had lurked the shadow of a yacht, gray-black against blue-black, there now swung a fairy ship ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... and looks trim and neat in it. Her hair is another contested point: she dresses it in five minutes in the morning, walks or drives in the rain and wind for a few hours, rides in the afternoon, bathes in the surf, lies in a hammock, and, if circumstances demand, the creature can smooth it with her hands and walk in to dinner! Kitty and I, on the contrary, rise a half-hour earlier to curl or wave; our spirit- lamps leak into our dressing-bags, and our beauty is decidedly damaged by damp or hot weather. ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... catch, we step gingerly along an outstretched oar and climb on board. The orders of the captain to the mate are sporty and suggest turf rather than surf. "Kick her up, Mac!" "Give her a kick ahead!" "Who-o-oa!" On Sunday evening, June 28th, we reach Fond du Lac, clinging close to the water-line on her beautiful stretch of sand. All unregarded are the church-bells, and the Indians crowd to meet us,—bent old crones, ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... mighty that the Sagalie Tyee Himself could not control the havoc that he created. He warred upon all fishing craft, he demolished canoes and sent men to graves in the sea. He uprooted forests and drove the surf on shore heavy with wreckage of despoiled trees and with beaten and bruised fish. He did all this to reveal his powers, for he was cruel and hard of heart, and he would laugh and defy the Sagalie Tyee, and looking up to the sky he would call, 'See how powerful ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... teachers, and sanitarians are now slowly realizing the great improvement in health and temper that comes from bathing and are establishing beach and surf, spray, floating and plunge summer baths and swimming pools; often providing instruction even in swimming in clothes, undressing in the water, treading water, and rescue work, free as well as fee days, bathing suits, and, ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... they went to a little bay, south-west from their ships, in search of water: the surf prevented their landing, but the carpenter swam on shore; and near four remarkable trees, standing in the form of a crescent, he erected a post, on which a compass was carved, and left the Prince's flag flying upon it.[4] "When the said carpenter had done this in the ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... had long set behind the western foreland ere we caught ahead of us the roar of the surf on the bar which lay across the river's mouth. Our rowers had passed that way many a time before, and plunged us headlong into the mighty battle of the waters where river and sea met. For a short minute it seemed as if no boat could ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... grey day. Down on the shore the long waves rolled in to break in wide lines of surf up the rock-strewn beach. The thunder of their breaking mingled with the roll of muffled drums. The full honours of a soldier's funeral were to be accorded to the man who had died before ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... apartments, where a bath and supper were prepared. The servant who had travelled at the back of the carriage waited on him; Baptistin, who rode in front, attended the count. Albert bathed, took his supper, and went to bed. All night he was lulled by the melancholy noise of the surf. On rising, he went to his window, which opened on a terrace, having the sea in front, and at the back a pretty park bounded by a small forest. In a creek lay a little sloop, with a narrow keel and high masts, bearing on its flag the Monte Cristo arms which were ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... who were approaching seemed to be hard to understand. Presently the canoe was caught in the midst of the surf beating upon these reefs. Had it not been for the marvelous ability of its pilot, who avoided these masses of water following the frail bark and incessantly menacing it, she would very soon have ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... leap over into the water, with their weapons in their hands. The Britons were all here to oppose them, and a dreadful struggle ensued, the combatants dyeing the waters with their blood as they fought, half submerged in the surf which rolled in upon the sand. Some galleys rowed up at the same time near to the shore, and the men on board of them attacked the Britons from the decks, by the darts and arrows which they shot to the land. Caesar at last prevailed; the Britons were driven away, ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... traveller first makes for the island of Capri. The greatest curiosity which he here visits and describes in the azure grotto. He and his companion are rowed, each in a small skiff, to a narrow dark aperture upon the rocky coast, and which appears the darker from its contrast with the white surf that is dashing about it. He is told to lie down on his back in the boat, to protect his head from a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... has, until then, been walking the earth more than half a corpse. With joy he will come to see that living in a glow of health bears the same relation to merely not being sick that a plunge in the cold salt surf bears to using a tepid wash-rag in a ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... got rickshaws and drove out to the Galle Face Hotel, a beautiful place with the surf thundering on the beach outside. If I were rich I would always ride in a rickshaw. It is a delightful way of getting about, and as we were trotted along a fine broad road, small brown boys ran alongside and pelted us with big waxy, sweet-smelling blossoms. We did enjoy it so. At the ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... these difficult chances without misplay. Opportunities came for runs, but no runs were scored for several innings. Hopes were raised to the highest pitch only to be dashed astonishingly away. The crowd in the grand stand swayed to every pitched ball; the bleachers tossed like surf in a storm. ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... was now strong enough to bear any reasonable weight. My next care was what to load it with, and how to preserve what I laid upon it from the surf of the sea: but I was not long considering this. I first laid all the planks or boards upon it that I could get, and having considered well what I most wanted, I first got three of the seamen's chests, which I had broken open and emptied, and lowered them down upon ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... made no answer. Wearied with doing nothing all day, save lying around on the deck of the Arrow a prey to seasickness, he had fallen asleep. Above the splash of the surf and the rustle of the wind in the palmettos, his snores could be heard distinctly, making night hideous. Alec was on the point of waking him with a nudge in the ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler
... at first thinking that the continuous roll of sound he heard was thunder. Yet the clouds overhead were massed no more than before and there was no sign of lightning. Continuing on, he realized that the mysterious sound was the pounding of surf—he was near ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... main; Or, shelter'd by some rock, at anchor ride Till with abating rage the blast subside: But if, determined by the will of Heaven, Our helpless bark at last ashore is driven, These councils, follow'd, from a watery grave Our crew perhaps amid the surf may save:— "And first, let all our axes be secured, To cut the masts and rigging from aboard; Then to the quarters bind each plank and oar, 810 To float between the vessel and the shore: The longest cordage too must be convey'd On deck, and to the ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... very like walls, but those are surf-waves, as they are called, that is, waves which break upon a shore. The waves I am thinking of just now are more like mountains—translucent blackish-blue mountains—mountains that look as if they were made of bottle-green glass, ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... unquiet distance the surf came booming in with the heavy impetus of high tide, flinging long streamers of kelp and bits of driftwood over the narrowing stretch of sand where garishly costumed bathers had lately shrieked hilariously at their gambols. Before the chill wind that had risen with the turn of the tide ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... "we are going back again, because much rain and wind is coming from the westward, and we want to get over the reef before the surf becomes too great." Then one of ...
— "Pig-Headed" Sailor Men - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... and roar of the Adriatic, louder at momentary intervals as the surf breaks on the bar of sand; to the south, the widening branches of the calm lagoon, alternately purple and pale green, as they reflect the evening clouds or twilight sky; and almost beneath our feet, on the same field ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... moment, however, I knew it could not be a man, for the object suddenly glided over the face of the cliff and slid down the sheer, smooth lace like a lizard. Before I could get a square look at it, the thing crawled into the surf—or, at least, it seemed to—but the whole episode occurred so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that I was not sure I ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... deck and the great lateen sail with a fine red dust. Three Arabs mounted on wild asses rode out and threw spears at them. The master of the galley took a painted bow in his hand and shot one of them in the throat. He fell heavily into the surf, and his companions galloped away. A woman wrapped in a yellow veil followed slowly on a camel, looking back now and then at ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... boys," said the captain. "Don't spend yourselves. If we have to run a surf you'll need all your strength, because we'll sure have to swim for ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... and stimulate a timid inshore navigation which sometimes develops to extensive coastwise intercourse, where a network of lagoons and deltaic channels forms a long inshore passage, as in Upper Guinea, but which fears the break of the surf outside.[448] ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... drowned while bathing in the surf are said to experience but little pain. In fact, their ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... in the apartment which Murfree had occupied, just across from the cobbler's. Dr. Browne stood over the bed, and had the two watchers guarding the door to keep out the frankly-curious people without. They thronged up to its lintels just as the surf presses against the dykes, that are the doors of the land, to guard it from that strange old sea which would learn all its secrets, only to obliterate them. The doctor looked up. "He is resting at last," he said in brusque fashion, "and a good thing for everybody. Did you ever see this mark ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... to be performed by means of boats from the open beach, against which white rollers surged heavily, the thundering of the surf being audible for miles. At a long distance from the shore, so that she appeared little larger than a boat, lay the transport Zungeru, rolling sluggishly at a single anchor, while steaming slowly in the offing was a light cruiser detailed to act as escort to the convoy, for more transports ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... wonderful thing happened. He suddenly dwindled in size until he was no larger than a manikin, going through the motion of drinking from a tiny bottle; while in contrast, his voice increased so tremendously in volume it broke upon my ears like a surf upon a beach. ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... like a ship-wrecked mariner cast ashore on a desert island. The sullen roar of the crowd echoed against the buildings enclosing the square like the dull boom of the surf. Over on Third Avenue the yellow lights of the elevated cars crossed the dark opening of Sixteenth Street at regular intervals, and recalled to Robertson a piece of scenery at a fair, where a lighted train ran continually between the mouths of two tunnels ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... to go back to Singapore And ship along the Straits, To a bungalow I know beside Penang; Where cocoanut palms along the shore Are waving, and the gates Of Peace shut Sorrow out forevermore. I want to go back and hear the surf Come beating in at night, Like the washing of eternity over the dead. I want to see dawn fare up and day Go down in golden light; I want to go back to Penang! ...
— Many Gods • Cale Young Rice
... on the weather side of the Cape, he could hear the seas thud and the surf growl like the distant booming of heavy batteries. Over his head the wind whistled and whined in the firs with a whistle and a whine like machine-gun bullets that have missed their mark. But neither of these sounds held the menace of the sounds of which they reminded him. He listened ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... are getting away they may take after us in a boat, or fire from the shore; but if we show we are going to land they will keep hidden and take us by surprise. If we should head straight in now they would likely hide in the brush and pot-shot us as we land when we are in the surf; but you watch old Cap Riggs, and if we don't give this Devil's Admiral the fight of his life before this little party is wiped out, I'll go back on the farm in Maine. He can't come aboard me and perform like that without getting paid for it—Bloody ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... he changed the smoke of turf, A heathery land and misty sky, And turned on rocks and raging surf His golden eye. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... their breasts Beards, the thick growth of many a proud campaign; And on their brows the bright invisible crown Victory sheds from her own radiant form, As o'er her favourites' heads she sings and soars. But dreams came not so calmly; as around Turbulent shores wild waves and swamping surf Prevail, while seaward, on the tranquil deeps, Reign placid surfaces and solemn peace, So, from the troubled strands of memory, they Launched and were tossed, long ere they found the tides That lead to the gentle bosoms of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Merrick invited the party to be his guests at luncheon, which was served in a cosy restaurant overlooking the ocean. And then, although at this season it was bleak winter back East, all but Uncle John and Aunt Jane took a bath in the surf of the blue Pacific, mingling with hundreds of other bathers ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... along from the north in their frail galleys, on their voyages to Greece and Italy, they saw it frowning defiance to them as they came, with threatening clouds hanging upon its summit, and the surges and surf of the AEgean perpetually thundering upon its base below. To make this stormy promontory the more terrible, it was believed to be the haunt of innumerable uncouth and misshapen monsters of the sea, that lived by devouring ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... negro issue from the thicket. He was quite naked, loaded with chains, and armed with a machete. He invited us to land on a part of the beach covered with large mangroves, as being a spot where the surf did not break, and offered to conduct us to the interior of the island of Baru if we would promise to give him some clothes. His cunning and wild appearance, the often-repeated question whether we ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... them; clumps of palms dotted here and there among the light timber, and everywhere sunflecked, warm, dry shade. Nowhere is there a hint of that sinister suggestion of the Reach. Clear, beautiful, limpid, wide-spreading, irregular pools, set in an undulating field of emerald-green mossy surf, shaded with graceful foliage and gleaming in the sunlight with exquisite opal tints—a giant necklace of opals, set in links of emerald green, and thrown down at hazard to fall in loops and curves within ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... a spot. Except by birds, turtles, and hideous land-crabs, it is uninhabited; and against the advances of man its shores are fortified with cruel ridges of coral, jagged limestone rocks, and a tremendous towering surf which, even in a dead calm, beats many ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... Next you round a sloping shoulder of a hill and slide down into a shore road, with the beating, creaming surf on one side, and on the other a long succession of the sort of architectural triumphs that have made Coney Island famous. You negotiate another small ridge and there, suddenly spread out before you, is the Golden Gate, with the city itself ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... service at 4 p.m., and at 5 p.m. went ashore in a native boat, furnished with bilge pieces, to keep her straight when beached, and to avoid the surf, for it was too rough for our own boats. At the water's edge a curious sort of double sleigh, drawn by two oxen, was waiting. Into this we stepped, setting off with considerable rapidity up the steep shingly beach, under a ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... suffered a fresh pang of misery when the presentation was accomplished and he was forced to say approximately pleasant things to a lady whose decidedly ballet-like attire in the surf—or, to be precise, on the beach above high-water-mark, where, for some occult reason, she usually saw fit to do the most of her bathing—joined to the exceeding celerity of her conduct generally, had marked her during the preceding season as the conspicuous centre ...
— The Uncle Of An Angel - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... pocket of my coat, and turned my thoughts to the breakers on the bar. Soon it was evident to me that I could not pass them standing in my barrel, so I hastened to upset myself into the water and to climb astride of it. Presently we were in the surf, and I had much ado to cling on, but the tide bore me forward bravely, and in half an hour more the breakers were past, and I was in the mouth of the great river. Now fortune favoured me still further, for I found a piece of wood floating ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... outside a big reef which stretched between her and the shore; her hull was almost hidden by the surf which broke over her, the only dry place on her being the fore-top, which was crowded with sailors; and it was evident that she must soon break up under the battering seas which swept ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... speed, and immunity from danger from birds of prey are theirs. Ethereal and aerial creatures! Is that the cry of the sea in the bird's voice? Is that the motion of the waves in its body? Is that the restlessness of the surf in its behavior? ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... and child. I visited the theater where the tragedy of the play was the destruction of a daughter by shipwreck in view of the distracted mother. The scenery was managed with wonderful realism. The thunder of the surf as it beat upon the shore, the frightful carnival of wind and waves that no human power could still, and the agony of the mother watching the vessel break to pieces upon the rock and her child sink into the boiling water to rise no more, was thrilling beyond my power to ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... name of a bay, while at the same time it is so large and so much exposed to the southeast and northwest winds, that it is little better than an open roadstead; and the whole swell of the Pacific Ocean rolls in here before a southeaster, and breaks with so heavy a surf in the shallow waters, that it is highly dangerous to lie near in to the shore during the southeaster season, that is, between the months of November ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... bloody work? They would suddenly find themselves leaderless, unguided. Would that suffice to stop them? The vivid memory came to me anew of that arch villain, Sanchez, lying where I had left him, his head resting in the surf—dead. Would the discovery of his body halt his followers, and send them rushing back to their boat, eager only to get safely away? This did not seem likely. Estada knew of my boarding the sloop from the wharf, and ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... along the outer or barrier reef which fringed the coast of beautiful verdured Upolu, and then, as the sun sank, there shone out myriad stars upon the bosom of a softly heaving sea, and only the never-ceasing murmur of the surf as it beat against the coral barrier, or the cry of some wandering sea-bird, disturbed the warm ...
— John Frewen, South Sea Whaler - 1904 • Louis Becke
... The crumbling surf on the shingle rattles, The great waves topple and pour, Full of the fury of ancient battles, Clamant with cries ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... where the mainland hills on the west and the Isle of Tenos on the east draw close together, and the steamer passes for several miles so near to Greece that the boom of surf upon the shore is audible. That night, however, the sea lay too still for surf; it whispered softly in its sleep; and in its sleep, too, listened. They heard its multitudinous rush of voices as the surge below raced by—a ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... somewhere, where descent would somehow be accomplished, and that there would come some one gasp of terror and delight, some sensation entirely new to me; but I found myself in smooth water, before I had time to feel anything but the buoyant pleasure of being carried so lightly through this surf amid the breakers. Now and then the Indians spoke to one another in a vehement jabber, which, however, had no tone that expressed other than pleasant excitement. It is, no doubt, an act of wonderful dexterity to steer amid these ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... conscious of that fact when he arose. It was a pleasant morning, the sun was rising over the notched horizon of the tumbling ocean, the breeze was blowing, the surf on the bar was frothing and roaring cheerily—and it was his birthday. The morning, the sunrise, the surf and all the rest were pleasant to contemplate—his age was not. So he decided not to contemplate it. Instead he went ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to let his grief spend itself in the lighted-up street. The Front was deserted and dark, for there was rain in the wind, and the sound of the surf had a quick savage chop in it. Away, over the sea, was a great ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... a touch of the equinox, and the Leman has been in a foam, but its miniature anger, though terrible enough at times, to those who are embarked on its waters, can never rise to the dignity of a surf and a rolling sea. The rain kept me housed, and old John and I seized the occasion to convert a block of pine into a Leman bark, for P——. The next day proving fair, our vessel, fitted with two latine ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... that? or sand whiter? or a more perfect semicircle of hills than this? or a more straggling town? There is the Custom-house on the rocks. You will go to a ball there to-night, and hear the boom of the surf as you dance." He turned with one of his sudden impatient motions. "Suppose we ride. The air is too sharp to lie about under the trees. This white horse mates your gown. Let us go over ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... discovered to be tall cocoa-nut palms or pandanus trees. On approaching nearer, the whole white beach was distinctly seen; and above it a narrow belt of land of a light clay colour, surrounding a perfectly smooth lagoon of a beautiful blue tint; while against the outer belt the surf was breaking with terrific force. The highest part of the land appeared to be about ten or twelve feet above the level of the sea; and we calculated that the belt between the sea and the lagoon was ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... at Tuticorin, says: 'The roadstead of Old Cael (Kayal) is still used by native craft when upon the coast and meeting with south winds, from which it is sheltered. The depth of water is 16 to 14 feet; I fancy years ago it was deeper.... There is a surf on the bar at the entrance (of the river), but boats go through it at ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... the first to go on guard and during the initial hour of his vigil practically nothing came to disturb him. He heard the occasional cry of the nightbirds and the booming of the surf on the reefs and the shore of the isle, and saw numerous fireflies flit to and fro, and that ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer
... the camp drums beat, fifes screamed shrilly, trumpets blared, and the shouts and voices of the assembled soldiers sounded like the distant roar of the surf. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... finally arrived at a precarious landing, the natives, waist-deep in the surf, assisting. I was carried ashore, and while the evening meal was being prepared, I wandered to and fro along the rocky, shattered shore. Bits of surf-harried beach clove the worn granite, or whatever ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... stood. We landed at the Puerto di Oratava, several miles from the villa: it is defended by some small batteries, at one of which is the very difficult landing-place, sheltered by a low reef of rocks that runs far out, and occasions a heavy surf. I took my own saddle ashore: and being mounted on a fine mule, we all began our journey towards the hill. The road is rough, but has evidently once been made with some pains, and paved with blocks of porous lava; but the winter rains have long ago destroyed it, and it does not ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... they had run the dingy into the surf, had shipped oars, and were lustily pulling away—Cap'n Sproul in the stern roaring abuse at them in a way that drowned the howls of Mr. Butts, who came peltering ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... passed a long tongue of land, beaten upon by white rollers of surf, that seemed as if they strove to overwhelm the old forts set far above their reach. A rocky island too, rising darkly out of a golden sea; and then we entered the mouth of a wonderful bay, like the pictures of Norwegian fords. As ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... vision broke as oceanic surf on the shores of my soul. The panoramic spheres finally melted in a sea of bliss. I lost myself in ever-surging blessedness. When I returned hours later to awareness of this world, the master gave me the technique ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... of the reef showed above water, but its extent and limits were very clearly defined by the ripples and agitation—gentle though this last was—of the surface of the water above it. The surf was breaking heavily on its outer margin in clouds of gleaming white that flashed and glittered in the brilliant sunshine; and an occasional undulation of swell came sweeping in across the reef, causing a thousand swirls ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... the frail boat and pushed it out through the surf. Nashola crawled to the stern and took up the paddle; a crash of thunder broke over their heads and a wild flare of lightning lit the dark water as he dipped the blade. In a moment, rain was falling in blinding sheets, the wind and spray were roaring in their ears, and the ebbing tide was ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... the ivy over Alulvan, And crisp with summer-heat its turf; Far, far across its empty pastures Alulvan's sands are white with surf: And he himself is grey as the sea, Watching beneath ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. • Walter de la Mare
... rain-mist he sped swiftly and unswervingly; already he saw the white wreath of surf along the coast. Then he descried a great black waste stretching out beneath him. ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... waver and recede in the accumulating haze, while across the dim yellow flame in the tower of the Lantern the snow flurried in grey, shapeless, interminable shadows. Hither and thither the wind rushed, bold and blusterous, sometimes carrying landward the intermittent crashing of the surf as it fell, wrathful yet impotent, on the great dike by which, twenty-odd years before, the immortal Richelieu had snuffed the last heroic spark ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... had collected their chattels, and were gathering in a howling chattering mob by the surf-boats ready to go on board, when the first notion came to me of joining her. It was the Danish harbour-master who gave it. He came up, under his old white umbrella with the green lining, to the house where I was staying, and told me that the tramp was going to call in at ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... each other toward the end," Graham replied. "We were both out of our heads for short spells and long spells. Sometimes it was one, sometimes the other, that was all in. We made the land at sunset—that is, a wall of iron coast, with the surf bursting sky-high. She took hold of me and clawed me in the water to get some sense in me. You see, I wanted to go in, which ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... London cold, damp, and foggy; and in less than twenty-four hours I was in the train between Marseilles and Mentone, watching the surf playing among the rocks in the brilliant sunshine of the Cote d'Azur. In the tiny harbor of Mentone I found, anchored stern-on to the quay, the steam yacht Liberty—a miracle of snowy decks and gleaming brass-work— tonnage 1,607, length over all 316 feet, beam 35.6 feet, ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... the table. After seven or eight days we arrived in San Pedro, and found the town to consist of one long adobe house. The beach was low and sandy, and we were wet somewhat in wading through a light surf to get on shore. We had on board a Mr. Baylis, who we afterward learned came down with Capt. Lackey on a big speculation which was to capture all the wild goats they could on Catalina Island, and take them to San ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... schools and libraries, homes and businesses, millions and millions of Americans surf ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William J. Clinton • William J. Clinton
... got to, or what land that might be, but was sure it was not Greenland. The land lay low, and was dark with woods. The shore was sandy, with hummocks of blown sand upon it, covered with grass; the surf very heavy. He coasted that country for two days and nights with a good wind off-shore, but would not try for a landing anywhere, being set upon Greenland and sure that he was not there. Other lands ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... had galloped through the golden forest of Kerselec that I came in sight of the ocean, although among the sunbeams and the dropping showers of yellow beech-leaves I fancied I could hear the sound of the surf. ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... London society. My Aunt Jessica once told me that London was at my feet. I am quite content that it should stay there. I have much the same nervous dread of it as I have of an angry sea breaking in surf on the shingle. If I ventured out in it I should be tossed hither and thither and broken on the rocks, and I should perish. I prefer to stand aloof and watch. If I had a little more of daring in my ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... Colven flows into the sea. From the school-house we could often catch the hum of the waves breaking lazily along the shore of Colveston Bay; or, if the wind blew hard from the sea, it carried with it the roar of the breakers on the bar mouth, and the distant thunder of the surf on ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... the fitful gusts between A sound came from the land; It was the sound of the trampling surf On the rocks and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... driftwood, which were slippery with water-slime, she laid them along the dock; two other billets she placed under the boat's keel. Then gathering her strength for one pull, she sent the boat into the churning surf. One of the fishermen advanced to detain her, but she waved him back with a gesture so determined and imperious that he hesitated. He then held consultation with his friends. Two or three now hurried down to the water's edge, but the boat ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... effected on May 12 was not managed according to Shirley's written instructions; nor was the siege. Shirley had been playing a little war game in his study, with all the inconvenient obstacles left out—the wind, the weather, the crashing surf in Gabarus Bay, the rocks and bogs of the surrounding country, the difficulties of entering a narrow-necked harbour under a combination of end-on and broadside fire, the terrible lee shore off the islands, reefs, and Lighthouse Point, the commonest vigilance of the most slovenly garrison, ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... after there came a windy day when the surf was so heavy that there were but few bathers. Ackland was a good swimmer, and took his plunge as usual. He was leaving the water when Miss Van Tyne ran down the beach and was about to dart through the breakers in her wonted ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... followers. The lake, swept by an easterly gale, was rolling its waves against the beach, like the ocean in a storm. In the attempt to land, La Salle's canoe was nearly swamped. He and his three canoe-men leaped into the water, and, in spite of the surf, which nearly drowned them, dragged their vessel ashore, with all its load. He then went to the rescue of Hennepin, who, with his awkward companion, was in woful need of succor. Father Gabriel, with his sixty-four years, was no match for the surf and the ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... lines attached to the mast. The next moment a sea broke over her that carried the three of them, with two of the crew hanging on to the mast, which, clear of the wreck, was rapidly driven towards the shore. Once a great sea broke Paul's hold and he found himself unaided swimming in the mad surf. He was fortunate enough to catch a hatch that was floating near which supported him to the shore where he was thrown with considerable violence and half stunned. He managed to stagger up the beach and in a few minutes discovered Betsy dragging the ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... seemed as if there would be no avoidance of it now. The robe and the glittering gauds of which Phorenice had recently despoiled the merchant, drew the eyes of these people with keen attraction. The fishers in the boats paddled into the surf which edged the beach, and leaped overside and left the frail basket-work structures to be spewed up sound or smashed, as chance ordered. And from the houses, and from the filthy lanes between them, poured out hordes of others, women mixed with the ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... the more serious business which had brought us to Crescent Beach. While we children disported ourselves like mermaids and mermen in the surf, our respective fathers dispensed cold lemonade, hot peanuts, and pink popcorn, and piled up our respective fortunes, nickel by nickel, penny by penny. I was very proud of my connection with the public life of the beach. I admired greatly our shining soda fountain, the rows of sparkling glasses, ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... has evidently reached Shark's Island by swimming, in spite of surf and breakers—a feat ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... The French horse and foot pursued us down to the sea, and were mingled among us, cutting our men down, and bayoneting them on the ground. Poor Armytage was shot in advance of me, and fell; and I took him up and staggered through the surf to a boat. It was lucky that the sailors in our boat weren't afraid; for the shot were whistling about their ears, breaking the blades of their oars, and riddling their flag with shot; but the officer in command was as cool ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... handsome face. Then all again was whirled in mist and foam; one breaker smote the sea-wall in a surge of froth, another plunged upon its heels; with inconceivable swiftness came rain; lightning deluged the expanse of surf, and showed the windy trees bent landward by the squall. It was long past midnight now, and the storm was on us for the space ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... the folk in Acapulco town, Over the waters looking down, Will see in the glow of the setting sun The sails of the missing galleon, And the royal standard of Philip Rey, The gleaming mast and glistening spar, As she nears the surf of the outer bar. A Te Deum sung on her crowded deck, An odor of spice along the shore, A crash, a cry from a shattered wreck,— And the yearly galleon sails no more In or out of the olden bay; For the blessed patron has found ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... now, which was good for us, for the winding channels that lead up to Wareham were sheltered under their bare banks. We could hear the thunder of the surf along the rocky coast outside, when the wind ceased its howling for a moment; and at high water the haven had been well nigh too stormy for a small boat. Now we should do best to go by water, for wind was with us; though, unless the gale dropped very quickly, we could not return in her, for ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... furnace, had a bayonet charge which aroused an Anzac brigade to enthusiasm (and Colonial free men can estimate bravery at its true value). From far-away Hong Kong and Singapore came mountain gunners equal to any in the world, Kroomen sent from their homes in West Africa surf boatmen to land stores, Raratongas from the Southern Pacific vied with them in boat craft and beat them in physique, while Egypt contributed a labour corps and transport corps running a long way into six figures. The communion of the representatives ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... a large, bright, bare room whose three big windows looked into rustling maple boughs. The steady rushing of surf could be heard just beyond the maples. Sometimes a soft fog wrapped the trees and the lawn in its pale folds, and the bell down at the lighthouse ding-donged through the whole warm, silent morning, but more often there was sunshine, and Rachael took her book to the beach, got into her stiff, ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... different offices have, to the beholder, the appearance of stone, and they are formed along the beach in a beautiful manner; they are built with piazzas and verandahs, and they extend about one mile along a sandy beach, while the natives parading along the shore, and the surf spraying upon the beach, gave the scene a very picturesque appearance. The surf beats here with so much violence that it is impossible for any ship's boats to land ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to India; of a Shipwreck on board the Lady Castlereagh; and a Description of New South Wales • W. B. Cramp
... been suffering from a slight attack of fever, had for some time been staying on board ship, for change. In the road of Pondicherry three of the French Indiamen, the Hermione, Baleine, and the Compagnie des Indes, were at anchor, near the edge of the surf, under the cover of a hundred guns mounted on the sea face of the fort. These ships were awaiting the stormy weather, at the breaking of the monsoon, when it would be difficult for the English fleet to maintain their position off the town. They then intended to sail away to the ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... first expression on beholding him would betray her feelings toward him, whatever they were. Should the indication be favourable, he would propose to her at the first opportunity, on beach, boardwalk, hotel piazza, pavilion, yacht or in the surf. Such were the meditations of Jack Morrow while the train roared across New Jersey ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... beacon,—a beacon that had grown clearer and brighter with his advancing years, until it seemed to rise above earth into the dazzling radiance of the stars. Its steady light fell upon his rising passion now, and his fury broke as the swelling surf breaks upon the ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... rides in the spectral surf Along the spectral sands, And all the air vibrates, as if from harps Touched ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various |
