"Top-heavy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one evening, top-heavy with gin, And rehearsing his speech on the weight of the crown, He tript near a sawpit, and tumbled right in, "Sinking Fund," the last words as his noddle came down. ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... disadvantage of the two larger barns beyond it; for the latter were barns of the old times, high-posted with roofs of low pitch, and weathered from long conflicts with storms. Around them, like stunted children, clustered sheds, sties and a top-heavy corn-crib, stilted on four ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... sociable disposition, Mr Sudberry was about to address this ill-favoured beggar—for such he evidently was—when the coach came round a distant bend in the road at full gallop. It was the ordinary tall, top-heavy mail of the first part of the nineteenth century. Being a poor district, there were only two horses, a white and a black; but the driver wore a stylish red coat, and cracked his whip smartly. The road being all down hill at that ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... one evening, tired out and profoundly depressed. A table, covered with books, stood beside the fire. She gave the top-heavy pile an impatient thrust and the mass fell, with a great crash, to the floor. A heap of manuscript—her musical achievement for the past year—was involved in the fall. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... up of learning, but a study of it shows that it is very much more than that. Compare it to Sir George Grove's staggering tome on the Beethoven symphonies if you want to understand the difference between mere scholastic diligence and authentic criticism. The one is simply a top-heavy mass of disorderly facts and worshipping enthusiasm; the other is an analysis that searches out every nook and corner of the subject, and brings it into coherence and intelligibility. The Chopin rhapsodist is always held in check ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... far and wide, over the tree-speckled champaign, rejoice in the sun-given promise of a glorious harvest-home. Intervenes the rest of two sunny Sabbaths sent to dry the brows of labour, and give the last ripeness to the overladen stalks that, top-heavy with aliment, fall over in their yellowy whiteness into the fast reaper's hands. Few fields now—but here and there one thin and greenish, of cold, unclean, or stony soil—are waving in the shadowy winds; for all are cleared, ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... find proof in this paper of the author's statement that earth pressures on the sides of a structure buried in earth are greater at the top than at the bottom of a trench. That some banks are "top-heavy," is, no doubt, a fact, the writer having often heard similar expressions used by experienced trench foremen, but, in every case called to his attention, local circumstances have caused the top-heaviness, ...
— Pressure, Resistance, and Stability of Earth • J. C. Meem
... hung useless at his side. She reached forward—one hand on the tiller—to help him. The rim of the storm slipped up over the sun—a sudden flaw struck them—the rudder flew sharp round, wrenched out of her slight hold—the top-heavy sail caught the full force of the blow, surged downward with a heavy lurch, and the gale was on them. A great blow, and swift darkness, then fierce currents rushing coldly past him; strange, wild sounds filling his ears; and when his vision cleared itself, he saw Lois, unimpeded by her ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various |
