"Hit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... two years since we had one together, and my arm is growing stiff for want of practice, though every day I endeavour to keep myself in order for any opportunity or chance that may occur, by practising against an imaginary foe by hammering with a mace at a corn-sack swinging from a beam. Methinks I hit it as hard as of old, but in truth I know but little of the tricks of these Frenchmen. They availed nothing at Poictiers against our crushing downright blows. Still, I would gladly see what their ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... thought. He carried into the Senate of the United States a trained mind, disciplined by the sternest culture of his faculties, disdaining any plaudits which were not the honest reward of robust reasoning on generalized facts, and "gravitating" in the direction of truth, whether he hit or missed it. In his case, at least, there was nothing in his legal experience, or in his legislative experience, which would have unfitted him for producing a work on the science of politics. The best speeches in the House of Commons of Lord ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... are. Landlords may reduce the payment due, but sometimes with a certain resentment. One landowner was asked for a reduction for several years in succession on account of poor crops, and gave it. But he was trying to think of a plan to defeat the pretences of his tenants. At last he hit on one. While the tenants' rice was young he often visited the fields, and when any insects were to be seen he sent his labourers secretly to destroy them. In the same way, when crops seemed to be under-manured, he secretly cast artificial manure ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... frivolous, volatile character of so many divinity students is excellently hit off by Bunyan in our pilgrim's impatience to be out of the Interpreter's House. No sooner had he seen one or two of the significant rooms than this easily satisfied student was as eager to get out of that house as he had been to get ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... dispatched to the carpenter and glazier to set them at work on Morgan's sky-parlor in the seventh story, I began to feel, for the first time, as if my scattered wits were coming back to me. By the time the evening had closed in I had hit on no less than three excellent ideas, all providing for the future comfort and amusement of our fair guest. The first idea was to get her a Welsh pony; the second was to hire a piano from the county town; the third was to send for a boxful of ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... marse! he no call for to take de trouble. I done said all I gwine to say and now I gwine to shut up my mouf tight. I'd scorn to hit a man arter he's down," said Katie, bridling with a lofty assumption of magnanimity. And as she really did shut her mouth fast, the point of ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... order of age and began to show wonderful skill with their weapons. Some of the spectators lowered their heads, apprehending fall of arrows while others fearlessly gazed on with wonder. And riding swiftly on horses and managing them 'dexterously' the princes began to hit marks with shafts engraved with their respective names. And seeing the prowess of the princes armed with bows and arrows, the spectators thought that they were beholding the city of the Gandharvas, became filled with amazement. And, O Bharata, all on a sudden, some hundreds ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... while camping in a deep arroyo with very steep sides frowning down on us, one of the Indian carriers woke us with the startling news: "Get up! A stone is falling and will strike us!" I heard a noise, and instantly a stone, half the size of a child's head, hit the informant himself, as he sleepily rose. He lost his breath, but soon recovered, and ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... the false romanticism of painting comes from this sort of theatrical pathos. Of the other he writes "It was the picture at the Louvre which shocked me with its violent declamation and its forced blows that never hit anything. But here at Munich a mystery so profound broods over the drama that the melodramatic element disappears. The scene becomes tragic, lamentable, hopelessly sad. The great artist with a brush that trembles in his aged hands paints but the ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... of this deception, that of the stage is the most complete. The actor is a man who has elaborately trained himself in the simulation of certain feelings. And when his acting is of the best quality, and the proper bodily attitude, gesture, tone of voice, and so on, are hit off, the force of the illusion completely masters us. For the moment we lose sight of the theatrical surroundings, and see the actor as really carried away by the passion which he so closely imitates. Histrionic illusion ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... from the tops of the mountains to fight the Romans, which greatly terrified them; and the soldiers that were in light armor came near, and pelted the king's guards that were come out with darts and stones, and one of them hit him on the side with a dart. Antigonus also sent a commander against Samaria, whose name was Pappus, with some forces, being desirous to show the enemy how potent he was, and that he had men to spare in his war with them. He sat down to oppose Macheras; but Herod, when he had ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... Hammond wounded, 2nd-Lt. McAlmont wounded, 2nd-Lt. T. Woods wounded, and 2nd-Lt. Carley, killed. The few men of the company, now led by C.S.M. Joyce, reached the Red Line and joined "C" company, which, Lt. Edge, M.C., having been hit, was now under the command of 2nd-Lt. Jones. It was impossible, with the small number of men, scattered over a wide front, to continue the advance for the moment. "D" company, moving up according to programme, were treated similarly to ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... Anything. You call me a fool, and I'll hit you, and then you go at me again, and we should know then what ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... have fought the hard fight he is not unacquainted with the lure of the "road." When out of work and still undiscouraged, he has been forced to "hit the road" between large cities in his quest for a job. He has loafed, seen the country and green things, laughed in joy, lain on his back and listened to the birds singing overhead, unannoyed by factory whistles and bosses' harsh commands; and, ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... run this old post ten years," Murray said soberly. "In those ten years there's not been a single time that Allan's hit the northern trail on a trade when he's got back to time by many weeks—generally more than six. It don't seem to me I've seen his little girl standing around same as she's doing ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... the paper and ink your money can buy. How irresistible becomes a varnish maker's appeal when he encloses in his letters a small varnished piece of wood, on the back of which he has printed, "This maple panel has been finished with two coats of '61' Floor Varnish. Hit it with a hammer. Stamp on it. You may dent the wood, but you can't crack the varnish. This is one point ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... the most popular man in all America—and when we retired to the obscurity of our hotel we were silent with satisfaction. For the moment it seemed that fortune was about to empty her golden horn at my feet. I was happily married, my latest book was a hit, and I had the friendship and the favor of ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... over, feinted in an absent-minded manner, made swift and confusing circles with his left hand, and hit Bill Wrenn on the aforesaid bloody nose, which immediately became a bleeding nose. Bill Wrenn felt dizzy and, sitting on a grain-sack, listened amazedly to the ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... all to lie down on their faces. They, (the Rebels) were just over the brow of the hill, so that, if they came up in front of us, they could not hit a man. ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... you crow! Where is the man that can hit a turkey's head at a hundred yards? I was a fool for trying. You needn't make an uproar like a falling pine-tree about it. Show me the ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... Cronikle," already quoted, describes him as lingering over the siege of Abercorn, "striking mony of the towers down with the gret gun, the whilk a Franche man shot richt wele, and failed na shot within a fathom where it was charged him to hit." And when, in the exultation of his heart to see each new accession of force come in, he ordered "a new volie" against the stout outstanding walls, the excitement of the discharge, the eagerness of an adept to watch the effect, no doubt made this dangerous expression of satisfaction ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... money, right on the nail, you know, to carry it through. Ah, you bet, I was clever enough to see that. I waltzed him right over when I began to speak of ready money, cash down. As soon as he'd squeal I'd spring cold cash on him, money down, and he's hit gravel like an ostrich. Well," he went on deliberately after a pause, getting up from the table and standing before Vandover, his hands in his pockets, "well, I think that's the best I can do for you, Van. It's a good deal better than I expected, ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... procurable, though much appreciated. Such as we were able to obtain from the canteen was taken to the rifle range. An empty bottle was set up 200 yards in front of the firer and a full one behind him. If he hit the former he became entitled to the contents of the latter. Each man was entitled to one free shot, and as many more as he liked at a cost of a penny each. The result was, that, at a very nominal cost to the canteen funds, the individual ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock
... the knowin' baby from the one to the other! An' then, bless us! The time there was! An' you could hear a pin drop, an' in a minute you couldn't, along of them questions an' answers, firing around, from one person to another, hit-or-miss-like, an' all talkin' to onct, or sayin' never a word, any one. An' so this is the trouble, Mary Fogarty, that Dennis wouldn't mention. The Angel is their own child, and Dennis Fogarty's the clever chap ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... of The Awful Truth hit him and began to sink in with the inexorable absorption of water dropping down into a bucket of dry sand. It took some time for the process to climax. Once it reached Home Base it took another period of time for the information to be inspected, sorted out, identified, analyzed, ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... her at first, but by the time Ping uttered his shrill call for supper, Grace had learned to throw the rope and let the loop drop to the ground without destroying the form of the loop. Hi announced that, on the morrow, she should be able to hit a mark on the ground but that considerable practice would be necessary before she would be able to rope an object ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... bird carefully effaces any mark she may have made in scooping out a place for the eggs, but the keen eye of a native quickly detects the slightest sign of recent disturbance of the mound, and he seldom fails to hit upon the eggs. ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... is said to mean "to look at each other hoping that either will offer to do something which both parties desire but are unwilling to do." Now, since exactly the same situation never recurs, but is partly the same and partly different, it is clear that, if the holophrase really tried to hit off in each case the whole outstanding impression that a given situation provoked, then the same combination of sounds would never recur either; one could never open one's mouth without coining a new word. Ridiculous as this notion sounds, it may serve to mark a downward limit from which the ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... gambling was applied for. The man who interpreted knew a smattering of 'kitchen' Kaffir, and his rendering of the 'monopoly for billiards, card playing, lotteries, and games of chance' was that he alone should be allowed to 'tchia ma-ball (hit the balls), hlala ma-paper (play the papers), and tata zonki mali (and take all the money).' The poor drunken king nodded sleepily to the first two clauses, but to the bald proposition of taking all the money, which he could understand, he violently objected. The concession was, however, ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... think." When he had thought he told the ship's company that he was minded to go to Greenland after his father, and they agreed to make the voyage. He fastened down his cargo again, refitted, and away. But it was one thing to resolve upon Greenland, and another thing to hit it off. He had not sailed those seas before, and falling in with bad weather, was driven out of his course; and then—to make matters worse—there came down upon him with a northerly wind a thick blanket of white fog in ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... the animals are wonderfully accurate in flight and most expert dodgers. Even while in a cave, where hundreds of bats were in the air, they seldom flew against us, although we might often be brushed by their wings; and it was a most difficult thing to hit them with a bamboo switch. Their ability in dodging is without doubt a necessary development of their feeding habits for, with the exception of a few species, bats live exclusively upon insects and catch them in ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... that if you like," he growled. "Rotten game, that. Doctor's orders. A hundred and ten to-day. Couldn't hit the earth even and there ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... exception of gold, which was the only one in perfect health. He affirmed, that the secret of the philosopher's stone had been more than once discovered; but that the ancient and wise men who had hit upon it, would never, by word or writing, communicate it to men, because of their unworthiness and incredulity. [His "sum of perfection," or instructions to students to aid them in the laborious search for the stone ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... gave me fifty cents, claiming I had drawn my wages during the month. I knew that was not so. I also knew I had a balance coming to me and told him so. But he denied it and the result was that we had a fight. I hit him in the head with a rock and nearly killed him after which I felt better. Then going to Mr. Graves the storekeeper, I told him the whole trouble. He expressed sympathy for me and said to give him the fifty cents and take the bonnet and dress, and we will call it square. And you ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... the horse is a larger mark than the man, and hence is more frequently hit, so that more than twice the number of horses fall in every engagement than men. The cavalryman is more shielded from the deadly missile than the infantryman. The horse's head and shoulders will often receive the bullet which was intended for the rider's body. This is ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... Kumagae are marvellous court coverers, and seem absolutely untiring. They are "getters" of almost unbelievable activity, and accurate to a point that seems uncanny. Both men hit to the lines with a certainty that makes it very dangerous to attempt to take the net on anything except a deep forcing ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... hit her lips. Her face, which nature intended to be beautiful, became almost ugly; envy and malice distorted her features; and, when she departed with Mrs. Cheviott, her humiliated appearance was a strong contrast to the air of triumph with ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... only in the best, Is, in proportion, true of all the rest. Take pains the genuine meaning to explore! There sweat, there strain: tug the laborious oar; Search every comment that your care can find; Some here, some there, may hit the poet's mind: Yet be not blindly guided by the throng: The multitude is always in the wrong. When things appear unnatural or hard, Consult your author, with himself compared. Who knows what blessing Phoebus may ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... were about. Yet even then I did not despair, and on I bounded up the hill. The next moment I heard the bullets strike the ground round me, and at the same time felt a peculiar sensation in my leg, as if the cold end of a lance had entered it. I knew that I was hit, but that no bone or muscle worth speaking of had been injured. Though wounded, I felt capable of considerable exertion; and so, casting another look behind me, to ascertain what my enemies were about,—not dreaming of giving in,—I ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... food is to the body. Without it the words are weak and feeble and create little or no impression on the mind. In order to have strength the language must be concise, that is, much expressed in little compass, you must hit the nail fairly on the head and drive it in straight. Go critically over what you write and strike out every word, phrase and clause the omission of which impairs neither the clearness nor force of the sentence and ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... and when ye have done all, stand with your loins girt, and though you cannot possibly escape all sin, yet certainly it is not in vain thus to set against it, and keep a watch over it, for by this means you shall escape more sin and sin less, as he that aims at the mark, though he do not hit it, yet shall ordinarily come nearer it, than he that shoots only at random, and as the army that is most vigilant and watchful, though they cannot prevent all losses and hazards, yet commonly are not found ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... so dismal for us all here if you go. Do let us try if we can't hit on something between us to pass the time for you! I can read a little, reading aloud, and there's Lars can sing. Perhaps I might tell stories— tell of something or other. Here's Grindhusen coming; won't you let me tell him you're not ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... as his most valuable treasure: this she stole the night they parted; it was missed before she got out of his dominions, and she was pursued by no less than six of the king's body-guards: however, by using it herself she hit the first of them (for one was more active in the pursuit than the rest) where David did Goliath, and killed him on the spot. His companions were so alarmed at his fall that they retired, and left Uriah's wife to pursue her journey. She took ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... Miss Ray;—and from your father. A man hit by one of these," he continued musingly, and fingering the fat leaden bullets, "would drop in his tracks. ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... Bourne was a good critic, and, to set him entirely at ease, as he was twelve years younger, I told him to lay aside any respect on account of age, and to speak out frankly, no matter how hard it hit, adding that I had better hear disagreeable things from him than to have them said by critics ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... zealous to propagate the faith and subdue unbelievers; so he felt justified in practising on this occasion what in later times has been entitled "mental reservation," without swerving from the letter of the oath which he had taken. This is the method he hit upon. ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... it," continued he; "'cause, if yer could hit one of 'em, they'd leave mighty sudden, and save us ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... water and asked with sudden sympathy: "Is she as bad as all that?" "The doctor says she will not last till morning." "Then she certainly is very bad!" Honore hesitated, for he wanted to make a few preparatory remarks before coming to his proposition; but as he could hit upon nothing, he made ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... jumped up, declaring that if Henry were well enough to see "these others," he was well enough to see her. Her impulsive movements sent the cards and counters flying up through the air, and one card hit Miss Cordova on the left eye directly over the pupil. As lightly as if flicked by a clever finger, but as unerringly as if deliberately and viciously aimed at her, one of the four sharp points of cardboard ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... she hit upon a device for abating her nuisance, and set about executing it as follows. She had the sand dug out of the interior of the mound and added to its exterior, which she had graded and smoothed and leveled and turfed so as to resemble the glacis ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... must support economic growth abroad. You know, until recently a third of our economic growth came from exports. But over the past year and a half, financial turmoil has put that growth at risk. Today, much of the world is in recession, with Asia hit especially hard. This is the most serious financial crisis ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William J. Clinton • William J. Clinton
... $40,000,000 of the surplus from the United States Treasury to be used for the aid of beleaguered institutions. For more than a week the crowds of depositors sought their money. The lines were not broken at night until the police hit upon the plan of giving to each individual a ticket denoting his place in the line. The Trust Company of America alone paid $34,000,000 across its counters and still crowds thronged the streets. At length the enormous reserve of the Treasury was exhausted and it became necessary ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... wait, he'll get into the reeds. Do let me fire," I answered. But Alick did not give the word, and as we had all agreed to obey him implicitly, I, of course, would not set a bad example, though I felt sure that I could hit the swan. ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... in dealing with men. And in his heart of hearts he had a liking for the Dean. Whenever there were any tiffs the Dean could take a blow and give a blow, and then think no more about it. This, which was a virtue in the eyes of the Bishop, was no virtue at all to Mr. Groschut, who hated to be hit himself and wished to think that his own blows were fatal. In urging the matter with the bishop, Mr. Groschut expressed an opinion that, if this story were unfortunately true, the Dean should cease to be Dean. He thought that the Dean ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... frank beauty) Will think their Laureate hath fulfilled his duty, His labour of most loyal love, discreetly. Compliments delicate, piled not sickly-sweetly, Like washy WARTON's, nor so loud thrasonical— Like Glorious JOHN's—that they sound half ironical! 'Tis hard indeed for loyal love to hit The medium just 'twixt ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... pillory at Charing Cross, under the statue of King Charles the First, at the time of this grand procession, lest some of the rotten eggs which the Constitutional Society shall let fly at his indiscreet head may hit the virtuous murderer of his king. They might soil the state dress which the ministers of so many crowned heads have admired, and in which Sir Clement Cotterel is to introduce ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... shrinking from telling it to anybody else;[1] that the will, the imagination, the disorders of the body, the thousand concealed infirmities of the intelligence, conspire to reduce our discovery of justice and truth to a process of haphazard, in which we more often miss the mark than hit.[2] Pleasure, ambition, industry, are only means of distracting men from the otherwise unavoidable contemplation of their own misery. How speak of the dignity of the race and its history, when we know that a grain of sand in Cromwell's bladder altered the destinies of a ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 2 of 3) - Essay 1: Vauvenargues • John Morley
... have hit upon a solution. Some people, Walter Scott is an instance, bury their favorite dogs with all the honors of a decorated sepulture. Rather than believe that your slaves are commonly regarded by you ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... rules strictly, he ought to decline the gift, but he just couldn't do that. The faces of Doris and the others were glowing as he held up the magnificent brief case. This was the first time such a thing had occurred in his office, and a man hit fifty only once. ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... dog!" she exclaimed. She was looking to the farther side of the water hole. "See? Over there by that bush! I wonder if I could hit it?" She put her hand to her scabbard: "I've lost my revolver!" She looked at him blankly. "Had it when you started, didn't you?" inquired her companion, undisturbed. Her hand rested on the empty scabbard in dismay: "I must have lost it ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... hit it, whatever it was," declared Spouter, when they reached the point directly behind the spring. "See how the snow ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... smother the recollection, the tall military form of his late commander came full in view, for the purpose of reconnoitring. 'I can hit him now,' said Callum, cautiously raising his fusee over the wall under which he lay couched, at scarce sixty ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... not a bit like that really. It's a ripping book. One of the boys dresses up like a lady and comes to call, and another tries to hit his little sister with a hoe. It's jolly ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... the performance, miss,' he added. 'Did you hear Frivol's song? It was very clever, quite the hit of the evening.' ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... vessel's course was altered, but being so far over on the African coast there was not much room to play on. The firing was still directed at the funnel, though at times it was erratic. One of the seamen shouted, "I'm hit!" In an instant the captain blew his whistle, and the tow-line of No. 3 craft was cut. The steamer's speed increased, though it did not much matter so far as getting out of the fire zone was concerned, as the Spanish Costaguardia's attention became ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... your delight in conversing with the nurseryman, and looking at his illustrated catalogues, where all the pears are drawn perfect in form, and of extra size, and at that exact moment between ripeness and decay which it is so impossible to hit in practice. Fruit cannot be raised on this earth to taste as you imagine those pears would taste. For years you have this pleasure, unalloyed by any disenchanting reality. How you watch the tender twigs in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... sailed and loafed, losing ambition and self-respect, aware that the majority of the village people considered me too lazy to earn a living, and caring little for their opinion. At first I had kept up a hit or miss correspondence with one or two of my associates in the bank, but after a while I dropped even this connection with the world. I was ashamed to have my former acquaintances know what I had become, and they, apparently, were ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... fallen into some difficulty with the authorities. It was singular, for he was of an inquiring mind, and had always tried to find out what would be expected of him, but had never hit upon the right thing. ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... delighted whenever Becky "downed" an enemy. They were such a lot of stupid people—the enemies—and I reflected during the course of the story that, after all, Thackeray had said that poor Becky had no mother to guide her footsteps. When the Marquis of Steyne was hit on the forehead with the diamonds, I thought it served him right; but I was unhappy because poor Becky had lost the jewels. In finishing the book with those lovely Thackerayan cadences, my mother said severely, "That is what always happens ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... is an idea! Hollis, you've hit the nail on the head this time. But I'd want her willing and loving, with no ugly ways. And good blood, too. I'd want to know what her father ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... clothes over his chest and lifted him, heavy as he was, high in the air and shook him, so that his shirt and waistcoat and coat tore. Then the man let him down, took him by the collar, held him in one hand as if in a vise and hit him blow after blow, the big tall fellow, just as one punishes little children, such blows that his cries brought the people running, and two or three voices called out: "Let him go, Fausch! Do you want to kill him?" Some of the men caught the smith by the arm. Finally he let go of ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... hope of, behind there, broken all to pieces out at sea, and laying a great white table-cloth of foam all the way to the shore, as if the marine gods were to dine off it! Alas, for these unhappy arrow shots of Nature; she will never hit her mark with those unruly waves of hers, nor get one of them, into the ideal shape, if we wait for a thousand years. Let us send for a Greek architect to do it for her. He comes—the great Greek architect, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... in. My sister said I could not take my brother's suit. He told me to take it and bring it home in good condition at night. My sister is supposed to be the plaintiff, but she did not make the complaint. The landlady came in and hit me three times in the head with a broom. My sister called her in and then she threw a piece of wood after me. Sister started crying, but she did not get hit. The landlady got hit. When I fell down I striked her ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... then, and make an end. Again the smoke ripples along the line of bayonets and fire is re-opened, this time at closer range and with far greater effect. The stubborn grandeur of the British soldier is displayed by desperate circumstances. The men shoot to hit. The attack crumples. The Emirs—horse and man—collapse. The others turn and walk—for they will not run—sullenly back towards the town. The square starts forward. The road to the river is open. With dusk the water is reached, and never have ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... standing in the burning sun, blew loudly the air of the soldier's song: "Now, adieu, Louisa, wipe your face, every ball does not hit." Mournfully the melody sounded in the stillness, like accusing spirits who wept the insult of ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... stagnant pool corrupt with standing still; If water run, 'tis sweet, but else grows quickly putrefied. If the full moon were always high and never waned nor set, Men would not strain their watchful eyes for it at every tide. Except the arrow leave the bow, 'twill never hit the mark, Nor will the lion chance on prey, if in the copse he bide. The aloes in its native land a kind of firewood is, And precious metals are but dust whilst in the mine they hide. The one is sent abroad and grows more precious straight than gold; The other's brought to light and ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... hard-hit beast a danger? I've wounded a more terrible one than any boar that ever bristled. I'm trying to kill something more terrifying. And ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... patriotic landlord, Squire Henry, of Straffan, county of Kildare, had hit on an expedient to benefit the wool-growers in general, and his numerous tenantry in particular. Knowing that market value is in the direct ratio of demand and scarcity, he annually buried the wool shorn from his own sheep, lest it might interfere with the profitable sale of his tenants' ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 540, Saturday, March 31, 1832 • Various
... high-pitched yells of encouragement to Kala Nag, above the trumpeting and crashing, and snapping of ropes, and groans of the tethered elephants. "Mael, mael, Kala Nag! (Go on, go on, Black Snake!) Dant do! (Give him the tusk!) Somalo! Somalo! (Careful, careful!) Maro! Mar! (Hit him, hit him!) Mind the post! Arre! Arre! Hai! Yai! Kya-a-ah!" he would shout, and the big fight between Kala Nag and the wild elephant would sway to and fro across the Keddah, and the old elephant catchers would wipe the ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... 'em?" he said. "I had only to lean over and hit 'em on the bean with the butt end of my gun, and it was a case of 'Where am ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... government which commissioned them. Out of sixty, the number of special justices in Jamaica, there are not more than fifteen, or twenty at farthest, who are not the merest tools of the attorneys and overseers. Their servility was graphically hit off by the apprentice. "If busha say flog em, he flog em; if busha say send them to the treadmill, he send em." If an apprentice laughs or sings, and the busha represents it to the magistrate as insolence, he feels it his duty to make ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... own soldiers. Lisle instantly ran and kissed the dead body, then cheerfully presented himself to a like fate. Thinking that the soldiers destined for his execution stood at too great a distance, he called to them to come nearer: one of them replied, "I'll warrant you, sir, we'll hit you:" he answered, smiling, "Friends, I have been nearer you, when you have missed me." Thus perished this generous spirit, not less beloved for his modesty and humanity, than esteemed for his courage ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... (I want to [do it] all alone). In spite of this independence and these ambitious inclinations, there seldom appears an invention of his own in language. Here belongs, e. g., the remark of the child, das Bett ist zu holzhart (the bed is too wooden-hard), after having hit himself against the bed-post. Further, to the question, "Do you like to sleep in the large room?" he answered, O ja ganz lieberich gern; and when I asked, "Who, pray, speaks so?" the answer came very slowly, with deliberation and with ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... twice while he was swinging that bottle.... Yeah, twice, I'm tellin' you. You had time enough. But not you. You just stood there like a bump on a log and let him hit you. Yo're a fine-lookin' example of a two-legged man, you are. If you ain't careful, Bull, some two-year-old infant is gonna come along and ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... the right. Meanwhile the Captain and the Engineer are flying about getting off a crew of blacks into the canoe we are towing alongside. This being done the Captain explains to me that on the voyage up "the Engineer had fired at, and hit a hippopotamus, and without doubt this was its body floating." We are now close enough even for me to recognise the four stumps as the deceased's legs, and soon the canoe is alongside them and makes fast to ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... constantly wandered about to get buds and plants for us. He was a skilful archer; I saw him at a distance of twenty or twenty-five paces kill a small bird with a blunt arrow, and when I placed myself as a target he hit me right in the middle of the breast at a distance ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... dangerously. For a passing moment she had a sensation of that physical fear from which no moral courage can wholly redeem the weak in body. But she showed none of it; her pose was unchanged; only the hand on which her head rested shook a little. And she began to laugh. "You look as if you were going to hit me," she said. ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... will," said Rob, firmly. "When we've pushed up to the head of the Athabasca River and gone over the Yellowhead Pass it will all be downhill. We'll go fast when we hit the rivers running south. And we'll come in but a little way from the Boat Encampment, which was a rendezvous for all the old traders who crossed by the Saskatchewan trail below us. But, you see, we'll be taking a new way; ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... opening my eyes, my first thought was: It will be hit or miss at the Bank of England within the next sixty minutes. We had engaged for a coaching party to Versailles and were to dine there. I left for the drive that day with a dim fear that before the sun set I might be under the necessity of ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... track swerved sharply to the left. Knight saw it too late to moderate his speed. The General hit the curve and reared on its right wheels, hanging there for a breathless moment. Tom clutched the edge of the tender to keep from being thrown off. He saw Knight's hand slip from the throttle as he slammed it shut, ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop
... story, and pausing some minutes, he slapt his forehead, as if he had hit upon something material, and took his leave, saying he would ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... "Ah! The thing doesn't hit you! You don't get it properly! Here's the point. All his family are most fearfully dead against his going on the stage. There's going to be no end of trouble if he isn't headed off. And, what's worse, my Aunt Agatha ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... I gave you to write," said the inkstand. "It was a hit at you for your conceit. Strange that you cannot see that people make a fool of you! I gave you that hit pretty cleverly. I confess, though, ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... actual hostilities. The torpedo, which was set to a depth of about 10 feet, struck the net in the middle and threw up an immense spout of water, but without getting to the ship, which was apparently uninjured. Although it hit the net immediately below the center boom, no fracture occurred, and the points remained intact. Although at the short range the torpedo would spin through the water at from 30 to 40 horse power, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... prove the gallon of Cognac brandy, which a lady recommended as the foundation of a Liqueur. "Stop, dear madam, if you please," said my grandfather, Dr. Rutherford, "you can [add] nothing to that; it is flaconnade with L1000," and a capital hit, egad. Contra.—It is terribly like a hack author to make an abridgement of what I have written so lately. Pro.—But a difference may be taken. A history may be written of the same country on a different plan, general where the other is detailed, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... you are right, Mr. Holmes," cried our client. "A thousand things come back to me which make me certain that you have hit it. Oh, let us lose not an instant in bringing help ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... assignable cause.] Chance — N. chance, indetermination, accident, fortune, hazard, hap, haphazard, chance medley, random, luck, raccroc^, casualty, contingence, adventure, hit; fate &c (necessity) 601; equal chance; lottery; tombola^; toss up &c 621; turn of the table, turn of the cards; hazard of the die, chapter of accidents, fickle finger of fate; cast of the dice, throw of the dice; heads or tails, flip of a coin, wheel of Fortune; sortes^, sortes Virgilianae^. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... which they fly, I soon discover the nest placed in the fork of a small soft maple, which stands amid a thick growth of wild cherry-trees and young beeches. Carefully concealing myself beneath it, without any fear that the workmen will hit me with a chip or let fall a tool, I await the return of the busy pair. Presently I hear the well-known note, and the female sweeps down and settles unsuspectingly into the half-finished structure. Hardly have her wings rested before her eye has penetrated my screen, and with a ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... gemmules do not exist. Transfusion of blood has failed to affect inheritance in the slightest degree. Pangenesis, with its attraction of gemmules from all parts of the body into the germ-cells, and the free circulation of gemmules in the offspring till they hit upon or are attracted by the particular cell or cells, with which alone they can readily unite, seems a less feasible theory and less in conformity with the whole of the facts than an hypothesis of germ-continuity which supposes that the development ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball
... Miss got so mad she didn't know what ter do, she said nobody wuz a goin' ter whip her niggers, but the patter roller men 'sisted so she said after er while, 'Well, but I'm goin' ter stan' right here an' when I say stop, yer got ter stop', an' they 'greed to dat, an' the third time dey hit him she raised her han' an' said 'STOP' an' dey had ter let my brother go. My Miss wuz a big 'oman, she'd weigh nigh on ter three ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... Doctor hit on the solution at a leap. He remembered the look now. The little fellow, although he was as straight as a dart, had the eyes that go usually with a crooked back; he was not at all deformed, and yet a deformed person ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... piteously, their bed-clothes were all stripped off, and their terror increased. On the twenty-fourth night, they thought all the wood of the King's oak was violently thrown down by their bed-sides; they counted sixty-four billets that fell, and some hit and shook the beds in which they lay: but in the morning none were found there, nor had the door been opened where the billet-wood was kept. The next night, the candles were put out, the curtains rattled, and a dreadful crack like thunder was heard; and one of ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... some one to shoot him. Then I thought of striking the great beast on the head with a hatchet, while he had hold of some domestic animal. The plan seemed feasible, but I kept my own council and my hatchet, and practiced with it until I could hit a mark, and thought I could bury the sharp blade ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... loving way to the astounded Gualtier. "I saw," he continued, "that it would be a most unscientific waste of lead. The very first shot you fired showed that you were utterly unacquainted with our American invention, and the next was as bad. Why, out of the whole six only one hit me. See here." ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... had a shell-hole in one of the cupolas, but except for a few feet of mosaic in the ceiling, was undamaged. The frescoes on the porch of Blagovestchensky Cathedral were badly damaged by a shell. Another shell hit the corner of Ivan Veliki. Tchudovsky Monastery was hit about thirty times, but only one shell went through a window into the interior, the others breaking the brick ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... Obry who thus met the Prince. He was the old man's godchild. The old man's left eye was bleeding, and there was a scratch on his cheek as if made by a fingernail. To Obry the Prince attributed these wounds to the spite of the Baronne de Feucheres. Half an hour later he told his valet he had hit his head against a night-table. Later again in the day he gave another version still: he had fallen against the door to a secret staircase from his bedroom while letting the Baronne de Feucheres out, the secret staircase being in communication with ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... whip me for somethin' or nother. One time she hit me wid a iron miggin. (You uses it in churnin'.) It made a bad place on my head. She done it 'cause I let some meal dat she was parchin' burn up. After she done it she got sort a scared an' doctored me ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration |
