"Ripple" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which the snow, gathering from the highest Alps, trickles through a natural channel hidden under the trees and eaten through the rock, escaping below through a gap without a sound. The watery sheet overhanging the fall glides so gently that no ripple is to be seen on the surface which mirrors the chaise as you drive past. The postboy smacks his whip; you turn past a crag; you cross a bridge: suddenly there is a terrific uproar of cascades tumbling ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... there must have been some indication of returning life shown before I was keen enough to notice it. For of a sudden, as I gazed, I saw a faint rippling on the surface of the water of the bath. Gods! Would it come back again to my love at last—this life, this wakefulness? The ripple died out as it had come, and I stooped my head nearer to the bath to try if I could see some faint heaving of her bosom some small twitching of the limbs. No, she lay there still without even a flutter ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... river. During all this time they had seen no human being, though, probably, many a wandering savage had watched them from the covert of the bank, as they floated silently between the forests. It was an unbroken solitude, where the ripple of their paddles sounded loudly on the ear, and their voices, subdued by the stillness, were sent back in lonely echoes from ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... through, with the same dark shade upon her face, in the same attitude even to the holding of the screen, with her lips a little apart, her brow a little contracted, but for the moment dead. He sees her consciousness return, sees a tremor pass across her frame like a ripple over water, sees her lips shake, sees her compose them by a great effort, sees her force herself back to the knowledge of his presence and of what he has said. All this, so quickly, that her exclamation and her dead condition ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... 'Go it, Jamie!' 'Well ridden!' A subdued hum runs round the excited spectators. The ardent racers are nose and nose. One swift, sharp cut, the cruel whip hisses through the air, and the black is fairly 'lifted in,' a winner by a nose. The ripple of conversation breaks out afresh. The band strikes up a lively air, and the saddling for the ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... might make in winning a walking race. At a certain point they stopped and changed to a sort of slow, swinging stamp, numbering not a quarter of the steps, but occupying about the same time. The moment the last echoing stamp had died away would come again the run or ripple of light, hurrying feet, and then again the thud of the heavier walking. It was certainly the same pair of boots, partly because (as has been said) there were no other boots about, and partly because they had a small but unmistakable creak in them. Father Brown had ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... terrible distortions lingering within them, seemed to follow me, when, taking to my boat again, I rowed off to a kind of garden or public walk in the sea, where there were grass and trees. But I forgot them when I stood upon its farthest brink—I stood there, in my dream—and looked, along the ripple, to the setting sun; before me, in the sky and on the deep, a crimson flush; and behind me the whole city resolving into streaks of red and ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... itself to her as a mere welter of confused forces. If goodness, or aspiration, or any godlike thing arose, for a moment—like some shipwrecked soul with hands out-stretched above the waves—swiftly it sank again submerged, leaving only a faint ripple on the surface, soon ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... again and again, and yet again. And made the water ripple round the ship, Bob Howlett afterwards declared. But five minutes after, when he was down with Mark in the middies' berth, while the hero of the evening sat hot and quivering in every nerve, Bob ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... be accounted for by the fact that Miss Diana presented to the first view of the gazer a dazzling combination of pink and white, a flashing pair of black eyes, a ripple of dimples about the prettiest little rosy mouth in the world, and a frequent somewhat saucy laugh, which showed a set of teeth like pearls. Add to this a quick wit, a generous though spicy temper, and a nimble tongue, and you will ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... be any if I can help it," she answered with a light ripple of laughter. "Please go and put on ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... Xerxes had spread, like the ripple from a pebble splashing in a pool, over the face of every nobleman in hearing. Now their praises came ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... and it was high noon, and he was hungry. He had in his pocket a small loaf of bread and two frankfurters, and he heard the splashing ripple of a brook. At that juncture the road was bordered by thick woodland. He followed, pushing his way through the trees and undergrowth, the sound of the brook, and sat down in a cool, green solitude with a sigh ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... seized the terrific pledge, and, with a look betokening some deadly purpose, hastened to his wife's chamber. He demanded admittance in too peremptory a tone for denial. His features were still, not a ripple marked the disturbance beneath. He stood with a calm and tranquil brow by her bed-side; but she read a fearful message ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Lines that ripple, notes that dance, Foreign measures brought from France, Reaching with a careless ease From high C to—where you please, Clever, frivolous, and gay— These will answer in their way; But that tune of long ago— Stately, ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... island. Between this solidly frozen press of pans and the dissolving field in Anxious Bight there had been a lane of ruffled open water before the frost fell. It measured perhaps fifty yards. It was now black and still, sheeted with new ice which had been delayed in forming by the ripple of that exposed situation. Doctor Rolfe had encountered nothing as doubtful. He paused on the brink. A long, thin line of solid pan ice, ghostly white in the dusk beyond, was attached to the rocks of the Little Spotted Horse. It led all the way to Tickle-my-Ribs. Doctor ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... recitations, and in ringing the changes on all the vocal and alphabetical sounds. Not even an echo; only the cawing of a solitary crow, flying at some distance. The pond is one bright, flat spread, without a ripple—a vast Claude Lorraine glass, in which I study the sky, the light, the leafless trees, and an occasional crow, with flapping wings, flying overhead. The brown fields have a few white patches ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... gallynippers, whatever they were, certainly did not; they were believed to abound at the bottom of the deep holes; but the boys never stayed long in the deep holes, and they preferred the shallow places, where the river broke into a long ripple (they called it riffle) on its gravelly bed, and where they could at once soak and bask in the musical rush of the sunlit waters. I have heard people in New England blame all the Western rivers for being yellow ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... intimacy grew, Hal found himself looking forward to these swift-winged little visits. They made a welcome break in the detailed drudgery; added to the day a glint of color, bright like the ripple of half-hidden flame that crowned Milly's head. Once Veltman, intruding on their talk, had glared blackly and, withdrawing, had waited for the girl in the hallway outside from whence, as she left, Hal could hear ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... bows and arrows. Felix was so near that he could make out the strings of beads and claws of wild animals about their necks, could see their red skins glisten, and could watch the muscles of their slim thighs move and ripple as they guided their wise little horses more by pressure of the knee than by use of the rude Indian bridles. Not one of them spoke, once a pony snorted in the dust, but that was the only sound as they moved past him and turned into the trail with their faces ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... clouds that had sufficient openings to admit the passage of its fading light. The canopy overhead was heavy and dense, promising another night of darkness, but the surface of the lake was scarcely disturbed by a ripple. There was a little air, though it scarce deserved to be termed wind. Still, being damp and heavy, it had a certain force. The party in the castle were as gloomy and silent as the scene. The two ransomed prisoners felt humbled and discoloured, but their humility ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... contrast to Mr. Newdegate was Mr. Bradlaugh! He was the very picture of suppressed fire, of rampant energies held in leash: the nerves of the face playing like the ripple on water, the whole frame quivering, and the eyes ablaze. It was wonderful how he managed to keep his intellect alert and his judgment steady. Six hours of such work as he had in court that day were enough to ...
— Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh • George W. Foote
... thought of whom crushed him into self-annihilation, Edwards is unconsciously troubled by the strange contrast between the effect and the stupendous cause assigned for it. When the angel of the Lord comes down to trouble the waters, one would expect rather to see oceans upheaved than a trifling ripple in an insignificant pond. There is something almost pathetic in his eagerness to magnify the proportions of the event. He boasts that in six months 'more than three hundred souls were savingly brought home to Christ in this town' (iii. 23). The town itself, it may be observed, though then one of ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... the branches that impeded progress. I sat facing the motionless girl, but could barely distinguish her shapeless form, wrapped in the blanket; and not once did her voice break the stillness. The night hung heavy; not even the gentle ripple of water disturbed the solemn ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... was then itself a little life; No care was clamorous, and the future slept. Me and my happy bark the flowing stream, Without an oar, drew with light ripple down. Now—in the turmoil of the present hour, The future wakes, and fills the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... stands before you; all look at her, but none can interpret her thoughts. But for you, the eye is more or less dimmed, wide-opened or closed; the lid twitches, the eyebrow moves; a wrinkle, which vanishes as quickly as a ripple on the ocean, furrows her brow for one moment; the lip tightens, it is slightly curved or it is wreathed with animation—for you the woman ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... by magic. Where, for weeks, scarcely a ripple had ruffled the surface of the water; now great waves, with crested tops, tore along. The air was full of blinding foam, swept from the tops of the waves; and it was difficult for those on board even to breathe, when facing the force ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... millions to spend as he liked was struck out and the bill was subsequently lost. This affair, which brought us to the verge of war with France, soon blew over, however, and caused only a temporary ripple, although Mr. Webster's attack on the Fortification ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... which we are acquainted—the Lower Laurentian [Footnote: The age of granite is uncertain.—Lyell'a Student's Geology, p. 548.]—were formed under water, but had begun to be elevated before the next series, the Upper Laurentian, were deposited. Ripple marks are found in the Cambrian group [Footnote: Ibid. p. 470], indicating that the parts where they occur formed a sea-beach, and, consequently, that dry land was in ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... been living and acting for a long while in a painful dream. Her usually clear and tranquil soul was troubled and bewildered as she sat in the boat at the head of Felicita's coffin, with her dear face so near to her, yet hidden from her eyes. All around her lay the Lake, with a fine rapid ripple on the silvery blue of its waters, as the rowers, with measured and rhythmical strokes of their oars, carried the boat's sad freight on towards Lucerne. The evening sun was shining aslant down the wooded slopes of the lower hills, and ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... struck his ear. What was in its call to-night that he should thus sway towards it as though drawn by some dread magnetic force? He had been born to the dashing of its waves and knew its every mood and all the passion of its song from frolicsome ripple to melancholy dirge. But there was something odd and inexplicable in its effect upon his spirit as he faced it at this hour. Grim and implacable—a sound rather than a sight—it seemed to hold within its invisible ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... and stolen back to the balcony that opened upon the Canal Grande from the vast upper salon, impelled by her longing for freedom and light. The ripple of the water to the plash of passing gondolas took on the note of distance and soothed her like a lullaby, as the charming maid yielded herself to the golden daydream—the soft breezes lifting the bright rings of hair that clustered about her dainty ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... crying!" The choking sound became an unmistakable ripple of mirth. "It's so absurd! Poor father getting up like that in front of everyone! Did you ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... sharply up into a position behind its starting-point, a gesture in which he must have been trained by the husband of his sister, Mme. de Cambremer. This rapid recovery caused a sort of tense muscular wave to ripple over Legrandin's hips, which I had not supposed to be so fleshy; I cannot say why, but this undulation of pure matter, this wholly carnal fluency, with not the least hint in it of spiritual significance, this wave lashed to a fury by the wind of an assiduity, an obsequiousness ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... There was a ripple of laughter around the compound. They commenced to bait him, those women he would not have wiped his feet on at home. They literally laughed him out ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the balcony of the diminutive inn known as "The Hungarian Crown," watching the sunbeams on the broad current of the Danube and listening to the ripple, the plash and the gurgle of the swollen stream as it rushed impetuously against the banks. A group of Servians, in canoes light and swift as those of Indians, had made their way across the river, and were struggling vigorously to prevent the current from carrying them below a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... without a wind: but shall The ripple of a spring change my resolve? No. Yet it moves again! The waters stir, Not as with air, but by some subterrane 80 And rocking Power of the internal world. What's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... of the moonlight glided over each ripple, and reed, and closing water-lily; over her face, where the hood had fallen back from her loosened hair; over one hand trailing the water, and the other touching the flower at her breast; and, just above ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Bridge a hundred points of light mark the sweep of the Embankment, and above its parapet rise the towers of Westminster, warm grey against the starlight. The black river goes by with only a rare ripple breaking its silence, and disturbing the reflections of the lights ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... many flowers in bloom and the green of the orange and lemon trees was as rich as when the year was young. The villa of white marble was built on a gentle rising knoll, prettily wooded, at the foot of which running through a glade was a tiny streamlet clear as crystal, which with its ripple and the singing of the birds lent music to the air. On the highest garden site was built a tower from whence an extensive view of the city is gained, with its spires and palaces, together with the violet sea, and ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... A ripple of heightened and expectant interest passed over the audience, and then all sat stone-still as if fearing to breathe lest the speaker might again take fright. No danger. The hero in the youth was aroused. ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... that wild border country. Somewhere out there Kells and Jim Cleve would meet. Jim would find her in Kells's hands. Then there would be hell, Joan thought. The possibility, the certainty, seemed to strike deep into her, reviving that dread and terror. Yet she thrilled again; a ripple that was not all cold coursed through her. Something had a birth in her then, and the part of it she understood was that she welcomed the adventure with a throbbing heart, yet looked with awe and shame and distrust at this new, strange ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... was their astonishment when, after waiting many seconds, the bird still remained under water! Minutes passed, and still she did not come up. She came up no more! The foam she had made in her descent floated away—the bosom of the water was smooth as glass—not a ripple disturbed its surface. They could have seen the smallest object for a hundred yards or more around the spot where she ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... standing with Gertrude on the deck of the yacht watching the stars growing dim in the east; the sailors would be singing at the time, and out of the ashen stillness a wind would come, and again we would hear the ripple of the water parting as the jib filled and drew the schooner eastward. I imagined how half an hour later an island would appear against the golden sky, a lofty island lined with white buildings, perchance ancient fanes. 'What a delicious book my six months with Gertrude will be!' I said as I walked ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... day, whose sunshine might have found its way even into his black heart. Oh! how soft, and mellow, and pure, the hurricane of the last night had left it! Not a cloud in the sky, not a breath to ripple the water, or to wave the long trailing locks of the hoary willows, ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... world was silent. The calm valley lay unwinking in the sun. The grave mountains stood about unperturbed, unagitated, calm. The blue sky swept above, peaceful, unflecked by any moving cloud. There was not a leaf in all that land to give a rustle, nor any water which might afford a ripple. It was a world silent, finished, past and beyond life and its frettings, with nothing to trouble, and with nothing which bade one think of any world gone by. Here was no place for memories or dreams. ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... 4.30 on Saturday afternoon, July 31st, being tugged out of the harbour at Granton. The Firth of Forth was then as calm as a lake, scarce a ripple to be seen on its surface. A previous thunderstorm had freshened the air, the rain which had fallen had ceased, and those lovely mists and tints usually to be seen after a storm, had taken the place of the dark clouds ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... seemed to me, something slightly uncanny about this lake, even in repose. The water seemed as translucent as a dark crystal, and as motionless as the surface of a mirror. Nothing stirred its placid surface, not a ripple, not an insect, not ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... rare. Shallows and banks seem to have been numerous during the period of at least the Lower formation. The flagstones of Caithness and Orkney, and the argillaceous fish beds of Cromarty and Ross, not only abound in the ripple-marked surfaces of a shallow sea, but also in cracked and flawed planes that must have dried and split into polygonal partings in the air and the sun. The appearance of these in the neighborhood of the town of Thurso, about half a mile to the east of the ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... distance from the shore as if it were a mirror. It was a bright and beautiful October morning. The air seemed perfectly motionless. The English ships were adorned with countless flags in honor of the occasion, but they all hung down perfectly lifeless upon the masts and rigging. Scarcely a ripple rolled upon the beach; and so silent and still was the morning air, that the voices and echoes came from vast distances along the shore, and the dip of the oars of the boats gliding about in the offing sent its sound for miles around over the smooth surface of the sea; and when ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... not what is called classical poetry, for there is no severe outline,—no sculptured completeness and repose,—no satisfying wholeness of effect to the eye of the mind,—no embodiment of a great action. The poet gives us a breath, a ripple of alternating fear and hope in the heart of an old man, and that is all. He catches an emotion that had its roots deep in the past, and that is striving onward towards something in the future;—he traces the ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... the hearts of men, of women, and of children; the God in whose presence there is always joy, the God in whose presence there is continual laughter and music. When we think of Shri Krishna we seem to hear the ripple of the river, the rustling of the leaves in the forest, the lowing of the kine in the pasture, the laughter of happy children playing round their parents' knees. He is so fundamentally the God who is human in everything; who bends in human sympathy over the ...
— Avataras • Annie Besant
... its cattle like pebbles, its opposite side towering also to the edge of this upper plain. There it lay, another world. One step farther away from its rim, and the two edges of the plain had flowed together over it like a closing sea, covering without a sign or ripple the great country which ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... o'clock we entered a thick dark wood, and after an ascent of a quarter of an hour emerged upon a fine open lawn in front of a large house with lights gleaming in the windows. The ripple of the Drina was no longer audible, but we saw it at some distance below us, like a cuirass of polished steel. As we entered the inclosure we found the house in a bustle. The captain, a tall strong corpulent man of about forty years of age, came forward ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... pure presence, And the radiance on thy brow; Oh, follow where the Asokas wave Their sprays of gold and purple, As if to beckon thee the way That Krishna passed but now; He is gone a little forward! Though thy steps are faint for pleasure, Let him hear the tattling ripple Of the bangles round thy feet; Moving slowly o'er the blossoms On the path which he has shown thee, That when he turns to listen It may make his ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... summit of the range, before which winds the valley of the Black with miles of placid stream in view. Quite different is this from White river, which is ever hurrying, rushing along. The Black flows within its grassy banks for long distances with scarcely a ripple; then a whirling rapid is passed, beyond which glides another long ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... vigor and severity in the lean, uncorseted shape, with the bust thrown out against the sky—the bust of a young warrior rather than a woman. There was a hardy, masculine freedom in the pliable motion of her straight back, a ripple with muscles that played easily beneath the close bodice, in her arms, and her finely turned ankles and legs, that were bared below the knee. The very simplicity of her costume helped to mark the Greek severity of her figure. She wore a short skirt of some coarse hempen stuff, covered with a thick ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... came through the passage a few moments later, there was a sound of laughter in the parlor. He recognized the full, round lazy chuckle of Aunt Chloe, but there was a higher girlish ripple that he did not know. He had never heard Sophy laugh before. Nor, when he entered, had he ever seen her so animated. She was helping Chloe set the table, to that lady's intense delight at "Missy's" girlish housewifery. ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... soon we came to a creek that ran through the woods and I could see it was deep and all shaded by the trees. Oh, jiminy, it was fine. And you could hear it ripple too, just like the water of Black Lake up near Temple Camp. If I was a grown-up author I could write some dandy stuff about it, because it was all dark and spooky as you might say, and you could see the trees reflected in it and ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the night! Is it the splash of oars? No—for the two black slaves who guide yon boat which has shot out from the shore into the center of the gulf, are resting on the slight sculls—the boat itself, too, is now stationary—and not a ripple is stirred up by its grotesquely-shaped prow. ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... "Action of Waves" "Edin. New Phil. Journ." volume 31 page 245.) One may, therefore, be allowed to suspect, from the appearance just mentioned in the New Red Sandstone, that at greater depths, the bed of the ocean is heaped up during gales into great ripple-like furrows and depressions, which are afterwards cut off by the currents during more tranquil weather, and again ...
— Volcanic Islands • Charles Darwin
... was only thinking that one of those low-necked English bodices would have made it perfect." Not only her mouth and eyes, but her whole body seemed to ripple with suppressed laughter ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... some of the tall poplar-trees, rooted far below, were on a level with his eyes. Often he stopped there to watch them swaying like upright plumes against the wind. They swayed now in the silvery April air with a ripple of silvery leaves. His eyes sought out intimately the barely swollen buds on the boughs of other forest trees yet far from leaf. They lingered on the white blossoms of the various shrubs. They found the pink hawthorn; in the boughs of one of those ...
— A Cathedral Singer • James Lane Allen
... at the twilight hour when warm airs alternated with cold, like hopes with despairs. Sparbuoys of silver gray were duplicated in the water, wrinkled like a snout at the least ripple from the oars. Boats at anchor seemed twice their real size by reason of their dark shadows made one with them. One by one the yellow riding lights were hung, far in. They shone like new-minted coins; the harbor was itself a purse of black velvet, to which the harbor master held the strings. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... young man, examining the wing of the storm-bird, said, "Grandfather, it is much better; move it but a little now, that I may see!" So he moved it; he gave a flap, and lo! a slight ripple passed over the surface of the sleeping sea. And striking lightly with his wings, again there came a breeze, and the Ogokpegeak, or the scum, was blown away, and the Indians fished again, and ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... himself little with these petty details. To him China was only a pleasing background for Miss Roberta Boynton; he saw no further than her eager, smiling eyes, and heard nothing more distant than the ripple of ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... side-wall of the attic the night of her appearance—the fillet being reproduced by a strip of brass which the artist had torn from his easel and nailed to the plaster, and the classic curves of her hair by a ripple ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the still bay three beautiful ships were heading for the land, the long oars rising and falling swiftly, while the red and white striped sails hung idly in the calm. One could see the double of each ship in the water, broken wonderfully by the ripple of the oars, and after each stretched a white ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... p.m. till long after sunset, you may see the Shirazi taking his rest, undisturbed save for the ripple of running water, the sighing of the breeze through the branches, and croon of the pigeons overhead. Now and again the tinkle of caravan-bells breaks in upon his meditations, or the click-click of the attendant's sandals as he crosses the tiled floor with sherbet, ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... whistle, keeping up his tune as if he were playing orchestra to a banquet, while he watched the dart and splash of a fish from time to time about the surface, and the shadowy shapes of others deep down below the schooner's stern-post, clearly enough seen in the crystal sunlit water set a-ripple by the gentle gliding through it ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... curious to find such calm weather in Ross Sea; in the two months we have been here we have hardly had a strong breeze. Thus, when I was relieved at 2 a.m. on the 25th, I wrote in my diary '. . . It is calm, not a ripple on the water. The three men forming the watch walk up and down the deck. Now and then one hears the penguins' cry, kva, kva, but except these there is no other sound than the tuff, tuff of the motor, 220 times a minute. Ah, that motor! it goes unweariedly. It has now gone for 1,000 ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... reward, when I am in one of those places where the poor animals never think of fleeing because they have never seen man, where the desert stretches out around me so widely that the old world could crumble, and never a single ripple on the dune, a single cloud in the white sky ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... pronounce a burial-service. It was an ocean grave. The mists alone shrouded the burial-place. No spade prepared the grave, nor sexton filled up the hollowed earth. Down, down they sank, and the quick returning waters smoothed out every ripple, and left the sea as if it had not ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... luxurious rest, with the body completely relaxed, but with the senses alert. The wind ceased to blow, and the rain came down straight with an even beat that was not unmusical. No other sound was heard in the forest, as the ripple of the river at the edges was merged into it. Henry began to feel the desire for sleep by and by, and, laying the paddle across the boat in such a way that it sheltered his face, he closed his eyes. In five minutes he would have been sleeping as soundly as a man in a warm bed under ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... for miles every way—of sand or sea, for the water covers it at flood-tides, beating up against the foot of the granite rocks and the granite walls of the ramparts. But at neap tides and eaux mortes, as the French say, there is nothing but a desert of brown, bare sand, with ripple-marks lying across it, and with shallow, ankle-deep pools of salt water here and there. Afar off on the western sky-line a silver fringe of foam, glistening in the sunshine, marks the distant boundary to which the sea has retreated. On every other side of the horizon rises a belt of low cliffs, ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... might be taught the true way to life and eternal happiness. It was 9.30 p.m. when we paddled back to our camp. We met as usual around the camp fire, and each one repeated a verse of Scripture; then we knelt in the shade of the dark bush, with the ripple of the water in our ears, and God's heaven lighted up by His silvery moon, nearly at its full, and offered up our confessions, and prayers, and praises to Almighty God before ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... about my ears, for she informed me this morning that I need have no hopes or aspirations regarding you upon the strength of any attention that you bestowed upon me at Hazeldean, for—you were already engaged," and a little ripple of merry laughter ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... but when death came to pluck him from the tree he dropped like a ripe fruit, smiling, into his hands: or, even as a gentle stream steals unperceived into the ocean, so calmly that its surface is not fretted with a ripple, his soul glided into eternity. To die upon the field of battle, amidst the shouts of victory, in presence of an admiring throng, surrounded by the badges of honor and respect, bequeathing to history a celebrated name, may merit the ambition ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... The golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing else stirred in the room. The old, old fashion. The fashion that came in with our first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has run its course, and the wide ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... southwards with his wife. And while they were rowing, they saw a black ripple on the sea ahead. When they came to the place, they saw that it was the sea-lice. And the outermost layer of skins on the boat was eaten away ...
— Eskimo Folktales • Unknown
... mellow sunset glory Streams o'er the lakelet's breast, And every ripple tells a golden story ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... reefs in Bermuda is the best fun imaginable for persons not liable to sea-sickness. The fisherman has in his left hand a "water-glass," which is merely a stout box with the bottom filled in with plate-glass. The water-glass must be held below the ripple of the surface, which, by the way, requires a fair amount of muscular effort, when through the pane of glass, the sea-floor ten fathoms below is clearly visible. The coloured fish of Jamaica were ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... summit, and a wonderful scene bursts upon our view. Looking north toward where the village is nestling in a hollow surrounded by woods, the waters of Port Jefferson Bay are lying without a visible ripple; the sails of the ships passing up and down the Sound gleam in the sun; and beyond them, like a hazy line, are the shores of Connecticut. On the left are glimpses of farmhouses, the church-spires of Setauket, and rolling fields ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... a ripple of laughter be hind me, something struck me softly upon the cheek, and stooping, I picked up that which lay half unrolled at my feet, but when I looked round Lisbeth ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... repeated, still in the dream that was made of music and moonlight, the ripple of the sea and the stirring of something new in her nature of which all these sweet and beautiful things seemed part. "Love! I never thought this could happen ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... immediately upon the sandstone of the Vindhya range; and it must have been deposited on the sand, while the latter was yet at the bottom of the ocean, though this range is now, I believe, nowhere less than from fifteen hundred to two thousand feet above the level of the sea. The marks of the ripple of the sea may be observed in some places where the basalt has been recently washed off, beautifully defined, as if formed only yesterday, and there is no other substance to be ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... rock, and planted it, and smoothed the sand down round it, and capital fun they had till the tide began to turn. And then Tom heard all the other babies coming, laughing and singing and romping; and the noise they made was just like the noise of a ripple. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... despite the promise of rain over-night, has broken with all the signs and symptoms of a bright July day. The Firth is bathed in sunlight, and the wavelets at full tide are kissing the strand, making a soft musical ripple as they retire, and as the pebbles run down the sandy slope on the retreat of the waves. Beyond the farthest contact of the tide is a line of seaweed dried and desiccated, mixed up with which, in confusing array, are masses of shells, and such ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... beautiful in that soil. She was the natural blossom of that corruption, delicate in the sunshine, her white shoulders expanding in youthfulness, her whole being so fraught with the gladness of life, that she leaped from her stem and darted upon his mouth, scenting him with her long ripple of laughter. ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... vessels. Shaping our course for Beaufort, and slowing down, as we were in no haste to get there, we passed several vessels, showing United States colors to them all. Just as we were crossing through the ripple of shallow water off the "tail" of the shoals, we dipped our colors to a sloop of war which passed three or four miles to the south of us. The courtesy was promptly responded to; but I have no doubt her captain thought me a lubberly and careless seaman to shave ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... fancies, he was never quite without imagination. His thoughts had travelled easily back to a few weeks ago. He saw Virginia sitting there, watched the delightful smile coming and going, the large grey eyes that watched him so ceaselessly, the little ripple of pleasant conversation, which he had never dreamed that he could ever miss. After all, what a child! As a matter of justice, and he told himself that it was justice only which had power to sway his judgment, what right had he to ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and fought on its convenient spaces; women wandered on the serious business of food-getting. The camps stood a pace or two above high-water mark in the meagre shelter of sighing casuarinas, and were often changed, for there were six miles of gently curving, ripple-embroidered shore on which to rest. To this day most of the traffic is regulated by the tide. High water drives the wayfarer to the loose, impeding sand, over which the great convolvulus sends its tireless tentacles, to be thrown back twisted and ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... the falls than we thought, for the water seems to be a ripple about us. Rear it! I'm going to look out and see ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson
... of it. In spite of all her charm and quick laughter, she was not a happy woman. Some shadow from the past lay in her eyes, and when she laughed the sparkle in them was like the momentary sunlit ripple which breaks the surface of a pool for a brief instant and then is lost again ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... New York, considered by some geologists as the successive shores of a receding ocean, are believed by others to be the inequalities on the bottom of a shallow sea. Not only, however, does the general character of these successive terraces suggest the idea that they must have been shores, but the ripple-marks upon them are as distinct as upon any modern beach. The regular rise and fall of the water is registered there in waving, undulating lines as clearly as on the sand-beaches of Newport or Nahant; and we can see on any one ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... well-like pool, ten or fifteen feet deep, with a smooth, circular wall of rock on one side worn by the water through long ages; or else into a deep, oblong pocket, into which and out of which the water glides without a ripple. ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... dizziness passed off in some degree. All she wanted was air, she thought, if there had been any air to be got that sultry night. She rose from the sofa presently, and went out upon the balcony. Below her was the river; not a ripple upon the water, not a breath stirring the rushes on the banks. Between the balcony and the river there was a broad battlemented walk, and in the embrasures where cannon had once been there were great stone vases of geraniums ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... of the lady delegates asked if, in view of the great scarcity of men to take the various fields, and the increased number of vacancies, the theological course in their colleges would be opened to women? And the report said, "A ripple of amusement ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... shining down on the red parasols, the light dresses, the joyous faces and on the ocean, barely stirred by a ripple. When we were out of the harbor, the little vessel swung round the big curve and pointed her nose toward the distant shore which was barely visible through the early morning mist. On our left was the broad estuary of the Seine, her muddy ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... From the hideously clean jetty at his feet, to the distant signal station, that, embowered in bloom, reared its slender arms upwards into the cloudless sky, he knew it all. There was no charm for him in the exquisite blue of the sea, the soft shadows of the hills, or the soothing ripple of the waves that crept voluptuously to the white breast of the shining shore. He sat with his head bowed down, and his hands clasped about his knees, disdaining to look ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... ripple green, Foaming crest and silver sheen, Sleep beneath the moon! Till the daylight comes again, Waking us to ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... moonlight spell. It took us a good long time to reach the mouth of the river, so, instead of returning by sea, we got off the boat there and walked back home over the sands of the beach. It was then far into the night, the sea was without a ripple, even the ever-troubled murmur of the casuarinas was at rest. The shadow of the fringe of trees along the vast expanse of sand hung motionless along its border, and the ring of blue-grey hills around the horizon slept calmly ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... cogitate over what accident must have befallen Jacob Canfield. He left the shore one morning when it was as mild and fair as the brightest June day that ever dawned, and it was pleasant and calm all day. The sun went down as serenely as it rose, and not a ripple was on the sea—yes, it was a mild, lovely October day, from sunrise to sunset. Jake was seen to go out in his boat, but neither Jake nor the boat was ever seen afterward. I tell you I've never made up my mind ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey
... the most profitable way for a young man with a pretty companion to pass the golden hours of a spring afternoon. The freshness of the face at his side, reflecting the freshness of the season, suggested dapplings of sunlight through new leaves, the sound of a brook in the grass, the ripple of tree-shadows ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... difficult to gather the beautiful blooms, that nested so cosily on the cool waters, too fond of their cradle to ever want to creep, or walk upon their slender green limbs. They just rocked there, with every tiny ripple of the water, and only woke up to see the warm sunlight bleaching their ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope
... bodyguard were now out of sight of land. The sun shone brightly and the day was perfectly calm. There was scarcely a ripple upon the ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... he loved the truth. He hated tyranny; he loved liberty. He was the friend of the human race. He lived a brave and thoughtful life. He was a good and true and generous man, and "he died as he lived." Like a great and peaceful river with green and shaded banks, without a murmur, without a ripple, he flowed into the waveless ocean of eternal peace. I love him; I love every man who gave me, or helped to give me the liberty I enjoy tonight; I love every man who helped me put our flag in heaven. I love every man who has lifted ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... The laughing ripple shoreward flew, To kiss the shining pebbles; Loud shrieked the swarming Boys in Blue Defiance to ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... temptation to scream came over her, but the tight muscles of her throat let out no sound. But if Wilbur were not here, where had he gone? He could not have vanished into thin air. The ripple of the water washing on the sand replied. Yes, that Current might have rolled his ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... gay little boats, Diamonds flash from the dipping oars; Laughter and song's mingled melody floats To ripple ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... sufficed to show that, thus far, the calm of the preceding night still continued unbroken, for the surface was as smooth and lustrous as that of plate-glass, save where, here and there, a steamer or two—dwindled to the dimensions of toys—ploughed up a ripple on either bow that swept away astern, diverging as it went, until it gradually faded and was lost a mile away. In addition to the steamers, there were perhaps a dozen sailing craft—colliers and fishing-smacks, mostly—in sight, ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... down through a score of gradations, to Kagax the bloodthirsty little weasel, but will sniff under every old log in the hope of finding a wood mouse; and if he takes a swim, as he is fond of doing, not a big trout in the river but leaves his eddy to rush at the tiny ripple holding bravely across the current. So, with all these enemies waiting to catch him the moment he ventures out, Tookhees must needs make one or two false starts in order to find out where the ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... path; ah! no returning; No second crossing that ripple's flow: Come to me now for the mist is burning: Come ere it darkens; Ah, ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... endeavored to detain her, but she shrank away from his grasp, and glided down the smooth sward to the terrace which divided it from the ripple-barred and ringed ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... pleasure, solace, and recreation, then, is open to him who knows how to distinguish and appreciate the beautiful in Nature! He hears in every breeze and every ripple of water a voice which the uncultivated ear cannot hear; and he sees in every fleeting cloud and varied aspect of Nature some beauty which the ignorant ...
— The Road and the Roadside • Burton Willis Potter
... The only ripple of the surface, till broken by the sculls, was where the swallows dipped as they glided, leaving a circle of tiny wavelets that barely rolled a yard. Past the low but steep bluff of sand rising sheer out of the water, drilled with martins' holes and topped ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... and there a figure, coming up on the forecastle, leaned on the rail to watch the proceedings idly. Without trouble and fuss and almost without a sound was the Ferndale leaving the land, as if stealing away. Even the tugs, now with their engines stopped, were approaching her without a ripple, the burly-looking paddle-boat sheering forward, while the other, a screw, smaller and of slender shape, made for her quarter so gently that she did not divide the smooth water, but seemed to glide on its surface as if on a sheet of plate-glass, a ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... see, my ears listened till I heard the well known ripple of her water in the chamber pot and out of shame impudence whistled, the same as I had heard the groom do to Papa's horse when he wanted it ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... hill, even among the hills that Nature planted around it. The very river, as though it shared one's feelings of compassion for the extinct tribes who lived so pleasantly here, in their blessed ignorance of white existence, hundreds of years ago, steals out of its way to ripple near this mound; and there are few places where the Ohio sparkles more brightly than in the ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... water)—the purest of all the maids that have been named from the sea-foam or the rivulet's ripple, unsullied,—not the troubled and troubling Aphrodite, but the Leucothea of Ulysses, the guiding wave ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... This time only five eggs were laid, and at the present moment Mr. Wren is singing encouragement and appreciation to his brooding mate; and, although the thermometer registers 98 deg. in the shade, his notes joyously ripple out loud and clear, not only to Jenny's delight, but ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... other mouldings, which at first sight appear very elaborate, are nothing more than a chamfer, with a series of small echoes of it on each side, dying away with a ripple on the surface of the wall, as in b, Fig. LV., from Coutances (observe, here the white part is the solid stone, the ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... physical actions shows that these were similar to those which now obtain. Ancient beaches are met with whose pebbles are like those found on modern shores; the hardened sea-sands of the oldest epochs show ripple-marks, such as may now be found on every sandy coast; nay, more, the pits left by ancient rain-drops prove that even in the very earliest ages, the "bow in the clouds" must have adorned the palaeozoic firmament. So that if we could reverse the legend of the Seven Sleepers,—if we ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley |
