"Breasting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hand, the swishing of running water against the sturdy bow of the shanty-boat, a hoarse cry from some bird that fluttered along the shore looking for food, possibly a night heron passing over, and once or twice the hoarse whistle of some steamboat breasting the current of the ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... very brave of him to say that, for his own house was in the lower village, and there he had a wife and children sick. In half a minute the church was empty, and the street below it full of people, striving and struggling against the blast, and breasting it at an incline like swimmers, but beaten back ever and anon and hurled against one another, with tattered umbrellas, hats gone, and bonnets hanging. And among them, like gulls before the wind, blew dollops of spray and chunks of froth, ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... on for the opening in the reef, and the old whaleman came along breasting the swell with her bluff bows, and entered the lagoon. There was no leadsman in her chains. She just came in as if she knew all the soundings by heart—as probably she did—for these whalemen know every hole and ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... of a Napier, or a Bell's Life, I should like to describe this combat properly. It was the last charge of the Guard—(that is, it would have been, only Waterloo had not yet taken place); it was Ney's column breasting the hill of La Haye Sainte, bristling with ten thousand bayonets, and crowned with twenty eagles; it was the shout of the beef-eating British, as, leaping down the hill, they rushed to hug the enemy in the savage arms of battle; in other words, Cuff, coming up full ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... in them behold Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing; Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give To sounds confus'd; behold the threaden sails, Borne with the invisible and creeping wind, Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea, Breasting the lofty surge. O, do but think You stand upon the rivage and behold A city on the inconstant billows dancing; For so appears this fleet majestical, Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow! ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... home sick; Stephens is not here; so I am standing very much on my own hand, breasting the conflict alone. So I shall have the consolation of knowing that, if I succeed, the victory will be all my own. The contest will be decided by Monday next, and perhaps sooner.... As soon as it is over I shall leave here and shall be at home at furthest to-day week. If I were not complicated ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... about a hundred and fifty yards below the spot where the hippo was unconsciously basking, with his ugly head above the surface. Plunging into the rapid torrent, the veteran hunter was carried some distance down the stream, but breasting the powerful current, he landed upon the rocks on the opposite side, and retiring to some distance from the river, he quickly advanced towards the spot beneath which the hippopotamus was lying. I had a fine view of the scene, as I was lying concealed exactly opposite the hippo, who had disappeared ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... wasteful water ringed about, And wrapped in sheeted foam from base to peak, A sheer, stupendous monolith, wrought out By the slow, ceaseless labor of the deeps, In awful isolation, old as Time, The gray, forbidding Rock of Skidloe stands— Breasting the wild incursions of the North— The grim antagonist of a ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... passenger who had alighted, slipped sixpence into the man's hand, buttoned his coat, and started out to walk in the direction indicated, breasting ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... being restored in the provinces. Our fate hangs upon a hair; the slightest negligence may forfeit all. I, who bear this arduous responsibility, feel it my bounden duty to stand at the helm in the hope of successfully breasting the wild waves. ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... hills waving with golden grain, and green meadows dappled with browsing flocks, and who pass through the land in autumn, find themselves bitterly disappointed. As they trudge along the white glaring pathways, and through the roadless and flinty wilderness, breasting the hot beating waves of a Syrian noonday, with only an ashy chocolate-coloured landscape around them, scorched as if by the breath of a furnace, they get an impression of dreary and blasted desolation which time can never efface. ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... heart was with my eyes; and both seemed migrated into Mr. Rochester's frame. I wanted to see the invisible thing on which, as we went along, he appeared to fasten a glance fierce and fell. I wanted to feel the thoughts whose force he seemed breasting ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... himself, and Archie, being less sure of his feet, was blown against the water-barrel before he could get his legs well under him. At the edge of the surf the two separated for their four hours' patrol, Archie breasting the gale on his way north, and Parks hurrying on, helped by the ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... a sharp eye to discern a man, but at length they are seen scrambling up the ravines and gullies and breasting the sharp pitches, until at last the first man arrives thoroughly used up and a string of fellows of lesser wind come in, ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... Cogitating how to frighten young Gillam out of the country or else to seize him, Radisson glided down the swift current of Nelson River toward salt water. He had not gone nine miles from the New Englanders when he was astounded by the spectacle of a ship breasting with full-blown sails up the tide of the Nelson directly in front of the French canoe. The French dashed for the hiding of the brushwood on shore. From their concealment they saw that the ship was a Hudson's Bay Company vessel, armed with cannon ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... passage became so straitened that only three fathoms' space was left between the confining walls. When Hesdad Brook is at all full one can make his way through only with great difficulty and by boldly breasting its waters. Therefore it is that very few people have ever seen the gate of Torda Gap. Just above this narrow gateway is situated the natural excavation in the mountainside, called from its last ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... all hands were piped on deck, and the sea-sick had to appear as well as the rest. The report had been made to the captain that a man had been knocked overboard, but who was the sufferer was uncertain. The frigate was bravely breasting the foaming billows under close-reefed topsails, ever and anon a hissing sea striking her bows and its crest sweeping across the deck, the spray in dense showers coming right aft, and rendering flushing coats and tarpaulins necessary to ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... across the fields to the house of Whittier, the Whig farmer, where Saxon got into his war harness. We found our horses ready saddled and bridled, for my father had at the first alarm sent a message across that we should need them. By two in the morning we were breasting Portsdown Hill, armed, mounted, and fairly started on our journey to ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sturdily breasting the long ascent; a second intrenched position, barring the La Hoya pass, was abandoned on their approach; the strong castle of Perote, with an armament of 60 guns and mortars, opened its gates without firing a ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... day, Still dazzled with the brightness of your dawn. I dream of those two little ones at play, Making the threshold vocal with their cries, Half tears, half laughter, mingled sport and strife, Like two flowers knocked together by the wind. Or of the elder two—more anxious thought— Breasting already broader waves of life, A conscious innocence on either face, My pensive daughter and my curious boy. Thus do I dream, while the light sailors sing, At even moored beneath some steepy shore, While the ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... to the charge. Led by the pickets and skirmishers they came forward gallantly, a long line of glittering bayonets. In the thick woods on their flank lay three Southern regiments, ambushed and not yet stirring. No sunlight penetrated there to show their danger to the soldiers who were breasting the slope. ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... little sense of calamity came with them—at first. So graceful they were. So fitted—like waterfowl—to every mood of air and tide; their wings all furled, their neat bodies breasting the angry flood by the quiet power of their own steam and silent submerged wheels. So like to the numberless crafts which in kinder days, under friendly tow, had come up this same green and tawny reach and passed on to the queenly city, laden with gifts, on the peaceful ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... emotional maelstrom that swept her towards a cataract. The cataract might inspire her with dread, standing as it did for death and disaster, but the maelstrom was not to be resisted. She was helpless in it, unequal to breasting such strong waters, she who in all her futile, charming life had been borne snugly in safe crafts that were steered ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... the threaden sails, Borne with the invisible and creeping winds, Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea, Breasting ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... and overgrown with vine, Upon a headland breasting violet seas, Her castle towers, like a dream divine, With stairs ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... and Mark Heath, old athlete, expert swimmer, man hardened by his life in the southern colony, rose to the surface, and struck out, swimming slowly and mechanically, as if it were the natural action of his muscles. On and on, breasting the icy water, keeping just afloat, but progressing blindly where the tide willed; on and on through the darkness, with the yellow fog hanging like a solid bank a few feet above his head, as if the rushing of the water were cutting the ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... at night? Pan has but twain, Pan's eyes are bright! Cuckoo! Cuckoo! See, yon stakes Gape and grin like fangs of snakes; Not snakes nor hounds are mouthing thus; Pan himself is watching us. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Now The god is breasting the hill-brow. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Pan is near: Joy runs trembling back to fear. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! All my blood Knocks through the heart whose every thud Chokes me, blinds me, drains my madness. As one half-drowned, I feel life's ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... livelihood, I have learned to pity the struggling, self-supporting ones of my sex, as only those can pity and sympathize who have suffered from a similar cause. I have often wished that I had means to provide a home, not for "fallen women," but for those patient toilers who are breasting the cruel, overwhelming waves of adversity. There are many such, thrown from loving homes upon the charities of a cold and selfish world. It is my desire to benefit them, and, with this end in view, I would leave the money which has so lately ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... that no man, who knows me personally or by reputation, will suspect the honesty of my skepticism. If I were politic, and intent only on my own preferment or pecuniary interest, I should swim with the strong tide of public sentiment instead of breasting its powerful influence. The hazard is too great, the labor too burdensome, the remuneration too uncertain, the contest too unequal, to induce a selfish adventurer to assail a combination so formidable. Disinterested opposition and sincere conviction, however, are not conclusive ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... first, as the undergrowth and trees became from this point steadily thinner as they progressed, until at length they were able to catch occasional glimpses of the summit for which they were aiming. Finally they emerged from the bush altogether, to find themselves breasting a steep slope, the soil of which was composed of fine scoriae ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... bore the address, "Hiram Tarbox, Land and Timber Agent, 1101 California Street." He again examined the parcel; there was nothing else,—not a line from HER! But it was a clue at last, and she had not forgotten him! He seized his hat, and ten minutes later was breasting the steep sand hill into which California Street in those days plunged, and again emerged at its crest, with a ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... Indian fighting was something far too scientific for his martial education and too much for his skeleton command. In the gathering dusk his face looked white and drawn, and old Wilkins, breasting his way up the slope, puffed hard, as he begged for news. There was still another despatch, however, which was evidently adding to the major's perturbation, for it concerned him personally and for ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... by law. You might have trepanned every one of their innocent heads, and found no more than so much coiled fishing-line below their skulls. I do not care for your stalwart fellows in india-rubber stockings breasting up mountain torrents with a salmon rod; but I do dearly love the class of man who plies his unfruitful art, for ever and a day, by ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... we have seen what exciting toil is rushing or breasting up a rapid. Let us now glance at the still more exciting operation of running a rapid. It is difficult-to find in life any event which so effectually condenses intense nervous sensation into the shortest possible space of time as does the work of shooting, or running ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... prevented him from crossing to the hard desert of sand beyond—far out upon which lay an upturned gabion. Within this locked and stranded box lay two dead bodies. Crabs fought their way eagerly through the cracks of the water-sprung door, and over it, breasting the salt breeze, slowly circled a cormorant—curious and amazed at so strange a ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... a clock came very faintly across the still air, striking the hour of one. She stepped from the water a few paces, and began hastily to put off her clothing; in a moment her feet were again in the ripples, and she was walking out from the beach, till her gleaming body was hidden. Then she bathed, breasting the full flow with delight, making the sundered and broken water flash myriad reflections of the moon ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... yes. It seems good to have a home after so many years of fifth-rate boarding houses. And the best of it is, my good aunt, who has had a hard time breasting the world, enjoys ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... the common sea-rig of warm weather, I had no stripping to do, and began my descent, by taking hold of the rope in each hand, and slipping down, sometimes with hands and feet round the rope, and sometimes breasting off with one hand and foot against the precipice, and holding on to the rope with the other. In this way I descended until I came to a place which shelved in, and in which the hides were lodged. Keeping hold of the rope with one hand, I scrambled in, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... their ancestral band; Forgetting the feuds and the strife of past time, Counting coldness injustice, and silence a crime; Turning back front the cavil of creeds, to unite Once again for the poor in defence of the Right; Breasting calmly, but firmly, the full tide of Wrong, Overwhelmed, but not borne on its surges along; Unappalled by the danger, the shame, and the pain, And counting each trial for Truth as ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... ladies' parlour, past the entrance of an extra cabin, and took his stand under the bridge, breasting the steely, salt sea wind. On the deck below, the steerage passengers had settled themselves as far as the bow. Though the Roland was running under full steam, it was not making its maximum speed, prevented by the long, heavy swells that the ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... seen nothing of any hounds, but with instinctive knowledge that they were men likely to be right in a hunting-field. "If that ain't Nappie's horse, I'll eat him," said one of the leading men to the other, as all the three were breasting the hill together. Frank only knew that he had been carried over water and timber without a mistake, and felt a glow of gratitude towards Mr. MacFarlane. Up the hill they went, and, not waiting to inquire into the circumstances of a little ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... the soul of it slept in their rigid bodies, their grave, forward-looking faces, their behavior, so excessively correct. Somebody whispered the word, and on a sudden they let themselves go; they started. Young Tyser, breasting the wind of his own speed, his head uplifted and thrown backward, led the men, and she with the questing face and wide-pointing breasts of Artemis led the girls; and he had young Ransome on his heels and she Winny; and behind them the fourfold serried ranks thinned and thinned out ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... yards, and she was aloft with the practiced leap of the expert pilot. The next minute she was breasting the breeze far above our heads, the rear edges of the huge planes quivering transparent against the sky, her motor roaring impetuously. As she passed, I had a single glimpse of her face—bathed ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... fiery Mezentius takes his place in the battle and assails the triumphant Teucrians. The Tyrrhene ranks gather round him, and all at once in unison shower their darts down on the hated foe. As a cliff that juts into the waste of waves, meeting the raging winds and breasting the deep, endures all the threatening force of sky and sea, itself fixed immovable, so he dashes to earth Hebrus son of Dolichaon, and with him Latagus, and Palmus as he fled; catching Latagus full front in the face with a vast fragment of mountain rock, while Palmus he hamstrings, and leaves him ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... waiting on the part of the defenders, who began firing as soon as the advance commenced, with the result that several Indians dropped, to encumber the way and unsettle the serried band of plunging steeds, while the rest, on breasting the rocks, recoiled, and in a state of panic turned, regardless of yells and blows, to gallop back after the fashion of their kind, crowding together till they reached their fellows once again, to stand shivering, snorting, and stamping, but leaving two struggling in the bottom ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... Well, it hath been a year of note in more ways than one, and the next is like to be as adventurous. Ha! Look you there, Bradford! Dost see that Indian runner breasting the hill. Some great news, surely,—come, let us go ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... north, our way taking us through a broad open valley, past rice-fields and between clumps of flowering guava bushes. As we neared Bambang, where we were to spend the night, we were as before met by the local notabilities on horseback; and breasting a rise, we saw our road down in the plain in which this town lies, lined on both sides by all the school-children of the place, dressed in their very best clothes, some of them American fashion with shoes and stockings and looking mighty uncomfortable in consequence. Nearly everyone ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... the intuition of genius, decided to fall on them at a moment when no sane person could rationally expect an attack; and Caesar could not restrain his astonishment when he saw the enemy pouring down the steep side of the ravine, and breasting the ascent on which he stood. It was like the battle of Maubeuge over again, with the difference that he had here to deal with Asiatics, and not with the Nervii. There was some confusion while the legions were exchanging their digging tools for their arms. When the ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... himself on the green knoll whence he had first seen the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes—it was a bright, sunny morning. The birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure mountain breeze. "Surely," thought Rip, "I have not slept here all night." He recalled the occurrences before he fell asleep. The strange man with a keg of liquor—the mountain ravine—the wild retreat among the rocks—the woe-begone party at ninepins—the flagon—"Oh! ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... has depth in him seldom broods over real trouble—not at first, at least. By this test may often be known the real from the fanciful woe. Caius, knew, or his instincts knew, that his only chance of breasting the current was, not to think of its strength, but to keep on swimming. He took his horse's bits and the harness that had been given him for his little sleigh, cleaning and burnishing everything with the utmost care, and at the same time with despatch. He had some chemical work that had been ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... opportunity for the disclosure, the aunt being present throughout. Immediately after breakfast, the two ladies went for their customary walk. While they were breasting the wind, between two rows of box in the garden, Miss Sally spoke of Major Colden's intention to return for Elizabeth at the end of a week, and said, "'Twill be a week this evening since you arrived. Is he to come for you to-day ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... watched him breasting the soft heavy blanket that lay on the ground so deep and hemmed them in, ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... side of the river we plunged into a deep snow-drift; but he plunged on, and, planting his feet on firm ground, sprung upward again, and on he went breasting the side of a steep hill. We gained the summit. I looked back for an instant. I thought I could discern in the far distance several black spots. I was sure that they were my pursuers. On I went along the ridge of the mountain. It was stony and free from snow, and I hoped that if my pursuers ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... destined to be so memorable, two young men were breasting the sleet and hail, which tore down Broadway with demoniac glee, as though amused that the cable cars were stalled fully a mile along the line, and the people were obliged to get out and walk, facing the full ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... the dusk of the East, Gray with the coming of night, This may we know at least— After the night comes light! Over the mariners' graves, Grim in the depths below, Buoyantly breasting the waves, Into the East ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... another kind of music, the straining bay of hounds in full chase. Yessney was just on the outskirts of the Devon-and-Somerset country, and the hunted deer sometimes came that way. Sylvia could presently see a dark body, breasting hill after hill, and sinking again and again out of sight as he crossed the combes, while behind him steadily swelled that relentless chorus, and she grew tense with the excited sympathy that one feels for any hunted thing in whose capture one is not directly interested. And at last he broke through ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... mingled with the sound of active labour—there too might be seen, in the deep harbour of the narrow channel that separated the town from the island we have just described, some half-dozen gallant vessels bearing the colours of England, breasting with their dark prows the rapid current that strained their creaking cables in every strand, and seemingly impatient of the curb that checked them from gliding impetuously into the broad lake, which some few hundred yards below, appeared ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... with adroit whispers. His brow was unruffled as he bade his carousing chum, the steward, adieu at midnight. The good ship dashed merrily on breasting the Atlantic waves. ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... pressed on several occasions, Mr. Gallacher always fell back on his goal, like the prudent general who covers his retreat, and no man did more heading and breasting in running the ball out that day. He wants the judgment of his companion in the same position, but makes up for it by fearless and unceasing work. He was hard pressed several times by Marshall and Oswald, sen., and had the worst of the ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... throbbing heart! the battle wave of life Beats strong against thee, yet thou strugglest on, Breasting the mighty billows, though no kind, well-known voice, When the great mountain wave threatens to o'erwhelm, Whispers the soul-reviving words, "Be of good cheer, The port is nearing fast!" Instead of this Is heard the mournful moan of the discourager, ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
... had told no more than the truth in calling himself a good swimmer, was breasting the waves manfully. But he soon found the difference between attempting a long swim when quite fresh and vigorous, and doing the same thing after a hard night's work, on short allowance of food, and with limbs stiffened ...
— Harper's Young People, January 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... laden with a grain of corn, which he had acquired with infinite toil, was breasting a current of his fellows, each of whom, as is their etiquette, insisted upon stopping him, feeling him all over, and shaking hands. It occurred to him that an excess of ceremony is an abuse of courtesy. So he laid down his burden, sat upon it, ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... was fast and furious. The salmon started up the stream, breasting the rapids at a lively rate, and taking out line as rapidly as the reel could run. Chichester followed along the open shore, holding his rod high with both hands, stumbling over the big rocks, wading knee-deep across a side-channel of the river, but keeping his feet somehow, ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... covert. And for the time he was naught but a hunted beast. With elbows pinned to his sides, or with hands extended to ward off the boughs, with bursting lungs and crimson face, he plunged through the tangle, now slipping downwards, now leaping upwards, now all but prostrate, now breasting a mass of thorns. On and on he ran, until he came to the verge of the wood, saw before him an open meadow devoid of shelter or hiding- place, and with a groan of despair cast himself flat. He listened. How far were ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... laughter fitfully piercing and pealing, Waves, air, midnight, their savagest trinity lashing, Out in the shadows there milk-white combs careering, On beachy slush and sand spirts of snow fierce slanting, Where through the murk the easterly death-wind breasting, Through cutting swirl and spray watchful and firm advancing, (That in the distance! is that a wreck? is the red signal flaring?) Slush and sand of the beach tireless till daylight wending, Steadily, slowly, through hoarse ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... Indians had destroyed most of the corn of the preceding summer, and the number of persons to be supplied had rapidly increased. These circumstances created a temporary famine, which, added to the severity of the season, inflicted much severe suffering upon the settlement. Boone and Harrod were abroad, breasting the keen forest air, and seeking the retreat of the deer and buffalo, now becoming scarce, as the inhabitants multiplied. These indefatigable and intrepid men supplied the hungry immigrants with the flesh of buffaloes and deers; and the hardy settlers, accustomed to ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... Lucy picked up her limp skirts, preparatory to breasting the storm. "I can't go with you," he suddenly burst out. ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... pansies, violets, and the daintier flowering grasses lined the way with odorous loveliness. Birds called happily from the tree tops. Away up next the clouds an eagle sailed serene, alone, a tiny boat breasting the currents of the ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... however, she was there, and we at once saw that she was alone. She came on, breasting the hill with quick steps, and when she drew near we could see that there was a frown as of injured majesty on her brow. Mackinnon and his wife went forward to meet her. If she were really in trouble it would be fitting in some way to assist her, and of all ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... are going," thundered the policeman to a passenger who was breasting the storm, with his umbrella pointed at an angle that ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... impatience at her tedious methods and his own superiority in the hastening of affairs. Thenceforth he must depend upon himself, and faster-swimming or faster-running men ceased to be bred. The one, half-amphibian, breasting the water with muscular arms, could not hope to overtake or escape an enemy who propelled a fire-hollowed tree trunk by means of a wooden paddle; nor could the other, trusting to his own nimbleness, compete with a foe who careered wildly ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... to be moving along with clock-like regularity, the boat breasting the current and throwing the spray in fine style, ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... lay claim to any real knowledge of the noble profession! What natural object is there, or can there be," exclaimed the nautical dowager, in a burst of professional enthusiasm, "finer than a stately ship breasting the billows, as I have heard the Admiral say a thousand times, its taffrail ploughing the main, and its cut-water gliding after, like a sinuous serpent pursuing its shining wake, as a living creature choosing ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... a cry from the room beyond, and Judith, snatching up the candle, went in to the children. All three of them were sleeping cross-ways in one bed, their small, round arms and legs striking out through the land of dreams as swimmers breasting the waves. She gave a little cry of delight and appreciation, and called Peter to look. Little Jim, who had cried in some passing fear, sat up sleepily. He stretched out his small arms to Peter, whom he had never seen before. Peter took him, and again he settled to sleep, apparently ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... brains within. Nay, if obvious practical difficulties can be overcome, let those women who feel inclined to do so descend into the gladiatorial arena of life, not merely in the guise of retiariae, as heretofore, but as bold sicariae, breasting the open fray. Let them, if they so please, become merchants, barristers, politicians. Let them have a fair field, but let them understand, as the necessary correlative, that they are to have no favour. Let Nature alone sit above the lists, "rain ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... tightened on mine, but she did not reply, and we hastened on as speedily as the wind and rain would allow. After a short but determined breasting of the storm, during which my breath had nearly failed me, ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... water's edge; on one of these, strange monsters were curiously painted in brilliant colors. Soon after they came to the place where the great Missouri pours its turbid and noisy flood into the Mississippi; and next they reached a lofty range of cliffs, that stretched nearly across from bank to bank, breasting the mighty stream. With great difficulty and danger they guided their little canoes through these turbulent waters. They passed the entrance of the Ohio,[394] and were again astonished at the vast size of the tributaries which fed the ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... along." And they plunged into Cheapside again, he breasting the stream, making a passage for her. They found a favourite confectioner's in St. Paul's Churchyard, where they had sometimes gone before. He noticed that she took her seat with rather ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... invitation to enter. It was better, he thought, that Abbot Aldam should have no opportunity to question his men as to their destination of yesterday. When they reached the banks of Aire, he ordered a short halt; then swinging again into saddle, they splashed through the clear waters and breasting the opposite bank resumed the march at a rapid walk. Presently a body of horsemen hove in sight and, as they approached, De Lacy eyed them carefully. They were less than a dozen in number, and though they displayed no banner, yet the sun gleamed from ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... founded by the New England Congregationalists, to whom this has ever been a favorite field of activity. But special honor must be paid to the wise and courageous and nobly successful enterprise of large-minded and large-hearted men among the Baptists, who as early as 1764, boldly breasting a current of unworthy prejudice in their own denomination, began the work of Brown University at Providence, which, carried forward by a notable succession of great educators, has been set in the front rank of existing American institutions of learning. ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... experience was added to the case against Mayer, and breasting the hills, the young men talked it over, Crowder leaping to quick conclusions, impulsive, imagination running riot, Mark more judicial, confining himself to what facts they had, warning against ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... of Koom [D] is one of the pleasantest recollections I retain of the ride between the capital and Ispahan. It was about two o'clock on the afternoon of the 6th of February that, breasting a chain of low sandy hills, the huge golden dome of the Tomb of Fatima became visible. We were then still four miles off; but, even with our jaded steeds, the ride became what it had not yet been—a pleasure. The green sunlit plains of wheat and barley, interspersed with bars of ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... came foaming toward them, breasting the storm like some magnificent sea-animal. Red Nelson waved to them as he passed astern, and fifteen minutes later, when they were breaking out the one anchor that remained to them, he passed well to windward on the ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... mind, without a pause and without hypocrisy, to things intimate and soft and pure—the domestic sweetness of Penelope, the young promise of Telemachus. The President stood, a rugged figure, amid the cosmopolitan crowd, breasting the modern world, like some ocean headland, yet not truly of it, one of the great fighters and workers of mankind, with a laugh that pealed above the noise, blue eyes that seemed to pursue some converse of their own, and a hand that grasped and cheered, where other ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... not exchange many words while breasting the gale, for it was the part of wisdom to keep their mouths closed as much as possible. Paul had taken note of the way to the spot where the camera trap had been set in the hope of catching Bruin in the act of taking ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... An amatory knightly compliment breasting her perturbation roused an unwonted spite; and a swift reflection on it startled her with a suspicion. She cast it behind her. He could be angler and fish, he would not ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was best, and soon, in the fast gathering dusk, the Gem was swung about and was breasting the rather sluggish current. ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... and a sharp wind from the north, had succeeded to the lowering sky and heavy atmosphere of the morning, and we traveled along with light hearts and brisk steps, breasting the side of a deep ascent, from the summit of which my guide told me, I should behold the sea—the sea, not only the great plain on which I expected to see our armament, but the link which bound me to my country! Suddenly, just as I turned the angle of a cliff, it burst upon my sight—one ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... Up he came, breasting the steep ascent with a look behind at frequent intervals as if he feared pursuit, and when he reached the wall, he drew ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... people, who show symptoms of open resistance; his enemies, already sufficiently numerous, are daily increasing and becoming more formidable. Mazarine trembles for his power, and looks around him for men of head and action, to aid him in breasting the storm and carrying out his schemes. He hears tell of the four guardsmen, whose fidelity and devotion had once saved the reputation of Anne of Austria, and baffled the most powerful minister France ever saw; these four men he resolves to make his own, and D'Artagnan is dispatched to find ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... blended by distance turned heads towards the east; and presently, breasting the mustard field that lay level and yellow to the hills, came Jose's squad of vaqueros, with Jose himself leading the group at a pace that was recklessly headlong, his crimson sash floating like a pennant in the breeze ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... the wide world with a fleet of masts of the Galway Lynches and the Cavan O'Reillys and the O'Kennedys of Dublin when the earl of Desmond could make a treaty with the emperor Charles the Fifth himself. And will again, says he, when the first Irish battleship is seen breasting the waves with our own flag to the fore, none of your Henry Tudor's harps, no, the oldest flag afloat, the flag of the province of Desmond and Thomond, three crowns on a blue field, the ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... He was breasting the rise of what he believed to be the last of the ridges he would have to cross, when the laboured breathing of his horse told him it was almost done. Leaning forward in his saddle, he patted it on the neck and spoke to it as a man who has realised the companionship between ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... approaching meeting with their friends after an absence of many weeks. The boats going up the stream were all close to the bank, the crews walking along the causeway and laboring at the towropes, for there was not enough wind to render the sails of any utility in breasting the stream. The craft were of various kinds, some shapeless and rudely fashioned, used in conveying corn from the country higher up down to Thebes, and now returning empty. Others were the fancifully painted boats of the wealthy, with comfortable cabins and ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... friends in Haparanda were right. The Lapp costume is well adapted for cold weather. Nothing is warmer than reindeer skin, and it is convenient either when the wearer is driving in his Lapp sleigh, walking or travelling on skees, or when breasting ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... then it winnowed the Elysian air Which ever hung about that lady bright, With its aethereal vans—and speeding there, Like a star up the torrent of the night, Or a swift eagle in the morning glare 405 Breasting the whirlwind with impetuous flight, The pinnace, oared by those enchanted wings, Clove the fierce streams ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... I wish I could see how she looked when she was riding the waves on the prow of a gallant vessel. That's where she ought to be, I heard a man say. He said Hope squatting on a portico roof may look ridiculous, but Hope breasting the billows ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... of the retreat had been brisk enough—so brisk that it outpaced his Majesty's movement in flank: who, breasting the hill with his cavalry (after some minutes lost at the ford in collecting the cannon and muskets which might well have been gleaned later) found himself, if anything, in the rear of his victorious footmen. But after ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... his way to the water's edge and strode in unhesitatingly. The tide was just on the turn, and the touch of the light-swelling waves was at first cold and gentle. But soon he was breasting them with steady stroke, moving out to some indefinite point where should be the full mystery of the night and the spaces, and whence the shore should be swallowed up in the darkness. His sense of the world ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... faltering column, and now leaping from his horse to show his inexperienced men how to load and fire the captured cannon; while Warner and Herrick, fit men to second the efforts of such a chief, were constantly storming, like raging lions, in the smoke and fire of the hottest of the fight; here breasting, with their brave and unflinching regiments, the desperate assault, and there, in turn, leading ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... of the window sapped the color from her cheek, for she saw the stage breasting the hill scarce two hundred yards from the house. She hurried downstairs, pinning her belt as she ran, and flashed into the store, where Jim ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... Christian works it was bullet, bolt, stone, and shaft, making light of flimsy shield and surcoat of hide; still the hordesmen pushed on, a river breasting an obstruction. Now they were on the causeway. Useless facing about—behind them an advancing wall—on both sides the ditch. Useless lying down—that was to be smothered in bloody mire. Forward, forward, or die. What though the causeway was packed with dead and wounded?—though there ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... of the Ogowe here is simply forested with high rocks, looking, as they stand with their grim forms above the foam, like a regiment of strange strong creatures breasting it, with their straight faces up river, and their more flowing curves down, as though they had on black mantles which were swept backwards. Across on the other bank rose the black-forested spurs of Lomba-njaku. Our channel ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... arms into their own, My brother that was dead is alive again, that was lost is found! Never from surf-beaten shore or rocky headland do spectators watch with such anxious interest the life-boat, as, now seen and now lost, now breasting the waves and now hurled back on the foaming crest of a giant billow, she makes for the wreck, as they watch those who, with the Bible in their hearts and hands, go forth to save the lost. And when the poor perishing sinner throws himself into Jesus' arms, what gratulations ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie
... light of day he was on his feet, enjoying a breakfast of birch twigs, obtained by breasting down a sapling and holding it beneath his body while he fed upon the tender tips. His meal finished, he backed off, leaving the sapling to spring up again unharmed. His fear of the night before had vanished and once more he was ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... which lay securely afloat in the lagoon) and of standing away for this ship lest peradventure she miss the island. Full of this dreadful possibility I took to running like any madman, staying for nothing, leaping, scrambling, slipping and stumbling down sheer declivities, breasting precipitous cliffs until I reached and began to descend ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... the express drew the young men to their feet, and the next moment two heavily-furred gentlemen had descended to the platform and were breasting the rigour of the night. Frank Rainer introduced them as Mr. Grisben and Mr. Balch, and Faxon, while their luggage was being lifted into the second sleigh, discerned them, by the roving lantern-gleam, to be an ...
— The Triumph Of Night - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... anxiety over lost hours, and by the premonitory chill of fever, strengthening that prescience of disaster which saps spirit and courage more surely than disaster itself. But they were on the march again betimes, next morning, breasting the northern slopes of the Hindu Kush, which at this point can be crossed without much difficulty. Before noon they were over the crest; and Lenox, weary at last of his nightmare struggle with the mountains, dropped thankfully ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... once more, and transport our readers over the ocean waves to a noble ship which is breasting those waves right gallantly. It ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... a proud smile upon his lips, stood breasting that genial stream of airy wine with swelling nostrils and fast-heaving chest, and seemed to drink in life from every gust. All three were silent for awhile; and Jack and Cary, gazing downward with delight upon the glory and the grandeur of the sight, forgot for awhile that their companion ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... the sun; and turning off to the short cut across the downs, Evan soon rode between the wind and the storm. He could see the heavy burden breasting the beacon-point, round which curled leaden arms, and a low internal growl saluted him advancing. The horse laid back his ears. A last gust from the opposing quarter shook the furzes and the clumps of long pale grass, and straight fell columns ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... turned inwards still, Beholding but the narrow sphere of self, And trampling under foot the weak who stand Betwixt them and the goal of their desire. Blessed the few who unto fellow men Turn with the fervent grasp of Brotherhood, Breasting the surges of tempestuous fate, With souls fulfilled with kindliness and Faith— Raising the ensign of prophetic Hope Like the clear rainbow on the thunder-cloud; And 'mid the darkness of impending care, Pouring the cheerful daylight of the soul! There are sweet spirits mingling ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... the merchantmen that could sail creeping on with three reefs in their mainsail; and the Dutchmen lying to and breasting it, like ducks in a pond, and with ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... folk had taen the fell And planted pallions there to bide; We looked down the other side, And saw them breasting ower the brae Wi' Sir John Forster as their guide, Full fifteen hundred men ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... the difference between his faint abstractions and the Platonism of a powerful nature fitted alike for the withdrawal of ideal contemplation and for breasting the storms of life,—would any one know how wide a depth divides a noble friendship based on sympathy of pursuit and aspiration, on that mutual help which souls capable of self-sustainment are the readiest to give or to take, and ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... for the next few minutes. Two or three slight swells were crossed without any sign of the enemy; and then, upon breasting a rather higher rise than usual, they saw a mass of moving beings in ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... Sawyer musters his pirate band, and where later Huck found Nigger Jim, but quite often in the evening they swam across to it, and when they had frolicked for an hour or more on the sandbar at the head of the island, they would swim back in the dusk, breasting the strong, steady Mississippi current without exhaustion or dread. They could swim all day, those little scamps, and seemed to have no fear. Once, during his boyhood, Sam Clemens swam across to the Illinois side, then turned and ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... had cut the bank from under a great buttonwood. It hung prone over the water, and one dipping fork seized and held the fainting swimmer. The dog was close, but had entered the current too far down and was breasting it while he bayed in protest to his master's horn. Now, as Euonymus struggled along the tree the brute struck for the bank, and the two gained it together. Euonymus ran, but on a bit of open grass dropped to one knee, at bay. The dog sprang. In the negro fashion ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... criticism" so far as there was any—and so far too as it might bear on the real quality and virtue of things; the state of manners, the terms of intercourse, the care for excellence, the sense of appearances, the intellectual reaction generally. However, any breasting of those deep waters must be but in the form for me of an occasional dip. It meanwhile fairly overtakes and arrests me here as a contributive truth that our general medium of life in the situation I speak of was such as to make a large defensive verandah, which seems to ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... blue distant hills and perhaps a group of antlers topping the bracken. The wild life of these forests crawled among thickets or lurked in sinister shadows. No bird poured out its heart in them; no lark soared out of them, breasting heaven. At rare intervals a note fell on the ear—the scream of hawk or eagle, the bitter cackling laugh of blue jay or woodpecker, the loon's ghostly cry—solitary notes, and unhappy, as though wrung by pain out of the choking silence; or away on the hillside a grouse began drumming, or a duck went ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... has returned to its regular channel, they plunge their horses into it, breasting a current that almost sweeps them off their feet. But the Texan horses are strong, as their riders are skilful; the obstacle is surmounted, and the Rangers at length escape from their prolonged and ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... feebleness of his moral resistance and the nature of his environment, that instead of being an athlete, armed for a glorious strife, he had learned to drift where he should have steered, to float with the current instead of nobly breasting the tide. He conducted his plantation with as much lenity as it was possible to infuse into a system darkened with the shadow of a ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... the stage breasting the hill, she was up from the bed as swift as a panther and at her dressing-table dabbing with a kerchief at the telltale eyes and cheeks. Before the passengers began streaming into the house for dinner she was her ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... night was over and it was broad dawn when the two men got out of the express train at the station nearest to Greifenstein. Without a word they entered the carriage that had been waiting for them, and the sturdy horses plunged into the forest, breasting the ascent as only strong animals can on a cold winter's morning. The early light made the great trees look unspeakably gloomy and mournful. There was not a tinge of colour to relieve the dead black shadows, or ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... life will tell If thou in my lodge doth dwell. Oh! couldst thou but know The new, the glad, the tender glow That warms my heart, so fiercely brave When breasting battle's fiercest wave— Couldst thou but feel it pulse and bound Whene'er my ear is charmed to hear Thy gentle tongue's melodious sound— Couldst thou but see how these fond eyes Rejoice to look upon ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... not very fresh for the journey to be sure, for he had ridden upwards of thirty miles that day, so the merry whistle, which is so constantly heard from the lively Irish pedestrian, did not while away the tedium of his walk. It was night when Andy was breasting up a low ridge of hills, which lay between him and the end of his journey; and when in silence and darkness he topped the ascent, he threw himself on some heather to rest and take breath. His attention ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... yards below the spot where the hippo was unconsciously basking, with his ugly head above the surface. Plunging into the rapid torrent, the veteran hunter was carried some distance down the stream; but, breasting the powerful current, he landed upon the rocks on the opposite side, and, retiring to some distance from the river, he quickly advanced toward the spot beneath which the hippopotamus was lying. I had a fine view of ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... having caught a glimpse of the most magnificent and beautiful spectacle which nature presents to the eye of man, that of a glorious curving wave, a quarter-of-a-mile long, as it comes swelling and breasting toward the shore, till its soft green ridge bursts into a crest of snow, and settles and ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... in this attitude toward Europe,—in this standing forth as the representative man of Absolutism, and breasting the nineteenth century,—something of greatness; but in his attitude toward Russia ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... appreciation of poetry and music. But the question of Free Will,—how to reconcile its workings with necessity and compensation,—how to reconcile the life of the heart with that of the intellect,—how to listen to the whispering breeze of Spirit, while breasting, as a man should, the surges of the world,—these enigmas Sand and her friends seem to have solved no better than M.F. ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... words to tell the joy unpriced Of the rich heart, that breasting waves no more, Drifts thus to shore, Laden with peace and ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... whispered the spy, pointing to a black object creeping unsteadily up the steep path—Simpson, dreaming still of pretty Ann's rounded white arms! It was indeed Simpson, with unsteady steps, breasting the hill. A fear of Andrew Fraser's arrival led the half-fuddled old veteran to hasten homeward now. "I can say the telegram was late," he chuckled. "They never will know." And then feeling for his pocket-flask, filled by handsome Ann, "as a last night-cap," he turned ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... that the more they followed up the victory against one portion of the enemy's line the more did they lay themselves open to being surrounded by the remainder of the enemy. He likened the operation to a man breasting a wave of the sea, who, as rapidly as he clears a way before him, is enveloped by the very water he has displaced. He spoke of the final surrender as inevitable owing to the superiority in numbers of ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... guns; that Fleetwood Hill was at one time in the hands of the enemy, was due not to Stuart's negligence, but to the numbers and excellent soldiership of General Gregg, who made the flank and rear attack while Stuart was breasting that in front. ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... to hold on and swim after me. He understood perfectly what was to be done. I did not for a moment hesitate, as there was no time to be lost; and springing in, instead of going directly across I waded diagonally up the stream, Bouncer holding tight on to the rope, and bravely breasting the current. By this means I found, as I expected, that I was in shallower water, and was able to get across almost as fast as the others had done with the ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... for the clashing opinions of men who live, move and have their being, think and aspire, only in the material world. The lesson of a common tie of brotherhood among all men. Lessons of manly self-reliance, of equanimity in breasting whatsoever of good or ill may happen. Lessons of the meanness of the rewards, the pettiness of the misfortunes of a shifting world of illusions. Lessons of the necessity for avoiding every species of evil thought and word, and for doing, ...
— The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons • H.S. Olcott
... day long, and the night, unresting! Ah! I believe thy every breath Means that Life's Best comes ever breasting Peril and ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... across the ocean was boisterous, and the clumsy caravels had a hard time breasting the waves. The ships were soon separated by alternate storms and fog so that all three did not meet at their appointed rendezvous in the Straits of Belle Isle until the last week in July. Then moving westward along the north, shore of the Gulf, they passed Anticosti, crossed to the Gaspe ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... motionless; but only a stray sunbeam glinting struck a flash of cold fire from the muzzle, only the feathery whirring whisper broke the silence of suspense. Then far away over sunny tree tops a big grouse sailed up, rocketing into the sky on slanted wings, breasting the height of green; dipped, glided downward with bowed wings stiffened, and was engulfed in the misty barriers of ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... to use wire in an unnecessary manner. For instance, placing it on the top of a gate (Fig. 140) seems to have no raison d'etre, except to hurt unfortunate hunters which in breasting such a gate to push it open, are apt to get badly pricked and run suddenly back to avoid it, with the possible result of injury to both horses and riders behind them. Also, I have seen wire put up in fields in which there were no cattle, ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... behold Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing; Hear the shrill whistle, which doth order give To sounds confus'd; behold the threaden sails, Borne with the invisible and creeping wind, Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea, Breasting the lofty surge: O, do but think You stand upon the rivage,[3] and behold A city on the inconstant billows dancing; For so appears this fleet majestical, Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow! Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy;[4] ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... shot by through spume and rain, every soul in the boat exulted except the woman who lay flat on its keel. The rapids gave a voyager the illusion that they were running uphill to meet him, that they were breasting and opposing him instead of carrying him forward. There was scarcely a breath between riding the edge of the bottomless pit and shooting out on clear water. The rapids were past, and they paddled for the other ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... little like breasting hardships," said Mr. Carleton, bending on her so exactly the look of affectionate care that she had often had from him when she was a child, that Fleda was very ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Now and then it seemed to cease, and I could hear a kind of moaning sound which the sea made, but again it came as though it would sweep away the great rocks that grimly defied the fury of the elements. I did not mind this, everything accorded with my feelings. I found ease in breasting the storm, I breathed more freely when the wind blew ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... a right to bind us in all cases whatsoever,' and were attempting to bind our infant limbs in fetters, when a voice of resistance and notes of defiance had gone forth from this hall, then, when Massachusetts, standing for her liberty and life, was alone breasting the whole power of Britain, the generous and gallant Southerners came to our aid, and our fathers refused not to hold communion with slaveholders. When the blood of our citizens, shed by a British soldiery, had stained our streets and flowed upon the heights that surround us, ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... if it had just been unclasped from the arm of a yohng woman full of red blood and tingling all over with swift nerve-currents. Life had never looked to her as it did that evening. It was the swan's first breasting the water,—bred on the desert sand, with vague dreams of lake and river, and strange longings as the mirage came and dissolved, and at length afloat upon the sparkling wave. She felt as if she had for the first time found her destiny. It was to please, and so to command, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... suffocation and cold. Surely he could find a thicket of spruce-tuck near at hand? He staggered to his feet, stood hunched for a second to get the points of the compass clear in his mind, then plunged forward, fighting through the storm like a desperate swimmer breasting the surf. He thought he was moving straight inland where he would be sure to stumble soon against a sheltering thicket. But the onslaught of the storm had bewildered him. He struggled onward; but not toward the twisted clumps of ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... the ground, And the thunders deeper sound! The loftier Muse, with awful mien, 300 Upon a lonely rock is seen: Full is the eye that speaks the dauntless soul; She seems to hear the gathering tempest roll Beneath her feet; she bids an eagle fly, Breasting the whirlwind, through the dark-red sky; Or, with elated look, lifts high the spear, As sounds of distant battles roll more near. Now deep-hushed in holy trance, She sees the powers of Heaven advance, And wheels, instinct with spirit, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... only at last after many years, after chastity, friendship, procreation, prudence, and nakedness, After treading ground, and breasting river and lake, After a loosen'd throat, after absorbing eras, temperaments, races, after knowledge, freedom, crimes, After complete faith, after clarifying elevations and removing obstructions, After these and more, ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... one of the horsemen said, spurring his horse up the valley; but in another minute the lad was seen breasting the calmer water just ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... froth and the bubbles caused by the plunge came the red head, anxious face, and big shoulders of Macklin. He sighted me, and came on, breasting the water with all the vigor of a strong man in good form, and with a new look in his face that meant trouble for me. I looked for the boat; but the fog had ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... colour changed to deep azure; while in another part the waves were seen running in with a swell upon the rocks, and breaking against them into clouds of foam and white spray. In the midst of the sea the bull was depicted, breasting the lofty billows which surged against his sides, with the damsel seated on his back, not astride, but with both her feet disposed on his right side, while with her left hand she grasped his horn, by which she guided his motions as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... living and the gladness of a new day. The pagan populace of Antioch—reckless, pleasure-loving, spendthrift—were preparing for the Saturnalia. But all this Hermas had renounced. He cleft his way through the crowd slowly, like a reluctant swimmer weary of breasting the tide. ...
— The Lost Word - A Christmas Legend of Long Ago • Henry Van Dyke
... morning of March 16, Dr. High telephoned me that Sir Thomas O'Hara was seriously ill, and asked me to come at once. It took but a few minutes to have Jerry at the door, and, breasting a cold, thin rain at a sharp gallop, I was at my friend's door before the clock struck eight. Dr. High met me with ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... their country. There were many failures, but the practical sense of the people surmounted them, and pushed on. All were awake to the value of their heritage, and contributed their share to extend its influence; and so we have gone on breasting manfully political, commercial and other difficulties, but always advancing; and whatever may be said about the growth of other parts of America, figures will show that Canada is to the front. At the Provincial Exhibition in Ottawa, ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... the direction and position of the enemy, their worst anxiety was lest in the dark they should lead their wire into a Turkish trench instead of the Horse Shoe. A few bullets were sweeping down the nullah as they crossed, but fortunately none of the little party was hit. Breasting the slope on the further side they eventually landed safely in the Horse Shoe, much to the surprise of the sentries there. It did not take long to instal the instrument, and, leaving one of the signallers in charge of the new station, the party retraced ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... I cannot tell, Because our warning was not wide.— Be this our folks hae taen the fell, And planted down palliones[146] there to bide. We looked down the other side, And saw come breasting ower the brae, Wi' Sir John Forster for their guyde, Full fifteen hundred ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... the higher bank beyond, and silhouetted against the slightly lighter background of sky. In the other direction all was apparently water, a turbulent waste, and one glance deciding my action, I quickly struck out, partially breasting the downward sweep of the current, in a desperate ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... shadowy olive-grove, up the hillside, into the open. There the light was clearer, and the breeze that runs before the daybreak was dancing through the grass. The Boy turned to the left, following along one of the sheep-trails that crossed the high, sloping pastures. Then he bore to the right, breasting the long ridge, and passed the summit, running lightly to the eastward until he came to a rounded, rocky knoll. There he sat down among the little bushes ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... these same weeks, far in the Western waters: breasting through the Bay of Biscay, a greasy dingy little Merchantship, with Scotch skipper; under hatches whereof sit, disconsolate,—the last forlorn nucleus of Girondism, the Deputies from Quimper! Several have dissipated themselves, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... next moment, I was in the saddle, and Cleopatra, after perfunctorily illustrating Demosthenes' three rules of oratory:—the first, Action; the second, ditto, the third, ibid.—turned obediently toward the river, and was soon breasting the cool current, while, with one arm across the saddle, I steered him for the most promising landing-place on ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... desperate now. Shipping both oars he pulled madly out into the stream, but in a few moments he was swept against the port-bow of a large vessel, against the stem of which the water was curling as if the ship had been breasting the Atlantic waves before a stiff breeze. One effort Gorman made to avoid the collision, then he leaped up, and just as the boat struck, sprang at the fore-chains. He caught them and held on, but his hold was not firm; ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... table were grave, burdened with responsibility. Her father. Even her grandfather. It was no longer a question of profit. It was a question of keeping the country going. They were like men forced to travel, and breasting a strong head wind. There were some there who would turn, in time, and travel with the gale. But there were others like her grandfather, obstinate and secretly frightened, who would refuse. Who would, to change the figure, ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the mask enhanced them. What mystery lay behind Manuela's sidelong eyes? What sin or suffering? What knowledge, how gained, justified Esteban's wizened saws? These two were wise before their time; when they ought to have been flirting on the brink of life, here they were, breasting the great flood, familiar with ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... the rest, guessing their route, had forced a way through the reeds and cut across country. So they began to run again harder than before, and kept their lead during the morning. But when afternoon came the Asika gained on them. Now they were breasting a long rise, the river running in the cleft beneath, and Jeekie, who seemed to be absolutely untiring, held Alan by the hand, Fahni following close behind. Two of their men had fallen down and been abandoned, and ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... still held. The enemy, expecting their attack, poured a volley into the Georgians that decimated their ranks, killing and wounding nearly every field officer in the brigade. The men rushing forward, breasting a storm of lead and iron, failed to oblique far enough to the right to recapture the whole line, but gained the line occupied by and contiguous to the line already captured by Weisiger, commanding Mahone's Brigade. Mahone's Brigade and Wright's Brigade had captured forty-two ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... possible alternatives, and proceeding with the confidence essential to the unfaltering touch. As Burns beheld the process pass the point of greatest danger and approach conclusion, he felt somewhat as a man may who, unable to help, watches a swimmer breasting tremendous seas, and sees him win past the last smother of breakers and make his way into calmer waters. He was conscious that he himself had been breathing shallowly as he watched, and now drew several deep ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond |
