"Underfoot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who fled blinking from one hole in the wall to another, with little or nothing on, and of other creatures much in liquor and loudly scolding and quarrelling, with squalid bits of childhood scattered about underfoot, and vague shapes of sickness and mutilation, and all the time a buying and selling ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... fellows from the east fled before the pursuers, but the Britons following after did them sore mischief. They waxed weary of slaying, so that they trod the Romans underfoot. Blood ran in runnels, and the slain they lay in heaps. Fair palfreys and destriers ran masterless about the field, for the rider was dead, and had neither joy nor delight in the sun. Arthur rejoiced and made merry over so noble a triumph, which had ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... softly like a thief, Lest the harsh shingle should grate underfoot, And feeling all along the garden wall, Lest he should swoon and tumble and be found, Crept to the gate, and opened it, and closed, As lightly as a sick man's chamber door, Behind him, and came out upon the waste. And there he would have knelt but that his knees Were feeble, so that falling prone ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... so. The present was after all the real thing. The dreams could wait. The knowledge that they were there, waiting, made all the ordinary things more beautiful and more interesting. The feel of the soft dust underfoot, the bright, dewy grass and clover by the wayside, the lessening of houses and the growing wideness of field and pasture, all contented and delighted Dickie. He felt to the full all the joy that Mr. ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... along by himself, elate, and with a springy step, on thoughts of ambition intent, till he came at last to a cool and shadowy place, where as yet the ferns were NOT broken down and trampled underfoot, though Guy Waring found them so some twenty ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... round, and saw before me And underfoot a lake, that from the frost The semblance had of glass, ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... thumped onto the red-ochre sand, it occurred to him that it had been a very long time since he had had solid ground underfoot. A very long ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... observed! what reverence and obedience under the rule of the master showed they in all things! The traces of them that remain until now testify that they were truly holy and perfect men, who fighting so bravely trod the world underfoot. Now a man is counted great if only he be not a transgressor, and if he can only endure with patience what ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... said or done anything that a Gorgio duke wouldn't do? Ah, God's love, but you were bold to come! I married you by the River Starzke; I looked upon you as my wife; and here you were alone with me! I had my rights, and I had been trampled underfoot by ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... poor Jones quite as well as the lieutenant did yesterday. "If you have a brain, sir, don't use it. Stay in sight of the enemy and be shot." Then he sent us by a way I never should have chosen in cold blood, across the top of a steep slope, with sliding sand and loose stones underfoot, while all the time the same wind and rain whipped and beat us unmercifully. At last we were halted behind another hill, put in skirmish line, and told what we were to do. We were to rush the ridge, then to ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... hear a vast stirring, a rolling and rumbling and hammering. Little by little the scene grew plain: towering, black buildings here and there, long rows of shops and sheds, little railways branching everywhere, bare gray cinders underfoot and oceans of billowing black smoke above. On one side of the grounds ran a railroad with a dozen tracks, and on the other side lay the lake, where steamers came ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... fought on the bridge like wild animals, and those who had horses trod their comrades underfoot, or pushed them over the parapet. Twelve thousand perished on the banks or in the river; and sixteen thousand were left behind to ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... visiting team piled through. First down was secured on another attack at the same place and the ball was on the defender's sixteen yards. Two yards more came past right tackle and two through centre—Morgan's had discovered the weakness of Thursby's defence—and the ten-yard line was almost underfoot. A conference ensued. Evidently some of the enemy were favouring a field-goal, but the quarter still held out for all the law would allow and a line-shift was followed by a quick toss of the ball to one side of the field. Luckily for the home team, however, it was Steve Edwards' side that was ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... grew Of firm and fragrant leaf; on either side Acanthus, and each odorous bushy shrub, Fenced up the verdant wall; each beauteous flower, Iris all hues, roses, and jessamin, Reared high their flourished heads between, and wrought Mosaick; underfoot the violet, Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay Broidered the ground, more coloured than with stone Of costliest emblem: Other creature here, Bird, beast, insect, or worm, durst enter none, Such was their awe ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... perfect in your hate and love, Our great twin-spirited brethren; you that stand Head by head glittering, hand made fast in hand, And underfoot the fang-drawn worm that strove To wound you living; from so far above, Look love, not scorn, on ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... connoisseur speaks it) is some morning when it has rained well the day or night before, and the soil of the road, where it is not evenly packed, is of about that substance of which the fingers can make fine "tees" for golfing. This is the precise composition of earth and dampness underfoot most sympathetic to the spine, the knee sockets, the muscles, tendons, ligaments of limb, back, neck, breast and abdomen, and the spirit of locomotion in the ancient exercise of walking. On this day the protruding stones have been washed bald in the road; the ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... the further edge of which was lost in misty vagueness. The road was here but crude, and when on the level its boundaries were not so marked, as when it passed through the cuttings; and in a little while I found that I must have strayed from it, for I missed underfoot the hard surface, and my feet sank deeper in the grass and moss. Then the wind grew stronger and blew with ever increasing force, till I was fain to run before it. The air became icy-cold, and in spite of my exercise I began to suffer. The snow was now falling so thickly and whirling ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... planks outdoors to feed the lot I'll be bringing, Aaron," the Captain said. "Come five-years' springtime, when I bring your Amish neighbors out, I'll not forget to have in my pockets a toot of candy for the little Stoltzes I'll expect to see underfoot." Martha, whose English was rusty, blushed none the less. Aaron grinned as he slapped the reins over the rumps of his team. "Giddap!" The cart rumbled across the deck and down the ramp, onto the soil of Murna. Yonnie, the Ayrshire bull, tossed his head ...
— Blind Man's Lantern • Allen Kim Lang
... of later life, the basis of that theological training has made itself felt to me, as one feels rocks or stumps or solid things underfoot in the sickly swaying of wet sands. I may not always believe all I was taught, but what I was taught has helped me to what I believe. I certainly think of those ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... you want the walk!" she answered resignedly. "Though you've a queer taste in walks, for the streets are terrible underfoot. But I suppose you're shut up all day at your work. You'll just have to sit down and wait till I've checked the literature and handed in the takings. I doubt yon stout body in plum-coloured velveteen who bought R.J. Campbell on the ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... that some, at least, of the seven owed their lives, for Don and Billykins lay right in the path of the stampeding herd, while Rupert, scrambling painfully to his feet, would most certainly have been knocked down and trampled underfoot. ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... with hope, and the very oxen pulling their best. But Piet Naude said nothing, for he had a strange doubt in his heart, and he rode on anxiously. And when they came to the kloof they saw that all the Burgher had said was even less than true. The veld underfoot was soft and tender as satin, and the grass was fresh and green. On each side the tall hills cast back the sun, so that the beautiful cool shade fell like a blessing on their scorched faces. There was wild hemp {dagga} for the Kafirs to smoke; ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... white-bearded and majestic trees. The dove and the zephyr now shared her song, and a deep sigh commonly closed it. She was changed from what she was. The affections had suddenly bounded into being, trampling the petty vanities underfoot; and those first lessons of humility which are taught by love, had subdued a spirit which, hitherto, had never ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... hesitating in mortal fear, and with a stroke put an end to his reign and his existence. His body was hacked into bleeding fragments, which were cast about the streets of the city, to be trampled underfoot ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... foodstuffs mingling with the yet low-lying powder smoke and with the pall of Valley dust. Horses lay stark across the way, or, dying, stared with piteous eyes. The sky was like a bowl of brass, and in the concave buzzards were sailing. All along there was underfoot much of soldiers' impedimenta—knapsacks, belts, accoutrements of all kinds, rolled blankets and oilcloths, canteens. Dead men did not lack. They lay in strange postures, and on all the dust was thick. There were many wounded; the greater number of these ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... sound from within to show that our cautious withdrawal had been observed. I stared about, but was able to perceive little beyond the small group awaiting my orders. The fog clung thick and heavy on all sides, the lungs breathed it in, and the deck underfoot was as wet as though from heavy rain. Moisture dripped from yards and canvas, and it was impossible for the eye to penetrate to either rail. Fortunately there was no weight of sea running, and the bark swung gently, still retaining steerage-way, but with not wind enough aloft ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... old glove, the withered violets, and a visiting-card with his name, on which three unimportant lines had been written. She insulted these keepsakes, she tore them with her nails, she trampled them underfoot, she reduced them to fragments; she left nothing whatever of them, except a pile of shreds, which at last she set fire to. She had a feeling as if she were employed in executing two great culprits, who deserved cruel tortures ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... was inwoven shade Laurel and Mirtle, and what higher grew Of firm and fragrant leaf; on either side Acanthus, and each odorous bushie shrub Fenc'd up the verdant wall; each beauteous flour, Iris all hues, Roses, and Gessamin Rear'd high thir flourisht heads between, and wrought Mosaic; underfoot the Violet, 700 Crocus, and Hyacinth with rich inlay Broiderd the ground, more colour'd then with stone Of costliest Emblem: other Creature here Beast, Bird, Insect, or Worm durst enter none; Such was thir awe ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... continued, "I 'd like you to have my Latin grammar here—you 've seen me reading it. You might stick it away in a bookcase, for the sake of old times. It goes against me to think of it falling into rough hands or being kicked about camp and trampled underfoot." ...
— Quite So • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... break one's way through untrodden forests. It is easier to walk after we "learn how," and learning how is simply doing it over and over until the legs and feet have acquired habits of motion and accommodation to distances and to what is underfoot. It is easy to do anything after we have done it again and again, so that it has become second-nature, and "second-nature" is habit. The wise man early forms certain habits of personal care, of eating, sleeping, exercising; of study, of meeting the usual occurrences of life. The ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... smeared all over with tar-like streaks, knocked down the women, who carried their children on their hips. The provisions in the baskets were pouring out; in walking, pieces of salt, parcels of gum, rotten dates, and gourou nuts were crushed underfoot; and sometimes on vermin-covered bosoms there would hang a slender cord supporting a diamond that the Satraps had sought, an almost fabulous stone, sufficient to purchase an empire. Most of them did not even know what they desired. They ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... mist and wind and clamoring sea and solemn hills, the dour, ill-tempered world wherein we were, our days as grass (saith the psalmist). Ay, an' 'tis so. I remember the day: the wet moss underfoot; the cold wind, blowing as it listed; the petulant sea, wreaking an ancient enmity, old and to continue beyond our span of feeling; the great hills of Twin Islands hid in mist, but yet watching us; the clammy fog embracing us, three young, unknowing souls. ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... moon and the artificial luxuries of its cities, after the agoraphobic vastness of Earth's giant surface, to be within this little close-knit familiar world was soothing and relaxing. It was a green glade of leaves and branches, greenness underfoot and overhead, a brown metal cliff with vines and a door to his left, a larger brown metal cliff like the round head of a barrel with doors in it to his right, and a circular silver door in the center. Behind the small right hand cliff was the small ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... simply wilted before it. There was no great force in the German blow, which was merely designed to relieve the pressure of Kornilov's advance; but Russian troops refused to fight, and ran away trampling underfoot and killing officers who strove to stem the rout. By the 20th German patrols were in Tarnopol, which the Russians had held since August 1914, and in a fortnight they were across the Russian frontier as far south as the borders of Bukovina ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... eyes. Blubbery clothes are cold, and theirs were soon so torn as to afford little protection against the wind, and so stiff with blubber that they would stand up by themselves, in spite of frequent scrapings with knives and rubbings with penguin skins, and always there were underfoot the great granite boulders which made walking difficult even in daylight and calm weather. As Levick said, "the road to hell might be paved with good intentions, but it seemed probable that hell itself would be paved something after the ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... wrist, while all outdoors was calling to her; for which she had forborne often and often during the week, only to be more thoroughly bullied on Saturdays. Yet she tore it across and recklessly trampled it underfoot. Then with her hands over her ears, lest she hear the imperturbable and maddeningly excellent Sissy play "In Sweet Dreams" without the notes, ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... forest of young Callitris trees next impeded us, and were more formidable than even the vines. The day was passed in forcing our way through these various scrubs, the ground declining by a gentle slope only. We next found firmer soil underfoot, that where the Callitris scrub grew having been sandy, and we saw at length, with a feeling of relief, that only brigalow scrub was before us; we ascended gravelly hills, came upon a dry water-course, and then on a chain ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... a breaking stick, and he was dashed senseless against the steel walls of the magazine, falling in a tumbled heap upon the floor. Without looking to see whether the man was unconscious or not, Frobisher dashed at the fuse and trampled it fiercely underfoot until the smouldering spark was entirely extinguished; then, with a sob of relief, he withdrew its other end from a pile of explosives and tossed it out ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... will see to the execution of these instructions and that you will maintain the honour of the Philippines by your courage and in no way permit your rights to be trampled underfoot." [189] ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... with the river; they walked over a meadow studded with little, many-hued, star-shaped flowers, whose fronds underfoot were soft as a lawn. Yet still the sweet pipings followed them, now loud, now whisper-soft, in a tenuous web ...
— Pygmalion's Spectacles • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... light of day, she sits in the hollow of the tree, but at night she is far too wide-awake to dream. And so great are the owl's powers of sight and hearing, and so swift is her "stoop" from the sky to the ground, that the bank-vole has little chance of escape should a single grass-stalk rustle underfoot when she is hovering near his haunt. Far from being shy and retiring in her disposition, the brown owl, directly night steals over the woodlands, is so fearless that probably no animal smaller than the hare ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... laments the Notre-Dame de Lorette district, the joyous little supper-parties at the Cafe Anglais, and the theatrical first nights viewed from stage boxes. "Ah," she must reflect, as she looks upon her coronet trodden underfoot and hears the sinister murmurs of the Munich mob, "how delightful Paris would be this evening! What a grand success I would be in the new ballet at the Opera or at a ball at the Winter Garden!" Alas, my poor Lola, your whip is broken; your prestige is gone; ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... promised a great success. This carnival of the gods, this dragging in the mud of their Olympus, this mock at a whole religion, a whole world of poetry, appeared in the light of a royal entertainment. The fever of irreverence gained the literary first-night world: legend was trampled underfoot; ancient images were shattered. Jupiter's make-up was capital. Mars was a success. Royalty became a farce and the army a thing of folly. When Jupiter, grown suddenly amorous of a little laundress, ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... you see. If they had stuck to their rights and enforced them you wouldn't be trying to trample mine underfoot in this bland way now. I haven't any disposition to give you unnecessary trouble, but it is my duty to protect the next man from this kind of imposition. So I must have my car. Otherwise I will wait in Chicago and sue the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... rang, he shouldered a large and heavy pack, like a pilgrim with his burden of sin, but certainly journeying to hell instead of heaven. On board he looked round for the best position, at first stationing himself near the boiler-pipe; but, finding the deck damp underfoot, he went to the cabin-door, and took his stand on the stairs, protected from the wind, but very incommodiously placed for those who wished to pass. All this was done without any bravado or forced impudence, but in the most quiet way, merely because he was seeking his own ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... sibilant, Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways, I, musing, late in the autumn day, gazing off southward, Alone, held by the eternal self of me that threatens to get the better of me and stifle me, Was seized by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot, In the ruin, the sediment, that stands for all the water and all the land of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... hard towards Stone Bridge. A retreat at first now became a panic, then a rout. Men threw away their baggage, then their guns, all in a mad rush to put the stream between themselves and the dreaded "gray-backs." Cannon were abandoned, men mounted the horses and fled in wild disorder, trampling underfoot those who came between them and safety, while others limbered up their pieces and went at headlong speed, only to be upset or tangled in an unrecognizable mass on Stone Bridge. The South Carolinians pressed them to the very crossing, capturing prisoners and guns; among the ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... hoarse and sibilant, Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways, I musing late in the autumn day, gazing off southward, Held by this electric self out of the pride of which I utter poems, Was seiz'd by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot, The rim, the sediment that stands for all the water and all the land ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... far-off Rikor. Encased in their colossal machine-bodies of glittering metal, and armed with such terrible weapons as the black ray projector, the Shining Ones would be as invulnerable as men trampling an anthill underfoot. ...
— The Cavern of the Shining Ones • Hal K. Wells
... idyllicism of open meadows or wilding clusters of simple rustic thickets, and the enormous antiquity of these two hoary ecclesiastic fanes. History is in the air, and you feel that the very daisies you crush underfoot, the very copses from which you pluck a scented spray, have their delicate rustic ancestries, dating back to Attila, who is said once to have brought his destructive presence where now such sweet solemnity of desertion ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... what we expected. You were a dear little girl; I see that now, looking back. But not the little girl I had in my mind. So I missed you, thinking of the little girl you were not. We do that all our lives, Robina. We are always looking for the flowers that do not grow, passing by, trampling underfoot, the blossoms round about us. It was the same with Dick. I wanted a naughty boy. Well, Dick was naughty, no one can say that he was not. But it was not my naughtiness. I was prepared for his robbing orchards. I rather hoped he would rob orchards. All the high-spirited boys in books ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... the earth feels underfoot!" said Madame de Ferrier. We were both stiff. I drew the boats where they could not be floated away, and we turned our faces to the unknown. I took her unresisting arm to guide her, and she ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... which depended on Schools, there need almost no notice be taken. I learned what others learn; and kept it stored-by in a corner of my head, seeing as yet no manner of use in it. My Schoolmaster, a downbent, brokenhearted, underfoot martyr, as others of that guild are, did little for me, except discover that he could do little: he, good soul, pronounced me a genius, fit for the learned professions; and that I must be sent to the Gymnasium, and one day to the University. Meanwhile, what printed ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... life again makes one childish and easily amused. For instance, it was quite a common occurrence to see a small crowd of fellows looking excitedly at something. On closer investigation it in most cases turned out to be a toad or a worm. As it became dry underfoot we were able to go out for walks on parole with a German officer. The stout commandant usually took us, and not only did he make himself quite agreeable, but also chose some very pretty paths among the various pine woods. One afternoon two fellows succeeded in cutting the outside ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... southland a few years ago; a wide, coolly-dark veranda ran the length of the building; through three-feet-thick walls the doorways invited to further coolness. Howard stood aside for them to enter. They found underfoot a bare floor; it had been sprinkled from a watering pot earlier in the afternoon. The room was big and dusky; a few rawhide-bottomed chairs, a long rough table painted moss-green, some shelves with books, furnished the apartment. At one end ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... respectability is to ignore whatever you don't understand. Careful observation of this maxim had somewhat dulled the cry of that shrill queer music. It now caused only a faint pain in his mind. Still, he walked that way because the little meadow by the pond was agreeably soft underfoot. Also, when he walked close beside the water the voices were silent. That is worth noting, he said to himself. If you go directly at the heart of a mystery, it ceases to be a mystery, and becomes only a question of drainage. (Mr. Poodle ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... sand and dust, then along a board walk, to turn aside before what was apparently a new brick structure, but a closer view proved it to be only painted wood. The place rang hollow with a sound of hammers. It looked well, but did not feel stable underfoot. Durade led her through two large hall-like rooms into a small one, ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... I am very, very humble. I have put my foolish pride underfoot. I am not broken. I am still very proud and, I fear, self-conceited, in spite of my severe lesson. Enid is beautiful, and I know it, and it helps me write this letter, but I have no right to ask even ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... nothing, while Madame X. moves about with solid vivacity in the midst of her extraordinary menagerie of bric-a-brac. The spoils of all the world are there, in that incredibly tiny salon; they lie underfoot, they climb up walls, they cling to screens, brackets, and tables; one of your elbows menaces a Japanese toy, the other a Dresden china shepherdess; all the colours of the rainbow clash in a barbaric discord of notes. And in a corner of this fantastic room, Huysmans lies back indifferently on the ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... was—and, oh, how miserably wet—her hand around his shoulder felt the thin shirt clinging soggily to his arm. Yes; she was glad he hadn't let her walk—it wasn't far, but she would have had to force her way continually through bushes that scattered showers from their dripping leaves, and underfoot she could hear his boots squash through the mud. And then suddenly it happened—the trees, just a yard or so from the fire, were thick together, tangled—she bent her head quickly, instinctively, to avoid a low-hanging branch as he for the same reason swerved a little—and ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... him open his mouth again, nor none of his folks; that she was through with the whole lot of 'em forever and ever, 'n' she wished to the Lord she'd had sense enough to put her foot down fifteen years ago, 'n' she hoped he'd enjoy bein' tread underfoot for the rest of his natural life, 'n' she wouldn't speak to him again if she met him in her porridge dish. She then slammed the door and went upstairs to cry as if she were sixteen, as she watched him out of sight. ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... started down the wide street bordered by maples, now shorn of their leaves, but furnishing a carpet of yellow underfoot, past the church, the store, the schoolhouse and on to the old brown house sitting back behind an orchard of gnarled, crooked apple trees. The place was all grown up with weeds, though here and there were signs of a former garden. Up the rotting pillars ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... in a cellar that was damp underfoot, and the soft earth deadened all sound as they walked upon it—and they seemed to be walking on interminably. It was too far—much too far! She felt her nerve failing her. She looked behind her again. That opening, still discernible to her ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... examined the spot. The moss and grass where he stood grew fresh underfoot, with no marks to suggest that they had been trodden on recently. But close by, behind the horizontal branch of the great oak, was a tangled patch of undergrowth and brambles, broken and pressed down in places, as though it had been entered by a human ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... got more and more suspicious of the effect of this particular form of words on the truthfulness of the English mind (now fast becoming a salt which has lost his savor, and is fit only to be trodden underfoot of men). And during the last ten years, in which my position at Oxford has compelled me to examine what authority there was for the code of prayer, of which the University is now so ashamed that it no more dares compel ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... desperately to shield from harm—that holy thing which had become dearer to her than life itself—desecrated, broken, and lying in the dust. And it was Burke who had flung it there, Burke who now ruthlessly trampled it underfoot. ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... park, long preserved, than the recent haunt of naked savages. There were deer and quail in abundance, here and there an open field of grain. Long beards of pale green moss waved from the white oaks, wild flowers, golden red and pale blue, burst underfoot. There were hedges of sweet briar, acres of lupins, purple and yellow. Altogether the ideal estate of a nobleman; and Rezanov, who had liked nothing in California so well, gave his imagination rein and saw the counterpart of the castle ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... move about to sit here and look abroad. I wonder whether I should have been with the party if I had not been lame. I dare say something would have taken off from the pleasure if I had. But how well I can remember what the pleasure is! the jumping stiles—the feel of the turf underfoot,—the running after every flower,—the going wherever one has a fancy to go,— how well I remember it all! And yet it gives me a sort of surprise to see the activity of these children, and how little they are aware of what their privilege is. I fancy, however, the pleasure ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... before we reached their posts they were gone, and a flash of lightning showed the tents blown tighter than drums in the gaining wind and white with the hailstones. When we reached the tents there was hail already half a foot deep underfoot where the wind had blown it into drifts, and the next flash of lightning showed one tent—the bimbashi's own—split open and blown fluttering into strips. The bimbashi rushed out with a blanket round his head and shoulders and ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... rear. There were no long tunneled ways to traverse to reach them. One went along through the darkness until the sound of men's voices, the glare of charcoal in a bucket bored with holes, the flicker of a match, told of the buried army almost underfoot or huddled in its flimsy shelters behind ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... thirst, but rather increased it. In several places also she saw thickets and shady places and houses here and there, which were all alike to her an anguish for desire of them. What more shall we say of the ill-starred lady? The sun overhead and the heat of the platform underfoot and the stings of the flies and gads on every side had so entreated her that, whereas with her whiteness she had overcome the darkness of the foregoing night, she was presently grown red as ruddle,[391] and all bescabbed as she was with blood, had seemed to whoso ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... nights after, so that the town was lost under a white pall: house-entrances were with difficulty kept free, and the swept streets were banked with walls of snow, four and five feet high. The night-frosts redoubled their keenness; the snow underfoot crackled like electric sparks; the sleighs crunched the roads. But except for this, and for the tinkling of the sleigh-bells, the streets were as noiseless as though laid with straw, and especially while fresh snow still formed ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... had cooled he arose and made his way back to a pleasant hardwood forest of maple and beech. Here the leaves were just bursting from their buds. Underfoot the early spring flowers—the hepaticas, the anemones, the trilium, the dog-tooth violets, the quaint, early, bright-green undergrowths—were just reaching their perfection. Migration was in full ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... all day, from sun-up to dark, north, south and inland. It was a gray day, sloppy underfoot and raw overhead. At one time the skipper halted and lit his pipe within three yards of the point of the edge of the cliff from which Quinn had pitched to his death; but wind, snow and thaw had obliterated ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... very much as the naturalist classifies the objects of his study, rather than to praise or blame them; that there is a measure of the same absurdity in his trampling on a poem, a novel, or an essay that does not please him as in the botanist's grinding a plant underfoot because he does not find it pretty. He does not conceive that it is his business rather to identify the species and then explain how and where the specimen is imperfect and irregular. If he could once acquire this simple idea of his duty he would be much more agreeable company than he now is, and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... long before may be inferred from a remark of Estienne in his Apology for Herodotus, that while some of his contemporaries carry their admiration of antiquity to the point of superstition, others depreciate and trample it underfoot.] on which he proposes to give an impartial decision by instituting a comprehensive comparison in all ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... obsolescence of the space fleet into which they presently drifted. Ancient hulks and impractical oddities did not seem antique or freakish to them. They had no standards in such matters. The planet Darth seemed slightly off to one side in space, at some times, and at others it seemed underfoot while at others it looked directly overhead. At all times it moved visibly, while the spaceboat and the ships in orbit seemed merely to float in nearly fixed positions. When the dark part of Darth appeared to roll toward the spaceboat ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... were disposed comfortably before the blaze, fore paws folded under, purring and blinking lazily at the grate. All around were evidences of Boots's personal taste in pretty wall-paper and hangings, a few handsome Shiraz rugs underfoot, deep, comfortable chairs, low, open bookcases full of promising literature—the more ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... tidbits. She ate heartily. Her sleep was a rest for both body and mind. Every afternoon she strolled across the bend to the cottonwoods. The butterflies fared beside her. Overhead, between sun and earth, hung legions of grasshoppers, like a haze. Underfoot, bluebell and sunflower nodded. And the grove was ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... manner av use is ut to me goin' out widout a dhrink? The ground's powdher-dhry underfoot, an' ut gets unto the throat fit to kill,' wailed Mulvaney, looking at me reproachfully. 'An' a peacock is not a bird you can catch the tail av onless ye run. Can a man run ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... alone in sea and in the rifles of the inhabitants of this harsh land, but even in the crawling things underfoot. ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... Gee, I wish it was all over an' I was home in the foothills with the brown wool and pink prairie roses underfoot and the Chinook layin' my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug. 22, 1917 • Various
... the shore. Bragi then proceeded on foot, threading his way through the bare and silent forest, playing as he walked. At the sound of his tender music the trees began to bud and bloom, and the grass underfoot ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... now peeling off and falling with a clatter to the deck, from which the moist slush is rapidly evaporating. In a few hours the ship will be dry—much to our satisfaction; it is very wretched when, as last night, there is slippery wet snow underfoot and on every object ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... keep their estates in peace and quiet. The turmoil of the great struggle had not spared even the obscure village of Haversleigh. The inhabitants went about their tasks with an air of unrest. It seemed scarcely worth while to plough the fields, and sow corn which might be trampled underfoot by the soldiery before there was a chance to reap it. There were loud and deep murmurs among the villagers at the many exactions and tyrannies of Sir Mervyn Stamford, the then occupant of the Manor, the estates of which he administered on behalf of his ward, Catharine ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... He hovered about her, clumsily solicitous, and whichever way she turned, he managed to get underfoot, until, thoroughly vexed, she stood stock-still and opened her arms ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... narrow hallway and, with the exception of a thick carpet underfoot, unfurnished. Neale, appearing somewhat more slender in evening clothes, smiled at me ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... Great flocks of sea-gulls wheeled screaming round the cliffs, their wings flashing in the sunshine; red admiral and tortoise-shell butterflies still fluttered over late specimens of flowers, and the bracken was brown and golden underfoot. The girls were wild with the delight of a few hours' emancipation from school rules, and flew about gathering belated harebells, and running to the top of any little eminence to get the view. After about a ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... and over last year's rustling beech-leaves, till Guy ceased babbling and crooning, and dropped into a slumber, as he soon does in the fresh of the morning. Then we had to go slowly for fear he should be wakened by the noise of the dead wood underfoot, for, as we passed over it with wheels and boots, it snapped and crackled like a freshly-kindled fire. It was a relief to get at last to the soft matting of brown needles and cones under the Needle-trees, for there we could go pretty ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... around us, with its idiotic wars, its senseless jealousies of nations and classes, its fears and greeds and vanities and its futile endeavors—as of people struggling in a swamp—to find one's own salvation by treading others underfoot, is a negative phenomenon. Ignorance, non-perception, are at the root of it. But it is the blessed virtue of Ignorance and of non-perception that they inevitably-if only slowly and painfully—DESTROY THEMSELVES. All experience serves to dissipate them. The world, as it is, ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... their vocal muse affords; But they turn them in a fashion Past clerks' or statesmen's art or passion. I can spare the college bell, And the learned lecture, well; Spare the clergy and libraries, Institutes and dictionaries, For that hardy English root Thrives here, unvalued, underfoot. Rude poets of the tavern hearth, Squandering your unquoted mirth, Which keeps the ground and never soars, While Jake retorts and Reuben roars; Scoff of yeoman strong and stark, Goes like bullet to its mark; While the solid curse and jeer ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... opinion may be, she is helpless, and she must treat her conquerors with deference as superiors. But Japan has never been conquered by the foreigner. She is the only nation among all the nations of the Orient that has never been trodden underfoot by the European. She has never been subjugated and never been drugged. And, curious coincidence, she has reached a level with the foremost powers of the world, and holds the rank of a first-class nation. All this without having had the blessings ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... which has borne even to India the fame of its climbers. With this difference, that the Tarasconese, instead of expatriating themselves on foreign summits, are content with those they have in hand, or rather underfoot, at the gates of ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... appeared a palace of incredible magnificence, in which were apartments that would amaze you, columns to astound you, pictures to fill you with wonder; silver glittered around, and gold was trodden underfoot; the jewels dazzled your eyes; the servants swarmed like ants, the horses and carriages were not to be counted—in short, there was such a display of riches that the King stared at the sight, and willingly gave him his ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... Hiva-oa, owing to the inveterate cannibalism of the natives, that local beliefs have been most rudely trodden underfoot. It was here that three religious chiefs were set under a bridge, and the women of the valley made to defile over their heads upon the road-way: the poor, dishonoured fellows sitting there (all observers agree) with streaming tears. Not only was one road driven across the high place, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... definitely expressed; but whither had flown his former keen spirit? He could no longer summon up the old impetuous dash with which he had meant to fall upon his opponent's arguments one after another, raze them to the ground and trample them underfoot like the entrenchments and fortifications in ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... as though it was blood that was pouring from them. Voices cracked with hoarseness as men stood panting like dogs torn from the embrace of battle and waiting only for the leash to loosen and free them again for renewed battle. Underfoot they trod the confetti-like scraps of torn papers. Among them went the men with green watering-pots. Outside newsboys called yet new extras. The market had been open an hour and the Street was seeing the most delirious day of mania in its history. Then in one of the lulls came that sound which between ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... interior mountains, looking like prehistoric stone idols, come down to peddle their handiwork in the streets. The people throng the narrow ways, a chattering, happy, careless stream of buoyant humanity. Preposterous children rigged out with the shortest of ballet skirts and gilt wings, howl, underfoot, among the effervescent crowds. Especially is the arrival of the presidential party, at the opening of the season, attended with pomp, show and patriotic ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... on Rickity Tickle that night: no lusty downpour—a mean, sad drizzle o' cold mist. The road t' Gull Island Cove was dark as death—sodden underfoot an' clammy with wet alder-leaves. Skipper Davy come with fair courage, laggin' a bit by the way, in the way o' lovers, thinks I, at such times. An' I'd my hand fair on the knob o' Mary Land's door—an' was jus' about t' push in—when Skipper Davy all at once ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... out on the nose of the fort bluff and had before and below us and underfoot all the old famous scene, for centuries the beginning of all trans-Isthmian travel,—the scalloped surf-washed shore with its dwindling palm groves curving away into the west, the Chagres pushing off into ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... smoke-fog it bred. Every-thing was damply streaked with the soot: the walls of the houses, inside and out, the gray curtains at the windows, the windows themselves, the dirty cement and unswept asphalt underfoot, the very sky overhead. Throughout this murky season he continued his explorations, never seeing a face he knew—for, on Sunday, those whom he remembered, or who might remember him, were not apt to be found within the limits of the town, but were congenially occupied with the new outdoor ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... communication with regions unknown to man. Here in front of him was a wild mallard—just arrived from the home of the north wind. The creature brought within him an amplitude of Northern knowledge. Glacial catastrophes, snowstorm episodes, glittering auroral effects, Polaris in the zenith, Franklin underfoot,—the category of his commonplaces was wonderful. But the bird, like many other philosophers, seemed as he looked at the reddleman to think that a present moment of comfortable reality was worth ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy |
