"Climber" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tied them together, and Tom threw one end upward. After several failures he got the rope around the rail and the end down within reach, and then he went up hand over hand, in true sailor fashion, for Tom had been a first-class climber from early childhood, "Always getting into mischief," as his Aunt Martha had been wont ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... we can use. A light and daring climber might possibly reach the ridge by the lighting-rod, after ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... objection of the prospect is so skillfully disposed of, his desire for your services is stimulated. He wants you more, because he likes you better now that you have cleared away the obstacle. Thus you have utilized the objection as a help in selling yourself successfully. Just so a mountain climber uses the rocks he encounters as holding places to ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... animal, with none of the special endowments of the seal, who is his only rival as a fisherman. Nature undoubtedly intended him to get his living, as the other members of his large family do, by hunting in the woods, and endowed him accordingly. He is a strong runner, a good climber, a patient tireless hunter, and his nose is keen as a brier. With a little practice he could again get his living by hunting, as his ancestors did. If squirrels and rats and rabbits were too nimble at first, there are plenty of musquash to be caught, ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... was a trained athlete, and a skillful climber as well, and, difficult as the ascent proved to be for him, he managed it, and clambered over the sill of the window and into the room, breathless, but ...
— A Campfire Girl's Happiness • Jane L. Stewart
... Then, again, if one boy decides to become a pharmacist, I may find it necessary to attend night classes in this subject myself in order to meet the situation with a fair degree of complacency. Nor do I see my way clear in providing for the steeple-climber, the equilibrist, the railroad president, or the tea-taster. I'll probably have my troubles, too, with the novel-writer, the poet, the politician, and the bareback rider. But I must manage somehow if I hope to retain my membership in ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... superior to those obtainable from most of the mountains of the north and west, where a distant view is rare by reason of the surrounding chain of heights, and where the chance of any view at all to reward the climber is remote unless he chooses that fortnight in early June or late September when the peaks are usually unshrouded. Really bad weather, long continued, is uncommon in the Down country. A dull or wet spell is soon over. The writer has set out from Worthing in a thin drizzle ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... can't," and then gradually to find here a niche for one hand, here a foothold; to learn to cling to the rock, to use every bit of oneself, to work one's way up delicately as a cat so as not to send loose stones down on the climber below, until, panting, one lands on the ledge appointed by Joseph, there to rest while the next man climbs, it is the best of sports. And at the top to stand in the "stainless eminence of air," to look down eight—ten—a thousand ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... lions and the men were moving cautiously closer to him and his party. He might easily have eluded them, for he had seen that the face of the cliff rising above the mouth of the cavern might be scaled by as good a climber as himself. It might have been wiser had he tried to escape, for he knew that in the face of such odds even he was helpless, but he stood his ground though I doubt if he could have ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... taken possession of George's mind when his attention was attracted by shouts from below. Peering down he was astonished to see Matthew rapidly climbing the yew. The same thought had struck him also! Up the climber swarmed, higher and higher. Then he began without hesitation to crawl along some of the topmost branches that overhung the library roof. Outwards he crept, embracing tightly half a dozen of the long thin boughs; they seemed but little ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... climber,' I answered, sitting down on a little wooden bench. 'You see, at Cambridge, I went on the river a great deal— I canoed and sculled: and then, besides, I've done ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... was just underneath the tree, then he hung from a bough, and caught the gourd while the man looked up wondering, for he was no tree-climber. Then the monkey rubbed the honey all over him, and a quantity of leaves from a creeper that was hanging close by; he stuck them all close together into the honey, so that he looked like a walking bush. This finished, he ran to the pool to see the result, and, quite pleased with himself, ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... beings. Suffering, hunger, and drugs had dulled our senses. Only the will to escape somehow, the instinct of self-preservation, was fully awake in us. A sweep of the machete to cut a barrier bushrope or climber, one foot placed before the other, meant that much nearer to home and safety. Such was now the simple operation of our stupefied and tired brains, brains that could not hold one complex thought ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... bear smells the honey from a distance, and comes to find it. On reaching the place he sees the pot of honey on the tree. As the bear is a good climber, he soon scrambles up the trunk of the tree and walks along the bough toward ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle - Book One • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... Cloud pleasantly. "And Ellen used to be a good climber before she got so fat. I suppose she climbed in the second-story window, although I hadn't realized she could. However, it doesn't matter. I suppose you have had to leave your dishes and beds once in a while when you were called away ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... rats exist and flourish, and under conditions which do not usually even bring them into competition with each other. The black rat (Mus rattus) is smaller than the other, but more active and a better climber; he is the rat of the barn and the granary. The brown or Norway rat (Mus decumanus) is larger but less active, a burrower rather than a climber, and though both rats are omnivorous the brown rat is more especially a scavenger; ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... has leaves the shape of the English ivy, and is a wonderfully rapid grower and a great climber. It lacks, however, the substance and coloring of the real ivy. It is, nevertheless, valuable for temporary uses, and a plant or two should always be kept. Cuttings root freely ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell
... were, so to speak, reversed. Black grasped Wallace with both hands by one of his ankles, and held on like a vice. The living ladder was now hanging from the top of the wall instead of standing at the foot of it, and Quentin—the lowest rung, so to speak—became the climber. From Wallace's shoulders, he easily gained the top of the wall, and was able to reach down a helping hand to Black as he made his way slowly up Wallace's back. Then both men hauled Wallace up with some trouble, for the strain had been almost ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... in him, That at his will he may do danger with. Th' abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins Remorse from power; and, to speak truth of Caesar, I have not known when his affections sway'd More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof, That lowliness is young ambition's ladder, Whereto the climber-upward turns his face; But, when he once attains the upmost round, He then unto the ladder turns his back, Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend: so Caesar may; Then, lest he may, prevent. And, since the quarrel Will bear no color for the thing he is, Fashion ...
— Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... my daughter get the idea you were from the West, and a regular mountain goat, and a peak-climber and ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... on to Saturday afternoon. Sir Robin had arrived on the morning of that day while the General and Nelly were out climbing the lower range of a hill. The Dowager was no climber. More than that, she had acquired tact and good feeling it seemed in her latter days, for she left father and daughter very much together. The General's heart had begun to soften towards her. He had begun to ask himself how it was that he ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... eating, until there has been evolved throughout the ages that most charming and exquisite product of human culture—the formal dinner party. The gentleman of today who delightedly dons his dress suit and escorts into a ten-course dinner some lady mountain climber or other celebrity, is probably little aware of what he owes to his forefathers for having so painstakingly devised for him such a pleasant ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... demanded Kiloliana, a lean and wiry man with a face so like a laughing faun's that one might expect to see the cloven hoofs under him. They were cloven, it was true, but the cleavages were great ulcers and livid putrefactions. Yet this was Kiloliana, the most daring climber of them all, the man who knew every goat-trail and who had led Koolau and his wretched followers into ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... in her brother's rooms, and, by aid of a Mr. Tartar's rooms, she and Rosa can meet privately. There is a good deal of conspiring to watch Jasper when he watches Neville, and in this new friend, Mr. Tartar, a lover is provided for Rosa. Tartar is a miraculously agile climber over roofs and up walls, a retired Lieutenant of the navy, and a handy man, being such a climber, to chase Jasper about the roof of the Cathedral, when Jasper's day ...
— The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang
... fixed it under the cart-shed. As soon as the first stick is bestridden and the third grasped, the limbs are thrown out in order that the second, which a moment before was against the chest, might be directly under the thighs. The climber then springs up and grasps the ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... Then Cabbage Climber, a great-hearted frog, took up a clod of mud and flung it full at a mouse that was coming furiously upon him. That mouse's helmet was knocked off and his forehead was plastered with the clod of mud, so that he ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... entitles it to rank as the "Scenic railway of the world." In 1896, I was compelled to cross the Chilkoot Pass to enter Alaska (suffering severely from cold and hunger during the process), and to scramble painfully over a peak that would have tried the nerves and patience of an experienced Alpine climber. Regarding this same Chilkoot a Yankee prospector once said to his mate: "Wal, pard, I was prepared for it to be perpendicular, but, by G—d, I never thought it would lean forward!" And indeed my recollections of the old "Gateway of the Klondike" does not fall far short of this description. ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... said Nina. "You can start in and 'pinch back' this prairie climber—do you hear, Phil? I won't let you dawdle around and yawn while I'm pricking my fingers every instant! Make him ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... of Mike," said Steve, "don't you know me, kid? I'm not a porch-climber. Don't you remember Steve who used to raise Hades with you at the studio? Darn it, I'm your godfather! ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... question of climbing up the staff; but that seemed easy enough. I was a good tree climber, and surely I could ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... get down two of them," Mabel went on. "The first is the nearest to the road, but the third's the easiest. It takes you to the Hause—that's the gap between it and the next big hill. You must be a climber ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... husband, fair lady?" asked Sir Launcelot. "Sir Phelot, a knight of Northgalis, and he is of a hasty temper; wherefore, I beseech you, help me." "Well, lady," said Sir Launcelot, "I will serve you if I may; but the tree is hard to climb, for the boughs are few, and, in truth, I am no climber. But I will do my best." So the lady helped Sir Launcelot to unarm, and he led his horse to the foot of the tree, and springing from its back, he caught at the nearest bough, and drew himself up into the branches. ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... brother was at Stanford. I think I've heard him speak of—Oh yes. He said that Mittyford was a cultural climber, if you know what I mean; rather—oh, how shall I express it?—oh, shall we put it, finicky about things people have just told him ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... the great bolt on your door there that you are so careful to close every night," answered Chiquita, in the most matter-of-fact way. "They chose me for it because I am such a good climber, and as thin and supple as a snake; there are not many holes that I cannot manage to ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... Prescott and Parkman have told us in thrilling narratives; and columns of eager colonists we have seen press their way along the seashore, into forests, over mountains, across deserts, never halting, save to catch breath as a climber of a mountain does,—on, on, till a continent is white with the tents of millions. But the Indian aborigine, for whom the tepee was portable habitation, and the stretch of plain and hill and lake and river, hunting-ground or battle-ground,—the ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... has been an observer of the genus “Climber” at home, and wondered at their way and courage, will recognize these ambitious souls abroad; five minutes’ conversation is enough. It is never about a place that they talk, but of the people they know. London to them is not the city of Dickens. It is a place where one may meet the Prince ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... The climber will know that he is at the top of Ben Muich Dhui, when he has to scramble no longer over scaurs or ledges of rock, but walking on a gentle ascent of turf, finds a cairn at its highest part. When he stands on this ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... moisture out of delicate human life, just as it dries up the sap in the branch. While this lasted there were no notes to make, the changes were slower than the hour hand of a clock; still it was interesting to see the tree-climber come every morning at eleven o'clock to the cobble-stone wall and ascend it exactly as he ascends trees, peering into chinks among the moss and the pennywort. He seemed almost as fond of these walls as of his tree trunks. He came regularly at eleven and again at three in the afternoon, ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... took no notice of it at the time, but to-night, after dinner, I wandered out here again, and again I fancied I heard it. It got on my nerves to such an extent that I fetched Robert here, a coil of rope, put on some shoes with spikes and tried to remember that I was an Alpine climber." ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... had worn through at last. She was all warmth, all flame now. She smiled with soft and parted lips. "Do you think that was the truth of you, my dear," she said, "my truth of you? I have always seen you as you are. But"—she drew a big breath, like a climber who has reached the height—"but—I came ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... looks down over all this wild garden, and is a perpetual challenge to those who go up to the sky on mountains. It is a grand old granite peak. There are not many mountains that require more effort from the climber, and few indeed can reward him with such ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... and hill climber. The following letter narrates a curious adventure in a storm among ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... the brush mouse and other species of the genus Peromyscus in Kansas can be summarized as follows: the brush mouse is a superior and more cautious climber; seldom jumps from high places when under stress; is capable of finding its way better in partial darkness; has a stronger preference for acorns; and sometimes buries or hides seeds or acorns. These are all ...
— Natural History of the Brush Mouse (Peromyscus boylii) in Kansas With Description of a New Subspecies • Charles A. Long
... the beach scrub the way was open, though rough, with granite boulders half hidden among rampant blady grass. The country was decidedly hostile to the climber, though far from actually forbidding, and with Wylo in the lead—for I held myself in reserve for the final clamber up the ravine, to which the ascent to the base of the Sentinel was merely a prelude—the pace was respectable and sure. Closer acquaintance forced a certain ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... tree and then made a long circuit about it, finding nobody near. John, full of zeal and enthusiasm, volunteered to climb the tree and fasten the flag to its topmost stem, and Weber, after some claims on his own behalf, agreed. John was a good climber, alert, agile and full of strength, and he went up the trunk like an expert. It was an uncommonly tall tree for France, much more than a sapling, and when he reached the last bough that would support him he found that he could see ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... traveller at cross roads and distinguished for an instant in an oblique lightning flash; as Vanderdecken passing in the hurricane and throwing a blood-red illumination from the sails of his haunted ship; as the everlasting climber of the Brocken, as the shrouded Arab of the Eastern legend, who announced coming disaster to the wanderers in the desert by beating a death-roll on a drum ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... dangerous, and it is about the hardest labor of which man is capable, but the proud satisfaction of standing upon a mountain-top repays the climber for all the labor, and makes him forget all the dangers that ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... virtue of its unburned pine woods, seemed the least hurt of any place along the line. The Wandle, the Mole, every little stream, was a heaped mass of red weed, in appearance between butcher's meat and pickled cabbage. The Surrey pine woods were too dry, however, for the festoons of the red climber. Beyond Wimbledon, within sight of the line, in certain nursery grounds, were the heaped masses of earth about the sixth cylinder. A number of people were standing about it, and some sappers were ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... can't say for certain, Master Steve. Some of these tribes are cannibals and some ain't, and I reckon by what I see going on that those villains are. Are you a good climber, sir?" ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... insisted that her small daughter was a wonderful little climber, who was quite equal to the demands of ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... banks of our river clambering over the tall grey birches gave me glorious opportunities for climbing, as the sweetest and largest clusters were always at the very top of the trees. The limbs of the grey birch, although small, are very elastic and tough, making a sure footing for the climber. The danger was, that, as he approached the slender spire of the tree, it would suddenly bend or break and drop him into the water. This was all the more fun, if he could swim. When he reached home he ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... muscles he climbed, the Martyrs rolling on the floor in merriment all the more violent because silent. Amidon himself laughed to see this strenuous climb, so strikingly like human endeavor, which puts the climber out of breath, and raises him not a whit—except in temperature. At the end of perhaps five minutes, when Stevens might well have believed himself a hundred feet above the roof, he had achieved a dizzy height of perhaps six feet, on the summit of a stage-property mountain, where he stood beside ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... climber is occasionally compelled to look to his steps in passing the Junction. On my return I witnessed an accident in this place which proved at the same time the reality of the danger and the usefulness in sudden crises of the mountaineer's ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... of Vasari's life of Brunelleschi is there, bolted together in successive beams. Last of all, a long, straight staircase, straight because without turn to right or left, curves upward like an unradiant, bowed Valhalla-bridge to a great burst of daylight, and the climber is upon the top of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... I hope," Dick called down, as he went to still loftier heights. He was now among the slender uppermost branches, where a boy would need to be a fine climber in order to make such swift progress. Even Dick Prescott might readily enough snap a branch now, ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... Harcourt were urging White, a delicate boy, and no climber, to mount a high tree in the wood, to enjoy they said the glorious sea-view; but in reality to make themselves merry at his expense, being certain that if he managed to scramble up he would have some difficulty ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... Kingdom. The judges were Brigadier-General Henderson, Captain Godfrey Paine, Mr. Mervyn O'Gorman, and Major Sykes. The tests imposed and the award of the prizes showed clearly enough that what the military authorities were seeking was a strong, fairly fast machine, a good climber, able to take off and alight on uneven ground and to pull up within a short distance after alighting. Further, a high value was attached to range of speed, that is, to the power of flying both fast and slow, and to a free and open view ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... part. Stripped for action, we were dressed in hunting breeches, light high-topped shoes spiked on the soles, in light cotton shirts, and carried only our bows, quivers of arrows, and hunting knives. Tom was a seasoned mountain climber, born on the crags, and had knees like a goat. So we ran. Up the side and over the crest we sped. The bay of the hounds pealed out with every bound ahead of us. As we crossed the ridge, we heard them down the canyon below us, the crashing of the bear and the cry ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... our dogs treed a porcupine. At my suggestion the young man climbed the tree—not a large one—to shake the animal down. I wished to see what the dogs would do with him, and what the "quill-pig" would do with the dogs. As the climber advanced the rodent went higher, till the limb he clung to was no larger than one's wrist. This the young man seized and shook vigorously. I expected to see the slow, stupid porcupine drop, but he did not. He only tightened his hold. The climber tightened his hold, too, and shook the harder. ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... from Dammara Land in S. Africa, is remarkable from being the one known member of the Family which is not a climber; it has been described in 'Transact. Linn. Soc.,' ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... did Chaka the King, the greatest man who has ever lived in Zululand, and the most evil, pass by my hand to those kraals of the Inkosazana where no sleep is. In blood he died as he had lived in blood, for the climber at last falls with the tree, and in the end the swimmer is borne away by the stream. Now he trod that path which had been beaten flat for him by the feet of people whom he had slaughtered, many as the blades of grass upon a mountain-side; but it is a lie to say, as some do, that he died a coward, ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... Kenny caught his breath and stood still, quite still. It was a ladder. Some one was climbing down. Branch after branch the climber touched with unerring instinct and ran off noiselessly through ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... moment, turn these words in another direction, and remind you, dear friends, of how the sublimest application of them is still to be realised? As a climber on a mountain-peak may look down the vale up which he had painfully toiled for many days and see the dusty path lying, like a sinuous snake, down all along it, so, when we get up yonder, 'Thou shalt ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... enough to convict him, and his mode of ingress into the store was now certain. This trap-door was never locked; very often it was left open—the water being considered the most effectual bolt and bar that could be used; but Sam, a good swimmer and climber, had come in without difficulty and had quite a store of his own hidden away there for future use. This course was very plain; but for some reason, which Fred could not explain even to himself, he did ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... ladder. An active man, unencumbered, might easily enough have landed himself on it from the boat. Yet a boy might have made it impossible, standing on the grating. A resolute kick on the first hand-grip, or in the face of the climber, would have met the case, and given him a back-fall into the boat or the water. A chilly thought that, on a day like this. But why should such a thought cross the mind of this man, now? It did, probably, and he gave up the idea ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... false step might have precipitated him into the street; or, if he had trodden upon an unsound part of the roof, he must have fallen through it. He had nothing to guide him; for though the torches were blazing ruddily below, their gleam fell only on the side of the building. The venturous climber gazed for a moment at the assemblage beneath, to ascertain that he was not discovered; and, having satisfied himself in this particular, he stepped out more boldly. On gaining a stack of chimneys at the back of the house, he came to a ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the tree here, and went back the same way," Steve proposed. "We know already that the thief is a climber, don't we, Max?" ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... skillful climber, however, and when he reached the trunk he moved down it, with the nimbleness of a monkey, taking care, however, not to be too rapid or sudden, as the movement might attract notice. Then, too, he had ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... with his more usual business at that season. For Beppo was one of the men whose task it was to climb the olive-trees and shake down the olives for the women gathering below. He was distinguished among many as a skilful and valiant climber; nor had his laurels been earned without perils and wounds. Occasionally he fell, and occasionally broke a bone or two,—episodes that had their compensation. Beppo, then, on this particular rainy afternoon, came in with a flat basket ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... seemed to you his chief title to distinction? You thought they did him honor? He would have writhed in his grave, as Miss Mayberry said. Like it? When the cheap jack or the social climber dies, he may like it, but not the gentleman or lady. Leading society girl? Why, every shop-girl who commits suicide is immortalized in the daily press as 'a leading society girl,' and every deceased Tom, Dick, or Harry has become a 'well-known club man.' It has added a new terror to death. ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... excuse for Jack. He was a tall, strong man, a good hunter, fisher and climber, a sailor whenever he could get the chance to go off on a cruise; but he would not work steadily. He did not drink, or swear, or abuse his wife; but he did not support her, and if people called him Shiftless ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... the species, some of them a yard in length. Flowers there are very few. I see, now and then, a gorgeous crimson blossom on long spikes ornamenting the sombre foliage towards the summits of the forest. I suppose it to belong to a climber of the Combretaceous order. There are also a few yellow and violet Trumpet-flowers (Bignoniae). The blossoms of the Ingas, although not conspicuous, are delicately beautiful. The forest all along offers so dense a front that ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... we may understand how it is that the Persian sees in bodily shape the scarlet fever as "a blushing maid with locks of flame and cheeks all rosy red"; and we need not consider it strange that the primeval Aryan should have regarded the sun as a voyager, a climber, or an archer, and the clouds as cows driven by the wind-god Hermes to their milking. The identification of William Tell with the sun becomes thoroughly intelligible; nor can we be longer surprised at the conception of the howling ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... all my other grievances, caused my little cup to overflow. I vowed that night, as I buried my tear-stained face beneath the blankets, that the next morning would either find me at West Inch or well on the way to it. Our dormitory was on the second floor, but I was a famous climber, and had a fine head for heights. I used to think little, young as I was, of swinging myself with a rope round my thigh off the West Inch gable, and that stood three-and-fifty feet above the ground. There was not much fear then but that I could make my way out of Birtwhistle's ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and topped with spikes, Cloomber Park became impregnable to any one but an exceptionally daring climber. It was as if the old soldier had been so imbued with military ideas that, like my Uncle Toby, he could not refrain even in times of peace ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... denied by Palm. Even before reading Mohl's interesting treatise, this view seemed to me so probable that I tested it in every way that I could, but always with a negative result. I rubbed many shoots much harder than is necessary to excite movement in any tendril or in the foot-stalk of any leaf climber, but without any effect. I then tied a light forked twig to a shoot of a Hop, a Ceropegia, Sphaerostemma, and Adhatoda, so that the fork pressed on one side alone of the shoot and revolved with it; I purposely selected some very slow revolvers, as it seemed most likely that these would profit most ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin
... Universe, and whose thoughts are its stars and worlds, and the living souls of men. But for all that Nature had her way with him; sealing up eyes and mind with the double seal of weariness and the supreme content of the climber who knows that the summit ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... Life, whose harsh ascent Slopes blindly upward through the bitter night! They say that on thy summit, high in light, Sweet rest awaits the climber, travel-spent; But I, alas, with dusty garments rent, With fainting heart and failing limbs and sight, Can see no glimmer of the shining height, And vainly list, with body forward bent, To catch athwart the gloom one wandering ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... himself up a little bit at a time, the work being evidently very laborious, while Will held the rope and saw him disappear as he ascended beyond the gallery; but the rope the lad held was like an electric communication, the efforts of the climber being felt through the strong fibres as he went up ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... and a barrel of forest mould. These she sweetened with lime, mixed in her small pan, and applied judiciously to the peach-tree by the grape-arbour, to the thickets of pearl-gray iris, to the beloved roses, prairie climber, Baltimore bell, and General Jacqueminot. A neighbour's cat, war-scarred and bold, traversing the fences in search of single combat, halted to watch her; an early bee, with no blossoms yet to rummage, passed and ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... and perilous climbing. He had crossed the most difficult passes and scaled some of the worst peaks. And there had been within him that passionate love of the country common to the Swiss which an English Alpine climber can never feel. His mother's land had filled him with an ardent flame, smouldering at times amid the absorbing interests of his somewhat prominent place in English life, but every now and then breaking out into an irrepressible longing for the sight of its white mountains and swift, strong streams. ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... and white flower on the vigorous vine clambering over stone walls and winding about the shrubbery of wayside thickets in a suffocating embrace is akin to the morning-glory of the garden trellis (C. Major). An exceedingly rapid climber, the twining stem often describes a complete circle in two hours, turning against the sun, or just contrary to the hands of a watch. Late in the season, when an abundance of seed has been set, the flower can ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... even sent to Boston for a real "old oaken bucket." At just the right intervals along the steep road to the cabin, measured off by her own indefatigable feet, she placed rustic seats, where the tired climber might rest. ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... higher it grows.—This is evidently borrowed from the common phenomenon of ridge beyond ridge, each in turn deceiving the climber into the belief that he has reached ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... without trying—and he flashed three cards on which telephone numbers is written in dainty feminine hands. He said if a modest and retiring stranger like himself could do that much, just think what an out-and-out social climber might achieve! ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... with a calm surmise Mount, lonely climber, brightened from afar; Whose soul is secret as the evening-star; Whose steps are toward the ultimate surprise: No dubious morrow dims those daring eyes— Divinely lit whence ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... after one or two narrow escapes from falling, at length wriggled himself into the first great fork, and seemed to consider the whole business as virtually accomplished. The risk of the achievement was, in fact, now over, although the climber was some sixty or seventy feet ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... this runner of races and climber of walls was very far from being the sedentary weakling, afraid to enjoy the pleasures of the body or face its pains, in whom popular imagination fancies it sees the man of letters. No man was ever more fearless of {114} pain than Johnson. The only thing he was ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... fender to the pole, and then walk along upon that a little way till he could gather up the reins. Then he thought that if he could get back again with them to the driver's seat, perhaps he could stop the horses. Marco was an expert climber. He had learned this art in his gymnasium at New York; so that he had no fears in respect to his being able to get down and back again. The only danger was, lest he might frighten the horses again and ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... and weird. When he reached the gates he was really frightened to find them locked, and to see by the lamplight that it was just eleven o'clock. What would Uncle Gregory say when he got home? How was he to get home unless some one came and let him out? for though a tolerably skilful climber, Bertie felt that great swing gate was beyond him; he did not like to venture over the sharp spikes at the top, even if he could get so high. For a few minutes he called loudly, but no one took the least notice, and ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... universal in its survey of human forces, no one would claim. Certain limitations in interest and sympathy are obvious. "That horrid burden and impediment of the soul which the churches call sin," to use John Morley's words, occupied his attention but little. Like a mountain climber in a perilous pass, he preferred to look up rather than down. He does not stress particularly those old human words, service and sacrifice. "Anti-scientific, antisocial, anti-Christian" are the terms ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... his wife Lingua Four and remembered with some annoyance that she was the author of his present predicament. A social climber, Probos Five thought to himself, but aside from that a good wife and mother in addition to being a reigning beauty. Lingua Four was tall even for a Mercurian. Already she scaled seven dergs, or in Earth terms, fourteen feet and was beginning to ...
— Solar Stiff • Chas. A. Stopher
... the Riffel Alp is the proximity to the snow. An hour will bring one either to the Gorner Glacier or to the Findelen Glacier, while a somewhat longer time will lead to other stretches of snow and ice, where the climber may sit and survey the seracs and crevasses or walk about on the great frozen rivers. This is said to be beneficial to the nervous system as many physicians maintain that the glaciers contain a ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... Abbott's. The house itself was not unlike Abbott's, built substantially of gray stone and set in ample grounds. But it was a good deal larger, and both within and without it was much more elaborate, as befitted the dwelling of a successful man whose wife was socially a leader instead of a climber,—like so many of Vancouver's newly rich. There was order and system and a smooth, unobtrusive service in that home. Mrs. Horace A. Gower rather prided herself on the noiseless, super-efficient operation of her domestic ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... take two. Excused myself and interviewed my C.O. behind the dining-room door. Came back and accepted. Q.M.S. so overjoyed (apparently) that he fell over the scraper. Seemed to jog his memory. He paused, and gazing in absent fashion at the topmost rose on the climber in the porch, asked whether I could take three! Added hopefully that the third was only a boy. Excused myself. Heated debate with C.O. Subject: sheets. Returned with me to explain to the Q.M.S. He smiled. C.O. accepted at once, and, returning smile, expressed regret ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... him I immediately discerned that it was not sixteen hands—it was sixteen miles. What I had taken for the horse's blaze face was a snow-capped peak. Miss Anna Peck might have felt at home up there, because she has had the experience and is used to that sort of thing, but I am no mountain climber myself. ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... him. He used to be a famous climber; but he has given it up since he waxed fat and prosperous. I have met him once or twice at St. Moritz in the winter. Otherwise, he usually shows up in the fashionable resorts in August,—Ostend, or Trouville, or, if he is livery, Vichy or Aix-les-Bains,—anywhere ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... hereditary home: they had done so for a hundred years, to a certainty—some said, for a much longer time; and as there existed a tradition in the place that the nest had once been robbed of its young birds by a bold climber, I paid it a visit one morning, in order to determine whether I could not rob it too. There was no getting up to it from below: the precipice, more inaccessible for about a hundred feet from its base than a castle wall, overhung the ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... of my heartstrings vibrate to thine own, and call thee from thy home among the dancers of the northern lights, and shadows flung from departed sunshine, and giant spectres that appear on clouds at daybreak and affright the climber of the Alps? In truth it startled me, as I threw a wary glance eastward across the chamber, to discern an unbidden guest with his eyes bent on mine. The identical MONSIEUR DU MIROIR! Still there he sits and returns my gaze with as much of awe and curiosity as if he, too, had ...
— Monsieur du Miroir (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... more majestic than this volcano, extinct though it be, rising in an immense cone from the plain to the height of over twelve thousand feet, truncated at the top, and with its peak almost always snow-covered. Its ascent is not difficult to an expert climber, and has frequently been made. From its summit is unfolded a panorama beyond the power of words to describe, and probably the most remarkable on the globe. Mountains, valleys, lakes, forests and the villages of thirteen counties may be seen. ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... walks at the head of each horse, and reasons softly with him when he misbehaves. We rode for thirteen miles to the foot of the volcano, then at one o'clock we left the horses with one of the men and began to climb. Each climber was tied to a coolie whose duty it was to pull, and to carry the lantern. We made a weird procession, and the strange call of the coolies as they bent their bodies to the task, mingled with the laughter and exclamations ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... old mummy!" shouted Bob. "A great mountain climber you are, sleeping here all day. Have you forgotten you're going ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... was sitting in there joshing him and carrying on, he was that painfully embarrassed! I guess she made him move; but, Lord, they have to bribe tenants to get 'em in here. To crawl up one flight of that stairway you have to be a mountain climber. I only stay because the work's so congenial and it's a quiet place for reading, and all the processions pass here. The view of that hairdressing shop across the way is something I recommend. If I hadn't ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... standing on the ledge at the bottom of the canyon and gazing upward, weapon in hand, it was quite probable that he would be able to locate the youth. This would be not because of any superiority of vision, but because of that patch of sky beyond, acting as a background for the climber. With his inky figure thrown in relief against the stars, his enemy could have picked him off as readily as ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... Such and many more were the exclamations heard on all sides. There hung, in vast variety, gigantic trees, stretching their huge limbs in every direction on the face of the cliff, as if clinging for support. Every here and there verdant spots appeared, like mossy resting places for the weary climber, from whence hung creeping plants, wonderful to us for their size and beauty. In the right side of the bay, the cliffs seemed suddenly rent asunder, and through the opening gleamed a silvery thread, which, ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... row of nesting boxes along one side close to the floor. Above these was another row and above these a third row. Jimmy doesn't climb, but Unc' Billy is a famous climber. ...
— The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk • Thornton W. Burgess
... hall asleep: beside him his wife, Comely, a mirthful woman, one that delighted in life; And a girl that was ripe for marriage, shy and sly as a mouse; And a boy, a climber of trees: all the hopes of his house. Unwary, with open hands, he slept in the midst of his folk, And dreamed that he heard a voice crying without, and awoke, Leaping blindly afoot like one from a dream that he ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had more than once tramped all over this region, knapsack on back, lodging at chance farmhouses and second-class hotels, living on viands that would kill any but a robust climber, and enjoying the life with a keen zest only felt by those who are abroad at all hours, and enabled to surprise Nature in all her varied moods. It is the chance encounters that are most satisfactory; Nature is apt to be whimsical to him who approaches her of set purpose at fixed hours. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... of the highest mountain in the Shawangunk range, bends away from the general course of its fellows apparently for the especial purpose of giving the mountain climber, by its isolation, a commanding view in almost every direction except to the north-east. For miles in extent the flat, rocky top of this crown forms a promenade of magnificent proportions up amid the clouds. In shape it is a long, slender triangle, about three miles ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... spinster remembers the fatal accident of last season, and ventures to ask him what preparations he has made for the ascent. The hero stops his dinner politely, and shows her the new little box of lip-salve with which he intends to defy the terrors of the Alps. To say the truth, the Alpine climber is not an imaginative man. With him the climb which fills every bystander with awe is "a good bit of work, but nothing out of the way you know." He has never done this particular peak, and so he has to do it; but it ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... of the stone benches and fell into a deep study. There was the bell but where was the mysterious ringer? The bell rope had long ago rotted away. The walls had once been plastered and were still too smooth to offer a foothold to the most expert climber. How then to account for the regular nightly tolling? The mystery had in reality ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... feet away, but the path they must cover to get to it was quite smooth, and ran at an inclination of nearly fifty degrees. It seemed impossible, in that intervening space, to find a resting-place. Either the climber must keep going up, or he must slide down; he could not stop. But just here rose the danger. The Dome was sphere-shaped, and if he should begin to slide, his course would be, not to the point from ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... medicine; and the Mountain, which is addressed in one or two of the formulas thus far translated. Plant gods do not appear prominently, the chief one seeming to be the ginseng, addressed in the formulas as the "Great Man" or "Little Man," although its proper Cherokee name signifies the "Mountain Climber." ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... and others). We all have our beginnings. But it wouldn't have mattered how I began, Caroliny: I should have come to the top just the same. (Becoming a poet himself.) I am a climber and there are nails in my boots for the parties beneath me. Boots! I tell you if I had been a bootmaker, I should have been ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... incuriously over the outstretched panorama of sea and cliffs beneath the window, fell upon a man's outline scaling the cliff path near the Moon Rock. Disturbed in his meditations, Barrant watched the climber. He reached the top and appeared in full view on the bare summit of the cliffs. Barrant stared down upon him, amazed beyond measure. The advancing figure was ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... time before the rock-climber, clinging nail and toe to the rock face with the rope snapped suddenly taut, feels it at last slacken and sees the hands gripping safely ...
— Far from Home • J.A. Taylor
... Botanical Description.—A climber with broad, heart-shaped, serrate, 7-lobulate leaves. Flowers monoecious; staminate white and racemose; pistillate solitary, growing at the base of the staminate racemes. Staminate receptacle tubular, calyx inserted ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... tree-climber. It can mount a tree with the agility of a cat; and although so large an animal, it climbs by means of its claws—not by hugging, after the manner of the bears and opossums. While climbing a tree, its claws can be heard crackling along the bark as it mounts ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... existence? In vain his young enthusiasm, his almost passionate desire to honor greatness in others fought his contemptuous conviction of their unworthiness. Gradually, it is true, he grew calmer, and, like a climber who has been flung from a high peak, gathered himself from his fall, ready to climb again. He told himself that as an outsider he did not understand either the words or the actions which he had heard and witnessed, that he judged them by the ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... of the habits of this animal as follows: "The Wah is a vegetivorous climber, breeding and feeding chiefly on the ground, and having its retreat in holes and clefts of rock. It eats fruits, roots, sprouts of bamboo, acorns, &c.; also, it is said, eggs and young birds; also milk and ghee, which it is said to purloin occasionally from the villages. ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... the Lord is Lord of might; In deeds, in deeds, he takes delight; The plough, the spear, the laden barks, The field, the founded city, marks; He marks the smiler of the streets, The singer upon garden seats; He sees the climber in the rocks: To him, the shepherd folds his flocks. For those he loves that underprop With daily virtues Heaven's top, And bear the falling sky with ease, Unfrowning caryatides. Those he approves that ply the trade, That rock the child, that wed the maid, That with weak virtues, weaker hands, ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... getting." "Sir, I think 'twill so." The old man stared up at the mistletoe That hung too high in the poplar's crest for plunder Of any climber, though not for kissing under: Then he went on against the north-east wind— Straight but lame, leaning on a staff new-skinned, Carrying a brolly, flag-basket, and old coat,— Towards Alton, ten miles off. And he had not Done less from Chilgrove where he pulled up ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas
... simply men and animals cannot overcome. The pass itself is but a few miles in length. It is but a deep cut through very lofty mountains. Its sides are rocky, craggy and very rough, defying, in many places, the most experienced climber to ascend them. It is a favorite route, which the Apaches delight to take when hotly pursued, as it offers them the saving of many miles of difficult and circuitous traveling, when they wish to reach ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... that she was the wife of Anson Merrill, even though she herself declared it—those old chestnuts of the social world which must have had their origin in Egypt and Chaldea. Mrs. Simms herself was of a nondescript type, not a real personage, clever, good-looking, tasteful, a social climber. The two Simms children (little girls) had been taught all the social graces of the day—to pose, smirk, genuflect, and the like, to the immense delight of their elders. The nurse in charge was in uniform, the governess was a much put-upon person. Mrs. ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... passage on this ten-day boat, where, during the long voyage, she could haughtily refuse to notice those of whom she would have none. She had searched for a place and found one where she could scorn as she had recently been scorned. Her soul was black-and-blue from snubs. She wished to snub. A climber, who had failed to climb the highest social ladder, the handsome, haughty lady found a certain satisfaction in sitting for ten days upon the very apex of another ladder—briefer, less important, very little, to be sure, but still a social ladder—and giving it a quick, sharp ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... rail to assist the hand of the climber, John Harewood looked up with as much worship in his countenance as ever good man feels for the being he loves in all her maiden glory. Thus they had been for some moments, only broken by the children's distant calls, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... gathering up its skirts, climbed away again until all hope of its ever ceasing its sweating ascent faded away. After all it was perhaps well that only a small portion of the climb was seen at a time; like life itself, the appalling sight of all the difficulties ahead at once might discourage the climber from ever undertaking ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... in her most flattering manner, "that you are a famous climber, and that you have been to ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... the ascent was easy enough, the ground having been irregularly broken, so that the climber disappeared behind masses of rock at times, while he kept as much as possible to the western edge of the mountain where the cleavage had occurred; but as he ascended he was forced to come out upon narrow ledges that had ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the tree the Black Chief stopped, stood back, and signed the girl to ascend. A climber as expert as himself, she clutched the rough trunk with accustomed hands. Then she hesitated, and shut her eyes. Should she obey, yielding to her fate? Mawg, her late captor, she had hated with a murderous ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... dotted the hill-side like spare scrub. Above the trees is a cut in the mountain, above that the bare grass, and then the frowning weather-worn bastions of the mountain with its ancient horizontal strata. It is cut and scarped into gullies and chimneys; for the mountain climber it offers difficult and impossible climbs at every point. Down the upper gullies hung wisps of ragged cloud, pouring over from the plateau 4000 ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... twist over. Thomas was helping me by pushing at my feet. As I reached a near-vertical position, I felt a metal rod under my hand. That was a relief; I had been expecting to have to go up the last stretch the way a mountain climber does a rock chimney, back against one wall and feet against ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer |
