"Checkered" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which Neolithic man had once slumbered. The ashes of a fire were heaped in a rude grate. Beside it lay some cooking utensils and a bucket half-full of water. A litter of empty tins showed that the place had been occupied for some time, and I saw, as my eyes became accustomed to the checkered light, a pannikin and a half-full bottle of spirits standing in the corner. In the middle of the hut a flat stone served the purpose of a table, and upon this stood a small cloth bundle—the same, no doubt, which I had seen through the telescope upon the shoulder ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... genial old soldier loved to season his intercourse with the wives and daughters of his new fellow-citizens. As the years passed away, Duponceau himself became a celebrated man, and loved to tell the story of these checkered days. Another German, too, De Kalb, was sometimes seen there, taller, statelier, graver than Steuben, with the cold, observant eye of the diplomatist, rather than the quick glance of the soldier, though a soldier too, and a brave and skillful one; ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... her gaze, he thought her wide-flung gesture a deserved tribute to the view. The Prickly Pear Valley lay before them, checkered in vivid green or sage-drab as water had been given or withheld. The Scratch Gravel Hills jutted impertinently into the middle distance; while on the far western side of the plain the Jefferson Range rose, tier on tier, the distances shading the climbing foothills, until the ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... fro; change and change about; waffle, blow with the wind (irresolute) 605; oscillate &c. 314; vibrate between, two extremes, oscillate between, two extremes; alternate; have as man phases as the moon. Adj. changeable, changeful; changing &c. 140; mutable, variable, checkered, ever changing; protean, proteiform|; versatile. unstaid[obs3], inconstant; unsteady, unstable, unfixed, unsettled; fluctuating &c. v.; restless; agitated &c. 315; erratic, fickle; irresolute &c. 605; capricious &c. 608; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... history upon the hill the road is carried along a rampart lined with horse-chestnut trees—clumps of massy foliage and snowy pyramids of bloom expanded in the rapture of a Southern spring. Each pair of trees between their stems and arch of intermingling leaves includes a space of plain checkered with cloud-shadows, melting blue and green in amethystine haze. To right and left the last spurs of the Alps descend, jutting like promontories, heaving like islands from the misty breadth below; and here and there are towers half lost in airy azure, and cities dwarfed to blots, and ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... you as dearly as it is possible for parents to do. Take her, Captain Sinclair, from my hands, and take with her our blessings and best wishes for your happiness, which I do not doubt will be as great as we can expect in this checkered world; for a dutiful daughter will always become ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... of the steep defile shrouded everything from view. The descent appeared rocky and impracticable, and I could distinguish the sound of rapid water far below. On the opposite side stood a dense wood, the outer fringe of trees overhanging the road, and through the waving leaves the moonlight checkered the ground with silver, while the dense mass beyond seemed to flow back up the steep side of the mountain, thick with underbrush. Just below us, and possibly fifty feet from the highway, I could perceive a small one- story log cabin, as silent, gloomy, ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... which an ordinary sunset makes flame, were quite extinguished, like burnt-out embers; the yellow hearts of the daisies were quite lost, merged into their shining white petals. And, striking against the windows of the old black and white checkered farm (a ghastly skeleton in this light), it made them not flare, nay, not redden in the faintest degree, but reflect a brilliant speck of white light. Everything was unsubstantial, yet not as in a mist, nay, rather substantial, but flat, ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... great oak-tree, where light and shadow made a checkered round, Mistress Damaris Sedley sat upon the earth in a gown of rose-colored silk. Across her knee, under her clasped hands, lay a light racket, for she had strayed this way from battledore and shuttlecock and the sprightly company ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... luxurious, the little chamber, nor was there over much of furniture, nor was that even of a high order—there was a bed with a red-checkered crazy-quilt; a washstand with severe, heavy white crockery; a rocking chair, homemade, of hickory; a rag mat, round, many-colored; and white muslin curtains on the windows. It wasn't luxurious, the little chamber—it was fresh and sweet ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... perfect our characters. We read the past best from the vantage-ground of the Temple. From its height we understand the lie of the land. Communion with God explains much which is else inexplicable. Solomon's judgment of Israel's checkered history will be our judgment of our own when we stand in the higher courts of the heavenly home, and look from that height upon all the way by which the Lord our God hath led us. In the meantime, it is often a trial ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the pleasant things of this checkered life, it came to an end all too soon. The day arrived when he sat up in his easy chair by the open window, with the scented breezes blowing in his face, and watched dreamily the cows grazing in the fields, ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... vex! In studious dishabille behold her sit, A lettered gossip and a household wit; At once invoking, though for different views, Her gods, her cook, her milliner and muse. Bound her strewed room a frippery chaos lies, A checkered wreck of notable and wise, Bills, books, caps, couplets, combs, a varied mass, Oppress the toilet and obscure the glass; Unfinished here an epigram is laid, And there a mantua-maker's bill unpaid. There new-born plays foretaste the town's applause, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... wonderful change that has been made within a single generation. I have several times visited Kansas City and its environs since 1856. I have noted the change at each visit! The rolling prairie has been checkered with streets and avenues, and the squares and suburbs are dotted all over with residences, stores and workshops. The landing, once a single pier, now extends miles along the Missouri River. The border ruffians have disappeared with the Indians and "greasers," and have been ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... the home range, which is Upper Milk River. But it was cussed lonesome with all the old bunch gone; so I sold my outfit and quit cow-punching for good. I wonder if the puncher lives that didn't sell his saddle and bed, and reform at least once in his checkered career! ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... but on the pure breezes of the ocean, bearing health as well as fragrance on their wings. Broad patches of cultivated land intervened, disclosing hill-sides covered with the yellow maize and the potato, or checkered, in the lower levels, with blooming plantations ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... passed Allerby mill Kit looked about. Icicles covered the idle wheel, a snow cornice hung over the flagged roof, and water splashed softly in the half-frozen race. Farther on, the snowy road was checkered by the shadows of hedges and bare trees. Low roofs, touched by hoar-frost, rose behind the trunks, and here and there a gleam of yellow light shone out. The road, however, was empty, as Kit was ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... union was in affection, and in all the happiness that affection can bestow, it was soon checkered by distress and difficulty. The health of the wife became precarious; and Mozart's ignorance of the world, as well as his generous and joyous disposition, joined to the precarious and varying amount of his earnings, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... taken on an unwonted aspect of festivity. Its spaciousness was checkered by golden-lighted windows. Delivery wagons and automobiles came and went, some discharging loads of deliciousness at the back door, others discharging loads of loveliness ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... inexorable that one would have thought he was going to engage in bloody strife with his fellow men rather than to hunt a small animal. Around the hind legs of his horse the hounds gambolled like a cluster of checkered, restless balls. If one of them wished to stop, it was only with the greatest difficulty that it could do so, since not only had its leash-fellow also to be induced to halt, but at once one of the huntsmen would wheel round, crack his whip, ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... His dark eyes fixed full upon the man's face, flashed with anger, while his heart thumped tumultuously beneath his little checkered shirt. ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... the ins and outs of politics during the first ten years of Louis Philippe's reign, which were checkered by revolts, emeutes, and attempts at regicide, I pass on to the next event of general interest,—the explosion of ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... covered with golden-colored moons, was pinned well up at the back, displaying her home-knit stockings and low shoes fastened with brass latchets. She had on her head a cap of white linen, stiffly starched, and a checkered kerchief was ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... attention of all who came to see his father, particularly of Voss; and he was enabled by their help and advice, to lay, in early youth, that foundation of solid learning which fitted him, in the intervals of his checkered life, to become the founder of a new era in the study of Ancient History. And how curious the threads which bind together the destinies of men! how marvelous the rays of light which, emanating from the most distant centres, cross each other in their onward course, and give their own peculiar coloring ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... west, for it was past tea-time, slanted from over the roof of the red house, and painted up that small procession—the deep blue frock of little Gyp, the glint of gold in the chestnut of her hair; the daisy-starred grass; the dark birds with translucent red dewlaps, and checkered tails and the tulip background, puce and red and yellow. When she had lured them to the open gate, little Gyp raised herself, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... life very uncomfortable for me, and at the end of my year, I left in disgust; never again to resume the profession in which I had spent so many years of my somewhat checkered existence. My life seemed a failure; I reflected long upon the question of the Psalmist, "What is man?" and here are the answers which I culled from many thoughtful poets, whose names are ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... this world has ever been A bright, glad world to me; Through each dark and checkered scene God's sun shone lovingly. But Content I've never known; Hoping, trusting that the years, With their April smiles and tears, Would yet bring me one like thee That ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... Commissioner seated himself and wrote upon it in red ink. Then he rose to his feet and stood for a while looking straight out of the window. The Land Office capped the summit of a bold hill. The eyes of the Commissioner passed over the roofs of many houses set in a packing of deep green, the whole checkered by strips of blinding white streets. The horizon, where his gaze was focussed, swelled to a fair wooded eminence flecked with faint dots of shining white. There was the cemetery, where lay many who were forgotten, and a few who had not lived in vain. ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... the hidden reefs created, Where the ships are wrecked so often, Where so many lives have perished. Thus created were the islands, Rocks were fastened in the ocean, Pillars of the sky were planted, Fields and forests were created, Checkered stones of many colors, Gleaming in the silver sunlight, All the rocks stood well established; But the singer, Wainamoinen, Had not yet beheld the sunshine, Had not seen the golden moonlight, Still remaining undelivered. Wainamoinen, old and trusty, Lingering within ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... youthful bloom I would not cast a shade of gloom; Yet did I say that life will ever Flow onward like a placid river, With only sunshine on its breast, That ne'er 'twill be by storms distressed, I should but flatter to deceive, And but a web of falsehood weave. Yet, checkered though life's path may seem, Life's pleasures ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... outside of the houses became less frequent; in short it was apparent that we had entered a different region, even if the custom-house and police officers on the frontier had not signified to us that we were now in the kingdom of Bavaria. We passed through extensive forests of fir, here and there checkered with farms, and finally came to the broad elevated plain bathed by the Isar, in which ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... the hot axle, counting, one by one, Each dull concussion, till his task is done. Toil's patient daughter, when the welcome note Clangs through the silence from the steeple's throat, Streams, a white unit, to the checkered street, Demure, but guessing whom she soon shall meet; The bell, responsive to her secret flame, With every note repeats her lover's name. The lover, tenant of the neighboring lane, Sighing, and fearing lest he sigh in vain, Hears the stern accents, as they come and go, Their ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Girardin, was present, with his pale face, lymphatic complexion, glassy eye, and forehead checkered with a Napoleon-like lock. He was then, and has remained ever since, the most exact personification of a pasteboard man of genius lighted by histrionic foot-lights. He was a compound of the dandy, the sophist, and the ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... who stood on the grassy level below. Behind them was the solid wall of thick woods, over them time spreading boughs, and far above the trees the blue summer sky, all the bluer for the little white clouds that sailed serene like ships upon a sea. At their feet lay the open country, checkered by the snake fences into fields of yellow, green, and brown, and rolling away to meet the woods ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... his brother said, but he could not help beginning to think of other things. When they came out of the woods, all his attention was engrossed by the view of the fallow land on the upland, in parts yellow with grass, in parts trampled and checkered with furrows, in parts dotted with ridges of dung, and in parts even ploughed. A string of carts was moving across it. Levin counted the carts, and was pleased that all that were wanted had been brought, and at the sight of the meadows his thoughts passed to the mowing. He always felt something ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... of a pheasant of ours was a pretty confirmed runner, anyway. He had trained himself to it. Yet never in all his checkered life was he conscious of a more awful desire to flee by means of the wings that God had given him. The weakness was over in a few seconds, and he crept on; but it was a near thing while it lasted. He passed, however, away from the danger ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... results attended the Reformation at Montbeliard, where the indefatigable Farel was the chief actor. One of those highly dramatic incidents, in which the checkered life of this remarkable man abounds, is said to have preceded his withdrawal from the city. Happening, on St. Anthony's day, to meet, upon a bridge spanning a narrow stream in the neighborhood, a solemn procession headed by priests chanting the praises of the saint whose ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... gentlemen wear the truis, that is, the breeches and stockings all of one piece and drawn on together; over this habit they wear a plaid, which is usually three yards long and two breadths wide, and the whole garb is made of checkered tartan or plaiding; this with the sword and pistol, is called a full dress, and to a well proportioned man with any tolerable air, it makes an agreeable figure."[2] The plaid was the undress of the ladies, and to a woman who adjusted it with an important air, it proved ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... pain of any kind. She soon struck out of the country road, with its hedges of hawthorn, into a field, and thence into a small wood or grove, almost flanking the road. The warm June sun sent his rays in upon her through the trees, and helped them to cast checkered shadows upon her path, lighting up, every here and there, a bunch of fern or flowers, and brightening the trunks of the interlacing trees. As she saw the lights and shadows dancing before her she became serious for a moment, and fancied they ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... and, shaping their course in the direction indicated by the huntsman, entered the park, and proceeded along a glade, checkered by the early sunbeams. Here the noise they made in their progress speedily disturbed a herd of deer browsing beneath the trees, and, as the dappled foresters darted off to a thicker covert, great difficulty was experienced by the varlets in restraining the hounds, who struggled eagerly to follow ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... vain to guess the thoughts that were stirring behind her shining eyes, as green and golden as the sea under a noonday sun. What a wealth of romance must be hidden in that woman's past! What tragedies must have been woven into the checkered ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... with his gaunt bearded head sunk forward on his thin chest swathed in the gay worsted wrap, his wasted hands, the tendons corded with pale violet veins, clenched outside the checkered quilt beneath which his body made ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... rustic farm-bridges, with clumps of trees fringing the deeper pools. The plain is skirted by a country road, bordered with majestic trees, and with farm-houses standing all along its winding course. Beyond, the land rises, and the slope is checkered, to the foot of the hills, with arable fields. The view is bounded by the craggy sides of the great hills which separate this quiet vale from the broad valley of the Connecticut. Here, all is soft and tranquil beauty. But just beyond the rugged barrier of those western hills ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... the "Knebley" church of Mr. Gilfil's Love Story—"a wonderful little church, with a checkered pavement which had once rung to the iron tread of military monks." ...
— George Eliot Centenary, November 1919 • Coventry Libraries Committee
... the youth, he was loudly dressed, wearing a light checkered suit with a cap to match and a flaming red ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... wooden chair by the fire, the very picture of an old dame, with a black bonnet, high-crowned and crescent shaped in front, with a white muslin cap below, a buff handkerchief crossed over her shoulders, a dark short-sleeved gown, long mittens covering her arms, and a checkered apron; a regular orthodox birch-rod by her side, and a black cat at her feet. But her head was shaking with palsy, and she hardly seemed to understand what Lizzie screamed into her ear that, "Here ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... implored the blessing and guidance of Him who is very precious help in time of need. She prayed for strength to meet with Christian fortitude the trials which awaited her, and in all the vicissitudes of her checkered life to pursue unfalteringly the path of duty. She strove to collect her scattered thoughts, and with what composure she could assume, returned to the dining-room. The fire was burning low on the hearth, and the single candle gave but a faint, unsteady light. Florence was slowly ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... low banks until the last ten or fifteen miles. After an intervale of half a mile to two miles, the land rises gently on the right to an altitude of some two to five hundred feet, the slope covered and checkered the whole distance with vineyards, meadows, woods, &c. The Poplar and the Pollard are still planted, but the scale of cultivation is larger and the houses much better than between Paris and Dijon. The intervale (mainly in meadow) is much wider on the left bank, ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... hoed long with his eyes upon the ground: but at last he paused, and holding the hoe in one hand, drew a checkered handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped the perspiration from his face; in doing this, he glanced toward the road, and saw Emma leaning over the wall, apparently inspecting ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... oft-repeated story of the book of Judges. All this was in accordance with the promises and threatenings of the Law, and it illustrated alike the perverseness of the nation and God's faithfulness in the fulfilment of his covenant. The incidents recorded in this book are of a peculiarly checkered character, and many of them are full of romantic interest. In the history of redemption, the book of Judges has a well-defined place. It unfolds to our view the operation of the Theocracy in the first stage of the nation's ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... Denham lingered along for some time, and died. His decease was the occasion of closing the store and throwing Benjamin out of business. It was a sad disappointment, but not wholly unlike the previous checkered experience of his life. He had become ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... green wilderness! Welcome the wild scenes of our boyhood, which, as the checkered panorama of the past is unrolled at our bidding, rise on the mental vision in all their original freshness and beauty! It was here we first essayed to study the works of nature, and in them trace the Master-hand ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... our tent, spare ammunition, and various other articles that would be required here, buried under a heap of stones near the stream, and on the morning of the 2d set out for the ships. The change which one week had made upon the ice it is quite impossible to conceive, the whole surface being now checkered with large and deep pools of water, where not a symptom of thawing had before appeared. This continued the whole way to the ships, which we reached at eight P.M., finding Captain Lyon and his party returned, after a laborious but unsuccessful endeavour to penetrate overland to the westward. ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... with imperfect conditions by methods ideally perfect. Time and staying power must be secured for ourselves by that rude and imperfect, but not ignoble, arbiter, force,—force potential and force organized,—which so far has won, and still secures, the greatest triumphs of good in the checkered history of mankind. Our material advantages, once noted, will be recognized readily and appropriated with avidity; while the spiritual ideas which dominate our thoughts, and are weighty in their influence over action, even with those among us who do not accept historic Christianity ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... brother Henry noted with anything but satisfaction his frequent visits to the club at Ballymahon. He emerged, however, unscathed from this dangerous ordeal, more fortunate in this respect than his comrade Bryanton; but he retained throughout life a fondness for clubs; often, too, in the course of his checkered career, he looked back to this period of rural sports and careless enjoyments as one of the few sunny spots of his cloudy life; and though he ultimately rose to associate with birds of a finer feather, his heart would still yearn in secret ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... works. They traverse a peculiar field of observation, sequestered from general interest: and they are composed in a spirit too delicate and unobtrusive to catch the ear of the noisy crowd, clamoring for strong sensations. But this retiring delicacy itself, the pensiveness checkered by gleams of the fanciful, and the humor that is touched with cross lights of pathos, together with the picturesque quaintness of the objects casually described, whether men, or things, or usages; and in the rear of all this, the constant recurrence to ancient recollections and to ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... the position that a man who used a deadly weapon in the commission of his crime should receive the full penalty of the law. A man who holds a pistol to shoot will take life, therefore he ought to have a life sentence. Wood, who belongs to a wealthy family in Texas, has a checkered history. He served as a soldier for a time in the Philippine Islands. Here he deserted his post and committed highway robbery. He was tried by court martial for larceny and convicted. Then he was brought to San Francisco and put in the military prison on the Island of Alcatraz. He was finally ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... which was to stand so strong and to work such wonders was destined to vanish like a breath after accomplishing nothing, and to condemn Fox with all his hopes and dreams to a career of almost unbroken opposition for the rest of his life. If anything in Fox's checkered career could be more tragic than the degradation of his union with the politician whom he declared to be void of every principle of honor and honesty, it was the abiding consequences of the retribution that followed it. Fox had fought hard and with success to live down the follies of ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... history are more pregnant with events, or more interesting to the antiquary, and general reader, than that which comprised the fortunes of Wolsey. The eventful life of the Cardinal, checkered as it was by the vicissitudes of fortune, his sudden elevation, and finally his more sudden fall and death, display an appalling picture of "the instability of human affairs." This prelate and statesman, who even aspired to the Papal throne itself, "was an honest ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XII, No. 347, Saturday, December 20, 1828. • Various
... advanced into the province of Masovia, the country around Praga rose at every step in fresh beauty. The numberless chains of gently swelling hills which encompass it on each side of the Vistula were in some parts checkered with corn fields, meadows, and green pastures covered with sheep, whose soft bleatings thrilled in my ears and transported my senses into new regions, so different was my charmed and tranquillized mind from the tossing anxieties attendant on the horrors I ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... of mischievously caressing you with her eyes one moment and giving an old comrade like myself a platonic little pat on the back the next, which is exasperating. As a friend I adore her, but to fall in love with her! Ah, non, merci! I have had a checkered childhood and my full share of suffering; I wish some peace in my old age. At sixteen one goes to the war of love blindly, but at forty it is different. Our chagrins then plunge us into ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... ride for several miles was straight, level, and open. Helen liked the forest to-day. It was brown and green, with patches of gold where the sun struck. She saw her first bird—big blue grouse that whirred up from under her horse, and little checkered gray quail that appeared awkward on the wing. Several times Roy pointed out deer flashing gray across some forest aisle, and often when he pointed Helen was ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... crags of pink tourmaline and ruby against the skies. All day long in the tempered heat flowers blazed around me, insects hummed, lizards darted in and out of the terrace wall, birds flashed among the checkered shadows of the live oaks. That grove of gnarled oaks summoned up before me visions of some classic villa poised above Grecian seas, shining amidst dark foliage, the refuge of forgotten kings. Below me, on the slope, the spaced ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... lived to be an old man, could Dick look back upon that night and the days following, without turning pale. How he lived through it he never knew. Perhaps it was because he had suffered so much in his checkered career that he was enabled to bear that which otherwise would have been impossible. And the consciousness of the great change in his own life led him to hope for Amy, when others would ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... before me in the same direction in which I was. He was going very briskly, but I soon came up to him. He was a small, well-made fellow, with reddish hair and ruddy, determined countenance, somewhat tanned. He wore a straw hat, checkered shirt, open at the neck, canvas trousers and blue jacket. On his feet were shoes remarkably thin, but no stockings, and in his hand he held a stout stick, with which, just before I overtook him, he struck a round stone which lay on the ground, sending it flying at ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... grew along the track and the light from the cars touched their branches. The line was checkered by illuminated patches and belts of gloom. Lister heard somebody open the baggage car and then saw a man run along the line beside the train. Another jumped off a platform and they met not far from Lister's window. The man who got down was the ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... moral was everlastingly perking itself in the reader's face, no labored lecture to prove what was self-evident interrupted the progress of the story. There is scarcely an allusion to any of the events which had checkered the novelist's career. References to contemporary occurrences are so slight that they would pass unheeded by any one whose attention had not been called beforehand to their existence. These works showed ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... Harry!' cried Bob Spangles, into his brother-in-law's ear, but Sir Harry was too far gone; he could not 'come to time.' Presently a footman entered with furred coats, and shawls, and checkered rugs, in which those who were sufficiently sober enveloped themselves, and those who were too far gone were huddled by Peastraw and the man; and amid much hurry and confusion, and jostling for inside seats, the party freighted ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... of courtesy. She was a little, dumpy woman, with a complexion burned perfectly red by the sun, and hair of an exact tow-color, braided up from her forehead in front and from her neck behind. These tails, meeting on the top of her head, were fastened with a small tin comb. Her dress was of checkered homespun, a "very tight fit," and, as she wore no ruff or handkerchief around her neck, she looked as if just prepared for execution. She was evidently awestruck at the sight of visitors, and seemed inclined to take her departure at once; but the boy, not so easily intimidated, ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... everything was quiet. The pale-green sky was streaked along the horizon by a band of smoky red, and the gray prairie rolled into the foreground, checkered by clumps of birches and patches of melting snow. In one place, the figures of a man and horses moved slowly across the fading light; but except for this, the wide landscape was without life and desolate. Festing, however, knew it would not long remain a ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... Sang the robin, the Opechee, "Happy are you, Laughing Water, Having such a noble husband!" From the sky the sun benignant Looked upon them through the branches, Saying to them, "O my children, Love is sunshine, hate is shadow, Life is checkered shade and sunshine, Rule by love, O Hiawatha!" From the sky the moon looked at them, Filled the lodge with mystic splendors, Whispered to them, "O my children, Day is restless, night is quiet, Man imperious, woman feeble; Half is mine, although I follow; Rule by patience, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... grudge to his sickly sensitive nature the anodyne of feminine sympathy. Why so close and tender a friendship never ripened into marriage is an inquiry that may be consigned to the limbo of questions insoluble. It is enough that in the checkered chronicle of the loves of the poets, "blue-eyed Patty Blount" has an immortality almost as secure as that of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... the hour of vespers; and an unusually dense crowd of the town's people of Hammelburg, of all ages, ranks, and sexes, swarmed in the small open space before the fine old Gothic church of the town, and stood in many a checkered group—here, of fat thriving bourgeois and their portly wives, dragging in their hands chubby and rebellious little urchins, who looked all but spherical in their monstrous puffed hose or short wadded multifold petticoats, the miniature reproductions ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... Mr. Blohm, and after introducing himself as one who had formerly been an inmate of the home, and relating some of the Lord's dealings with him, he told a little about his checkered experiences and ended the story by telling of his divine commission to preach the gospel. After all this explanation he was shown every possible favor and looked upon as an honorable guest. In fact, he was taken by Mr. Blohm himself all ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... good ones, in exchange for which we gave a uniform coat, a pair of leggings, a few handkerchiefs, three knifes and some other small articles, the whole of which did not in the United States cost more than twenty dollars: a fourth was purchased by the men for an old checkered shirt, a pair of old leggings and a knife. The Indians seemed to be quite as well pleased as ourselves at the bargains they had made. We now found that the two inferior chiefs were somewhat displeased at not having received a present equal to that given to the great chief, ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... slipping from her before she had grasped all the happiness that life offered? Or was it only the stirring of the spring winds, of the young green against the blue sky, of the mating birds, of the roving, provocative scents of flowers, of the checkered light and shade on the grassy strip under the maples? Was it all these things, or was it none of them, that awoke this longing, so vague and yet so ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... step, near the shadow of the wall; she is poorly dressed; her age is between forty and fifty; her forehead is bound with a red checkered handkerchief, from which hang meshes of uncombed hair. The face is red and the eyes blurred, and she moves with her look bent down on the ground. Her right hand is in her pocket, or in the bosom of her half-unbuttoned dress; in the other hand she holds one of the high, ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... for five, a GLOBE six inches in diameter. PRANG'S CHROMOS will be given as premiums at the publisher's prices. Send stamp for a catalogue. GAMES, &c.—For two new subscribers, we will give any one of the following: The Checkered Game of Life, Alphabet and Building Blocks, Dissected Maps, &c., &c. For three new subscribers, any one of the following: Japanese Backgammon or Kakeba, Alphabet and Building Blocks (extra). Croquet, ...
— The Nursery, Volume 17, No. 101, May, 1875 • Various
... to his memory. Kindly should we ever think of those who make our hearts and our tempers bright; who, without pomp of wisdom, help us to a cheerfulness which no proud philosophy can give; who, in the motley of checkered mirth and wit, sparkle on the resting-spots of life. Such men are rare, and as valuable as they are rare. The world wants them more than it wants heroes and victors: for mirth is better than massacre; and it is surely better to hear laughter sounding ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... Mercury gives an interesting account of the life and fortunes of a young woman of that neighborhood who rose to a high station by means of her personal attractions, and, after a checkered life, died in Italy a few weeks ago. She was the daughter of John Peele, a small farmer at Corringham, near Gainsborough, who eked out a somewhat declining livelihood by dealing in horses, &c., having previously been in better circumstances. Being an only daughter, and ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... the fane, and the many alliances of his descendants. The sheen of their blazonry gleamed bright in the darkness, as if to herald to his last home another of the line whose achievements it displayed. Glowing colorings, checkered like rainbow tints, were shed upon the broken leaves of the adjoining yew-trees, and upon the rounded ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... signal for disturbance whenever they present themselves; detected by the lynx eyes of the public, whether disguised as Roman citizens or Neapolitan brigands, and severely punished for incompetency by heaped-up insult and abuse. These men live and die miserably; yet, doubtless, their lives are checkered with rays of hope; they regard themselves as martyrs, and die with the secret consciousness that they have "acted ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... the E.A.N.A. (Esperanto Association of North America), central offices, Newton Center, Mass., has so far had but a checkered and precarious existence. ...
— Esperanto: Hearings before the Committee on Education • Richard Bartholdt and A. Christen
... her under a street lamp, handsome still, upright for all his years, strong as fate itself, and surely kinder than any fate which Rachel Minchin had yet met with in the course of her short but checkered life. And yet—and yet—she trusted and distrusted ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... rustling against his domino. He was wandering in the garden of what is termed the Schwarzpanier House, situated on a slope or glacis in the outskirts of Wahring. The evening was so far advanced, that candles already twinkled from the upper windows of the building, while the fires of the kitchens checkered the shrubs and gravel with patches of glaring light. Through the flowerbeds, and along the intricate paths of the shrubbery, the Alchemist strolled at a languid pace, musing upon the things he had already witnessed, when his vigilant ears caught the tones of a musical instrument. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... progress, and ours is emphatically a country of progress. Within the last half century the number of States in this Union has nearly doubled, the population has almost quadrupled, and our boundaries have been extended from the Mississippi to the Pacific. Our territory is checkered over with railroads and furrowed with canals. The inventive talent of our country is excited to the highest pitch, and the numerous applications for patents for valuable improvements distinguish this ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Morey's fate? She saw him sink in a fiery hole, She heard him scream, "My soul! my soul!" While roars of fiendish laughter roll, And drown the yells of mercy! "Blood to drink," etc., etc. The ridiculous woman could stand no more— She fainted and fell on the checkered floor, 'Midst all the diabolical roar. What then, you ask me, did befall Mehitable Byrde? Why, nothing at all— She had dreamed she'd been in ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... yards away she caught sight of a horse's clean limbs moving in the checkered sunlight. Its rider—her heart gave a sudden, sickening throb and stood still. He was riding like a king, with his insolent dark face turned to the sun. She stared at him for one wild moment, then shrank against her tree. It was possible, it was possible even ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... scholars were turned silently and deferently to their books when the 'Squire banged with his whip-handle on the door. Aunt Olive was next seen coming down the timber. She was dressed in a manner to cause solicitude and trepidation. She wore knit mits, had a lofty poke bonnet, and a "checkered" gown gay enough for a valance, and, although it was yet very early spring, she carried a parasol over her head. There was deep interest in the books as her form also ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... littleness and meanness when we compare him, we do not say with any high ideal standard of morality, but with many of those frail men who, aiming at noble ends, but often drawn from the right path by strong passions and strong temptations, have left to posterity a doubtful and checkered fame. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... still. The rushing winds had ceased, the pelting of the storm was over, and, springing to the window, with delight pictured in her face, she saw a glorious ray of sunshine lighting the opposite wood. The foliage glittered with the checkered beauties of the October leaf, reflecting back from the moistened boughs the richest luster of an American autumn. In an instant, the piazza, which opened to the south, was thronged with the inmates of the cottage. The air was mild, balmy, and refreshing; ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... wet from the tub, whipped her hand under the corner of her checkered apron, and so took the note with a finger and thumb operating through the linen. By this means she avoided two evils—her fingers did not wet the letter, and the letter did not ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... sight to see neat rectangular patterns of roads and highways, cultivated fields and orangegroves, checkered towns and sprawling suburbs come to an abrupt stop where they were blotted out by the regimented uniformity of the onrushing grass. For miles we flew above its dazzling green until our eyes ached ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... hills without fields and where the trees are pine with clumps of bamboo. In four minutes more we are among small rice paddies and at 10:35 have passed another gap and are crossing another valley checkered with rice fields and lotus ponds, but in one minute more the hills have closed in, leaving only room for the track. At 10:37 we are running along a narrow valley with its terraced rice paddies where many of the hills show naked soil among the bamboo, scattering pine and other small ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... of the Metal Hordes permitted we saw that all the flat floor of the valley was stripped and checkered, stippled and tessellated with every color, patterned with enormous lozenges and squares, rhomboids and parallelograms, pentagons and hexagons and diamonds, lunettes, circles and spirals; harlequined yet harmonious; instinct with a grotesque ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... more now?—and big houses, and no children. It was an empty business, or so it seemed to him, who had come of a large and agreeably quarrelsome and clever family, with whom life had been checkered but ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the farm-lands that checkered the valley and climbed the green slopes of the Helderbergs, went the orders of the boy patroon, summoning all "our loyal and loving tenantry" to take of their stock and provender all that they could spare, save the slight amount needed for actual ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... enamels, gold and cornelian beads, and fishes and lizards of stamped gold, covered her breast from the lower part of the neck to the upper part of the bosom, which showed pink and white through the thin warp of the calasiris. The dress, of a large checkered pattern, was fastened under the bosom with a girdle with long ends, and ended in a broader border of transverse stripes edged with a fringe. Triple bracelets of lapis-lazuli beads, divided here and there by golden balls, encircled her slender wrists, delicate as those of a child; and her ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... along the line of any way, shape, or form appeared on the scene beggars description bids fair to become blushing bride brute force burning issue checkered career cool as a cucumber contracting parties crisp dollar bill crying need dark horse dastardly deed delicious refreshments departed this life devouring element doing as well as can be expected dull thud elegantly gowned entertained lavishly fatal noose few ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... hand, but more commonly in connection with the very highest breeding of the most thoroughly trained society. She was a splendid scowling beauty, black-browed, with a flash of white teeth that was always like a surprise when her lips parted. She wore a checkered dress, of a curious pattern, and a camel's-hair scarf twisted a little fantastically about her. She went to her seat, which she had moved a short distance apart from the rest, and, sitting down, began playing listlessly with her gold chain, as was a common habit ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... I believe I really am married," Isabel said reflectively; "for I certainly object most decidedly to my father's way of talking to you. Heavens! If I have to go through life resenting the things people say of my husband, I shall certainly lead a checkered career." ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... the sons of Pandu went with Draupadi into exile, and passed twelve years in the wilderness; and many were the incidents which checkered their forest life. Krishna, who had stood by Yudhishthir in his prosperity, now came to visit him in his adversity; he consoled Draupadi in her distress, and gave good advice to the brothers. Draupadi with a woman's pride and anger still thought of her ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... Talmud has had a history, almost as checkered as that of its creator. Like him it was singled out for persecution. Louis IX. burned twenty-four cart-loads of Talmuds in Paris. Its right of survival had often been wrested through church synods and councils. It has been banned, it has been ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... occasion for being roused was not wanting in the South Seas in those days, Jo's amiability was frequently put to the test. He sojourned, while there, in a condition of alternate calm and storm; but riotous joviality ran, like a rich vein, through all his checkered life, and lit up its most somber phases like gleams of ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... not game enough just then to address him, and demand a satisfactory answer concerning what seemed inexplicable in him. .. Meanwhile, he continued the business of undressing, and at last showed his chest and arms. As I live, these covered parts of him were checkered with the same squares as his face; his back, too, was all over the same dark squares; he seemed to have been in a Thirty Years' War, and just escaped from it with a sticking-plaster shirt. Still ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... was what might well be called primitive, for we went barefooted and wore "tow pants" and checkered "linsey-woolsey" shirts, with a strip of cloth for "galluses," as suspenders were at that time called. Little did we think or care about appearance, bent as we were on having a good ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... philosophy, a theology, a religion and a method for the practical conduct of life and it needs to be considered under each of these four heads. It demands also for any proper understanding of it the backgrounds of Mrs. Eddy's peculiar temperament and checkered history. It is a growth. For her fundamentals Mrs. Eddy is, beyond reasonable debate, in debt to Quimby and in some ways Quimby's original insights have suffered at her hands. None the less, in its final form "Science and Health" is what Mrs. Eddy ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... to Andreas' farm on the bushveld in a Cape cart with two horses, and sat close under the hood while the veld about them was lashed with the first rains of December. It was no time for a journey by road, but in those days the country was not checkered with railway lines as it is now, and Anna had nothing to say against a trifle of hardship. For miles about them the rolling country of the Free State was veiled with a haze of rain, and the wind drove ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... And yet no one could say that Kitty in this checkered year had done her husband much harm. Ashe was no longer her blind slave; and his career had carried him to heights with which even his mother might have been satisfied. Sometimes Margaret was inclined to think that Kitty had now less influence with him and his ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... bed, and changing the brown rock, the water weed, or the leaf beneath, into gems by the magic of its own brightness. The boughs were waving over head, covered with many-colored foliage, and the sun, glancing through, not only enriched the tints above, but checkered the mossy path along which they wandered like a chess-board of brown and gold. Some of the late autumn birds uttered their short sweet songs from the copse hard by, and the musical wind came sighing up from the valley, as if ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... censured by moralists for the coarseness of his novels. But had he not been coarse he would not have been true. He described life as it was in the eighteenth century, as he had seen it in the ups and downs of a checkered career. His characters were taken from the higher ranks and the lower. He placed the house, the amusements, the habits of a country gentleman before the reader with the faithfulness of a man who had hunted, feasted, and got drunk with country-gentlemen. He described the miserable ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... of the dual female form, Shrines the grand truth, that Might Should bravely nourish Right, Life's checkered pathway sweetly ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... had possibly assisted at some scenes of violence in the course of her husband's checkered career. At all events, she did not stop to see what happened after the way was clear, but ran to the door of the bedroom, and threw it wide open, for it was not locked. The light that entered showed her where the window was; she opened it in ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... the wood by the river. A late moon swung its golden censer above the water by invisible chains, marking checkered aisles of light in the silent wood, burnishing elfin rosaries of dew, touching with cool, white fingers of benediction the leaf-cowled heads of stately trees. Like lines of solemn monks they stood listening raptly to the deep, full chant of the moving ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... a checkered life. I hope you have been able to bear prosperity with meekness, and adversity with patience. These things are all ordered for us far better than we could order them for ourselves. We may pray for our daily bread; we may pray for forgiveness of sins; we may pray to be kept from temptation, and ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... long enough, however, to know that love is governed by no rules or regulations and besides, she had kept through all the changes and chances of her checkered life, a belief in true love as fresh as a girl's. This was too sacred a thing to be carelessly handled—only, it was not what she would have chosen.... ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... species, and surely a little too general, led him into measures that were greatly mischievous to himself, and for that reason, among others, perhaps fatal to his country,—measures, the effects of which, I am afraid, are forever incurable. He made an administration so checkered and speckled, he put together a piece of joinery so crossly indented and whimsically dovetailed, a cabinet so variously inlaid, such a piece of diversified mosaic, such a tessellated pavement without cement,—here a bit of black stone and there a bit of white, patriots ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... mere military superiority. The balance of general success and glory in the field is no more than shared with the conquered people. The morbid national vanity, which finds no delight but in the triumphs of the sword, will shrink from the study of this checkered story. The narrative of disastrous defeat and doubtful advantage must be endured before we arrive at that of the brilliant victory which crowned our arms with final success. We read with painful surprise ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... and yet I sometimes think it's wery hard to be shut up here, a wearin' checkered clothes, a livin' on cold vittles, a sleepin' on iron beds, a lookin' out upon the world through iron muskeeter bars, and poundin' stun like a galley slave, day after day, week after week, and year after year, while my brother thieves (for to speak ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... the fields; there being no fences, the fields are distinguished by their crops. Some of them are but several rods in extent. The various colors which the different kinds of vegetables assume in their progress of growth and ripening, make the landscape look like an immense expanse of checkered carpet, ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... put forth one arm. Eternal powers! It touched no soul nor body, but the wall, On which the moonbeams fell in silvery showers Checkered with all the tracery of the hall. He shuddered, as no doubt the bravest cowers When he can't tell what 'tis that doth appal. How odd, a single hobgoblin's nonentity Should cause more fear than a whole ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... roof of a cottage, and cross its threshold, all ceiled and banked up with snow. They are glad and warm still, and as genial and cheery in winter as in summer. As we stand in the midst of the pines, in the nickering and checkered light which straggles but little way into their maze, we wonder if the towns have ever heard their simple story. It seems to us that no traveller has ever explored them, and notwithstanding the wonders which science is elsewhere revealing every day, who would not like to hear ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... reason why I too may not ask for it, and this simple concession, involving no public interest, will much soften the blow, which, right or wrong, I construe as one of the hardest I have sustained in a life somewhat checkered with adversity. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... never lets one of the members of even her most disciplined groups of cloud be like another; but though each is adapted for the same function, and in its great features resembles all the others, not one, out of the millions with which the sky is checkered, is without a separate beauty and character, appearing to have had distinct thought occupied in its conception, and distinct forces in its production; and in addition to this perpetual invention, visible in each member of each system, we find systems ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... Life is checkered—there is no doubt about that; whatever doubts a man may entertain upon other subjects, he can have none upon this, we feel quite certain. In fact, so true is it that we would not for a moment have drawn the reader's attention to it here, were it not that our experience of life in the backwoods ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... to that place, and there in a little back room behind a plate-cluttered table with a red and white checkered table cloth, we found the Major. The Major said he spoke the English with the fluency. He demonstrated his delusion when ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons |
