"Top" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a great loss; the natives were civil enough to us, and came often to discourse with us; one time they brought one whom they showed respect to as a king with them, and they set up a long pole between them and us, with a great tassel of hair hanging, not on the top, but something above the middle of it, adorned with little chains, shells, bits of brass, and the like; and this, we understood afterwards, was a token of amity and friendship; and they brought down to us victuals in abundance, cattle, fowls, herbs, and roots; but we were in the utmost ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... of trusts, so many treacheries bought off, as it were by compact; and so bought off that they may begin upon a new score. But what is more foolish than those, or rather more happy, who daily reciting those seven verses of the Psalms promise to themselves more than the top of felicity? Which magical verses some devil or other, a merry one without doubt but more a blab of his tongue than crafty, is believed to have discovered to St. Bernard, but not without a trick. And ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... the hill. At last, they discovered a kind of path; but it was so narrow and difficult, they durst not venture up it. This obliged them to go along by the foot of the mountain, in hopes of finding a more easy way to reach the top. They went round it five days, but could see nothing like a path; so they were obliged to return to that which they had neglected. They still thought it would be in vain to attempt going up by it. They deliberated ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... I get a gude sail'r, To take my helm in hand, Till I get up to the tall top-mast, To see ...
— The Book of Old English Ballads • George Wharton Edwards
... schools of policy, neither the international laisser faire of the Liberals, nor "hustle to the top" Imperialism, promise any reality of permanent progress for the world of men. They are the resort, the moral reference, of those who will not think frankly and exhaustively over the whole field of this question. Do that, insist upon solutions of more than accidental applicability, and you emerge ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... kindly with Minnie, and her short-cut, kinky hair is almost white, but her eyes and face retain a remarkably youthful appearance. She is a small thin woman of gingercake color and, despite the sweltering heat, she wore a pink flannel nightgown, faded and dingy, and a pair of high top black shoes, so badly run over that she hobbled along on the sides of them. Minnie is well educated, and she taught school for so long that her speech ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... her gloves and veil, went, unsmilingly, into the drawing-room, Neroda following her, and putting up the top of the ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... with St. Ruth since the affair at Athlone, and was ignorant of the plan he had concerted. Rouvigny having passed the hollow way without opposition, charged the enemy in flank, and bore down all before him with surprising impetuosity; the centre redoubled their efforts and pushed the Irish to the top of the hill, and then the whole line giving way at once from right to left threw down their arms. The foot fled towards a bog in their rear, and their horse took the route by the highway to Loughneagh; both were pursued by the English ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... the previous six months! Those were his books. He had sold the store without taking an inventory. When an inventory was finally made it was found that some of the stock had not turned over for a year. On one top shelf two hundred pepper shakers full of pepper stretched half the length of the room. Full value had been paid for this dead stock and several hundred dollars to boot for "good will." From the cooperative standpoint the most ...
— Consumers' Cooperative Societies in New York State • The Consumers' League of New York
... uniformly sandy and of too recent formation to be much enriched by decomposition or alluvial deposits. A coarse broad-bladed grass growing in bunches prevails near the sea shore; a taller variety, of quite thick and luxuriant growth, on the meadows, while a species of red top was found on the higher lands. Strawberries, already in blossom, thickly covered the shore in many places. Cranberry vines were also found on two of the meadows. The immediate shores are generally low, thickly wooded with spruce, cedar and hemlock, with ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... the top of his mind. Down below, it was still engaged with the picture of her in a dismal court room, blazing up at a jury the way she had blazed up at that street-car conductor. It was a queer notion. He didn't know whether he ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... sooner effected. Kublai took his station in a large wooden castle, borne on the backs of four elephants, whose bodies were protected with coverings of thick leather hardened by fire, over which were housings of cloth of gold. The castle contained many cross-bowmen and archers, and on the top of it was hoisted the imperial standard, adorned with representations of the sun and moon. His army, which consisted of thirty battalions of horse, each battalion containing ten thousand men, armed with bows, he disposed in three grand divisions; and those which formed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... to his feet, the hand which held the offending document uplifted, his eyes flaming, his checks white with passion, and with the flat of the slate came down a great blow on the top of Gibbie's head. Happily the latter was the harder of the two, and the former broke, flying mostly out of the frame. It took Gibbie terribly by surprise. Half-stunned, he started to his feet, and for one moment the wild beast which was in him, ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... wife's delicate health, had made the house "like an oven," to quote Miss Blake. "It was bad for her, I know," proceeded that lady, "but she would have her own way, poor soul, and he—well, he'd have had the top brick of the chimney of a ten-story house off, if she had taken a fancy ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... pounds, which lay close up against the hoarding. No one could see him where he stood; he was entirely free from observation. He bent down to the stone, managed to turn it over after considerable effort, and found underneath a small cavity. He threw in the cases, and then the purse on the top of all. The stone was not perceptibly higher when he had replaced it, and little traces of its having been moved could be noticed. So he pressed some earth against the edges with his ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... a ladder planted or set on the earth, and its top reaching to Heaven, and the Malaki Alohim ascending and descending on it, and above it stood IHUH, declaring Himself to be Ihuh-Alhi Abraham. The word translated ladder, is [Hebrew: סלם] Salam, from [Hebrew: סלל], Salal, raised, elevated, reared up, exalted, piled ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... they had gone to reign forever in fixed and solemn festival. And while he could not see God there, actually, neither in the horse-hair sofa nor the bleak melodeon surmounted by tall vases of dyed grass, nor in the center-table with its cemeterial top, nor under the empty horsehair and green-rep chairs, set at expectant angles, nor in the cold, tall stove, ornately set with jewels of polished nickel, and surely not in the somewhat frivolous air-castle of cardboard and scarlet zephyr that fluttered from the ceiling—yet in and over and through ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... sincere, was powerless. The coat would not go on. The sleeves rose to the elbows smoothly, half way to the shoulders with more effort—but here they stuck, refusing to slide over the top of the shoulders. On each side of the spine, almost cracking the shirt, a protuberance bulged which ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... the new church, and if she likes she can teach in Sunday school, though maybe she will prefer going with Uncle Ephraim. He will be pleased if she does," and, pausing by the door, Helen looked across Fairy Pond in the direction of Silverton village, where the top of a slender spire was just visible—the spire of St. John's, built within the year, and mostly, as it was whispered, at the expense of Dr. Morris Grant, who, a zealous churchman himself, had labored successfully to instill into Helen's mind some of his own peculiar views, as ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... was a dull roar away to starboard, and Jim saw, out of the corner of his eye, a huge column of water leap up, with something dark poised upon the top of it. In a second he realised that one at least of his consorts had been successful and had torpedoed her prey; but even before the column of water had subsided, there broke out a crash of musketry aboard the second monitor, and sparks of fire sprang up in different parts of her, which quickly ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... Roman custom, a writing was attached to the top of the cross, bearing, in three languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, the words: "THE KING OF THE JEWS." There was something painful and insulting to the nation in this inscription. The numerous passers-by who read it were offended. The priests complained to Pilate ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... said of each peculiar variety of rock; for some of these, as red marl and red sandstone, for example, may occur at once at the top, bottom, and middle of the entire sedimentary series; exhibiting in each position so perfect an identity of mineral aspect as to be undistinguishable. Such exact repetitions, however, of the same mixtures of sediment have not often been ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... results flow once more from this order of writing from left to right. You will find, if you watch yourself closely, that in examining a landscape, or the view from a hill-top, your eye naturally ranges from left to right; and that you begin your survey, as you would begin reading a page of print, from the left-hand corner. Apparently, the now almost instinctive act of reading (for Dogberry was right after all, for the civilised infant) has accustomed ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... prophet arose who trained these wild and luxuriant shoots of ambition to the shapely form of a political philosophy. By its reagents they precipitated drudgery to the bottom of society, and left at the top what they thought to be a clarified fluid. In their political economy, labor was to be owned by capital; in their theory of government, the few were to rule the many. They boldly avowed, not the fact alone, that, under ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... but when he was taken from the lock-up at the top of the village street to be conveyed to Salisbury, his friends and neighbours who had gathered at the spot to witness his removal shook their heads and doubted that Ingden would ever see him again. The confession had made the case so simple a one that ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... want to," spoke Joe, slowly, "especially when I'll surely get more money with St. Louis, besides having the honor of pitching for a major league team, even if it isn't one of the top-notchers, and a pennant winner. So if they want to draft me, let them do their worst!" and he laughed, showing ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... fork for me, Bill!" he called to the driver of the nearer wagon—Bill was standing on the lofty top of his load, which projected forward and rear so far that, forward, the horses were half canopied. Against Bill's return he borrowed Gabbard's fork and helped complete the other wagon, the sweat streaming from his face as his broad ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... took off his turban and softly passed one hand over a head which was like a very old, deeply-stained billiard ball at the top, but was stubbly at the back and sides, as if it had not been touched by a ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... day's work on Jim Crow, wet to the hips, smeared from top to toe with yellow clay, dog-weary, but quite jubilant. They were as well satisfied with their next day's work, and the next. They had succeeded in keeping the knowledge of their big find to themselves; but returning to their camp one night ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... the true business spirit I should have gone by the beaten road from my house to Horace's, borrowed the singletree I went for, and hurried straight home. Life is so short when one is after dollars! I should not have wallowed through the snow, nor stopped at the top of the hill to look for a moment across the beautiful wintry earth—gray sky and bare wild trees and frosted farmsteads with homely smoke rising from the chimneys—I should merely have brought home a singletree—and missed ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... that it is in this country of Armenia that the Ark of Noah exists on the top of a certain great mountain [on the summit of which snow is so constant that no one can ascend;[NOTE 4] for the snow never melts, and is constantly added to by new falls. Below, however, the snow does melt, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... and life, there would be no such thing as oppression, nor fugitive servants. Now, as to revolutionizing society to eradicate slavery, I would no more attempt it than I would try to dig down Cadmus to dislodge yonder snow and ice upon his top. The sun will in due time melt them and pour them into the Lycus and the Moeander. So the Gospel, when it has free course, will dissolve every chain, break every yoke, and sorrow ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... top, however, without incident. I could see fairly well after the darkness of the house beneath, but there was nothing suspicious in sight. The roofs, separated by two feet of brick wall, stretched around me, unbroken save by an occasional chimney. I went very softly over to the other trap, ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... w'en dey come whar she wuz. Ole Marster he ain't say nothin', but he tuck a fresh grip on de jimmy-john, en it got so dat, go whar you would, dey want no mo' lonesomer place on de face er de yeth dan dat Wornum plantation, en hit look like ruination done sot in. En den, on top er dat, yer come de war, en Clay Bivins he went off en got kilt, en den freedom come out, en des 'bout dat time Miss ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... especially cedars and cocoa-nut. There is also a pearl-fishing in the mouth of its principal river; and in some of its valleys are found diamonds. I made, by way of devotion, a pilgrimage to the place where Adam was confined after his banishment from Paradise, and had the curiosity to go to the top of the mountain. ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... thus laid the scheme for my design, and in my imagination put it in practice, I continually made my tour every morning up to the top of the hill, which was from my castle, as I called it, about three miles or more, to see if I could observe any boats upon the sea, coming near the island, or standing over towards it; but I began to tire of this hard duty, after I had for two or three months constantly ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... it blazed, how it burnt! It was a warm, bright flame, like a candle, as she held her hands over it: it was a wonderful light. It seemed really to the little maiden as though she were sitting before a large iron stove, with burnished brass feet and a brass ornament at top. The fire burned with such blessed influence; it warmed so delightfully. The little girl had already stretched out her feet to warm them too; but—the small flame went out, the stove vanished: she had only the remains of the burnt-out match in ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... other warriors uttered in unison, fiercely, at the top of their voices. Their howl passed over his head, like a defiance, toward the ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... like me much," sighed Janice. "And now Arlo Junior has made it worse again. Just think! The bear on top of ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... part is left unused? The flute, the hautboy, the finer trumpet stops, all those stops that minister to the intellect, the imagination, and the higher feelings—these must be drawn, and the whole organ played from top ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... of money, or a complete suit of clothes in the top of the fashion, a pair of ladies' boots, or an Indian cashmere; a porcelain table service or a good picture; whosoever desires diamonds, curtains, laces, a house in the country, or a provision of wood for winter fires—may procure ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... bigoted, weak, or narrow, was at least incorruptible—firmly fixed in the mind of that mythical personage any wavering determination of Tennessee's fate; and at the break of day he was marched, closely guarded, to meet it at the top of Marley's Hill. ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... a flat kopje commanded on the south by a self-contained ridge. To the east was another kopje, which commanded the top of the position at about 500 yards. On the west were two similar spurs, also commanding the position at short ranges. The summit of the kopje was a plateau, all the sides being gradual slopes except the eastern, which ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... would try and find out for her. He scrambled up, and soon passed out of sight among the bowlders. He found some tough climbing, but kept on, and after a while traced the stream to a clear pool where a spring bubbled out of a rock wall in a cave-like chamber near the top. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... murmurs and the shrill cries of 50,000 men, women, and children, who filled the centre of the Champ-de-Mars, or crowded on the glacis. At the moment when Bailly debouched between the glacis, the populace, who from the top of the bank looked down on the mayor, the bayonets, and the artillery, burst into threatening shouts and furious outcries against the national guard. "Down with the red flag! Shame to Bailly! Death to La Fayette!" The ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... tree top, When the wind blows the cradle will rock; When the bough breaks the cradle will fall, And down will come cradle and ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... another; never satisfied, unless he could find an opportunity of either torturing or devouring some innocent creature. And whenever he happened to be disappointed in any of his malicious purposes, he would stretch his immense bulk on the top of some high mountain, and groan, and beat the earth, and bellow with such a hollow voice, that the whole country heard ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... microscope is a colorless fluid, containing a large number of little vesicles, or bags, filled with butter—a mixture of oily and fatty matters. When the milk stands for some time, the globules, being lighter than the other constituents, ascend to the top, and, mixed with a certain proportion of milk, are removed as cream. The curd is termed in scientific parlance casein, and is in fresh milk in a state of solution—that is to say, is dissolved in milk in the same way that we dissolve sugar in water. When milk ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... This was by far the most gorgeously dressed Navajo I had ever met. He wore tight-fitting knickerbockers of jet-black buckskin, which resembled velvet, with a double row of silver buttons, set as close as possible on the outward seams, from top to bottom. On his legs from knee to ankle he wore homespun woolen stockings and his feet were covered by beaded moccasins of yellow, smoke-tanned buckskin. His bright red calico shirt was literally covered with silver ornaments and his ears were pierced with heavy ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... "Gull" began to pitch and toss somewhat with the great ocean-swell. Skipper Ben, having got well in the way of the breeze which was carrying his vessel steadily before it, began to regain his good-humor. Sitting on the top of a cask, he puffed away at his pipe and soliloquized to himself about his passenger, who sat regarding Jack Snape's movements at the helm with much interest. The skipper had three or four boys at home,—great sturdy, brown-faced, stout-armed fellows,—between whom and this ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... foolish man, who roasteth not that which he taketh {76} in hunting.... It will be sufficient for us, however, to be the Columbus of these great Americi, and popularize what they found, if they found it. We, as from the mountain top, will then become their trumpeters, and cry glory to De Morgan and glory to Boole, under Him who is the source of all glory, the only good and wise, to Whom be glory for ever! If they be our predecessors in this matter, they have, under Him, taken moral questions out of the category ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... caverns treated of in the last chapter, and close to the village and railway station of Hochdal between Dusseldorf and Elberfeld. The cave occurs in the precipitous southern or left side of the winding ravine, about sixty feet above the stream, and a hundred feet below the top of the cliff. The accompanying section (Figure 1.) will give the reader an idea of ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... them without sending for the physician; but he always kept a good look out that they did not sham sickness. When any of them excited his suspicions, he would make them take the medicine in his presence, and would give them a rap on the top of the head, to make them swallow it. A man once came to him, of whom he said he was suspicious: he gave him two potions of salts, and fastened him in the stocks for the night. His medicine soon began to operate; and there he lay in all his ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... had been warming in my hand. This done, I laid my hat down on the lid, noting with great exactness as I did so just where its rim lay in reference to the various squares and scrolls with which the top was ornamented. By this means I felt that I might know if the hat were moved in my absence. The doctor having showed himself by this time, I followed him into his office with a calmness born of the most complete confidence in the ...
— The Bronze Hand - 1897 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... mutually indulgent craftsmen. It was not to be expected that these people should tamely submit to the intruder who put their master's cherished model on the shelf, and set about, in his high-handed way, to refashion the whole building from the bottom to the top. During Sangallo's lifetime no love had been lost between him and Buonarroti, and after his death it is probable that the latter dealt severely with the creatures of his predecessor. The Pope had given him unlimited powers of appointing ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... scouts will let me off for a week or two, but my boss wants me to take a good rest before I knuckle down to work. I'm off for August anyway. Don't expect me before that, but if I should show up on a surprise raid, don't drop dead. I may go over the top some fine day and drop in on you like a hand grenade. Are you there ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... a hill-top and cleared away the grass and ferns with a jack-knife for a place to tie the goat. I concealed myself in the bushes ten feet away to await the attack, but the unexpected happened and the tiger approached from ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... considered by Gilbert when he settled at Sens was the choice of subjects for his commission pictures, which he intended to paint directly from nature; and he soon selected panoramic landscape views from the top of a small vine-clad hill, called St. Bon, which commands an extensive prospect of the river Yonne, and of the plains about it. On the summit of this eminence there is a kiosk belonging to the archbishop, who readily granted the use of it to the artist for sheltering his pictures, brushes, colors, ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... The trout, and the shad, and the eel, and most other kinds of fish can stay under water all the time. They cannot live out of the water only a few minutes, and I suppose they feel almost as bad out of the water as we do in it. But the whale wants to come up to the top of the water. He wants to come up to breathe. Well, all at once, the man who was looking out the day I speak of, when I had such a run, sung out as loud as he could, "There she blows!" We all knew what that meant. That ...
— Jack Mason, The Old Sailor • Theodore Thinker
... Ripley's brigade and Porter's militia, which were brought into line with Scott; the latter occupying the extreme right, Ripley the centre, and Porter the left. When this arrangement had been completed the attack was resumed, and a hill top, which was the key of the British position, was carried; the artillery there falling into the hands of the Americans. "In so determined a manner were these attacks directed against our guns," reported Drummond, "that our artillery men were bayoneted by the enemy in the act of loading, ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... and read on steadily, glancing once or twice at his watch, as if he had set himself a task to be accomplished in a certain measure of time. Now and then he heard voices in the house, and the closing of bedroom doors, which showed that the building, at the top of which he sat, was inhabited in every one of its cells. When midnight struck, Ralph shut his book, and with a candle in his hand, descended to the ground floor, to ascertain that all lights were extinct and all doors locked. It was a threadbare, well-worn house that he ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... preceded by a succession of thick low flashes of lightning, and a rumbling noise, like that of a heavy carriage rolling over a hollow pavement. The shock itself consisted of repeated vibrations, which lasted some seconds, and violently shook every house from top to bottom. Again the chairs rocked, the shelves clattered, the small bells rang, and in some places public clocks were heard to strike. Many persons, roused by this terrible visitation, started naked from their beds, and ran to their doors and windows in distraction; yet no life was lost, and no ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... reached the top of the hill he turned back, as he had turned once before on the road of Saint-Victor when he had parted from her. The windows of the village were all on fire beneath the slanting rays of the sun sinking behind the field. He put his hand over his eyes, and saw in ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... was moved, even more by the bishop's manner and voice than his words. And the opening to their conversation was unexpected. The old man put on his spectacles, and drew from the top of one ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... our American friends greatly. I formed the opinion then, which I retain now, that cultivated Americans, the top-skimming of the social cream, are some of the most charming people to be met with in cultivated society. To all that constitutes "nice people" everywhere they join a soupcon of wild flavor which gives them individuality. They are to society what their own wild ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... officers of the Crown have seen recruits, who have performed all the dread rites, and are initiated, stand fearlessly in front of a full-fledged Boxer; have seen that Boxer load up his blunderbuss with powder, ramming down a wad on top; have witnessed a handful of iron buckshot added, but with no wad to hold the charge in place; have noticed that the master Boxer gesticulated with his lethal weapon the better to impress his audience before he fired, but have not noticed that the iron buckshot tripped ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... English engineer, Smeaton, displayed a marvellous ability for mechanical pursuits even in his childhood. Before he had donned jacket and pants in the place of short dress, his father discovered him on the top of the barn, putting up a windmill that he had made. But he paid no regard to the boy's aptitude for this or that position. He was determined to make a lawyer of him, and sent him to school with that end in ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... English. With this persuasion he courts your attention, while he discourses to you in terms and phrases of marvellous vagueness about the Ego within us—the Infinite and the Immense, the Absolute, the Entity and Nonentity, and such-like subjects, of which you can make neither "top nor tail," and of which he knows nothing save the terms and phrases that he strings together with such adept expertness and ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... in our bodies: I must perforce Have shown to thee such a declining day Or look on thine; we could not stall together In the whole world: but yet let me lament, With tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts, That thou, my brother, my competitor In top of all design, my mate in empire, Friend and companion in the front of war, The arm of mine own body, and the heart Where mine his thoughts did kindle,—that our stars, Unreconciliable, should divide Our equalness to this.—Hear ...
— Antony and Cleopatra • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... were woven and braided with pure gold. Slowly from the face of the heavens they melted and passed away as darkness came on, leaving the clear sky studded with stars, and the crescent moon shedding a soft radiance below. I climbed to the top of a hill not far off, and looked across the country. On every eminence, in every little hollow almost, were innumerable lights shining, some thick and countless as stars, indicating an encampment; others isolated ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... hunger were now more acute than ever. Her head whirled; she was so giddy that she could scarcely see where she went as she staggered on. She had just reached the top of a hill, and before her, close by, was the village with its shops. She would spend her last sou for a piece of bread! She had heard of people finding money on the road; perhaps she would find a coin tomorrow; anyhow, she must have a ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... so unjustly severe, that even the granite little hearts of his sisters had been softened; and Esther, managing to secrete a cake that he loved from the tea that was lost to him, stole with it to the top of the house, where he writhed ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... want perpetual sunshine in addition to their other blessings, for saying one word about discomfort. They are all much too civilized and luxurious, and their lives are made altogether too smooth for them. Let them come out here and try to keep house on the top of a hill with servants whose language they don't understand, a couple of noisy children and a small income, and then, as dear Mark Twain says, "they'll ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... so dead, so immured and petrified in our hard self-satisfaction, when we might so easily develop the freedom, fluidity, and delicacy of fine response to these tenuous intimations of our own spirituality and high destiny. Here we live, as some writer has aptly said, on top of a gold mine, and the tragedy is that we are ignorant of the gold. We live, and move, and have our being in an ocean of spiritual and inspiring thought: surely our problem is to find the conditions that will avail to put us in touch with ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... to herself, "I see a man's life is a tedious one; how tired am I! for two nights together I have made the ground my bed: my resolution helps me, or I should be sick. When Pisanio showed me Milford-Haven from the mountain top, how near it seemed!" Then the thoughts of her husband and his cruel mandate came across her, and she said, "My dear Posthumus, thou art ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... king whose throne Is a mossy mountain, on Whose top we sit, our crook in hand, Like a sceptre of command, Our subjects, sheep grazing below, Wanton, frisking to and ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... the sides of the rock, all forlorn, grassy, and mouldering, he is conducted to the gate of the abbey. The outside of the first gate-way has round towers: the second has a pointed arch. One pile of buildings has a row of small arches round the top. The present population of the town amounts to about two hundred and fifty inhabitants, who derive their ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... statue of Palladio and listened to the low rumble of the guns on the front and wondered what the Germans would do with such a lovely thing as this Vicenza if by any chance they ever took it. That day we had looked down from a mountain-top upon an Austrian town lying peacefully in the valley below us directly under the Italian guns. The guns of the Austrians and the Italians were smashing away at each other from the mountain-tops ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... mount that permitted fast switching of lenses. It used one-hundred-foot rolls of 16-millimeter film. He put the camera on the table, then from a cupboard he brought out what appeared to be a searchlight mounted on top of a ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... practicing Christmas carols. The Prince found a very large hamper, and picked as many Christmas presents for himself as he could stuff into it; then he put the ladder against the high gate in front of the convent, and climbed up, dragging the hamper after him. When he reached the top of the gate, which was quite broad, he sat down to rest for a moment before pulling the ladder up so as to drop it on the ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... gas-inflated balloon. About four months after the first trial trip of the latter the inventors decided to ascend in a specially-constructed hydrogen-inflated craft. This balloon, which was 27 feet in diameter, contained nearly all the features of the modern balloon. Thus there was a valve at the top by means of which the gas could be let out as desired; a cord net covered the whole fabric, and from the loop which it formed below the neck of the balloon a car was suspended; and in the car there was a quantity of ballast which could be cast ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... shoes that I recall wearing were wooden ones. They had rough leather on the top, but the bottoms, which were about an inch thick, were of wood. When I walked they made a fearful noise, and besides this they were very inconvenient, since there was no yielding to the natural pressure of the foot. In wearing them one presented an exceedingly awkward appearance. The most trying ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... considerable while at some school or other, where he had a number of cronies. In proof of this, and to show that we have good reasons for our suppositions, James recommends me to print the following rigmarole meditations, on the top of which is ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... branch out and divide from the main stem, I set one of them upright against the rock, then laid one end of my long ceiling-pieces upon the cleft of it, and laid the other end upon a tree on the same side, whose top I had also sawed off with a proper cleft I then went and did the same on the other side; after this I laid on a proper number of cross-beams, and tied all very firmly together with the bark of young trees stripped off in long thongs, which answered that purpose very well. ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... friends in London and elsewhere who had influence. Rather than run the risk of losing this influence he never acknowledged Stella as his wife. Choosing fame rather than love, he withered at the heart, then died at the top. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... the reproductive power of culture is the measure of its value—were as fully introduced and recognised in the world of books as it is in the world of commerce and in the natural world, it would revolutionise from top to bottom, and from entrance examination to diploma, the entire course of study, policy, and spirit of most of our educational institutions. Allowing for exceptions in every faculty—memorable ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... have fallen off [from the central stem, and are united only by a band like the broom, in French called "escoube."[106] In this case, also, it is not "beautiful"], it is unfit. If its leaves are separated [attached to the stem, but at the top separated on each side, like the branches of a tree], it is good. R. Judah says: It should be bound [if its leaves are separated, they should be bound so that they are fixed to the stem as with other Lulabim]. The stony palm of the mountain - of - iron [the Gemara explains ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... farther. Someone had seized him by the shoulders and spun him around like a top and he found himself confronting Kearn Thode's blazing eyes. His half-fuddled companions shrank ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... were bowled over like ninepins. Some floated to the surface and started with the flood; others stood their ground and were submerged inch by inch, the occupants climbing from story to story, from the top story to the roof, only to be swept away from their ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... and he abandoned for the time being the attempt to speak—not, however, until he had served on the house due notice of his great future, expressed in the memorable words—thundered, we are told, at the top of his voice, and audible still in English history—"You shall ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... called the umbilical cord, and it is this that joins the embryo to the mother. Note in Figure III the large stalk of this cord passing upward from the body of the embryo and merging into the structures in the top of the uterus. Note further that there are little branching structures passing from the base of this stalk up into the base of the uterus. These branching structures are loops of blood-vessels, and they form part of ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall
... clear, when one remembers in what a state of misery and despair the Indians of the 'encomiendas'* and the 'mitas' passed their lives. That semi-communism, with a controlling hand in administrative affairs, produced many superior men, or such as rise to the top in modern times, I do not think; but, then, who are the men, and by the exercise of what kind of virtues do they rise in the societies of modern times? The Jesuits' aim was to make the great bulk of the Indians under their control contented, and that they gained their end the complaints ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... before sunset, having reached the top of a gentle rising, I climbed a high tree, from the topmost branches of which I cast a melancholy look over the barren wilderness, but without discovering the most distant trace of a human dwelling. The same dismal uniformity of shrubs and ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... Golconda. One day, after some hours passed in violent fluctuation of opinion, sleep insensibly seized him in his chair; he dreamed that he was ranging a desert country in search of some one that might teach him to grow rich; and as he stood on the top of a hill shaded with cypress, in doubt whither to direct his steps, his father appeared on a sudden standing before him. Ortogrul, said the old man, I know thy perplexity; listen to thy father; turn thine eye on the opposite mountain. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... we have a white double-breasted waistcoat, high chemisette of lace, and collar of English embroidery; cap of silk stuff, forming a calotte, trimmed with lace of Alencon point; and ribbon for the wrist. At the top of the first trimming is fastened a slight silk fringe under several bunches of silk or velvet ribbon. For indoors, and for dress parties, the lace lappets are replaced by ribbon like the bunches. A little ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... Confidently he came into the wind-shielded gallery on top of Nissr's port plane. He advanced to within about six feet, stopped, gave the military salute—which they both returned—and in a throaty French that marked ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... be-laced that it looked like a ball dress standing by itself in the middle of the floor; and a bathtub that looked like a hammock; and a weighing machine; and a chart for recording the daily weight; and a large table with a glass top; and a basket containing all the articles for the Lilliputian toilet; while near the fender some ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... dispensation of grace is like the ladder set up on earth, whose top reached heaven, and upon which Jacob saw the angels ascending; and descending. As the Christian pilgrim in his spiritual progression mounts each round of this ladder, he finds himself in the midst of a spirit-throng ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... tea forms part of their load. I know no more picturesque sight than that presented by the summit of the Long Mynd towards four o'clock on an August afternoon, when numerous fires are lit among the heather, and as many kettles steaming away on the top of them, while noisy, chattering groups of women and children are clustered round, glad to rest after a hard day's work. A family will pick many quarts of bilberries in the day, and as these are sold at prices varying from 3d. to 5d. a quart, it will be readily understood that ...
— A Night in the Snow - or, A Struggle for Life • Rev. E. Donald Carr
... first work of constructing a great breakwater. At high tide, this ledge was just fourteen inches above the level surface of the Gulf of Mexico, and at the time of the above conversation it was within twenty minutes of high tide. The top of this wall of masonry was thirty inches wide, which made but a narrow footway for the two youths who, on a pitch black night, were more than half ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... Went to hear preaching this morning at Oude Schilt by a very poor man, both in body and mind, for he was all awry from top to bottom, without and within, his face as well as his feet, but displeasing as he was to look at, he endeavored to please everybody. His text was, "humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God."[47] We went in the afternoon through Burght,[48] the principal village on the island, walking ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... let the people talk; Stand like a steadfast tower, that never wags Its top for all the blowing of ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... room, and subscribed to a library, so I had everything I needed; and in the week of Christmas holidays I went to see the sea. I walked all night, Lyndall, to escape the heat, and a little after sunrise I got to the top of a high hill. Before me was a long, low, blue, monotonous mountain. I walked looking at it, but I was thinking of the sea I wanted to see. At last I wondered what that curious blue thing might be; then it struck me it ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... humbles himself shall be exalted, and he that exalts himself shall be abased," Matt. xxiii. 12. He is like a growing tree, the deeper the roots go down in the earth, the higher the tree grows above ground, as Jacob's ladder, the foot of it is fastened in the earth, but the top of it reaches the heaven. And this is the sure way to ascend to heaven. Pride would fly up upon its own wings. But the humble man will enter at the lowest step, and so goes up by degrees, and in the end is made manifest. ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... love and sorrow, Bruennhilde for the first time is swayed by human emotions, and exultantly declares, "I will protect thee." Hunding's horn sounds in the distance, and soon is heard his defiant challenge to battle. Siegmund rushes to the top of one of the cloudy summits, and the clash of their arms resounds in the mists. A sudden gleam of light shows Bruennhilde hovering over Siegmund, and protecting him with her shield. As he prepares himself to ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... and he was very unwilling that their poverty should be exposed. He could not, however, turn a Commander-in-Chief out of the house, nor could he positively refuse to give him the information required; so he hallooed out, "The top chamber to the right, General; the top chamber to the right. It's a poor place," he added, speaking to Chapeau; "but the truth is, he don't choose to have more comforts about him than what are enjoyed by the poorest soldier in ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... (Chapter 1.8, Figure 1.29). This oval, uni-axial cup-larva (circular in section) becomes bilateral (or tri-axial) by the growth of a couple of coelom-pouches from the primitive gut (Figures 1.76 and 1.77). To the right and left a sac-shaped fold appears towards the top pole (where the permanent mouth, m, afterwards arises). The two sacs are at first separated by a couple of folds of the entoderm (Figure 1.76 pv), and are still connected with the primitive gut by wide apertures; they also communicate for a short time with the dorsal side (Figure 1.77 ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel
... I carry the big kilta. The basket with the red top that the Sahibs pack themselves ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... however, are more destructive, and more difficult to guard against, as their approaches are principally made under-ground, and below the foundation; they rise either in the floors, or under the posts, which in African buildings support the roof, and as they proceed, they form cavities towards the top, similar to the holes bored in the bottom of ships by the worms, which appear to answer the same purpose in water as the termites do upon land. How convincing is this fact of the infinitely wise arrangements of the Creator, who has united, in the whole system of creation, one uniform conformation ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... to be unaware of this ignorance at headquarters, Miss Babs Wheeler was beginning to feel a little bored by good behaviour and crave for those dramatic cessations at the lunch hour, those speeches, with cheers, from a table top, those interviews with reporters, those flushed and eager councils of war and all the rest of that good old crisis feeling that had previously ended so happily. Mr. Graper came to his proprietor headlong, Mrs. Pembrose was summoned and together they ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... against them, and what happened in a trice was this, that Thorgeir and his brother fall down flat on their backs, and their horse a-top of them. ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... Once up on top of that lava bed, Gale saw stretching away, breaking into millions of crests and ruts, a vast, red-black field sweeping onward and upward, with ragged, low ridges and mounds and spurs leading higher and higher to a great, split escarpment wall, above which dim peaks shone hazily ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... mile back down the road, you must ha' passed it, sir. A great house it be though inclined to ruination. And it lays back from the road wi' a pair o' gates—iron gates as is also ruinated, atween two stone pillars wi' a lion a-top of each, leastways if it ain't a lion it's a griffin, which is a fab'lous beast. And talking of beasts, sir, I do believe as that theer dratted child don't never mean to sleep no more. Good night to ye, sir—and may you sleep better a-nights ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... tour de force of his talent. They consist of seventeen studies of Rouen Cathedral, the towers of which fill the whole of the picture, leaving barely a little space, a little corner of the square, at the foot of the enormous stone-shafts which mount to the very top of the picture. Here he has no proper means to express the play of the reflections, no changeful waters or foliage: the grey stone, worn by time and blackened by centuries, is for seventeen times the monochrome, the thankless theme upon which the painter is about to exercise ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... and sauntered off with the Bear Creek settler. At the corral fence, some fifty yards from the house, he stopped under the shade of a live oak, and put his arms on the top rail. He had allowed himself to show no sign of it, but he resented this claim upon him that seemed to ally him further with ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... and went back along the path toward town leaving the fire blazing in the wood. As he went through the streets the skates clanked in his pocket. In his own room in the New Willard House he built a fire in the stove and lay down on top of the bed. He began to have lustful thoughts and pulling down the shade of the window closed his eyes and turned his face to the wall. He took a pillow into his arms and embraced it thinking first of the school teacher, who by her words had stirred something within him, and later ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... was Scott's birthday, a fact which his small company did not forget. At lunch an immense birthday cake appeared, the top of which had been decorated by Clissold with various devices in chocolate and crystallized fruit, a flag and photographs of Scott. [Page 287] A special dinner followed, and to this sumptuous meal ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... plates,—as well as of the mission pantry, were brought into service. Great boilers and kettles of tea were brewed, and hundreds of flat cakes, made of flour, water and a little salt, were baked in frying pans or on top of the stoves, cut into large pieces, and made ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... time," answered Melchard. "Besides, if more people see you in the streets of a town, fewer look at you than in the country. You'll have to duck in a minute, and I shall pile the bags and things on top." ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... know who Clotilda was, and why Franconia should summon her with so much solicitude. Presently a door opened: Franconia appeared at the top of the stairs, her face glowing with vivacity, her hair dishevelled waving in beautiful confusion, giving a fascination to her person. "I do wish she would come, I do!" she mutters, resting her hands upon the banisters, and looking ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... your pardon, Aunt Deborah; that's where you are mistaken. The store-keepers in New York expect you to dress tip-top and look genteel, so as to do credit to them. If it hadn't been for that, I shouldn't have spent half so much for ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... from the other side of the Combs, is marching to help Einsiedel;—who knows, at this moment, where or whitherward? For the peasants are all against us; our very guides desert, and become spies. 'Push to the left, over the Hochwald top, must not we?' thinks Einsiedel: 'that is Lausitz, a Saxon Country; and Saxony, though the Saxons stand intrenched here, with the knife at our throat, are not at war with us, oh no, only allies of her Majesty of Hungary, and neutral otherwise!' And here, it is too clear, the Chevalier de ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... education in all the manly arts and crafts of the backwoodsman fitted them very well for the work they had to do. I should say that the education of the colored race in America should be fundamental. I have not much confidence in an ornamental top-dressing of philosophy, theology, and classic learning upon the foundation of an unformed and unstable mental and moral condition. Somehow, character must be built up, and character depends upon industry, upon thrift, upon morals, upon correct ethical perceptions. To ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... small man with a big head and quite pronounced Irish features. He was a dreamer. He was not a good provider; Grandmother did most of the providing. He wore a military coat with brass buttons, and red-top boots. He believed in spooks and witches, and used to tell us spook stories till our hair would ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... magnificent valley, sheltered by the hills on either side, through which the Rhine flows, can doubt that this is all one country, and that the frontier must be sought, not in the river, which is not a separation, but the chief means of communication, but on the top of the hills on the further side. Every argument, however, which is used to support German claims to Strasburg may be used with equal force to support French claims to Metz. If Strasburg in French hands is the gate of Germany, Metz in German hands is, and always will remain, a ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... hid there (on the mountain top) in the shadow of the moon. We left there an acorn yet green in its cup, We left also a firchatt upon the great stone hurled by Thor; To a fir branch we tied with a fine whang drawn from a bear we slew ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... or peasant houses where we changed horses, were not as good as those on the great road. The rooms were frequently small and heated to an uncomfortable degree. In one house, notwithstanding the great heat, several children were seated on the top of the stove, and apparently enjoying themselves. The yemshicks and attendants were less numerous than on the great road, but we could find no fault with their service. On one course of twenty versts ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... from behind one of the islands. The wind presses the sea into billows which shift to and fro as water would. Away down on a wagon road you hear the tinkling of bells and a Hock of sheep emerge from a rift in the mist and turning disappear in another cloud of it. The fog parts again and a white top wagon, with four horses, is seen toiling slowly along. The driver cracks his whip and the sea of mist slowly rolls over him again. Another shifting, and a little farmhouse appears, with a man riding from under the trees. He rides into the mist and the farmhouse disappears. A railroad train ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... Confound me, but I think my head's going around like a top. Yes, a—a—a—a doctor. Well, the doctor says that I and Parson Topertoe led a nice life of it—one a glutton and the other a drunkard. Do you know Topertoe? Because if you don't I do. He is a damned scoundrel, and squeezed his tithes out ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... grievously in the shape of a woman; for in the shape of man, Master Brook, I fear not Goliath with a weaver's beam, because I know also life is a shuttle. I am in haste; go along with me; I'll tell you all, Master Brook. Since I plucked geese, played truant, and whipped top, I knew not what 'twas to be beaten till lately. Follow me: I'll tell you strange things of this knave Ford, on whom to-night I will be revenged, and I will deliver his wife into your hand. Follow. Strange things in ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... march in rear of the regiments to which they pertained. They were now, some scores, assembled under a large tree, laughing, chattering, and cooking breakfast. On a sudden, a shell burst in the tree-top, rattling down leaves and branches in fine style, and the rapid decampment of the servitors was most amusing. But I must pause to give an account of my own servant, Tom Strother, who deserves honorable and affectionate mention at my hands, and serves to illustrate a phase of Southern life ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... work them. This Company was rather before its time, though now it would be considered, if anything, rather backward. The first line of rails brought into use was laid from the buttom of Hockley Hill to Dudley Port, and it was opened May 20, 1872; from Hockley to top of Snow Hill the cars began to run September 7, 1873; the Bristol Road line being first used May 30, though formally opened June 5, 1876. The Birmingham and District Tramway Company's lines cost about L65,000, and they paid the Corporation L910 per year rental, ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... muttered, as he and Allerdyke went up to the first floor. "Tell you what it is, Allerdyke—my poor brain is getting into a whirl! We've had quite enough excitement this morning in all conscience, and now this comes on top of it. Now, how in creation do you explain ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... round to find Mansell, with out-stretched hand, looking magnificent in the top-boots ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... and a swing of his left. He was heavier and harder, but David was more agile, and his whole heart was in the fight this time. They clutched and grappled and parried, and finally went down; first one was on top, then the other. It was the wage of brute force against elasticity; bluster against valor. Jud fought in fear; David, in ferocity. At last David bore his oppressor backward and downward. Jud, exhausted, ceased ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... idea, as connected with respectable dwellings, of these I had now to clamber up. M. de —— is a man of talents and great respectability, and his wife is exceedingly clever, but they are not rich. He is a professor, and she is an artist. After having passed so much of my youth on top-gallant yards, and in becketting royals, you are not to suppose, however, I had any great difficulty in getting up these stairs, narrow, steep, and winding ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of me," he said, feeling in his inside pocket. "Handkerchief—slipped them in on top of ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... passes round the mast, and through two thimbles of which the breast backstays reeve. As the yard is hoisted this slips up, but when a reef is taken in it is rode down by the feet of two men close to the tye-block, and thus supports the mast from the top-rim to the parrel. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... veiled the top of the range drifted away, an exclamation of astonishment burst from the ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... resigning the tiller to Joyce, climbed up on to the deck, and proceeded to reset both the mainsail and the spinnaker, which were lying in splendid confusion along the top of the cabin. I had just concluded this operation when Tommy and our visitor reappeared—the latter looking rather comic in a grey jersey, a pair of white flannel trousers, and an old dark blue ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... longing to get away, to go up to the heap of stones on the mountain-top and set a match to the fragments of Hermione's letter, which the dangerous wind might disturb, might bring out into the light of day. But he acquiesced at once. He would go later—if not this afternoon, then at night when he came back from the sea. They went down and spread the rug under ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the homage of the Herculean porter, and, bending her head to him in requital, passed through his guarded tower, from the top of which was poured a clamorous blast of warlike music, which was replied to by other bands of minstrelsy placed at different points on the Castle walls, and by others again stationed in the Chase; while the tones of the ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... and Beverly to the creek I went out to the top of the swell and stood long in the April twilight, looking beyond the rim of the valley toward the darkening prairies with the great splendor of the sunset's afterglow deepening to richest ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... the base of the rocks so that it would have been difficult for one at the top to have seen him at all Ned, obeying his instructions, found a canyon up which he crawled, neither boy making a sound. They had agreed upon the two-shot signal to call each other, three shots being a warning to the rest of their party that they were ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin
... heard the yell of the bloodhounds; and again desperately plunged down into the water. As I went down I opened my mouth, and, choked and gasping, I found myself once more struggling upward. As I rose to the top of the water and caught a glimpse of the sunshine and the trees, the love of life revived in me. I swam to the other side of the creek, and forced my way through the reeds to a large tree, and stood under one of its lowest limbs, ready in case of necessity, to spring up into it. Here ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... birds, with their feet drawn up close to the body. The mound- shaped nests are built of sticks, grass, and mud, and usually placed in a shallow pond or partially submerged swamp, while at times a grassy hassock furnishes the foundation of the structure. In the saucer-shaped top of the nest two eggs are deposited, upon which the bird sits most assiduously, having no time at this season for aquatic amusements, such as ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... a new palette, before you use it take a little trouble to carve out the thumb-hole to fit your thumb. Make it large enough to go over the ball of the thumb, and set easily on the top of the hand. When the hole is too small the thumb gets numb after working a little while, which this ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... on lulled waters Rose the blessed silver isle, Purple vines in lengthening vistas Knit the hill-top to the beach. ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... on his native plains, his red eyes glowing like coals of fire from amid the mass of dark brown or black hair which hangs over his head and neck and the whole fore part of his body. A beard descends from the lower jaw to the knee; another huge bunch of matted hair rises from the top of his head, almost concealing his thick, short, pointed horns standing wide apart from each other. As he turns round we shall see that a large oblong hump rises on his back, diminishing in height towards the tail: that member is short, with a tuft of hair at the tip. The hinder part of the body ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... Androvsky spoke to each other for the first time, on the top of a tower where they had come to see the sunset. Domini spoke first, moved by a strange look of loneliness, of desolation, in Androvsky's eyes. He replied in a low voice, and asked her pardon for his rude conduct at the station. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... critical business, and will cost you many trials. But once done, it is done for ever. The best way is, to have a small buckle fixed on the middle of the tape, by which you can take it up, and let it out at pleasure. When you choose it should cease to count, unhook it from the top of the watch pocket, and let it fall down to the bottom ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... the television thrillers, after all, Parr reflected. But Sadau was right on one count—Parr didn't quite fill the role of the space-hero. He had neither the close-clipped moustache nor the gleaming top boots. But he did have the regulation deep, unfathomable ...
— The Devil's Asteroid • Manly Wade Wellman
... accepted her hospitality found fault with her brains. All praised her cook, and no one ever thought of her nephew. It was known that she could not leave him her money. Every pair of eyes read his name—Lord Douglas Hendlesham—on his bedroom door at the top of the grand staircase, and visitors soon learnt to associate this advertisement with a pale, haughty young man who appeared occasionally at meals, or sometimes listened disdainfully to the music after dinner ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... sofa would emit fearful growls that would cause the children to scream with pretended fright. Next they would play fire, and pile all the furniture in the center of the room, heaping books, clothing, rugs on top. Then Tom would "rescue" his mother if she appeared on the scene, and seizing her in his arms carry her to a place of safety, and then engage in a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... the model. Beeching's boat had a double floor, the upper one raised to a little above the level of the sea. The escapes were short metal pipes, the upper openings of which were fitted into holes in the upper floor. The lower ends passed through the bottom of the boat. The valves of the top opened downward, but could not be opened upwards, so that the rushing of the sea into the pipes from below was checked, but the rushing in of the sea from above pressed the valves open, and allowed the water ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... the Scottish Earls and nobility, with their tenantry, marched away to Dunse-hill, and sat down there; and just in the course of that struggle, when it was either to be suppressed or brought into greater vitality, they encamped on the top of Dunse-hill thirty thousand armed men, drilled for that occasion, each regiment around its landlord, its earl, or whatever he might be called, and eager for Christ's Crown and Covenant. That was the signal for all England rising up into unappeasable ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... carried the hot water upstairs was new to the ways of the house. After having waited on Mrs. Westerfield, she had been instructed by the kind-hearted landlady to go on to the top floor. "You will find a pretty little girl in the garret, all by herself. Say you are to bring her down to my room, as soon as her mamma has ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... great white bear climbed to the top of an immense iceberg. He looked far across the country. The fields of snow and the beautiful northern lights made the night almost as ...
— Stories of Birds • Lenore Elizabeth Mulets
... as well tell it right out; for, from all I hear about myself, my dome must have a glass top that puts all the inside works on exhibition. There's Zenobia, for instance, who's my half-step-adopted aunt, as you might say. Now, she ain't one to sleuth around, or cross-examine, or anything like that; but what she's missed of this little ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... menagerie. Just as the carriage of Victor Hugo came opposite the door the lions within set up a tremendous roar. "They know that the other one is passing by," said an old workingman beside the carriage ("Ils sentent que l'autre passe"). The fondness of Victor Hugo for riding about Paris on the top of an omnibus is well known. It has sometimes happened that on tendering his fare the conductor has put the coin aside with the remark, "I shall keep that as a relic." One day, on returning from a session of the senate at Versailles, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... Take the first scene. A prophet, who knows God and His will, is standing on the mountain top, and as he looks down over the valley beneath him, with its acacia-trees and swift river, there spread the tents of Israel. He sees them, and knows that they are 'a people whom the Lord hath blessed.' Brought there to curse, 'he blesses them altogether'; ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... looked at it in silence; she thought it unseemly, with its bare ankles and sandalled feet, and likely to be extremely expensive. For this Diana of the Fronde sparkled with jewels from top to toe, and Lady Tranmore felt certain that Kitty had already made William promise her the counterpart of the magnificent diamond crescent that shone in the coiffure ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... brings release From danger and from toil: We talk the battle over, And share the battle's spoil. The woodland rings with laugh and shout, As if a hunt were up, And woodland flowers are gathered To crown the soldier's cup. With merry songs we mock the wind That in the pine-top grieves, And slumber long and sweetly On beds ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... bade his men take part in the working of the ship in order to accustom themselves to the duties of seamen. The fleet did not keep the sea all the time, returning often to the straits between the Isle of Wight and the mainland, where they lay in shelter, a look-out being kept from the top of the hills, whence a wide sweep of sea could be seen, and where piles of wood were collected by which a signal fire could warn the fleet to put to sea should the enemy's vessels come ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... "I thought back in April there that we were to touch top prices about the first of this month, but this French and German news has coloured the cat different. I've been figuring that I would get out of this market around the seventies, but she's going higher. I'm going to hold on ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... to go, I dust want to 'top where we are now, for Eddie was saying, yesterday, that papa was in Tanada, and that he was coming over after us. And he taid, mamma that Tanada was so cold we would not have any petty flowers there, and I don't want to leave all my petty flowers. ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... the cliff path toilsomely. Standing at the top, on the edge of the grass, they looked down the cliffs at the beach and over the sea. The strand was wide, forsaken by the sea, forlorn with rocks bleaching in the sun, and sand and seaweed breathing off their painful scent upon the heat. The sea crept smaller, ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... sooner uttered, when the jolly man with the red nose seized Clare by both hands. 'Well, I am really glad to meet you,' he cried; 'I often heard of you, and many a time thought of calling at Helpston, but couldn't manage it.' Then, shouting at the top of his voice to some friends at the farther end of the yard, he ejaculated, 'Here's John Clare: I've got John Clare.' The appeal brought a score of horse-jobbers up in a moment. They took hold of the poet without ceremony, dragged ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin |
