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Float   Listen
verb
Float  v. i.  (past & past part. floated; pres. part. floating)  
1.
To rest on the surface of any fluid; to swim; to be buoyed up. "The ark no more now floats, but seems on ground." "Three blustering nights, borne by the southern blast, I floated."
2.
To move quietly or gently on the water, as a raft; to drift along; to move or glide without effort or impulse on the surface of a fluid, or through the air. "They stretch their broad plumes and float upon the wind." "There seems a floating whisper on the hills."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Float" Quotes from Famous Books



... Uttering it, Tommy disappeared. Harriet lunged for her and dragged her companion up, and none too soon, for the little girl had swallowed so much salt water that she was really half drowned. Harriet shook her and pounded her on the back, all the time managing to float on the surface of the water, evidencing that Harriet was something of a swimmer. Yet she was becoming weary and the sense of feeling was leaving her limbs. She realized that it was the chill of the Atlantic and that unless she ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge

... the one in May, or the beginning of June, and the other in October or the beginning of November. The berries are often plucked of unequal ripeness, which must greatly injure the quality of the coffee. It is true when the coffee is washed, the berries which float on the water are separated from the others; but they are only those of the worst quality, or broken pieces, while the half-ripe beans remain at the bottom with the rest. Now, in the description I have given of the method of gathering coffee ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... suit en best, When we do teaeke our bit o' rest, At nunch, a-gather'd here below The sheaede theaese wide-bough'd woak do drow, Where hissen froth mid rise, an' float In horns o' eaele, ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes

... o' the Wisp (Swift and light; fancifully). This is a very imaginative piece, full of mysterious and shadowy lightness, and swift of movement. It seems to just float over the keys and in its general effect is fascinating and spirit-like, with dancing little lights flickering ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte

... than anything that man has dreamed of since the Arabian nights. We can't always have the beautiful aspect of things. Let us make the most of our sights that are beautiful and let the others go. When your foreigner makes disagreeable comments on New York by daylight, float him down the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... following long winter she vexed my righteous soul with her wilfulness and pride. An appeal to her father was idle. She would wind her long, thin arms about his neck and let her waving red hair float over him until the old man was quite helpless to exert authority. The Duke could do most with her. To please him she would struggle with her crooked letters for an hour at a time, but even his influence and authority ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor

... shocking to us who live in cozy homes, with all the graces and pleasures of life around us, that the dwellers in damp cellars and windy attics should creep from their dens of misery into the warmth and glare of the public-house bar, and seek to float for a brief space away from their dull world upon a Lethe stream ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... was nettled; nettled; nettled by the contretemps that had occurred on the very last day, when Mrs. Bilton was so nearly there; nettled and exasperated. So immensely did he want the twins to be happy, to float serenely in the unclouded sunshine and sweetness he felt was their due, that he was furious with them for doing anything to make it difficult. And, jerkily, his angry thoughts pounced, as they so often did, on Uncle Arthur. ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... importunate beggars, the impertinent guides, gone the glare of lights and the blare of cheap music. No longer do the lantern-strung barges of the musicians gather nightly off the Molo. No longer across the waters float the strains of "Addio di Napoli" and "Ciri-Biri-Bi"; the Canale Grande is dark and silent now. The tourist hostelries, on whose terraces at night gleamed the white shirt-fronts of men and the white shoulders of women, now have ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell

... I waited with all the patience of a veteran angler. I knew the water to be very deep, and it lay in a sheltered nook or corner of the rocks about ten feet across; I allowed the line to drop some three or four yards, and not having any float, could only tell I had a bite by feeling a pull at the line, which ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat

... says that "only that portion of the smaller bucket which descends below the original level of the water can be properly said to be immersed, and only an equal bulk of water is displaced." Hence, according to HECLA, a solid, whose weight was equal to that of an equal bulk of water, would not float till the whole of it was below "the original level" of the water: but, as a matter of fact, it would float as soon as it was all under water. MAGPIE says the fallacy is "the assumption that one body can displace another from a place where it isn't," and that Lardner's ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll

... clouds float o'er, The maiden sits by the green sea-shore. The waves are breaking with might, with might, And she breathes out a sigh in the gloom of the night, And her eyes are dim ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... once, immediately, become aware, in an inexpressible manner, of the end to which this flood is streaming. And as we become aware our love goes forth; and our selves are moved from their moorings and would fain float down the stream of joy to its infinite goal. This is the meaning of the longing which stirs within us at ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore

... float away from me again, Geraldine?" asked he, in a low tone. "Wherefore do you withdraw from my arms, to whirl with the will-o'-the-wisps in the death-dance? Come, Geraldine, come; my soul burns for you. My heart calls you with its last faltering throb. ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... throat, in spite of the white hood concealing all but one stray wisp of brown hair, her loveliness was unhidden, looking out in all of the splendid glory of youthful health and vigour. Her eyes were as grey as Drennen's own, but with little golden flecks seeming to float upon sea-grey, unsounded depths. She might have been seventeen, she could not have been more than twenty, and yet her air was one of confidence and in it was an indefinable something which was neither arrogance nor yet hauteur, and which in ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... was a man of wit and humor. Many items in the river and harbor bill furnished him with an opportunity of showing how creeks and trout streams were to be turned by the magic of the money of the Treasury into navigable rivers, and inaccessible ponds were to be dredged into harbors to float the navies of ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew

... a long breath to steady himself, and opening his hand, let the fragments float away on ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... float through this storm," Glaucon heard him crying between the blasts, but the Athenian beckoned ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... something," said Dave, "and it crackles and works on itself until it makes star dust, and it shakes this together till it makes lumps, and they float round, and pretty soon they're big lumps like the moon and like this little ball of star dust we're riding on—and there are millions of them out there all round and about, some a million times bigger than this little one, and they all whirl and whirl, the little ones whirling round the big ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... down the great nave of Lincoln Cathedral, and, as it came, the few morning worshippers—it was a week-day—inclined their faces upwards: for it seemed to pause and float overhead and again be carried forward by its own impulse, a pure column of sound wavering awhile before it broke and spread and dissolved into whispers among the multitudinous arches. To a woman still kneeling by a pillar close within ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... their arms, but knowin' they dassent interfere without orders, and I often imagine to meself that the word did come to the angels to jump in and save Him, and I can just see how tender they would lift Him down from the cross, and the two poor fellows with Him, and they would float away off into the blue sky, leaving the bad people down below, the soldiers and the high priests and all of them, gawkin' up, wid their mouths open, watchin' them growin' smaller and smaller, until they were gone clean from sight; and then Pilate ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung

... are wearied with the splendid decoration of the chapels, the gilding, the carving, the inlaid glass work. It seems as though there was no end to the rows on rows of Buddhas in every conceivable position. Interspersed among them are tall poles from which float long streamers of bamboo bearing painted historical pictures, including those of the capture of the pagoda by the British. Thousands crowd these platforms. Some offer gifts to various shrines, others say prayer after ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch

... night came—solemn night, and all the house was quiet, Margaret still sate watching the beauty of a London sky at such an hour, on such a summer evening; the faint pink reflection of earthly lights on the soft clouds that float tranquilly into the white moonlight, out of the warm gloom which lies motionless around the horizon. Margaret's room had been the day nursery of her childhood, just when it merged into girlhood, and when the feelings and ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... and unhurried by chills, and with no incongruous sun beating on your head while your fingers are cold. You bathe when the sun has set, and the vast sea has not a whisper; you know a rock in the distance where you can rest; and where you float, there float also by you opalescent jelly-fish, half transparent in the perfectly transparent water. An hour in the warm sea is not enough. Rock-bathing is done on lonely shores. A city may be but a mile away, and the cultivated vineyards may be close above the seaside pine-trees, but ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell

... 'em over and over every day, the same everlastin' round, and you would think the topics not so many arter all, I can tell you. It soon runs out, and when it does, you must wait till the next rain, for another freshet to float these heavy ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... silica be present, it gives the iron bead when heated with a little ferric oxide; if tin is present there is no change. Certain substances, such as the precious metals, are quite insoluble in the bead, but float about ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various

... P.M., I had waited till 9 to be screened by the darkness, and then, walking down the river on the dike, I slipped down to the water's edge by the path, and gently tossed the boots into the rapid current. Seeing the dangerous articles float away into the dark, I turned to go up the dike to the road running along the top of it, when, to my dismay, I heard a sentinel directly across the road challenge, saw the officer of the guard coming on his rounds, and heard ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... lips are burning for a kiss, my love!" A prize like this, a heart of stone would move, And he his arms around her fondly placed Till she reclined upon his breast, embraced, Their lips in one long thrilling rapture meet. But hark! what are these strains above so sweet That float around, above, their love surround? An-nu-na-ci[6] from forests, mounts around, And from the streams and lakes, and ocean, trees, And all that haunt the godly place, to please The lovers, softly chant and dance around To cymbals, lyres until the rocks resound, Of goddess Ishtar ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous

... time being; but the poor lad was nevertheless still in a very precarious situation, being on board a Spanish ship. Harry could see also that the vessel was in manifest distress, and had apparently not much longer to float. ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... countryman, Vondel. Your publication has been a great temptation to people with a few curious books around them to set sail their little boats of inquiry or observation for the mere pleasure of seeing them float down the stream in company with others of more importance and interest. I confess myself to have been one of the injudicious number; and having made shipwreck of my credit against M. Brellet's Dictionnaire de la Langue Celtique, and also on ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851 • Various

... talk of resistance and coercion," he wrote, "without exciting a grimace of contempt and ridicule ... The operations of our squadron this season have done less than the last to aid my efforts. Government may as well send out Quaker meeting-houses to float about this sea as frigates with ——— in command ... If further concessions are to be made here, I desire I may not be the medium through whom they shall be presented. Our presents show the Bey our wealth and our weakness and stimulate his avarice ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... canopy of the cold heavens, stands a lonely black island, an unpeopled rock, covered with ice; the smoothly polished shore descends abruptly into the gray, foaming billows. The transparently blue blocks of ice inhospitably float on the shaking cold water and press against the dark rock of the island. Their knocking resounds mournfully in the dead stillness of the barren sea. They have been floating a long time on the bottomless ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... Oonrana, River of Myth, flows into the Waters of Fable, even the old stream Plegathanees. These, together, enter her northern gate rejoicing. Of old they flowed in the dark through the Hill that Nehemoth, the first of Pharaohs, carved into the City of Marvel. Sterile and desolate they float far through the desert, each in the appointed cleft, with life upon neither bank, but give birth in Babbulkund to the sacred purple garden whereof all nations sing. Thither all the bees come on a pilgrimage at evening by a secret ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany

... Murray had dropped a few words and spit on the hook and Denver had shipped him his ore. The rest, of course, was like shooting fish in the Pan-handle—he had refused to buy the ore, leaving Denver belly-up, to float away with other human debris. But there was one thing yet that he could not understand—why had Murray closed down his own mine? That was pulling it pretty strong, just to freeze out a little prospector and rob ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge

... so-called agricultural ants gather what they have not sown, and reap what they have not planted. Man sows that he may gather; breeds that he may use; and accomplishes civilization by an ever-increasing mastery and adaptation of natural forces. An insect may float with the current on a chip; but what one ever put a chip into the water? A beaver may build a dam; but what beaver ever turned the heightened water on a wheel? The dog may lie in a sunny spot; but what dog ever created artificial heat or condensed by a lens the ...
— The Things Which Remain - An Address To Young Ministers • Daniel A. Goodsell

... the fort. To make his triumph complete, however, he wanted an American flag to hoist over them. But he had none. So a soldier's wife gave her red petticoat, some one else supplied a white shirt, and out of that and an old blue jacket was made the first American flag to float ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... last field of ice, five days before; so that had it remained in the same situation, we must now have been in the middle of it, whereas we did not so much as see any. We cannot suppose that so large a float of ice as this was, could be destroyed in so short a time. It therefore must have drifted to the northward: and this makes it probable that there is no land under this meridian, between the latitude of 55 ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook

... any mishap, Tim," said Frank, "you must remember to hold fast to a piece of wood to help you float—a small bit ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis

... of the great angels traced upon the walls of the Chapel of S. Sigismund in the Cathedral of Rimini, to follow the undulations of their drapery that seems to float, to feel the dignified urbanity of all their gestures, is like listening to one of those clear early Italian compositions for the voice, which surpasses in suavity of tone and grace of movement all that Music in her full-grown vigour has produced. There is indeed something infinitely ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... boat," said Sarp, reflectively. "And the rain will float it 'most anywheres to-night. But—come so far and troo so much to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... threatening like murderers, they rush with a headlong roar like mad horsemen, they hang sad and pensive at equal heights like melancholy hermits. They have the forms of blessed isles and the forms of blessing angels; they are like threatening hands, fluttering sails, a flight of cranes. They float between God's heaven and the poor earth as fair symbols of all human longings, akin to both—dreams of the earth, in which her sullied soul flies to the embrace of the pure heaven. They are the eternal symbol of all wandering, all ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... continued. "It rained for weeks and weeks, while the mountain torrents roared thunderingly down, and the sea crept silently up. The level lands were first to float in sea water, then to disappear. The slopes were next to slip into the sea. The world was slowly being flooded. Hurriedly the Indian tribes gathered in one spot, a place of safety far above the reach of the on-creeping ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson

... of the reader, to be scattered about, promiscuously hung, or laid in every conceivable nook and corner, a fair idea of our floating house could be obtained. On deck we are nearly as badly littered, though in more orderly fashion. Two nests of dories, a row boat, five water tanks, a gunning float, and an exploring boat, partly well fill the Julia's spacious decks. The other exploring boat hangs inside the schooner's yawl at the stern. Add to these two hatch houses, a small pile of lumber, and considerable fire wood snugly stowed between the casks, and you ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley

... to Saidie as the camel slowly and majestically entered the compound gate, and saw her clearly framed in the soft silver light; all this wondrous beauty round them seemed to be to her beauty but as the harmonies that in an opera float round the central air. And she smiled as he ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross

... mentioned this to him, observing, it might make a discovery. He said he would be more careful for the future. He was as good as his word; for the next brook they crossed, he did not hold up his clothes at all, but let them float upon the water. He was very awkward in his female dress. His size was so large, and his strides so great, that some women whom they met reported that they had seen a very big woman, who looked like a man in woman's clothes, and that perhaps it was (as they expressed ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... as Jane Clayton came to the bank of the river, down which she hoped to float to the ocean and eventual rescue, Nikolas Rokoff was but a short distance in ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... general reader in regard to the effusions of his own day! What will become of the myriads of books that have passed through our own unworthy hands? How many of them will survive to the next generation? How many will continue to float still further down the stream of time? How many will attain the honour of the apotheosis? And will they coexist in this exalted state with the old objects of worship? This last is a pregnant question; for each generation will in all ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various

... away. It was not an attractive place for several reasons. The region was very drear, and, moreover, the place had a bad reputation. The pond was said to have no bottom, while a murder having been committed on the moors near by, the country people said that dark spirits of the dead were often seen to float over the Drearwaters ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking

... of exception large enough to float any number of battleships for which pride and ambition may be willing to pay! Honor? No, a finical and foolish reservation that at any moment may become a maelstrom of suspicion and rage and hatred and destruction and death! Honor? No, a mountainous barrier to peace ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association

... betwixt the smoking earth and smiling sky, flocks of vultures come and go, fluttering their great pinions noiselessly. To them the sound of guns is merriest music; it is their summons to the banquet board. Foul things they look as the float over us, silent as souls that have slipped from some ash heap in Hades, grey with the greyness that grows on the wolf's hide; their feathers hang upon them in ridges, unkempt, unlovely, soiled with ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales

... swing out his long-boat and send her close inshore to take off Hassim and his men. He knew enough of Malays to feel sure that on such a night the besiegers, now certain of success, and being, Jaffir said, in possession of everything that could float, would not be very vigilant, especially on the sea front of the stockade. The very fact of Jaffir having managed to swim off undetected proved that much. The brig's boat could—when the frequency of lightning abated—approach unseen ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... slain, passed silently. Following the children joyously astir Under the cedrus and the olive tree, Pausing to let their laughter float to her. Each voice an echo of a voice more dear, She saw a little Christ in every face; When lo, another woman, gliding near, Yearned o'er the tender life that filled the place. And Mary sought the woman's hand, ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE

... came nearer the island appeared to move more and more out of the line of his approach. Under these circumstances his only chance was to float as near as possible, and then make a last effort ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille

... of it had been borne away, in a thick muddy cloud, by the current of the stream. He then tipped the pan a little, at the same time giving it a slight whirling motion, holding it with both his hands, which soon caused all the remaining dirt to float away in the water, except a little coarse black gravel that covered the bottom of the ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil

... touched retains the warmth of life forever. We talk about the age of superstition and fable as if they were passed away, as if no ghost could walk in the pure white light of science, yet the microscope that can distinguish between the disks that float in the blood of man and ox is helpless, a mere dead eyeball, before this mystery of Being, this wonder of Life, the sympathy which puts us in relation with all nature, before that mighty circulation of Deity in which stars and systems are but as the blood-disks in our own veins. And so long as wonder ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell

... the moon till twelve o'clock to show itself," said Will, as they made their way down the walk and on to the float where the canoes were attached. "Mrs. Irving says that we are to be back by ten o'clock ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope

... baster turns me on the spit, The fire I've felt the force of it, The carver carves me bit by bit. I'd rather in the water float Under the bare heavens like a boat, Than have this pepper ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various

... after pursuing nearly a north and south course, empties into the Missouri River below 43 degrees. It is deemed navigable with small hunting canoes for between five hundred and six hundred miles; but below Otuhuoja, it will float much larger boats. The shores of the river are generally tolerably well wooded, though only at intervals. Along those portions where it widens into lakes, very eligible situations for farms would be found." The same explorer says, the ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews

... way up the slide Lennon had perceived the copper in the float rock. He was prepared for the trader's outburst. Farley's revolver lay ready in his grasp, behind the sling on ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet

... the St. Louis & Iron Mountain Railway, before the Arkansas State board of assessors, swore that he could duplicate such railway for $11,000 per mile, and yet Mr. Gould has managed to float its securities, notwithstanding a capitalization of five ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various

... dragon-fly (who finds the glittering shell-work too hot to hold him) is as studiously skimming backwards and forwards over the surface, to cool and refresh himself; and the frogs, in a neighboring tank, while conjugal duties keep them also on the top, feebly croak as they float with their wives among the green feculence, and make love behind the bulrushes. On leaving the garden, we mount our green spectacles, hoist our umbrella, and resolutely set our face homeward and Romeward. Half an hour's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... sugar-cane. Sumptuous cream-coloured bullocks move sleepily about with an air of luxurious sloth; and sleek Brahmans utter their lazy prayers while bathing languidly in the water and sunshine of the tank. Even the buffaloes have nothing to do but float the livelong day deeply immersed in the bulrushes. Everything is steeped in repose. The bees murmur their idylls among the flowers; the doves moan their amorous complaints from the shady leafage of ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay

... known this man," said the girl, half aloud,—"since his dark eyes have haunted me, I am no longer the same. I long to escape from myself,—to glide with the sunbeam over the hill-tops; to become something that is not of earth. Phantoms float before me at night; and a fluttering, like the wing of a bird, within my heart, seems as if the spirit were terrified, and would break ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... or one-celled animal divides into two or more, which is its way of multiplying, the daughter-units thus formed float apart and live independent lives. But there are a few Protozoa in which the daughter-units are not quite separated off from one another, but remain coherent. Thus Volvox, a beautiful green ball, found in some canals and the like, ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson

... age, I think my nature must have resembled yours, for many of your ideas and views of duty in this life remind me in a mournfully vague, tender way of my own early youth; and from that far distant time taunting reminiscences float down to me, whispers from my old self long, long dead. When I was seventeen, I went one June to spend some weeks with my Grandmother Neville, who was an invalid, and resided on the Hudson, near a very picturesque spot, which artists were in the habit of frequenting with ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... Babie? Or in a pet because I cannot change myself into a thistledown and float about with ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott

... and wide o'er the hills and vales, The birds your welcome in glee shall sing; And their songs shall float on the gentle gales Till the earth in gladness and ...
— Lays from the West • M. A. Nicholl

... but every Monday morning I went to work broke. I became infatuated with the game of faro, and it kept me a slave. So I concluded either to quit work or quit gambling. I studied the matter over a long time. At last one day while we were finishing a boat that we had calked, and were working on a float aft of the wheel, I gave my tools a push with my foot, and they all went into the river. My brother called out and asked me what I was doing. I looked up, a little sheepish, and said it was the last lick of work I would ever do. He was surprised ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol

... hundred infantry, and of Louisiana, one thousand infantry. That portion of the quota of Kentucky destined for New Orleans, twenty-two hundred men, and a portion of the quota of Tennessee, embarked upon flatboats to float fifteen hundred miles down the Ohio and Mississippi waters, had not arrived on the tenth of December. Through the energetic efforts of the Governor, aided by Major Edward Livingston and the Committee of Safety, the quota of Louisiana was made ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith

... silver domes of the churches up into the air. And how many churches there are! Kiev is in truth a holy city. Late afternoon, when the sun shines through the dust of the day and envelops the city in golden powder; when the gold and silver domes of the churches float up over the tree-tops like unsubstantial, gleaming bubbles, and the bells fill the air with lovely, mellow sounds,—then I can truly say I have felt more deeply religious than ever before in my life. ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce

... which were already occupied by the enemy for fifty miles below Montreal. At the narrows at Berthier their blazing camp fires sent light far out over the surface of the water. Carleton's party could hear the sentry's shout of "All's Well," and the barking of dogs. But they let the boat float down with the current so that it might look like drifting timber, and, when they could, impelled it silently with their hands. At Three Rivers they thought themselves safe and Carleton lay down in a house to sleep. But, while he was resting, ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

... granted from birth a large income he might have ended his days as a Justice of the Peace and a Member of Parliament. Unfortunately he had never had any private means, and he had never been able to make enough by his mysterious speculations to float him into security—"Let me once get so far," he would say to himself, "and I am a made man." But drink, an easy tolerance of bad company, and a rather touching conceit had combined to divorce him from so fine a destiny. He had risen, he had fallen, made a good thing out of this tip, been badly ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... had become aware of the dreadful fate awaiting him had he been overlooked. Deane shouted to those on deck to come to his assistance. By the sound which the water made rushing into the hold of the vessel, he was very sure she would not float many minutes longer. To leave the poor man was contrary to his nature, and yet to release him without knocking off the shackle was impossible. The glance he had of the countenance of the wounded man convinced ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... Virgin, so we have always whole stores of glittering mantles and robes of pure white linen which we cast over the shoulders of dull, sulky, or spiteful creatures, and when they have thus assumed the garb in which our ideal loves float before us in our waking dreams, we let ourselves be taken in by this disguise, we incarnate our dream in the first corner, and address her in our language, which she does not understand. However, let this creature at whose feet we live prostrate, tear away herself the dense envelope ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger

... breaking it up, and letting the fragments float off upon the waves. But Captain Redwood did not approve of this mode. The craft that had so long carried them through an unknown sea, and at length set them safely ashore, deserved different treatment. Besides, they might again ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid

... "block-head." Jerrold, as a wasp, is gazing ruefully at the baton which has dropped from Punch's feeble hands; and Mark Lemon, dressed as a pot-boy, is straining himself in the foreground to reach his pewter-pot. Around float many of Punch's butts, political and social. Wellington on the left and Brougham on the right play cup-and-ball with him. Louis Philippe has him on a toasting-fork, and Lord John Russell hangs him on a gallows-tree. Palmerston, Prince de ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... to have made a start at it without thinking much about it," said Roger. "The Club had a float, you know, in the Labor ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith

... the graceful coco palm, girdle still lagoons, and are themselves encircled by coral reefs on which the ocean breaks all the year in broad drifts of foam. Myriads of flying fish and a few dolphins and Portuguese men-of-war flash or float through the scarcely undulating water. But we look in vain for the "sails of silk and ropes of sendal," which are alone appropriate to this dream-world. The Pacific in this region is an indolent blue expanse, pure and lonely, an almost untraversed ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... Bill, joining in the laugh against himself, "if they did, your jokes would be so light and triflin' that I do believe they'd float her again. But what have ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne

... a dark and glassy stillness of surface, only broken by the forms of the water plants, whose leaves float thickly over it. ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... uttering a sharp cry. Quick as lightning some others followed his example; and by holding on to the lower twigs they arrested its progress until the whole party were seated on board, when the log was allowed to float, as they sagaciously knew it would, towards the opposite bank. It seemed to me as if some of them were steering it with their tails; but of that I am not positive. In a short time, after floating some ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston

... Williams or Colgate shaving stick box, with screw or hinged cover, makes a good match box. A better one is a water-tight hard rubber box, with screw top. If dropped into a lake or stream it will float, whereas a ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson

... the boat off when we landed, and it would float down past the town before daylight. The chances are that the boatmen, finding that they are no losers by the affair, would make no complaint to the authorities; but even if they did, we should be far beyond their reach by that time. All we have got to do is to ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty

... oracle of the North. He was not only the great champion of the North, and of Northern interests, but he was the teacher of the whole country. He expounded the principles of the Constitution,—that this great country is one, to be forever united in all its parts; that its stars and stripes were to float over every city and fortress in the land, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the river St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, and "bearing for their motto no such miserable interrogatory as, What are all these worth? nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord

... attending to the constant fluctuation of it is far more harassing than the watching these raving fits that had not the least tincture of reason. Her ideas are all disjointed, and a number of wild whims float on her imagination, and fall from her unconnectedly something like strange dreams, when judgment sleeps, and fancy sports at a fine rate. Don't smile at my language, for I am so constantly forced to observe ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... sound sweet as song—yet without the vibratory passion of a human voice—seemed to float out of the darkness and hold his ear enchained like a spell. It was the divinest beauty of music, divinely interpreted, and it seemed to him as he listened that all the discord and woe and misery that oppressed his earthly senses, disappeared and died away into the ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)

... the sea-plants trembling float, As it were like a mermaid's locks, Waving in thread of ruby red ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George

... murmur. Louis XIV., by his infamous demands, had united all hearts in the most determined resistance. Amsterdam appeared like a large fortress rising in the midst of the ocean, surrounded by ships of war, which found depth of water to float where ships had never floated before. The distress was dreadful. It was the briny ocean whose waves were now sweeping over the land. It was so difficult to obtain any fresh water that it was sold for six ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... "I guess she'll float through the night whether we are on deck or not," said the commander. "The Ark did, why not this? Now, girls, these new-fangled yachting notions are all nonsense. It's night, and there's a fog as thick as a stone-wall all about us. If there were a hundred of you upon deck with ten eyes ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs

... some wood. He could not take it all at once. The balance we shall put on a float, and so carry it to our destination. Thus I could bring the Bible ...
— The Three Comrades • Kristina Roy

... Lady Ashton to his new prevailing wish—"what could a woman desire in a match more than the sopiting of a very dangerous claim, and the alliance of a son-in-law, noble, brave, well-gifted, and highly connected; sure to float whenever the tide sets his way; strong, exactly where we are weak, in pedigree and in the temper of a swordsman? Sure, no reasonable woman would hesitate. But alas——!" Here his argument was stopped by the consciousness that Lady Ashton was ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... that the frigate was half sunk when it was deserted, presenting nothing but a hulk and wreck.—Nevertheless, seventeen still remained upon it, and had food, which, although damaged, enabled them to support themselves for a considerable time; while the raft was abandoned to float at the mercy of the waves, upon the vast surface of the ocean. One hundred and fifty wretches were embarked upon it, sunk to the depth of at least three feet on its fore part, and on its poop immersed even to the middle. What victuals they had were soon consumed, or spoiled ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... sleep at night come so graciously as that afternoon snooze, while the sound of the sea and the busy noises of the square float gently in at the windows; float higher and higher; float right away. About half-past two, Tony goes down to take somebody out for a sail or to paint his boats. I frequently ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... little William, standing near the stern of the Catamaran, had watched the spectacle with suspended breath. It was only after seeing the zygaena float lifeless on the water, and becoming satisfied that Snowball had come out of the struggle safe as well as victorious, that the boy gave utterance to a shout. Then, unable longer to restrain himself, he raised ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... began to attract her attention. The cloud on which they sat did not, like the others, just float over the earth, but it went proudly on, and came among the stars, and constellations of stars, and she saw how many were clustered together, and no tongue could describe their beauty; and then the deep blue was ever about her, and she saw it away off in the distance, growing to a darker and darker ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins

... evenings later he heard the voice again, and paused with lips apart, with heart consumed by eagerness. It was some slave girl busied among the vines of Abul Malek, he decided, for she translated all the fragmentary airs that float through summer evenings—the songs of sweethearts, the tender airs of motherhood, the croon of distant waterfalls, the voice of sleepy locusts—and yet she wove them into an air that carried ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... heels, while our feet make the sound of sculling. Planks have been laid in it here and there. Where they have so far sunk in the mud as to proffer their edges to us we slip on them. Sometimes there is enough water to float them, and then under the weight of a man they splash and go under, and the man stumbles or ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... brother, and speed the boat; Swift o'er the glittering waves we'll float; Then home as swiftly we'll haste again, Loaded with wealth of the plundered main. Pull away, pull away! row, boys, row A long pull, a strong pull, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various

... gleaming sky. I suppose, however, he wishes to express the momentary illusion we experience at beholding a perfect reflection of an old tower in the sea, and look at it as if it were not a mere shadow in the water; and yet the real tower rises far above, and seems to float in the crimson evening ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... Young ladies instructed in the arts of the bon ton. Finesse, repose, literature! Fashions, etiquette, languages! P. S. Polkas a specialty!' Celestina, your destiny lies at Mademoiselle de Castiglione's. They will teach you to float into a drawing room—but you won't forget the garret? They will instruct you how to sit on gilt chairs—you will think sometimes of the box, or the place by the hearth? You will become a mistress of the piano—'By the Coral ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... very often spend the whole night rambling about the city, inventing and carrying into execution the most impertinent, practical jokes. One of our favourite pleasures was to unmoor the patricians' gondolas, and to let them float at random along the canals, enjoying by anticipation all the curses that gondoliers would not fail to indulge in. We would rouse up hurriedly, in the middle of the night, an honest midwife, telling her to hasten to Madame So-and-so, who, not being even pregnant, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... canoe. His thin fingers held a cross. His white face and bright hair rested on a pile of blankets. Pierre and Jacques felt that no lovelier, kinder being than this scarcely breathing missionary would ever float on the blue ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... chariot racing; 2d, a sham-fight between young men on horseback; 3d, a sham-fight between infantry and cavalry; 4th, athletic sports of all kinds; 5th, fights with wild beasts, such as lions, boars, etc.; 6th, sea fights. Water was let into the canal to float ships. The combatants were captives, or criminals condemned to death, who fought until one party was killed, unless saved by ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell

... an agreeable emotion."—Ib., p. 50. "The deepest and the bitterest feeling still is, the separation."— Dr. M'Rie. "A great and a good man looks beyond time."—Brown's Institutes, p. 125. "They made but a weak and an ineffectual resistance." —Ib. "The light and the worthless kernels will float."—Ib. "I rejoice that there is an other and a better world."—Ib. "For he is determined to revise his work, and present to the publick another and a better edition."—Kirkham's Gram., p. 7. "He hoped that this title would secure him an ample and an independent authority."—Murray's ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... trying to box us in. But that's not going to work. See—ahead there where that log's caught between two rocks? Run out on that when we reach there and take to the water. I don't think those things can float and if they sink to the bottom that ought to fix them as ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton

... armature, and if you take out an armature and don't slip a bit of soft iron in after it, your magnets are done for, and will never be worth anything again until they are re-magnetised. This baffled the pair of them, and they were there until after eleven o'clock, drinking enough beer to float a barge, and confessing that it was ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton

... followed the Magdalene but did not seem to be rejoicing over this fact, since he moved along as repentantly as he had in the morning when he followed St. Francis. His float was drawn by six Tertiary Sisters—whether because of some vow or on account of some sickness, the fact is that they dragged him along, and with zeal. San Diego stopped in front of the platform ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... better go over the papers again, so I can be sure to speak my piece right end to. By Jove! I didn't suppose a couple of thousand miles of easting would take the heart out of things the way it does. If I didn't know better, I should think I'd come here to float the biggest kind of a fake, instead of a life-boat for the shipwrecked people in the Pacific Southwestern. It is beginning to look that way in spite of ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... dividing ridge, and for him the last silence is begun. Such then was the end of youthful ambition: for food a mouthful of ashes instead of the very marrow of joy; for home not the free ocean, but a stagnant pool ringed with weeping willows, a log's fit floating-place. Here to float, marking the weed creep onward until all from bank to bank was overfilmed, and there remained no clear water of space for reflection of a single star: to float, and feel the sodden fibres of life loosening in slow decay—this was to be the last state of the seedling ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... very firm ligaments to the bones of the head, and being a weighty affair, would easily be knocked off, or might drop away from the body as it floated in water in a state of decomposition. The jaw would thus be deposited immediately, while the rest of the body would float and drift away altogether, ultimately reaching the sea, and perhaps becoming destroyed. The jaw becomes covered up and preserved in the river silt, and thus it comes that we have such a curious circumstance as that of the lower jaws in the Stonesfield slates. So that, you see, ...
— The Past Condition of Organic Nature • Thomas H. Huxley

... seem likely they would need the little boat again, the children left it to float away if it liked, and crossed the strip of gray sand to where they saw a little pink and white striped path winding up the side of a crimson hill. This path they began to follow, and it took them by so many twists and turns that they hardly ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels

... trifles, as the camel in the desert beyond the Thousand Steps. As the leopard springeth upon his prey, so doth man rejoice over his riches, and bask in the sun of slothfulness like the lion's cub. On the stream of life float the bodies of the careless and the intemperate as the carcases of the dead on the waves of the Lake of Sacrifices. As the birds of prey destroy the carcase so is man devoured by sin. No man is master over himself, but the Naya is his ruler; and to endeavour to defeat the purpose of ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... reproaching me, is rather the effects of your own guilt, than any that love can make you think of mine. Yes, yes, my Sylvia, it is the waves that roll and glide away, and not the steady shore. 'Tis you begin to unfasten from the vows that hold you, and float along the flattering tide of vanity. It is you, whose pride and beauty scorning to be confined, give way to the admiring crowd, that sigh for you. Yes, yes, you, like the rest of your fair glorious sex, love the admirer though you hate the coxcomb. It is vain! it is great! And ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn

... laugh, some sing. Among them you see what appear to be women; they are in fact what once were women, with human semblance. They are caressed and insulted; no one knows who they are or what their names. They float and stagger under the flaming torches in an intoxication that thinks of nothing, and over which, it is said, ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset

... Hodge have the money down, and when I have arranged the sale, will undertake to give me the agency at one per cent on the whole take for three years certain. That'll be L1000 a-year, and it's odd if I can't float myself again in that time." Gordon stood silent, scratching his head. "Or if you'd give me the agency on the same terms, it would be the same thing. I don't care a straw for ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope

... from Rochefort convoying a fleet of transports with troops for America. The French ships cut their cables and ran for the shore, where most of them stranded in the mud, and some threw cannon and munitions overboard to float themselves. The expedition was broken up. Of the many ships fitted out this year for the succor of Canada and Louisbourg, comparatively few reached their destination, and these for the most part singly ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... after the first gun of the Oquendo—that the Colon's gallant captain lost all hope, and, from a race to save the ship, turned to the work of destroying her, so that we should not be able to float the ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis

... Paumanok, I, too, have bubbled up, floated the measureless float, and been washed on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... moved along; by pressing the pole against the bed of the river he propelled it until they finally reached in safety the opposite bank, where, drawing their raft a little out of water, that it might not float out of their reach into the stream, they prepared to explore the grove of willows that had drawn them thither. It was the sight of this raft across the stream that caused Mr. Duncan's alarm about ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle

... soar and float as they did; he kept closer to the earth, wandering through the under chambers of the travelling building that swung its way over vineyards, woods, and village roofs. He kept more in touch with earth than they did. The upper sections where the children climbed went faster than those lower halls ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... looked as if pony and youth could not escape, Dave heard a whistle float across the prairie. Looking in the direction, he made out the form of Sid Todd, riding like the wind toward him. Behind him came Roger and Phil, but the two boys were soon stopped and told to ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer

... essential that the indigo used should be of the best quality, and ground to so fine a powder that it will float on water. Coarsely ground indigo will never reduce and can be found at the bottom of the vat unchanged. It should be so fine that no roughness is felt with the tongue. Buy the best quality indigo ready ground, and ...
— Vegetable Dyes - Being a Book of Recipes and Other Information Useful to the Dyer • Ethel M. Mairet

... the legal profession, was a hearty eater, and it was not long before he sent his plate for a second helping, and again Clarissa heard from the closed lips of Leadbury, in a voice that seemed to float ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... was slowly filling. Without a pump to suck we started the forlorn hope of buckets and began to bale her out. Had we been able to open a hatch we could have cleared the main pump well at once, but with those appalling seas literally covering her, it would have meant less than 10 minutes to float, had we uncovered ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... gave a single hard throb and stood still. She looked at Ina wordlessly. The shop in which they stood suddenly lost all form and sound. It seemed to float round ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... shore, and by two large frigates moored across the mouth of the harbour. Thus they were effectually secured from any attempts of small vessels; and as for large ships, there was not water sufficient to float them within fighting distance of the enemy. On the whole, this battle, in which a very considerable number of lives was lost, may be considered as one of the most perilous and important actions that ever happened in any war between the two nations; for it not only defeated the projected invasion, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... actual social forces and helps to intensify moral feeling, it often, as in mystics of all creeds and ages, deadens the consciousness of real ties by feigning ties which are purely imaginary. This self-deception is the more frequent because there float before men who live in the spirit ideals which they look to with the respect naturally rendered to whatever is true, beautiful, or good; and the symbolic rendering of these ideals, which is the rational function of religion, may be confused with its superstitious ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... the truth. Some went in an Indian bank in which he invested it. A portion was lost at cards. But with some of it,—the larger part as I think,—he endeavoured, in concert with his stepfather, to float a newspaper, which failed. There seem to have been two newspapers in which he was so concerned, The National Standard and The Constitutional. On the latter he was engaged with his stepfather, and in ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope

... the world can give like that it takes away When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay: 'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone that fades so fast; But the tender bloom of heart is gone e'er youth itself be past. Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt, or ocean of excess: The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain The shore to which their shivered sail shall ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... prepared to drift down the stream, a thousand miles, to its mouth at Kherson, where the river flows into the Black sea. These barges were of magnificent dimensions, floating palaces, containing gorgeous saloons and spacious sleeping apartments. As they were constructed merely to float upon the rapid current of the stream, impelled by sails when the breeze should favor, they could easily be provided with all the appliances of luxury. It is difficult to conceive of a jaunt which would present more of the attractions of pleasure, than thus to glide in saloons of elegance, with ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... pass. It is needless to add that this steamer has no rivals. It was with the greatest interest that I sailed at such a height on this adventurous craft; and the next time that I stand upon the summit of Mount Washington, and see the fleecy clouds float in the empyrean, one-third of a mile above me, I shall remember that the steamer on Lake Yellowstone sails at precisely the same altitude as that enjoyed by those ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard

... distance from the over-gorgeous splendour of the modern transept. In Holy Week, towards evening at the Tenebrae, the divine tenor voice of Padre Giovanni, monk and singer, soft as a summer night, clear as a silver bell, touching as sadness itself, used to float through the dim air with a ring of Heaven in it, full of that strange fatefulness that followed his short life, till he died, nearly twenty years ago, foully poisoned by a layman singer in envy of a gift not matched in the memory ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... called fluids: we call the air, also, a fluid, because it flows like a fluid, and light substances will float in it. ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers

... the heart a prayer, silent or spoken, to the God of all the earth, of all peoples, and of all times. The Rome of the Antonines had even in this sphere no loftier ideal, no fairer vision, than that which now seems to float before Imperial Britain, no wider sympathy, not merely with the sects of its own faith, but with the religions of other races within its dominions, once hostile to its own. By slow degrees England has arisen, first to the perception of the truth in other sects, and then to ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb

... captain sent the negroes and Mike down the Susquehannah a mile, to clear away some flood-wood, of which one of the hunters had brought in a report the preceding day. Two hours later, the boats left the shore, and began to float downward with the current, following the direction of a stream that has obtained its name from ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... wail the Loves with me. Ah, cruel, cruel is that wound of thine, But Cypris' heart-wound aches more bitterly. The Oreads weep; thy faithful hounds low whine; But Cytherea's unbound tresses fine Float on the wind; where thorns her white feet wound, Along the oaken glades drops blood divine. She calls her lover; he, all crimsoned round His fair white breast with blood, hears ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... a very neat man and sometimes for several days he forgot to shave. With a long lean hand he stroked his half grown beard. His illness had struck deeper than he had admitted even to himself and his mind had an inclination to float out of his body. Often when he sat thus his hands lay in his lap and he looked at them with a child's absorption. It seemed to him they must belong to someone else. He grew philosophic. "It's an odd thing about my body. Here I've lived in ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson

... it was with the saddest drop to anxious, to gnawing uncertainty, that Jack turned back into the house. An echo of the fear that he had felt in Valerie seemed to float back to him. It was as if, in some strange way, he had handed her over to pain rather than to joy, to ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... regarded the phenomenon rather casually. After the swift piling up of the amazing events of those fifteen hours, a floating pillow would have seemed quite in the natural orbit of things. But they did not float. They remained where they were, their white breasts bared to him, urging upon him a common-sense perspective of the situation. He wasn't going to run away. He couldn't sit up all night. Therefore why not come to ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood

... head. It was a great achievement, and since Biddy could not, for the moment, produce any mythological terror in the nature of a Loreley better than a pike that preyed on swimmers, Gabrielle would often go down to the lake secretly in the middle of a summer morning, and strip off her clothes and float on her back in the sunshine. She must have looked a strange little thing with her long white legs, her smooth black hair, her deep violet eyes, and her red lips; for she had this amazing combination of features that you will sometimes find in the far West. ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young

... mouthfuls hurriedly and hastened to the study, leaving her to understand that he had been immersed in a theological problem. It seemed only reasonable that a man should have one pipe before settling down to a forenoon of hard study, but there is no doubt that the wreaths of smoke, as they float upwards, take fantastic shapes, and lend themselves to visions. Twelve o'clock—it was outrageous—six hours gone without a stroke of work. Sarah is informed that, as he has a piece of very stiff work to do, luncheon must be an hour ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... her off, if we can. If she won't budge for all the anchors and capstans aboard, after we have lightened her, by cutting away her masts, and heaving our guns and cargo overboard, why then, mayhap a brisk gale of wind, a tide, or current setting from shore, may float her again in the blast of a whistle. Here is two hundred and ten guineas by the tale in this here canvas bag; and upon this scrap of paper—no, avast—that's my discharge from the parish for Moll Trundle—ey, here it is—an order for thirty pounds ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... country, "No pledge for the amendment," as was flashed from the Republican League the other day. Should this happen, as I have heard intimated, and there is a woman in the State of Kansas who has any affiliation with the Republican party, any sympathy with it, who will float its banner after it shall have thus failed to redeem its pledge, I will disown her; she is ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... strays she now, my love who played So happy in our hermit shade? How can my absent love behold The bright trees with their flowers of gold, And all their gleaming glory see With eyes that vainly look for me? How is it with my darling when From the deep tangles of the glen Float carols of each bird elate With rapture singing to his mate? In vain my weary glances rove From lake to hill, from stream to grove: I find no rapture in the scene, And languish for my fawn-eyed queen. Ah, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... as far as he deemed prudent he would turn upon his back and thus float upon the bosom of the great deep, borne by its ceaseless tide ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood

... was two o'clock before we all arose from her long table, at one end of which had been demolished a spiced ham and from the other end had disappeared two fat summer turkeys. A saddle of lamb had been passed in between and we had wound up with sweet potato custards, apple float and ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... less of possible sport than of sandwiches and sherry, and an idle lounge on a sloping bank in the shade, and haply (though for myself I am no smoker) the calmly contemplative cigar. As we lay there, in dolce-far-niente fashion, all at once Leech jumped up with a vigorous "Confound that float! can't it leave me at peace? I've been watching it bobbing these five minutes, and now it's out of sight altogether—hang it!" With that hearty exclamation of disgust pulling up a brilliant two-pound perch, ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... swim. Peacock also notices his habit of floating paper boats, and gives an amusing description of the boredom suffered by Hogg on occasions when Shelley would stop by the side of a pond or mere to float a mimic navy. The not altogether apocryphal story of his having once constructed a boat out of a bank-post-bill, and launched it on the lake in Kensington Gardens, deserves to be alluded ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... not Aaron's. And so, he was displaced. Aaron, sitting there, glowed with a sort of triumph. He had performed a little miracle, and felt himself a little wonder-worker, to whom reverence was due. And as in a dream the woman sat, feeling what a joy it was to float and move like a swan in the high air, flying upon the wings of her own spirit. She was as a swan which never before could get its wings quite open, and so which never could get up into the open, where alone it can sing. For swans, and storks make their music only when they are high, high up ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... consideringly. 'P'raps she's invisible sometimes, or p'raps she's like the "Light Princess," that they had to tie down for fear she'd float ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth

... the gipsy tribe. Yet there was something of a darker grain than the grain in her people that lurked beneath her skin. And she was light on her feet. Even trudging in the deep snow, she seemed more to float, to skim ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various



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