"Plashing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... about him, and he expected them to pass on in the relentless hunt. They, too, looked worn, and he fancied that the eyes of chiefs and renegades expressed disappointment and deep anger. Nobody in the long canoes spoke, and, silent save for the plashing of the paddles they went on ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... cut under each hyperborean form. The court was spacious, well paved, and perfectly clean, there being probably another entrance behind the stables for removing the litter. Everything around appeared solitary, and would have been silent, but for the continued plashing of the fountain; and the whole scene still maintained the monastic illusion which the fancy of Waverley had conjured up.—And here we beg permission to close a chapter of still life. [There is no particular mansion described under the name of Tully-Veolan; but the peculiarities of the description ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... of the tall, slim Saratoga trees enclosed by the quadrangle of the hotel, exquisitely kept, and with its acres of greensward now showing their colour vividly in the light of the electrics, which shone from all sides on the fountain flashing and plashing in the midst. I said that here was that union of the sylvan and the urban which was always the dream of art, and which formed the delicate charm of pastoral poetry; and although I do not think she quite grasped the notion, I saw that she had a pleasure in ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and down came the lady, as well as ever she went up, and not a word but away with her: the captain had her in a trice in our boat, safe and snug, and off we put, rowing for the bare life, all silent as ever. I think I hear the striking of our oars and the plashing of the water this minute, which we would have gladly silenced, but could not any way in nature. But none heard it, or at least took any notice against us. I can give you no idea of the terror which the lady manifested when the boat stood out to sea, at the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... compassionate heart. The two men in the boat, standing up and faintly endeavouring to raise their voices, saw that a great crowd of heads was turned towards them from the sides of the vessel, that a boat was lowered and pushed off. The plashing of oars, the sound of a cheer, came to the ears of the seafarers. The old sailor muttered something that sounded like "Thank God!" and his companion burst into tears, but the man at the bottom of the boat lay still: they had not been able to make him hear or understand. The officer ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... possible that the whole bed was dry? I felt that all my remaining strength would be needed to reach the bank. Was I to die of thirst in the middle of a river-bed? I rose painfully to walk the last bit, but I had not taken many steps before I stopped short. A duck rose on whirring wings, I heard the plashing sound of water, and the next moment I stood at the edge of ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... nevertheless, it was—the house of prayer. A token of the perils of the wilderness was seen in the grim head of a wolf which had just been slain within the precincts of the town, and, according to the regular mode of claiming the bounty, was nailed on the porch of the meeting-house. The blood was still plashing on the doorstep. There happened to be visible at the same noontide hour so many other characteristics of the times and manners of the Puritans that we must endeavor to represent them in a sketch, though far less vividly than they were reflected ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the sea-walls which bulwark Venice from the Adriatic, and singing—those at least of us who had the power to sing. Four of our Venetians had trained voices and memories of inexhaustible music. Over the level water, with the ripple plashing at our keel, their songs went abroad, and mingled with the failing day. The barcaroles and serenades peculiar to Venice were, of course, in harmony with the occasion. But some transcripts from classical operas were even more attractive, through the dignity with which these men invested them. By ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... within and without; the windows were raised, and they could see the people in the gardens strolling beneath the lime trees; the starlight falling on the plashing fountain and the gray, motionless statues; the pearly light of the lines of lamps, shining down the long arcades; the glitter of jewelry and precious merchandise in the marvellous boutiques; the groups ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... left to his work. But his mood had been diverted, and he presently found that he was wasting time. He walked to the window, and stood there gazing at the bright flower-beds in the formal garden, the fountain plashing in its center, the low hills and woods that closed the horizon, the villages with their church-towers, piercing the shelter of the woods. May had drawn over the whole her first veils of green. The English perfection, ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the darkness of the afternoon, vivid and ghostly. As Raasay House, with its lamp-lit windows shining in a snowy recess, is approached, the engines slow down, and through the howl of the wind can be heard the plashing of oars. The broad waves swirl and seethe cruelly around the ferry-boat and toss it about at all angles, up and down, on crest and in trough, till you fear it will end its struggles keel upwards, and send the mail-bags down ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... in her fullness from an unclouded sky. Through the ethereal atmosphere which bathed the storied city her beams fell, plashing noiselessly upon the grim memorials of a stirring past. With a mantle of peace they gently covered the former scenes of violence and strife. With magic, intangible substance they filled out the rents in the grassy walls and smoothed away the scars of battle. The pale ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... a bare possibility and—anxiety does not reason! As he crossed to a spot where several persons were bending over a couch of straw, a tremendous clap of thunder shook the solid walls of the cavern. This was immediately followed by a torrent of rain, the plashing of which outside suggested that all the windows of heaven had been suddenly opened. The incident was natural enough in itself, but the anxious youth took it as a bad omen, and trembled as he had never before trembled at the disturbances ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... scampering in Berkshire had a rustic flavour; there were moments that were almost repose, a breathing space between the blue river and the blue sky, in a world that seemed made of green fields and hanging woods, the plashing of waters, and the song of the lark. But in London the very atmosphere was charged with hurry and agitation; the freshness was gone from the verdure of the parks; the glory of the rhododendrons had faded; the Green Park ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... proclaim the approach of the carts crawling in our direction. Nearer and nearer they came till they stopped at the gate, and the familiar bell tolled out. I heard the footsteps of the warder plashing across the yard, growling at the rain. Then I heard the grating of the bolts as they were slowly drawn back, and the creaking of the gates on their hinges. Then the rumble began again, and one by one the carts drew up into the yard. There ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... tries to smash up the other's ravitaillement. To avoid this, the ravitaillement wagons start at different hours after dark, now at dusk, now at midnight. Sometimes, close by the trenches on a clear, still night, the plashing and creaking of the enemy's wagons can be heard through the massacred trees. I remember being shelled along one bleak stretch of moorland road just after a drenching December rain. The trench lights rising over The Wood, three ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... in dark confined places: that cheerless, endless plashing of water is the most inhospitable sound ever heard. The stiff grin of those French statues, or ogling Canova Graces, is by no means more happy, I think, than the smile of a skeleton, and not so natural. Those little pavilions in which ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... forked lightning cleaves the darkness, and behold! a huge vessel close at hand, but hitherto unseen, lofty and full-sailed, and for a moment black against the instant of light, and then utterly lost again. The plashing of rain hissed in the sea, and a voice would come out of the unseen—"Port, you lubber!" The ship, or whatever it is, has no lights at all, though on board it they can see mine. Ah, it's no use peering forward to discover on which side is the new danger; for ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... of time, and had but little understanding of its flight. But there were days and nights in it; and when the sun was high, and when the rays of lamps were crooked in the running water, I was still afloat, I thought: plashing the slippery walls and houses with the cleavings of the tide, as my black boat, borne upon it, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... the west eastward. The mountain-peaks stood there, stern and lofty as ever, with their heads wrapped in hoods of cloud. Gunnar sat down at the outer edge of the pier, with his feet hanging listlessly over the water, which, in slow and monotonous plashing, beat against the timbers. Far out in the distance he could hear the breakers roar among the rocky reefs; first the long, booming roll, then the slowly waning moan, and the great hush, in which the billows pause to listen to themselves. It is the heavy ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... with harpoons, for the skin of the crocodile is not in this country considered impenetrable. Their intentions were, however, frustrated by the sudden disappearance of the crocodile, which dived the moment he perceived the canoe so near him, making a loud plashing noise, and agitating the water in a remarkable manner in his descent. They waited some time, in hopes he would rise again, but they were not again gratified with the ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... name of the palace or public place over which they stand guard; and though invariably civil, you might as well put a question to a statue of an old Roman as to one of them. While we stood under the loggia, however, looking at the rain plashing into the court, a soldier of the Papal Guard kindly directed us up the staircase, and even took pains to go with us to the very entrance of the picture-rooms. Thank Heaven, there are but two of them, and not many pictures which one cares to ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the west, lighting up the rain and making it glorious. Then the wind veered, and the clouds seemed to close over them again, and the lightning, not quite so vivid or so frequent but still terrible, and the rain, with an incessant plashing, set in as for the whole night. Darkness was upon them, not a house was in sight, the chill cold of the ceaseless rain seemed beyond endurance, the horse was well-nigh exhausted and walked at a dull pace, ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... clams to be found so often upon the premises of this builder. Does he sup on them, or are they only the cups and saucers of his vegeto-aquarian menage? Blue and yellow all,—the sky and the sedge-rows, the calm lake and the canoe, the plashing basswood-leaves ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... from his father a little field close beside the sea. Round this field the branches of the pine trees murmured a response to the plashing of the waves. Beneath the pines the soil was red, and the crimson shade of the earth mingling with the blue waves of the bay gave them a pensive violet hue, most of all in the quiet evening hours dear to ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... of their speed for the hoisting of the sail should undo them; the reassuring voice of a hopeful boatman—"You be easy, missis; we'll catch 'em up!"—the less confident one of his mate—"Have a try at it, anyhow!" Then her joy when the sail filled and the plashing of her way spoke Hope beneath her bulwark as she caught the wind. Then her dread that the Devil's craft ahead would make sail too, and overreach them after all, and the blessing in her heart for her hopeful oarsman, whose view ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... said I to Carleton. I started as I spoke at the alteration in my own voice. The gun went off, but the report was, as it were, stifled by the compressed atmosphere. It did not even alarm some water-fowl that were plashing and floundering in the creek a few hundred ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... flowers bent down and rose up again, whispering, lapping against the sides of the boat like little waves. The flax-field before them appeared to be infinite, but presently a white mist enveloped them, and they heard the plashing of real waves, but above the mist they heard ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... morning he was plashing about in his bath tub when the door was bluntly opened and then partly closed. He faced around in amazement at the audacity of anyone boldly intruding into a bath room—the only place left in Germany for the self-respecting Naked Cult. His eyes fell upon another ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... towards a quadrangle; the outer side bordering the river has been glazed in, but in the interval of waiting Rallywood could hear the water plashing and sobbing against the foundations of the old walls, and the wild sound of the tsa, sweeping down from the snowy frontier above Kofn Ford, as it wailed and howled drearily along the dark waters. He almost started ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... against the colossal fountain, the waters of which were plashing into the great basin, and found that from where we were standing we had a good view of the entrance to the hotel. That the theatres were over was proved by the number of cars and taxis that were depositing people in evening-dress who had come to the Ritz to supper. Hence we had not long ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... scarce know where, No matter: Murder is cluttering there. Reel the hollows: close up! close up! Death feeds thick, and his food is his cup. Down go bodies, snap burst eyes; Trod on the ground are tender cries; Brains are dash'd against plashing ears; Hah! no time has battle for tears; Cursing helps better—cursing, that goes Slipping through friends' blood, athirst for foes'. What have soldiers with tears to do?— We, who this mad-house ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... my voice, winning her with my looks of love. I strove to warn her, but my tongue refused its office; I strove to tear him from her, but I was rooted to the ground—I awoke with the agony. There were the solitary hoar precipices—there the plashing sea, the quiet strand, and the blue sky over all. What did it mean? was my dream but a mirror of the truth? was he wooing and winning my betrothed? I would on the instant back to Genoa—but I was banished. I laughed—the dwarfs yell burst from my lips—I banished! Oh, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... the store of amusement was endless. The great wheel, which drove the whole machinery; the plash-mill, or, more properly, wauk-mill—a word Robert derived from the resemblance of the mallets to two huge feet, and of their motion to walking—with the water plashing and squirting from the blows of their heels; the beatles thundering in arpeggio upon the huge cylinder round which the white cloth was wound—each was haunted in its turn and season. The pleasure of the water itself was inexhaustible. Here sweeping in a mass along the race; there divided ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... differing from the Tudor ones, this is the most impressive of all the courts here, with its cloisters surrounding a quadrangle of greenery in the midst of which a fountain plays. Whether looked at from the gallery windows, where the plashing of the water may be heard on a summer day, or examined in our walk round the Cloisters, the Fountain Court is a beautiful and restful place, which, with its surrounding of untrodden grass—starred in spring with myriad daisies—forms a delightful contrast to the ...
— Hampton Court • Walter Jerrold
... still it seemed that all life was fenced and barred out from the desolate ground over which I was journeying. On the west there flowed the impassable Jordan, on the east stood an endless range of barren mountains, and on the south lay that desert sea that knew not the plashing of an oar; greatly therefore was I surprised when suddenly there broke upon my ear the long, ludicrous, persevering bray of a donkey. I was riding at this time some few hundred yards ahead of all my party ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... sent me on with the guide to investigate. Leaving our horses, we moved forward swiftly but quietly; there was just the possibility of a trap. The place was almost like an enclosure on a large hacienda, but the fence was composed of trees, and we could hear the plashing waters of a stream. ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... recognise—a light over everything by which everything was transfigured. The clock in the tower struck seven, and the strokes of the ancient bell sounded like a wedding chime. The air sang with the thrilling treble of the songbirds, with the silvery music of the plashing water and the softer harmony of the leaves stirred by the fresh morning wind. There was a smell of new-mown hay from the distant meadows, and of blooming roses from the beds below, wafted up together to my window. ...
— The Upper Berth • Francis Marion Crawford
... thousand exquisite perfumes. The floor of this amphitheatre consisted of a great basin of rock, partly filled with fine white sand brought down from the uplands during countless generations by the flow of the stream, the basin being brimful of crystal-clear water which came pouring and plashing into it from above over a series of miniature cataracts, the lowest of which, about twelve feet high, impinged upon a small ledge of rock which projected into the basin for the space of about ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood |
