"Upside down" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... leave a thrill in his hearers' minds who plants his weapon besides merely puncturing the skin. Again, see what another comic poet writes of the same Pericles: "He lightened, he thundered, he turned Hellas upside down." Such metaphors as thunder, lightning, and chaos and confusion could not be used of abbreviated and compressed oratory, but only of oratory on a sweeping scale, pitched in ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... lantern on a hook in front of his wagon, and helped or partly lifted Edith over the wheel to the seat, which was simply a board resting on the sides of the box. He turned a butter-tub upside down for Hannibal, and then they jogged out from behind the boat-house where he ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... wheelbarrows; beds with angels hovering over them and kind doctors with stethoscopes sitting beside them—that sort of thing—the obvious road to the heart. The second is hitting the superior kind of idiot in the eye—inventing a cheap new formula—putting a goblin upside down in one corner, an immoral-looking woman in another, and passing the arrangement off as an allegory. Then up jumps an interpreter and booms you. The third is slowly making your name by the sweat of your brow, and selling your pictures when you are fifty-five to people who never recognized their merit ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... planned, this was a little way life had of jabbing a man with surprises. For months he had been slowly and comfortably feeling his way into the lives of his children, patiently, conscientiously. But now without a word of warning in popped this young whipper-snapper, turning the whole house upside down! Another young person to be known, another life to be dug into, and with pick and shovel too! The job was far from pleasant. Would Deborah help him? Not at all. She believed in letting people alone—a devilish easy philosophy! Still, he wanted ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... when cooked make two ample mouthfuls. My manner of dressing them was to place them in a tub of sea water for a night, and then to lay them on a gridiron, point downward, over a bright fire, and grill them. When cooked they would drop out of their shells when turned upside down over a plate containing vinegar and pepper, and I considered them very nice. A friend of mine who has tasted them in Cornwall says they would make any well-bred dog sick. Thus, I say again, ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... obstinate bee (His name was Peter), and thus spake he - "Though every bee has shown white feather, To bow to tyranny I'm not prone - Why should a hive swarm all together? Surely a bee can swarm alone?" Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz. Upside down and inside out, Backwards, forwards, round about, Twirling here and twisting there, Topsy turvily everywhere - Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz. Pitiful sight it was to see Respectable elderly high-class bee, Who kicked the beam at sixteen stone, ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... finally that these dissimilar materials are heaped together without any cementing, just as the insect has picked them up. Resin plays no part in the mass; and we have only to pierce the lid and turn the shell upside down for the barricade to come dribbling to the ground. To glue the whole thing together does not enter into the Resin-bee's scheme. Perhaps such an expenditure of gum is beyond her means; perhaps the barricade, if hardened into a solid block, would afterwards form an invincible obstacle to the ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... and immediately began to cross on large flatboats rowed by negro boatmen. To these were presently added a little, old, slow, and very frail stern-wheel steamboat, named the Bee, which, a short time afterwards, quietly turned upside down, without any observable cause, while lying alongside the levee; then the Laurel Hill, one of the best boats in the service of the quartermaster; afterward gradually but very slowly the other steamers began to come in. Grover finished crossing on the morning of the 18th, and went into ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... the air became darker and chillier. Suddenly the cry began again; this time it seemed to proceed directly from an empty tin lying near them on the ploughed field, broken and upside down. The children stared with wide-open eyes at this mysterious old tin: they could not make head or tail of it, of the ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... but very black and regular hand, the result being serried rows marching like a regiment down the page, the hand of the man who is accustomed to do everything in an orderly and masterful way, and who can no more allow his words to straggle over a sheet of paper than he can permit his books to stand upside down upon the shelf, or the affairs of his every-day life to fall into confusion. Ferry wrote a more dashing hand, the penmanship of the man whose ideas flow faster than his pen can put the words upon paper, and who cares less about the appearance of his page than for what can be fixed there ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... shade; but, his self-importance increasing more and more, he became a fanatical follower of Alibaud, mixing up his own grievances against society with those of the people against monarchy, and waking up every morning in the hope of a revolution which in a fortnight or a month would turn the world upside down. At last, disgusted at the inactivity of his brethren, enraged at the obstacles that retarded the realisation of his dreams, and despairing of the country, he entered in his capacity of chemist into the conspiracy for the use of incendiary bombs; and he had been caught carrying gunpowder, of ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... beginning, it floundered from bad to worse. It assembled the most complete assortment of other nations' mistakes, and invented several of its own. Almost every known evil of bureaucracy was developed. The system of rates was turned upside down; the flat rate, which can be profitably permitted in small cities only, was put in force in the large cities, and the message rate, which is applicable only to large cities, was put in force in small places. ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... a lovely lake, and there is a drowned forest at the bottom of it. If you peer over the edge you can see the trees all growing upside down, and they say that at night there are also drowned stars ...
— Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... smashed his glass and mine; and taking him by the throat I shook him and told him that if he did not take me to the hump-backed man or to the drayman, and that right off, I'd shut off his wind for good. When he clinched with me I lifted him from the floor, turned him upside down, and lowered him head-first into an empty barrel. By this time the saloon-keeper was on the spot making all sorts of threats about having us both arrested, and quite a crowd had gathered. I lifted Bill out of the barrel and ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... 14th Parliament was prorogued, with the clear understanding that the dissolution would follow. This, however, was put off for three months, during which time the country was turned upside down by the excitement of the electoral campaign and the unbridled license which many of the most distinguished candidates permitted themselves; rank Socialism, the abolition of property, 'three acres and a cow,' being freely spoken of by the ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... has nearly reached a million.* The value of land and property is being doubled and trebled, and building speculations, with the aid of credit institutions of various kinds, are being carried on with feverish rapidity. Well may the men of the old school complain that the world is turned upside down, and regret the old times of traditional somnolence and comfortable routine! Those good old times are gone now, never to return. The ancient capital, which long gloried in its past historical associations, now glories in its present commercial ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... literary point of view, indeed, they soon regarded us with emotions of envy and wonder; and the doctor was considered nothing short of a prodigy. The Cockney found out that he (the doctor) could read a book upside down, without even so much as spelling the big words beforehand; and the Yankee, in the twinkling of an eye, received from him the sum total of several arithmetical items, stated aloud, with the view of testing the extent of ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... the morning Mrs. Briskow discovered that she possessed another amazing accomplishment—viz., the ability to walk on a ceiling, upside down, like a fly. It was extremely amusing, for it enabled a person to see right into everything. Pa and Allie looked very ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... people do say. They say that Mrs. Trewinion and the passon went first into the library and then to the church, and there the passon ded read the funeral service over again, and took care to turn the Prayer-book upside down so that the ghost couldn't ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... weeks were full of hurry, hubbub and perturbation. Our house was turned upside down. Milliners, sewing-maids and dressmakers were working day and night. Flowers, feathers and silk remnants were flowing like sea-wrack into every room. Orders were given, orders were retracted and given again, and ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... days, Thora was the natural source of interest and the inciting element of all the work and chatter that turned the Ragnor house upside down and inside out; but Thora was naturally shy and quiet, and Sunna naturally expressive and presuming; and it was difficult for their companions to keep Thora and Sunna in their proper places. Every one found it difficult. Only when Ian was present, did Sunna take her proper secondary ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... actual dealing with the wounded, which is only too real, it all feels like a play or a dream: why should the whole of France, at any rate along the railways and places on them, be upside down, swarming with British soldiers, and all, French and English, working for and talking of the one thing? everything, and every house and every hotel, school, and college, being used for something different from what it was meant for; the billeting is universal. You hear a funny alternation ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... long and at times very amusing story starts off with the sighting of a barque under full sail in mid-Pacific, and wearing the Chilian flag upside down. For a vessel to wear its ensign inverted is a known sign of distress, so that the British naval vessel that sights her has to try to board her, to render assistance. But the barque is a good sailer, and does not reduce her sail or heave-to. ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... actually see successively every letter. We certainly have no recollection of having gone through such an innumerable train of conscious acts as the theory necessarily implies. That such, however, is the case, is proved by the fact, that if by accident any letter is omitted, or transposed, or put upside down, the eye at once detects the mistake. The fact is familiar to all. It can be accounted for only on the supposition that, even in the rapid and cursory perusal of a book, the eye actually passes from letter to letter, and gives to each a distinct notice. It not only notices each letter, but the ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... thought, as he stood on his head, with his legs at an acute angle in the air, in position very favored by him for moments of reflection—he said his brain worked better upside down. "Ma cantche! What a weakness, what a weakness! What remorse to have yielded to it! Beneath you, Picpon—utterly beneath you. Just because that ci-devant says such ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... it seems to me probable that Archebiosis is true. I am not convinced, partly I think owing to the deductive cast of much of his reasoning; and I know not why, but I never feel convinced by deduction, even in the case of H. Spencer's writings. If Dr. Bastian's book had been turned upside down, and he had begun with the various cases of Heterogenesis, and then gone on to organic, and afterwards to saline solutions, and had then given his general arguments, I should have been, I believe, much more influenced. I suspect, however, ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... perhaps, in short, this Prerogative Office of the diocese of Canterbury was altogether such a pestilent job, and such a pernicious absurdity, that but for its being squeezed away in a corner of St. Paul's Churchyard, which few people knew, it must have been turned completely inside out, and upside down, long ago. ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... beyond. On the wall was a framed print; and the edge of the frame, seen through the spectacle-glass, appeared quite unaltered and free from distortion, magnification or reduction, as if seen through plain window-glass; and yet the reflections of the candle-flame in the spectacles showed the flame upside down, proving conclusively that the glasses were concave on one surface at least. The strange phenomenon was visible only for a moment or two, and as it passed out of my sight it passed also out ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... consideration, but now for the first time, I felt that there was something wrong with the people of the world. It seemed to me now that the entire system of human endeavor had been started wrong and was running along upside down. But what was the cause of this curious state of affairs? One word alone explained it all— Selfishness. And then there came to me a sentence, the imprint of which has never been effaced from my memory, viz: "Selfishness is the root of all ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... took her up in one of his strong hairy arms, and, very luckily he picked her right-side up. Some monkeys would carry a baby upside down, and think nothing of it. But Mappo ...
— Mappo, the Merry Monkey • Richard Barnum
... which every one who wishes to think must get clear, that when you are dealing with absolutes and ultimates, you can prove whatever you want to prove. Metaphysics is like the fourth dimension; you fly into it and come back upside down, hindside foremost, inside out; and when you get tired of this condition, you take another flight, and come back the way you were before. So metaphysical thinking serves the purpose of Catholic cheats like Cardinal ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... so near and were off and away before he could snap. The old green boat belonging to his father was lying on its side half in the water; the Lad tugged at it madly without moving it an inch. He glanced about him and spied with delight Peter Fiddle's canoe lying upside down under the birches. Peter worked for his father, when not away fishing or playing the fiddle or spinning yarns; and when he went away by land his canoe was always at home, and sometimes the Lad had paddled ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... now generally agreed that the tree-stumps in the Cromer Forest bed are not in the position of growth. Many of them are upside down or lying on their sides, and they were probably floated into their present position by the waters of a river flowing to the north. This river was a tributary of the Rhine which then flowed for several hundred miles over a plain now forming the bed of the North Sea, collecting ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... were able to find a little. My cake was delicious. Did you ever make a pork apple pie? You cut the pork so thin you can almost see through it. Cover the bottom of a pie tin with it, then cut the apples up on top of this. Put two thin crusts one on top of the other over this, then when cooked, turn upside down in a dish and serve with hard sauce. This recipe is over a hundred years old ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... a ticklish kind of amusement when we get talking. Why, the boy wants to turn the poor old world upside down—make us all stand on our heads to give our feet a rest. Now, I respect my feet,"—the colonel drew them in a little as the lady's eyes involuntarily took the direction of his allusion,—"I take the best care I ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... been disappointed, but now there was no mistaking it. Upside down, backward and forward I read it, right side up and criss-cross, rubbing my eyes a half a hundred times, but there was her appeal—no question of it. After all, all was well. And when Mary calls I ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... thieves ransacked the library and got very little for their pains. The whole place was turned upside down, drawers burst open and presses ransacked, with the result that an odd volume of Pope's 'Homer,' two plated candlesticks, an ivory letter-weight, a small oak barometer, and a ball of twine, are all that ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... of this obscurity has been that of turning everything upside down, and representing it in reverse; and among the revolutions it has thus magically produced, it has ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... cords of his arm stood out like cogs. Then he took his long pipe, as he may have done perhaps every blessed night for the last fifty years; but that length of time ought to have learned him better than to go for to fill it upside down. 'Ha, ha!' he said; 'every thing is upside down since I was a man under heaven—countries and nations and kindreds and duties; and why not a old tobacco-pipe? That's the way babies blow bubbles with them. We shall all have to smoke 'em that ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... stunts for the movin' pictures, Number Six, you ought really. People would pay money to see you ride a norse upside down like that. Got a strain of wild Cossack ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... holds the food down to the hot bottom of the pan. They expected the crew to eat ready-prepared food. I said that it would be bad enough to have to drink out of plastic bottles instead of glasses. They hung one of these stoves upside down, for me, and I cooked bacon and eggs and pancakes with the cover of the pan pointing to the floor. They said the psychological effect ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... old man will go to Ephesus to fetch the gold and we'll be living a downy life of it here, that is, if the old chap leaves us here and doesn't drag me and Mnesilochus along with him. Oh, won't I turn things upside down here! (pauses) But what'll happen when the old man discovers it? When he finds out he's gone on a wild goose chase and we've used up the cash? What ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... the English: they were shater; walla shater, (very clever.) Of a landscape, however, it was found, that he had not the least idea, nor could he be made at all to understand the intention of the print of the sand-wind in the desert; he would look at it upside down, and when it was twice reversed for him, he exclaimed, why! why! (it is all the same.) A camel, or a human figure, was all he could be made to understand, and at these he was all agitation and delight. Gieb! gieb! (wonderful! wonderful!) The eyes first took ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... without my worshipful cousin before; I should like to investigate his domestic arrangements. Needle and thread. Now what do you suppose he is doing with needle and thread? Oh, it's that little lacework that Mrs.——Sketches! I wonder whom he's sketching. You, Helen? Me? Upside down, of course. No, it's——Yes, we may as ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... is upside down—a world without light, or pointing finger, or affection for special favourites, and therefore bereft of all mysterious and attractive wisdom, a crazy world, a corpse of a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... vanished at this naive assertion. "He imitates father and Uncle John in everything," she explained. "He will have played his way through all the music in the house before to-morrow night—most of it upside down, too." ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... like a boy, and could carry Pelle all round the garden on her back; it was really an oversight that she should have to wear skirts. Her clothes wouldn't keep on her, and she was always tumbling into the workshop, having torn something or other off her shoes. Then she would turn everything upside down, take the master's stick away, so that he could not move, and would even get her fingers among the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Washington to enter New York," said Mrs. Seymour calmly, extending her hand with the precious paper toward the first speaker. The man took it, and gazed stupidly at it. Evidently being German, he could not read it; but having turned it upside down and gazed at it for some seconds, he gave a drunken leer as he ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... predominantly religious, and their theology, which was that of their times, was crude and cruel. The deep, sympathetic earnestness, which is the basis of the best humor, they had, but, to use an illustration of Richter, they could not turn sublimity upside down,—a great feat, only possible through sense of the comic, which, in its highest manifestation of humor, pillows pain in the lap of absurdity, throws such rays upon affliction as to make a grin to glimmer through gloom, and, with the fool in "Lear," forces you, like ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... that goes with free, unfettered youth. In a parlor some of it would have been offensive, but under the stars of the open desert it was as natural as the life itself. They spoke of the spring rains, of the Crawford-Steelman feud, of how they meant to turn Malapi upside down in their frolic when they reached town. They "rode" each other with jokes that were familiar old friends. Their horse play was ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... next to Whitman's Leaves of Grass,[10] a book of singular service, a book which tumbled the world upside down for me, blew into space a thousand cobwebs of genteel and ethical illusion, and, having thus shaken my tabernacle of lies, set me back again upon a strong foundation of all the original and manly virtues. But it is, once more, only a book for those who have the ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... grin as well as other monkeys in cap and jerkin. You're a minstrel or a mountebank, I'll be sworn; you look for all the world as silly as a tumbler when he's been upside down and has got on his heels again. And what fool's tricks hast thou been after, Tessa?" she added, turning to her daughter, whose frightened face was more inviting to abuse. "Giving away the milk and victuals, it seems; ay, ay, thou'dst carry ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... annoyed Gregorio. He looked at the pewter mugs shining in the sunlight. He eyed greedily the passage of one from hand to hand; and when one man, after taking a long pull, laughed and held it upside down to show him it was empty, he burst into an uncontrollable fit of anger, and shook his fist impotently at the soldiers, who chaffed him good-naturedly. As he went along by the stables, a friendly lancer, pitying him, probably, too, wearying of his ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... their stead. Two hours later the armies of the allies took up position opposite each other on the level ground outside the town, and the British troops, with shouldered arms, cased colours, and bands playing, as stipulated, an English air, "The World Turned Upside Down," came marching out of their lines. As they advanced, Washington turned to an officer behind him and ordered, "Let the word be passed that the troops are not to cheer. They have fought too well for us to triumph over them." In consequence not a sound came from the American ranks as the British ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... are clever enough, doubtless; but you don't think you can question and cross-question a man the way that Father Launoy does it? Why the last time I confessed to him he turned me upside down and ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Here he bent over the table against which he had been leaning, selected a cup from a group of china, turned it upside down in search of the mark, and then, as if he had momentarily forgotten himself, answered slowly: "Oh, not long—a few months or so. You do not object to my looking these over?" he asked, this time reversing a plate and subjecting it ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... powerful and even convincing, but when it is repeated constantly and upon all sorts of subjects, we cannot but dispute its right and question its validity. Its effect is not conviction but vertigo. It is like trying to live in a house constructed so as to be continually turning upside down. After a certain time, during which terror and dizziness alternate, the most indulgent reader is apt to turn round upon the builder of such a house with some asperity. And, after all, the general judgment may be right and Mr. ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... took him his book, a big obsolete tome bound in hide. He was rapturous, wiping his hands on some waste and opening it upside down. 'Ah, yes, very good, very good!' he said. 'I read plenty English books, yes. Thank you, I am very much obliged. Knowledge is power, eh?' I smiled, I suppose, for he leaned toward me eagerly. 'No? You ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... look braver, but I think it's really more dangerous to ride sideways, because of the saddle slipping round. (I didn't cry; I played at slipping round the world, and getting to New Zealand with my head upside down on the ground.) The reason the saddle is slippery is not because it's smooth, for it's rather rough; and there's a hard ridge behind, And the horse's hair coming through the donkey's back (I mean through his saddle) ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... "took unto themselves certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city in an uproar;" and when they had done so, complained of the brethren to the rulers, as men that turn the world upside down. In such a work therefore, men had need be of stout, resolute and composed spirits, that we may be able to go on in the main, and stir in the midst of such stirs, and not be amazed at any such doings. It may possibly happen, that ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... don't bother me! my head is all turned upside down. Do, Esther, go down and let them in—hear how furiously father ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... child fell out of her boat, and her paddle out of her hand; yet she was not the least frightened, only surprised; and after looking about for a moment, she burst out a laughing, and was soon seen swimming behind her boat (still upside down), with her paddle in her hand. These little laughing rowers are too giddy to like learning, and they are not at all willing to come to the missionaries' schools; but some poor children, redeemed from slavery, are glad to be there, and ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... (adj.) la plej supra. Upright (erect) vertikala, rekta. Upright (honest) honesta. Upright (post) fosto. Uprightly rekte, honeste. Uprightness rekteco, honesteco. Uproar bruego, tumulto. Uproot elradikigi. Upset renversi, renversigxi. Upshot rezultato. Upside down renversite. Upstairs supre. Upstart elsaltulo. Up to (until) gxis. Up to now gxis nun. Urban urba. Urbane gxentila. Urchin bubo. Urge urgxi. Urgent urgxa. Urine urino. Urinal urinejo. Urn urno. Us nin. Usage uzo—ado. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... shook a few scruples of a pink-coloured powder. He next licked his finger and dipped it into the powder, and inserting this into the man's mouth, rubbed it on the aching tooth and gum. He repeated this three or four times, and then concluded by turning the patient's head upside down; when, to the no small astonishment of many of the bystanders, among whom was apparently the man himself, the tooth dropped out and fell upon the ground. The doctor then asked him if he had felt any pain, to which he replied that he had ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... least once in his life, what it is to lose some precious thing; and after hunting through his papers, ransacking his memory, and turning his house upside down; after one or two days spent in vain search, and hope, and despair; after a prodigious expenditure of the liveliest irritation of soul, who has not known the ineffable pleasure of finding that all-important nothing which had come to be a king of monomania? Very good. Now, spread that fury ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... market day Jack, then quite a young lad, found the town upside down over some new exploit of the giant's. Women were weeping, men were cursing, and the magistrates were sitting in Council over what was to be done. But none could suggest a plan. Then Jack, blithe and gay, went up to the magistrates, and with a fine courtesy—for he was ever polite—asked ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... her eyes sent his toward her jacket, thrown on the chair when she had come in. With an "Ah!" of satisfaction he pounced on it. As he held it upside down and shook it, a little leather wallet clattered to the floor. She sprang for it, but again he was too quick ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... certainly the strangest sight I ever saw," remarked Ned, as he and his chum flew nearer and nearer to the smoking and blazing tree. "Is the world turning upside down, Tom, when fires ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... big bombardon upside down in my hands, and, before I knew it, I'd brought it down on his bald head, just as if it was ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... Betty saw the point. They turned their Safety buttons upside down as Sure Pop waved them goodby, resolving to get them right side up at the very ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... hat like a round white dish Upside down on each pig-tailed head, Jugglers offer you snakes and fish, Dreams and dragons and gingerbread; Beautiful books with marvellous pictures, Painted pirates and streaming gore, And everyone reads, without any strictures, Tales he remembers ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... the figures are curved to the left, two-thirds to the right; they run more often upward than downward. They do not commonly lie in a single plane. Sometimes a Form has twists as well as bends, sometimes it is turned upside down, sometimes it plunges into an abyss of immeasurable depth, or it rises and disappears in the sky. My correspondents are often in difficulties when trying to draw them in perspective. One sent me a stereoscopic ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... something like a dish turned upside down, having a high and flat central plateau, with a higher rim of hills surrounding it; from below which, exterially, it suddenly slopes down to the flat strip of land bordering on the sea. A dish, however, is generally ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... terrify her with many extraordinary annoyances; such as hanging over the side of the coach at the risk of his life, and staring in with his great goggle eyes, which seemed in hers the more horrible from his face being upside down; dodging her in this way from one window to another; getting nimbly down whenever they changed horses and thrusting his head in at the window with a dismal squint: which ingenious tortures had such an effect upon Mrs ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... of a century old at least. His lower limbs were enclosed in leathern garments, which fastened below the knee, leaving visible his grey worsted stockings. An immense waistcoat, the pattern of which was constantly being interrupted by the discordant figuring of a large variety of patches—inserted upside down, or sideways, or crossways, as best suited—hung nearly to his knees; and over this he wore a coat, the age and precise cut of which it would have puzzled the most learned in such things to decide upon. It probably had been two ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... me rather say it myself: These poets are turning everything upside down; nobody dares to grumble. An author might owe in unsecured debts his twenty thousand—what of it? He is unable to pay, that is all. What if a business man should act in this manner? What if he were to obtain wine or clothes on false promises of payment? He would simply ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... silent Self-communion, with a pensive Smile on his Face, which, as Anne said, let her know well enow what he was about. Arrived at Chalfont, her first Care was to make him comfortable; while Mother, Mary, and Betty were turning the House upside down; and in this her Care, she so well succeeded, that, to her Dismay, he bade her take Pen and Ink, and commenced dictating to her as composedly as if they were in Bunhill Fields. This was somewhat inopportune, for every Thing was to seek and to set in Order; and, ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... heart yet, and still hoped to sell the pigs, but they certainly began to feel very tired, especially Gabriel, who, having remained manfully upright all the morning, now felt such an aching in the legs that he was obliged to take a seat on a basket turned upside down. ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... learned a dodge that interested older aviators. Looping the loop sidewise, he would catch the plane when upside down, and shoot away at a tangent, head down, the machine absolutely inverted—-then continue the side loop, bringing him back to upright again some distance from where he had ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... cheek and eager eyes until the last letter was written; then he sprang up with an energy that set the arm-chair upside down, and uttered a vehement: ...
— Three People • Pansy
... orders! So! Quickly he fits his habits to his fortunes! He serves my lord with all his will! His heart's In his vocation. So! Is this the letter? 'Tis upside down—and here I'm poring on't! Most fit I let him see me play the fool! Shame! ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... seems cruel to carry out this great moral principle of which we are treating; it is nevertheless right, and men who abuse its facts and turn things upside down are guilty of ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume 1, January, 1880 • Various
... cooling lay The wine that cheer'd us on our way. Th' unruffled bosom of the stream, Gave every tint and every gleam; Gave shadowy rocks, and clear blue sky, And double clouds of various dye; Gave dark green woods, or russet brown, And pendant corn-fields, upside down. ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... wide and shallow. This is done by turning the tool on its side, which brings the flatter sweep into action, thus changing the shape of the hollow. Nos. 21, 22 are gouges, but are called "bent gouges"—"front bent" in this case, "back bent" when the cutting "sweep" is turned upside down. It is advisable when selecting these tools to get them as shown in the illustration, with a very easy curve in their bend; they are more generally useful so, as quick bends are only good for very deep hollows. These tools are used for making grooves in hollow places ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... everywhere—in the fields and in the gutters of the highroad. Old men and youths had joined in the scrimmage and, with one exception, every corpse we saw was attired in the usual working dress. This one exception we found literally upside down with his head stuck in the mud of a paddy-field. Our attention was drawn to him (and possibly the Spaniards' bullets, too) by his bright red baggy zouave trousers. We rode into the village, which was absolutely deserted by its native inhabitants, ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... daylight ahead, and in a few more strides the last trees were passed, and they came out suddenly in an amphitheatre of bare rocks, almost elliptical, but coming together at the head, and bending away like a comma turned upside down. ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... the whole row of pewter dishes, bar one, fell from a shelf, rolled about a little, and 'as soon as they were quiet, turned upside down; they were then put upon the dresser, and went through the same a second time'. Then of two eggs, one 'flew off, crossed the kitchen, struck a cat on the head, and then burst in pieces'. A pestle and a mortar presently 'jumped six ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... for I am afraid I should very hardly escape the Pharisee's condemnation for thinking myself better than my neighbors; and yet, God knows, not only that I am, but that I do, not. But how come people's nations so inside out and so upside down? ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... late. The table suddenly rose into the air, landing upside down with a crash, at one side of the cabin. A moment more and the two combatants were wrestling on roast beef and ham sandwiches, potato salad and various ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... idea of irregularity was that it absorbed the devoted victim, kept her aghast. If it did not, surely, there was no reward left to the virtuous. But here we had a highly irregular young woman behaving with extreme regularity. Was the world turning upside down? Was black, then, really white? She shivered, she blinked her eyes; but she descended the bank and stood beside ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... full of leaves, and full of boughs: but now in vain does the busy art of man pretend to vie with nature, by tying that withered bundle of twigs to its sapless trunk. It is now at best but the reverse of what it was, a tree turned upside down, the branches on the earth, and the root in the air. It is now handled by every dirty wench, condemned to do her drudgery, and by a capricious kind of fate, destined to make her things clean, and be nasty itself. At length, worn out to the stumps in the ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... the old Emperor Franz-Joseph—yes, we could see his picture over the fireplace within—had gone and the new Emperor Karl was in exile, in Switzerland, life had heard; even the Empire in which he had lived, boy and man, for seventy-odd years, had disappeared; the whole world was, indeed, turned upside down—but, Heaven be praised, he had a little grandson who would grow up to carry ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... riding through forest byeways, Sir Launcelot came presently upon a little ruined chapel, standing in the midst of a churchyard, where the tombs showed broken and neglected under the dark yews. In front of the porch, Sir Launcelot paused and looked, for thereon hung, upside down, dishonoured, the shield of many a good knight whom Sir ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... and all of them with scratching nails. High among these I place this delight of weeding out here alone by the garrulous water, under the silence of the high wood, broken by incongruous sounds of birds. And take my life all through, look at it fore and back, and upside down,—though I would very fain change myself—I would not change my circumstances, unless it were to bring you here. And yet God knows perhaps this intercourse of writing serves as well; and I wonder, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lodging-houses in Paris, turned upside down; the first floor, or deck, being rented by a lord; the second, by a select club of gentlemen; the third, by crowds of artisans; and the fourth, by a ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... embedding itself and its two occupants in the mud. They were dead. A tremendous cheer greeted this victory over the first opponent. The other two airmen followed our bird, volleying at him as they flew. With a quick motion he turned upside down, swooping for the bird on his upper left, and continued to chase and fight him in this position. The other German bird was off to one side, put-put-put-put-ing! for all he was worth, but his bullets were wasted ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... a vengeance. So far as one can judge the whole town and neighbourhood was turned pretty well upside down. But nothing came of it,—so far as any results were concerned, the authorities might just as well have left the mystery of their vanishment alone. It continued where it was in ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... stamping-machines without notice, it comes at last to one of the sorters, and effectually, though briefly, stops him. His rapid distributive hand comes to a dead pause. He looks hard at the letter, frowns, turns it upside down, turns his head a little on one side, can make nothing of it, puts it on one side, and continues ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... you have done one square, proceed to do another which does not communicate with it. When you have thus done all the alternate squares, as on a chess-board, turn the pasteboard upside down, begin again with the first, and put another coat over it, and so on over all the others. The use of turning the paper upside down is to neutralize the increase of darkness towards the bottom of the squares, which would otherwise take place from ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... and Shorty together invaded Wentworth's cabin, throwing him out in the snow while they turned the interior upside down. Laura Sibley hobbled in and frantically joined ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... face of all this, King Charles attempted to rescind the Covenant, destroy the Constitution, and assume absolute power. Ah, was not Charles the rebel? Was not he the traitor, the revolutionist, the autocrat who attempted to turn things upside down? The Covenanters were the Old Guard, who stood for law, justice, government, and constitutional rights, on the accepted basis—God's law and Covenant. Nor did the Old Guard ever yield the field; they occupy ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... during a shower, she ventured to beguile him into listening to the greater part of one of the agricultural journals, and with much deference made two or three suggestions about the farm, which he saw were excellent. She little dreamed that if she were willing to talk of turning the farm upside down and inside out, he would have ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... almost all "artificiality," as high-grade manufactures of a certain sort were called. A famous Elizabethan play turns on the scarcity of needles, [Sidenote: Gammer Gurton's Needle, c. 1559] the whole household being turned upside down to look for {536} the one lost by Gammer Gurton. These articles, as well as knives, nails, pins, buttons, dolls, tennis-balls, tape, thread, glass, and laces, were imported from the Netherlands and Germany. From the same quarter ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... safety pins, thimbles, coins, etc., are often swallowed by little folks, and if they lodge in the throat and the child struggles for his breath the treatment is as follows: grasp him by the heels and turn him upside down while a helper briskly slaps him on the back. The foreign body generally flies across the room. If it is lodged high up in the throat it may often be dislodged by the thumb and finger. If it cannot be reached and it will not go down, lose no time in seeking ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... been a war! But there had; and this was only one of the many preposterous situations which had resulted from it. Terry was right in at least one thing that she had said—the world was upside down and walking on ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... face the hooked nose, the thick moustache and the piercing eyes of the stranger with the three buttons on his cuff ... and although the eyes were in the place of the moustache and the nose itself seemed upside down, Kuzma Vassilyevitch was not in the least surprised, but, on the contrary, thought that this was how it ought to be; he was even on the point of saying to the nose, "Hullo, brother Grigory," but he changed his mind and preferred ... preferred to set off with Colibri to Constantinople at once for ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... and beans are as dank here as a dog, and that is the next way to give poor jades the bots; this house is turned upside down since Robin ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... Frenchman, who did not like the window down, a few minutes before the accident. The Frenchman was killed, and a labourer and I got Mr. Dickenson out of a most extraordinary heap of dark ruins, in which he was jammed upside down. He was bleeding at the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth; but he didn't seem to know that afterwards, and of course I didn't tell him. In the moment of going over the viaduct the whole of his pockets were shaken empty! He had no watch, no chain, no money, no ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... her! Neither her nor any one. There's naught to prevent you giving her some o' your two thousand a year if you've a mind. But I see no reason for my house being turned upside down by her, even if I have got a bit of ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... to have on a convenient table, if your doctor be of a homoeopathic school, a little covered tray, and on it two glasses, clean, and turned upside down to keep them from dust, teaspoons and covers for the glasses, also a small pitcher of fresh water. Many doctors of the old school also use some medicines in water, so it is best to ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... go to church, Budge," sighed Mrs. Burton. "If I do, you boys will only turn the whole house upside down, and drive your ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... enjoyed a salary of 800 pounds a year for teaching forty boys, of whom twenty were boarders. Mr. Midleton—he was Mr. Midleton then—very soon determined to alter this state of things. Jackson went about sneering at the newcomer who was going to turn the place upside down, and having been accustomed to interfere in the debates in the Board-room, interrupted the Rector at ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... sand hillocks round. As for the old boat, it was occupied by the choir, and little Jack, having seen me safely to the spot, climbed into it and stood proudly in the stern. He had a hymn-book in his hand, which I knew he could not read, for he was holding it upside down, but he looked at it as long and as earnestly as if he could understand every word. Marjorie planted herself beside me, I suppose to watch me, in case I showed signs of running away ...
— Christie, the King's Servant • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... must come home after a while, and the minute I do that, back he'll come, and then they'll have just what they wanted. But I reckon she'll find that I can stick it out just as long as she can. If Roberta March turns things upside down there, it'll be because she can't keep her hands out of mischief, and that proves that she belongs to her own family. If there's any harm done, it don't matter so much to me, and it will be worse ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... she said, rather loud for a whisper. "It won't do to turn things upside down this way. If you are to be a gentleman, and an inmate of my house, you must behave like other people. I cannot have a woman like that sitting at my table.—Do you know what sort of a ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... according to bold and original conceptions. The spelling is also a remarkable effort of creative genius. The only difficulty under which the author labors in regard to the book is the confusion naturally resulting from the effort to get literature right side up when it has got upside down. The writing is a kind of pugilism— the strokes being made straight out from the shoulder. The account-book is always carried about with her in a fathomless pocket overflowing with the aggregations of a housekeeper who ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... moulding of society, this overturning of old conditions—this bringing in of the radically new, so that their enemies said of them they had "turned the world upside down"; this repudiation of brutality and the exaltation of unselfishness; this building up of a condition in which a community now judged itself by the standards of chastity, righteousness and neighborly kindness; this renovation of whole centres of life ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... streams north from Cooktown, George's country. On the other scrap of paper, according to him, the names of some of the islands in this neighbourhood were written. Though the papers were transposed and turned upside down, George could read them with equal facility. The list of rivers would be read for the islands, and the islands for the rivers, quite indifferently, and with entertaining naivete. But he treasured the papers, and continued to delude his fellows with the display of what they ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... with you, my child?" I said, and drew a chair near hers. She was half reclining, with a book lying upside down on her knee. ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... a newspaper, but I am pretty sure he held it upside down. In any case he must have been reading between the lines, for he did not turn the ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... little river runs on which Melbourne is built. After leaving the tropics they had gone down south, and had encountered showers and wind, and cold weather, but now they had come up again into warm latitudes and fine autumn weather,—for it was the beginning of March, and the world out there is upside down. Before that evening nothing had been said between Mrs Smith and John Caldigate as to any future; not a word to indicate that when the journey should be over, there would or that there would not be further ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... because his conscience will not allow him to accept it, but he will go murdering you by night and walking off with your cashbox, with a clear conscience! He does not call it a dishonest action but 'the impulse of a noble despair'; 'a negation'; or the devil knows what! Bah! everything is upside down, everyone walks head downwards. A young girl, brought up at home, suddenly jumps into a cab in the middle of the street, saying: 'Good-bye, mother, I married Karlitch, or Ivanitch, the other day!' And you think it quite right? ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... pull, for such admission is far-reaching. If Maxwell is right, these phenomena—even the most complicated of them—are metapsychical, but perfectly normal. For example, he says: 'A movement without contact was forthcoming this afternoon. I placed a table upside down on a linen sheet. M. Meurice and I then put our hands on the sheet, some distance away from the table. The table turned completely over. The movement was performed slowly and gently. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... comes forward with the tin can in his right hand, the bottom of the can in his palm with the slot at the right side. He removes the cover with the left hand and passes his wand around the inner part of the can which is then turned upside down to prove that it contains nothing. The marked coin is dropped into the can by some one in the audience. The cover is replaced and the can shaken so the coin will rattle within. The shaking of the ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... in the kitchen sink doesn't turn upside down, and squirt the water on the ceiling and into the cat's eye, I'll tell you next about ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... shell tore off the English flagstaff at the stern, but the Union Jack was quickly hoisted again on the foretop. This was also shot down, and a third time the flag flew from a line of the yard of the foretop, but the flag had been raised too hastily and it hung reversed, with the Union Jack upside down, and in this manner it continued to fly until it sank with ...
— The Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner • Georg-Guenther von Forstner
... "Major," of Roswell P. Flower, of Judge Henry Hilton, of General Felix Agnus—and of Hermann, the original, the great, the magic wonder-maker of the times. They were the leading spirits of an army of bright men who pushed the world upside down, or rolled it over and over, or made it stand still, according to how they felt. Mingling with these arbiters of our fate were all sorts and conditions of men. At one of these dinners I remember seeing Inspector Byrnes, the Sherlock Holmes of American crime, Colonel Ochiltree, ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... plainly as she could see anything, that Quicksilver had turned the pitcher upside down, and consequently had poured out every drop of milk, in filling the last bowl. Of course, there could not possibly be any left. However, in order to let him know precisely how the case was, she lifted the pitcher, and made a gesture as if pouring milk into Quicksilver's ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... volume, we can see him, as he appeared to his own 'inward eye,' staggering between the abyss and the star of Heaven, his limbs cast abroad, his head thrown back in an ecstasy of intoxication, so that, to the frenzy of his rolling vision, the whole universe is upside down. We look, and, as we gaze at the strange image and listen to the marvellous melody, we are almost tempted to go ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... plan, about two leagues from the little dining-room, we sought in vain for a week, until, happening one evening to sit upon a bench in the forest (forest in the plan), a few yards from the house-door, we observed at our feet, in the ignominious circumstances of being upside down and greenly rotten, the Old Guard himself: that is to say, the painted effigy of a member of that distinguished corps, seven feet high, and in the act of carrying arms, who had had the misfortune to be blown down in the previous winter. It will be perceived that M. Loyal is a staunch admirer ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... back to go on with your book?" asked his mother, standing by him, and looking over his shoulder. "I am glad you find it so interesting. Father was afraid you did not care for it, as you never looked at it. But why do you hold it upside down, dear?" ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... command. It may be due for a second inning, however. The OSF/Motif window manager, 'mwm(1)', has a reserved keystroke for switching to the default set of keybindings and behavior. This keystroke is (believe it or not) 'control-meta-bang' (see {bang}). Since the exclamation point looks a lot like an upside down Coke bottle, Motif hackers have begun referring to this keystroke as 'cokebottle'. See also ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... came to London Town, How great was my surprise, Thought I, the world's turned upside down, Such wonders met ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... immaculate, don't-you-touch-me sort of fellow. He admitted that he couldn't be scared, but there was a way, "as broad as a turnpike, to get in and shake his twopenny soul around and inside out and upside down—by God!"' ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... all come in to tea. The stage child never has the wooping-cough, and the measles, and every other disease that it can lay its hands on, and be laid up with them one after the other and turn the house upside down. ...
— Stage-Land • Jerome K. Jerome
... and his men, with scenery and furniture still to unload and store, turned to go. Their footsteps echoed hollowly as they clattered down the worn old stairway. Josie snapped the cord that bound the third box. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright. She turned it upside down. Then she pawed it over. Then she went back to the contents of the first two boxes, clawing about among the limp garments with which the table was strewn. She was breathing quickly. Suddenly: "It isn't here!" she cried. "It isn't here!" She turned and flew to the stairway. The voices ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... the cheese cloth, which Bobby had seen lifted, were receptacles containing the staples and condiments, such as stewed fruit, sugar, salt, pepper, catsup, molasses and the like. Innumerable tin plates and cups laid upside down were guarded by iron cutlery. It was very dark and still, and the ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... glass, silver, copper, and other materials. In the entrance hall, likewise, are several stone statues of different gods, with other ornaments, most of them roughly and stiffly executed. In the middle stands a small plain monument of stone, resembling a bell turned upside down; it is said to cover the grave ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... murmured, raising her fine eyes admiringly and then dropping them in a most effective manner. "But wasn't it a shocking waste of time and lives! Just fancy, in all those years, how many undeveloped geniuses must have been killed without ever having had their chance! How miserably upside down the whole world was, too! Four years and more during which a supper party, except at a private house, was ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... pay any attention to it—you know. I was busy and all that, and you often 'ear noises that sound funny. So I set 'em off—that is, I lit the fuses and I started to run. Well, I 'ad n't any more 'n started when bloeyy-y-y-y, right in front of me, the whole world turned upside down, and I felt myself knocked back into the chamber. And there was them fuses. All of 'em burning. Well, I managed to pull out the one from the foot wall and stamp it out, but I didn't 'ave time to get at the others. And the only place where there was a chance for me was clear at the end of the chamber. ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper |
