"Pitfall" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which hardly any is more disagreeable in letters. This is the manifestation of what is called, in various more or less familiar terms, "giving oneself airs," "side," "patronising," etc. He may sometimes come near this pitfall of "intellectuals," but he never quite slips into it, being probably preserved by that sense of humour which he certainly possessed, though he seldom gave vent to it in verse and not very often in prose. Taking them altogether, Gray's letters may be said to have few superiors in the ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... have done good work, although they may die before they have the time to sign it. Every heart that has beat strong and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the world, and bettered the tradition of mankind. And even if death catch people, like an open pitfall, and in mid-career, laying out vast projects, and planning monstrous foundations, flushed with hope, and their mouths full of boastful language, they should be at once tripped up and silenced: is there not something brave and spirited in such ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... selects, is first to find out what the public wants, and next to supply it. This is reasonable in appearance. It would seem to be good commercially, and, as a policy, I should consider it good for art, which must consult the popular taste or lose its vitality. But a pitfall lies between this theory of editorial selection and its successful practice. The editor must really know what the public wants. If he does not, he becomes a dogmatic critic of a ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... then through the trackless bush, painfully slow going over the stones and the fallen trunks, with many a pitfall concealed under the smooth moss. After an hour of this he finally came upon them all five standing dejectedly about in a narrow opening, as if ashamed of their escapade and ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... animal; a stuffed specimen does not at all give a good idea of the appearance of the head and beak when fresh; the latter becoming hard and contracted. (19/5. I was interested by finding here the hollow conical pitfall of the lion-ant, or some other insect: first a fly fell down the treacherous slope and immediately disappeared; then came a large but unwary ant; its struggles to escape being very violent, those curious little jets of sand, described ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... ahead. 'Civil Service,' was my prepared answer to the next question, but again (morbidly, perhaps) I saw a pitfall. That letter from my chief awaiting me at Norderney? My name was known, and we were watched. It might be opened. Lord, how casual we ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... with light branches and leaves, and located in the path where a tiger has been tracked. For some reason this animal, having once passed through a jungle, will ever after follow as nearly as possible his own foot-prints, and can thus easily be led into a pitfall of the character we have described. Having once got into this well he cannot possibly get out, and here he is permitted to become so nearly starved as to deprive him of all powers of resistance, in which condition ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... "I am like that foolish philosopher who, walking abroad to read the destinies of nations in the stars, fell down a pitfall dug by idle children and broke his bones and perished there. Never did I guess that with all these glories stretched before thee like mountain top on glittering mountain top, making a stairway for thy mortal feet to the very dome of heaven, thou wouldst still clutch at thy native ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... 'tis so; and evermore shall be, That year by year thy honors may increase, No shadow darken thy prosperity, Nor treach'rous pitfall mar thy way of peace. My loving eyes would always joy to see Thy path lie ...
— Edward MacDowell • Elizabeth Fry Page
... were very vivacious, and her gestures, despite that bulk, quick and graceful. She was happy; her ideals were satisfied; it was probably happiness that had made her stout. Her massiveness was apparently no grief to her; she had fallen into the carelessness which is too often the pitfall of women who, being stout, ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... before other people the part of a victim. What delightful expressions of sympathy will she receive! Afterwards she will use this as a weapon against you, in the expectation thereby of leading you into a pitfall. ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... this tunnel, and there was no space in which to attempt to kindle a light. Once the thought came into Gaston's head that if he were falling into a treacherous pitfall laid for him with diabolic ingenuity by his foes, nothing could well be better than to entrap him into such a place as this, where it would be almost impossible to go forward or back, and quite out of his power to strike a single blow for ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... deprecate your perfidy even more than I despise your weakness. I can comprehend the effrontery of a fair aggression; but I scorn the meanness of intrigue. I may face the man-at-arms, but I shudder at the assassin. I may determine to hunt down and destroy the lion, but I disdain the trap and the pitfall. And what has been the pretext of his majesty's ministers? Moderation. In this spirit of moderation they invaded France; in this spirit of moderation they captured her fortresses, and then handed them over to the Emperor; in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... There is one pitfall in organization into which women fall more readily than men in my experience. Our instinct as women is to want to make everything perfect. We instinctively run to detail and to a desire for ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... me from the pitfall of wedded life! What an escape! I must inform Monsieur le Marquis. He will certainly relish this bit of scandal which all but happened at his own fireside. Certainly I shall inform him. It will be like caviar to the appetite. I shall ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... so great that if M. de Chateauneuf would pay that sum for him he would undertake to deliver the Queen of Scotland from her danger, by stabbing Elizabeth: to this proposal, M. de Trappes, who saw the pitfall laid for the French ambassador, was greatly astonished, and said that he was certain that M. de Chateauneuf would consider as very evil every enterprise having as its aim to threaten in any way the life of Queen Elizabeth or the peace of the realm; then, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the drowning, engulfed in the rushing icy waters and shot down to a violent fate with Pauline's wild voice in his ears and Pauline's pale face before his eyes. Yet, the peril over, he breathed freely again, and carefully holding on by the rail all along the path lest some other treacherous pitfall should lurk beneath the snow, reached the end of the bridge ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... court and Rome in Judea, but as a whole it is unsatisfactory. Once the plot develops Saltus seems to lose interest. He lazily quotes whole scenes from the Bible (George Moore very cleverly avoided this pitfall in "The Brook Kerith"). The early chapters suggest "Imperial Purple," which appeared a year later and upon which he may well have been at work at this time. There is a foreshadowing, too, of "The Lords of the Ghostland" in a very amusing and slightly cynical passage in ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... And then there are the thousand millions of lire* swallowed up in Rome! That was the real madness; pride and enthusiasm led us astray. Old and solitary as I've been for many years now, given to deep reflection, I was one of the first to divine the pitfall, the frightful financial crisis, the deficit which would bring about the collapse of the nation. I shouted it from the housetops, to my son, to all who came near me; but what was the use? They didn't listen; ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... coarse hands will portray the like in his works, and the same thing will occur in every limb unless he avoids this pitfall by long study. Therefore, O painter, look well on that part of thy person which is most ugly, and by thy study make ample reparation for it, because if thou art bestial, bestial and without intellect will be thy figures, and similarly both the good and ill which thou hast in thee will be partially ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... known that she was only luring me on to some pitfall of mockery, but I did not, and must needs burst out in some clumsy disclaimer meant to shield my dear lad. And in the midst of ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... afternoon. Pansie, however, fled onward with outstretched arms, half in fear, half in fun, plying her round little legs with wonderful promptitude, as if to escape Time or Death, in the person of Grandsir Dolliver, and happily avoiding the ominous pitfall that lies in every person's path, till, hearing a groan from her pursuer, she looked over her shoulder, and saw that poor grandpapa had stumbled over one of the many hillocks. She then suddenly wrinkled up her little visage, and sent forth ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... I was twelve, and it was on account of this reckless escapade that I was sent west and kept so long from home and all my flatterers. My guardian meant well by this, but in saving me from one pitfall he plunged me into another. I grew up without Cora and also without any idea of the requirements of my position or what I might anticipate from the world when the time came for me to enter it. I knew that I had money; so did those about me; but I had little or no idea of the amount, nor ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... measure of poetic prose as rendered by Mr. Artman, one of the most renowned blind authors—"There is a world to which night brings no gloom, no sadness, no impediments; fills no yawning chasm and hides from the traveler no pitfall. It is the world of sound. Silence is its night, the only darkness of which the blind have any knowledge. In it every attribute of Nature has a voice; the beautiful, the grand, the sublime, have each a language, and to me, whose heart is in tune, every sound has a peculiar significance. Sounds ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... he came to reason soberly over the adventure, the conclusion seemed obvious that the pitfall had been a consequent upon the breaking out of one of the ancient springs, so that the water, in endeavoring to find an outlet, had finally undermined the whole roadway. The chasm, as he looked back upon it, extended dear across the street. Its depth was ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... chambers by the aggressive force of a majority which transcended the limit of two-thirds, they congratulated themselves that this very power, beyond the restraint of the Executive and exercised in defiance of his opinions, would prove the pitfall of Republicanism wherever ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... my deeds, all, bad as they have been,— The way was dark, the awful pitfall bare;— In my weak hands, up through the fires of sin, I hold them for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... word, is a pitfall for Mysticism to avoid, not an error involved in its first principles. But we need not quarrel with those who have said that speculative Mysticism is the Christian form of Pantheism. For there is much truth in Amiel's dictum, that "Christianity, if it is to triumph over Pantheism, ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... a piece of rope from his saddle-bag and tied it about the priest's waist and his own. "If you have any holy pitfall in view for me, I shall have the pleasure of your company. And if I am led into labyrinths to die of starvation, you at least will have a meal: ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... now be sixty years old if they had not in unwary infancy tumbled into the enormous rainwater-troughs with which every well-regulated house was furnished. I have seen one or two of these having a capacity of fifty barrels dug from a single tulip bole. In such a pitfall some budding Washington or Lincoln may have been whelmed without causing so much as a ripple ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... the emperor. Such a noble! Of such high talents! What is human greatness? I often said, this can't end happily. His might, his greatness, and this obscure power Are but a covered pitfall. The human being May not be trusted to self-government. The clear and written law, the deep-trod footmarks Of ancient custom, are all necessary To keep him in the road of faith and duty. The authority intrusted to this man Was unexampled and unnatural, It placed him ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... But often a fox may be seen jogging along in the full daylight. The very keenness of the animal seems sometimes to work his undoing. He knows well that the dogs cannot catch him so he jollies along just in front of them over his accustomed route where he knows every possible pitfall of the way. And the hunter waiting to leeward shoots him. Had the fox had fewer brains and simply bolted in a panic as soon as the dogs got on his trail he might have lived to bolt again the next time. Once in a while ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... sprinkled it over with the earth he had dug out, till it looked like the surrounding surface, when he levelled the place all round, and made it all so much alike that, to the ineffable delight of the boys, he could hardly tell where the pitfall was exactly, and put one of his own feet in above the ankle. Harry fairly danced with delight, but, seeing that the old man was turning cross, he helped to cover the place again, and then they left the pail at the cottage, and walked back to the Grange. As for ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... then half reluctantly, half with that possession with which truth fills its keeper, slowly and sadly she unfolded the closed story. "What had Master Hector to do with Alice Boswell? He had to do with her as a man has to do with his heart's desire, his snare, his pitfall." ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... ascertain the fact, the precise terms of the forfeit, the provisoes for getting out of paying it at last, led to a long and inextricable discussion. Kirkpatrick's vanity, however, one night led him into a terrible pitfall. He recklessly ventured money on the fact that The Mourning Bride was written by Shakespeare; headlong he fell, and ruefully he partook of the bowl of punch for which he had to pay. As a rule his nightly outlay seldom exceeded sevenpence. Four hours' good ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... meritorious work of our painters dependent upon foreign influence. Portraits, genre pictures, landscapes, and marines tell the story of many individual men working out their salvation in more or less original fashion. I have spoken at some length about the pitfall of genre painting, but Thomas Hovenden's "Breaking Home Ties" redeems the entire school. Irrespective of the fact that it is a picture very popular with the large public by reason of its sentimental appeal, it is well painted, and it will always ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... whole ground; it covered the holes in the bridges, and so choked up the drains that in many places they were completely concealed, and what appeared to be a smooth level surface of ground might really be a dangerous pitfall. Here, however, Clarkson chose to go. He flogged his horse unmercifully, and the sleigh flew over the ground, scattering the snow and striking every moment against some roughness of the road which it concealed. They passed ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... hurrying figure stopped and turned quickly, he did not pause, but rather hastened his steps. He saw her lift her muff up to her heart, saw her waver, then move resolutely toward him. She came thus two or three steps, when a treacherous pitfall in the snow opened under her frightened feet and she went down almost shoulder ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... talking to her pretty soon. For a catchy starter, I could tell her about Nowhere, how these five other buggers and me found ourselves independently skulking along after this scavenging expedition from Porter, how we naturally joined forces in that situation, how we set a pitfall for their alky-powered jeep and wrecked it and them, how when our haul turned out to be unexpectedly big the four of us left from the kill chummied up and padded down together and amused each other for a while and played games, you might say. ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... false systems every available principle of the true; for the deception of the counterfeit depends wholly upon its likeness to the real. Herein is revealed the reason for calling that a lie or deception which is externally so like the truth. Certainly there could be no greater pitfall for souls than a system which seems to be the truth of God, and yet robs its followers of any basis for a true hope, and it will be found that the most terrible condemnation of Scripture is uttered against such systems ...
— Satan • Lewis Sperry Chafer
... he went a cropper about some woman or other, ten years ago," lisped a rosy young lieutenant who was spreading the golden revenues of a home brewery over the pitfall-dotted path of ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... in his voice surprised her, and she looked searchingly at him, wondering into what pitfall it ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... garrison, rained on them from above, killed or wounded the slaves by scores, who, poor creatures, when they turned to fly, were driven onward by the spear-points of the savages, to be slain in heaps like game in a pitfall. Still, some of them lived, and running under the shelter of the wall, began to breach it with the rude battering rams, and to raise the scaling ladders till death found them, or they were worn out ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... Amyot carry out her triumphant fraud. If she wanted to lecture on Plato she should—Plato must take his chance like the rest of us! There was no use, of course, in being "discriminating." I preserved sufficient reason to avoid that pitfall, but I suggested "subjects" and made lists of books for her with a fatuity that became more obvious as time attenuated the remembrance of her smile; I even remember thinking that some men might have cut the knot by marrying her, but I handed over Plato as a hostage ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... would then send a band of his warriors to lie in ambush for the raiding party, and, as the enemy would not suspect anything they would go blindly into the pitfall of death thus set for them. Thus the crow was the scout of this chief, whose reputation as a Wakan (Holy man) soon reached all of the different tribes. The Chief's warriors would intercept, ambush and annihilate every war party ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... ghastly countenance; and trembling herself almost to the point of falling, caught him by the arm and sought to read his face what had happened. Something disastrous she was sure; something which he had feared and was partially prepared for, yet which in happening had crushed him. Was it a pitfall into which the poor little lady had fallen? If so—But he is speaking—mumbling low words to himself. Some of them she can hear. He is reproaching himself—repeating over and over that he should never have taken such a chance; that he should have remembered her youth—the weakness of ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... steadily, even leisurely; for I had him, as in a pitfall, whence no escape might be. He thought that I feared to approach him, for he knew not where he was: and his low disdainful laugh came back. "Laugh ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... had rushed into a pitfall of his own making—he was entirely in his opponent's hands—and like the mean cur he was, immediately began to sue for forgiveness and terms ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... another example of want of intelligence! You read the words, and never trouble about the connection. Who in their sane senses would ask you to compare a warrior king with old Miss Yonge? A little reflection would have saved you from the pitfall into which you have all fallen headlong. Five bad marks each! Now, then, for the next two. What have you got to say about ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... digging pitfalls for game. The people say that now the Government and the Siem of Nongstoin have prohibited both of these methods of destroying game, they no longer employ them. But I came across a pitfall for deer not long ago in the neighbourhood of a village in the Lynngam country. The people declared it to be a very old one; but this I very much doubt, and I fear that these objectionable methods of hunting are still used. The Lynngams fish to a small extent with nets, but their idea of fishing, ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... things, the ship rights. Before one can say 'Thank Heaven!' she wrongs again. Before one can cry she IS wrong, she seems to have started forward, and to be a creature actually running of its own accord, with broken knees and failing legs, through every variety of hole and pitfall, and stumbling constantly. Before one can so much as wonder, she takes a high leap into the air. Before she has well done that, she takes a deep dive into the water. Before she has gained the surface, she throws a summerset. The instant she is on her legs, ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... my companion, seizing me with one hand by the collar, and hauling, or rather lifting me back, as if I had been a poodle dog. "Why, you were as near as possible into a pitfall." ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... of hope till her child gets so rooted in her heart that"—But conscience and good sense interrupted this temporary thought, and made him see to what a horrible life of suspense he should condemn a human creature, and live a perpetual lie, and be always at the edge of some pitfall or other. ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... the ground would more than compensate for this, since the two horns of General von Buelow's army could not combine without crossing those marshes, now boggy enough, and growing boggier every second. The task was harder than General Foch anticipated, for the same rainy conditions that provided a pitfall for the Germans were also a manifest hindrance to the rapid execution of military maneuvers. But, in spite of all difficulties, by evening of that day, the flank broke and gave way, and two entire corps from General von ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... the American Negro has produced no notorious offenders against civil or military usage. He has arisen to the moral concept of high responsibility for the future of his race in the estimation of all mankind. There is no story of moral degeneracy which has yet come from abroad concerning him. Pitfall, temptation and opportunity for vice and crime have all been shunned in light of preparation for the higher service. The Negro has proven his power of moral restraint while guided by leadership of his own color. As a social being he has sacrificed his life for ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... "Is not this great Babylon which I have built?" our reason, like his, should reel and fall beneath the narcotic of our own maddening self-conceit, and while attempting to scale the heavens we overlook some pitfall at our feet, and fall as learned idiots, suicidal pedants, to be a degradation, and a hissing, ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... I was alone in gravelike silence. I hardly, dared to take a step, for I knew these underground cells were honeycombed with death-traps. I could not grope about me with my hands, for they were tied, and I knew not what pitfall ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... accomplishes this by means of a pitfall, covered with branches and palm-leaves; at other times, he places himself in ambuscade, either before twilight or in the early morning, and shoots the unsuspecting animal as it ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... killing tigers. We want you to find out, for us, when a tiger was last seen near the village; where its lair is supposed to be; and whether, according to its situation, we should have the best chance of killing it by digging a pitfall, on the path by which it usually comes from the jungle; or by getting a kid and tying it up, to attract the tiger to a spot where we shall be stationed ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... one who trimmed the borders while Boccaccio's gay company were occupying that garden; or to hear what the head gardener of the d'Este's could tell us, but I know now why it is so. With the best of intentions I haven't been able to avoid the pitfall myself. ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... will in its activity, Flacius, in the heat of the controversy, exclaimed: "Originale peccatum non est accidens. Original sin is not an accident, for the Scriptures call it flesh, the evil heart," etc. Thus he fell into the pitfall which the wily Strigel had adroitly laid for him. Though Flacius seemed to be loath to enter upon the matter any further, and protested against the use of philosophical definitions in theology, Strigel now was eager to entangle him still further, plying him with the question: "An negas peccatum ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... make the mistake of thinking that "well dressed" necessarily means being expensively dressed, and, with this erroneous idea in mind, they fall into as great a pitfall as those who think clothes are of no importance. They devote the time that should be given to the culture of head and heart to studying their toilets, and planning how they can buy, out of their limited salaries, this or that expensive hat, or tie or ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... the popular expression, was so "slow" as to perform a fatal surgical operation upon himself, in emulation of a juggling trick achieved by his arch enemy at breakfast-time; not even he fell half so readily into the snare prepared for him as the old lady into this artful pitfall. The fact of Tackleton having walked out; and furthermore, of two or three people having been talking together at a distance, for two minutes, leaving her to her own resources; was quite enough to have put her on her dignity, and the bewailment of that ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... was a rather young and a very handsome man, had been very kind, and was now looking at her with eyes actually moistened with tears, a sudden sense of being on the edge of a pitfall overcame Mrs. Hastings; and she turned pale and red alternately. Yet, with the instinct of a pure woman, to avoid recognizing an ugly thought, she answered with a laugh as gay as she ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... A still greater pitfall before us is that we read history not as men, but as gods, knowing the event. The name of Marathon to us implies not struggle, not danger, but triumph; and as we think of the little band of Athenians defiling from the mountains and looking on the sea, with ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... model. He swung it round his head once, broke an outhouse window with a flying fragment of glass, and ruined the stocking beyond all darning. He developed a subtle scheme with the cellar flap as a sort of pitfall, but he rejected it finally because (A) it might entrap the plump woman, and (B) he had no use whatever for Uncle Jim in the cellar. He determined to wire the garden that evening, burglar fashion, against the ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... to beware? But thou wilt tumble into thine own pitfall. The trap is laid for thine ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... its masterful simplicity will be more impressive than in this colorful colonnade. It is a true addition to noteworthy American works of art and fully expresses the spirit of this courageous motherhood, tender but strong, adventurous but womanly, enduring but not humble. It has escaped every pitfall of mawkishness, stubbornly refused to descend to mere prettiness, and lived up to the noblest possibilities of its theme. The strong guiding hands, the firmly set feet, the clear, broad brow of the Mother and the uncompromisingly simple, sculpturally pure lines of figure ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... while insanely twisted back over their shoulders, and the glare of their eyes fixed frightfully on the swift-footed Mad Dominie, till souse over neck and ears, bubble and squeak, precipitated into traitorous pitfall, and in a moment evanished from this ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... yet, only instinctive wariness; for fear comes largely from others' example, from alarms and excitement and cries of danger, which only the grown animals understand. The old wolf had been undisturbed; no dog or hunter had chased her; no trap or pitfall had entangled her swift feet. Moreover, she had chosen her den well, where no man had ever stood, and where only the eyes of two children had seen her at a distance. So the little ones grew and played in the sunshine, and had yet to learn ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... plunging into another pitfall. She had challenged him, and he knew it. "Nothing what-ever," she answered, with an urbanity that defied the suggestion of malice. Yet, now that she remembered, she had sweetly challenged one of a royal house for the like lapse into the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a pitfall, he had floundered in. "Like other men?" Northrup sneered at himself. No other man could be such a consummate fool, knowing ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... she. "In my younger days I had no experience; I only thought of vengeance, and lately the weapons I forged myself have been turned against me. I dug a pitfall for my adversaries and ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... Arras, where one would have liked to linger, nay, to stay a week or a few days. But this wishing to stay a week at a picturesque place is often a dangerous pitfall, as the amiable Charles Collins has shown in his own quaint style. Has anyone, he asks, ever, 'on arriving at some place he has never visited before, taken a sudden fancy to it, committed himself to apartments for a month certain, gone on praising the locality ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... vindictive justice; but to prevent frauds, and make punishment unnecessary, is the great employment of legislative wisdom. To permit Intromission, and to punish fraud, is to make law no better than a pitfall. To tread upon the brink is safe; but to come a step further is destruction. But, surely, it is better to enclose the gulf, and hinder all access, than by encouraging us to advance a little, to entice us afterwards a little ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... overwhelms every intellect the moment it emerges from its own sphere, and is brought face to face with events not of its own initiation. And, besides, it is quite possible that if this ordeal of the trellis were to obtain more regularly and generally among the bees, they would end by detecting the pitfall, and by taking steps to elude it. They have mastered the intricacies of the movable comb, of the sections that compel them to store their surplus honey in little boxes symmetrically piled; and in the case of the still more extraordinary ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... of whom she was never tired of talking. Maude's friendship was very sweet to the young man, who had so few means of enjoyment, and whose life was one of toil and care. So he went blindly on toward the pitfall in the distance, and began at last to look forward with a great deal of pleasure to the readings or talks with Maude, even though he did not find her very intellectual. She amused and rested him, and that was something to the tired and ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... wisdom I bestowed upon Traddles in this manner was immense, and of the best quality; but it had no other effect upon Dora than to depress her spirits, and make her always nervous with the dread that it would be her turn next. I found myself in the condition of a schoolmaster, a trap, a pitfall; of always playing spider to Dora's fly, and always pouncing out of my hole to ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... first time in his life, Kim thrilled to the clean pride (it can be a deadly pitfall, none the less) of Departmental praise—ensnaring praise from an equal of work appreciated by fellow-workers. Earth has nothing on the same plane to compare with it. But, cried the Oriental in him, Babus do not ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... "fatal facility" cannot be applied to so consummate a draughtsman as the illustrator of Dante, Cervantes and Victor Hugo. But Dore's almost superhuman memory was no less of a pitfall than manual dexterity. The following story will partly explain his dislike of facsimile ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... civilize?" is a fine example of petitio principii. and decides itself in the affirmative; for civilization must needs do that from the doing of which it has its name. But it is not necessary to suppose that he who propounds is either unconscious of his lapse in logic or desirous of digging a pitfall for the feet of those who discuss; I take it he simply wishes to put the matter in an impressive way, and relies upon a certain degree of ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... that Mr. Godfrey had been the victim of some incomprehensible error, committed by certain unknown men. A dark conspiracy was on foot in the midst of us; and our beloved and innocent friend had been entangled in its meshes. When the Christian hero of a hundred charitable victories plunges into a pitfall that has been dug for him by mistake, oh, what a warning it is to the rest of us to be unceasingly on our guard! How soon may our own evil passions prove to be Oriental noblemen who ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... of their drawing-rooms. If I do, there shall be no deceit. I certainly shall not marry for love. Indeed, from early years I never thought it possible that I should do so. I have floundered unawares into the pitfall, and now I must flounder out. I have always thought that there was much in the world well worth the living for besides love. Ambition needs not be a closed book for women, unless they choose to close it. I do not see but that a statesman's wife ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... Edwards had done. There was some reason to suspect that our friend Harry, who was an habitual rider, and knew all the environs of Oldport pretty well, and was fonder of short cuts and going over grass than most American horsemen are, had not been altogether ignorant of the existence of the pitfall; it looked very much as if he had led Edwards, who was no particular friend of his, purposely into it: but if such was the case, he kept his own counsel. When the fallen man and mare had scrambled out of the hole, which ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... reach to the ends of the earth, and truly it sometimes seemeth to me that if the priests, the abbots, and the monks set their faces steadfastly against this light, they will fall into some terrible pitfall, but they will never quench the light with ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... temptation heaven and hell may be at stake: and that the only way to be safe is to do nothing wilfully wrong at all, for you never know how far downward one wilful sin may lead you. The devil is not simple enough to let you see the bottom of his pitfall: but it is so deep, nevertheless, that he who falls in, ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... won victory over us all, for we were not on our guard against them. And this is the way to defeat them: To mine a hole broader than the tower in the ground in the front thereof and cover over the pitfall; [W.5669.] and for the battle-line to be drawn up over against it and not to advance to attack, so that it is the towers that advance and fall into the pit. Lebarcham told me, as I passed over Taltiu, that the Ulstermen brought these ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... Under the sudden necessity of proving his statement, his thoughts centered upon the conclusion which had resulted from his suspicions—that Langford's visit to Dakota concerned Doubler. Equivocation would have taken him safely away from the pitfall into which his rash words had almost plunged him, but he felt that any evasion now would only bring scorn into the eyes which he wished to see alight with something else. Besides, here was an opportunity ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... who was not straightforward it might have been a different thing. Be thankful for your head-mistress's trust in you, and always act up to the principles you have been taught; it will save you from many a pitfall or from the trouble a weak young lady like Miss ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... somewhat acquainted with our surroundings that we might be able fully to realize every snare and pitfall, we were taught to begin to walk alone. What weak, tottering, childish steps they were. How often our eyes would wander to the face of our guide, as if to implore his help. But he, knowing it was for our good, would simply encourage ...
— Silver Links • Various
... he did not stutter. Without the slightest difficulty he leaped that pitfall of the drunken, ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... never showed himself. The sky had become overcast, the darkness was profound, and one by one the regiments marched out in deepest silence, an array of phantoms stealing away into the bosom of the night. Every heart beat joyfully, however, as if they were escaping from some treacherous pitfall; already in imagination the troops beheld themselves under the walls of Paris, where their revenge was ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... to themselves in writing is to convey no meaning at all. And here is a quite unsuspected pitfall into which they successively plunge headlong. For it is precisely in such cryptographies that mankind are prone to seek for and find a wonderful amount and variety of significance. Omne ignotum pro mirifico. How do we admire at the antique world striving ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... out of water," and is about as helpless, nature never having intended him to be seen outside of his burrow—at least, in this present form. There he dwells, setting his circular trap at the mouth of his pitfall, and waiting for the voluntary sacrifice of his insect neighbors to ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... this purpose I made snares to hamper them; and I do believe they were more than once taken in them; but my tackle was not good, for I had no wire, and I always found them broken and my bait devoured. At length I resolved to try a pitfall; so I dug several large pits in the earth, in places where I had observed the goats used to feed, and over those pits I placed hurdles of my own making too, with a great weight upon them; and several times I ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... could, and surveyed it where he liked, with a consequent endless confusion of titles. The National Government possessed the disposal of the land in the Northwest and in Mississippi; and it avoided the pitfall of unlimited private surveying; but it made little effort to prevent swindling by land companies, and none whatever to people the country with actual settlers. Congress granted great tracts of lands to companies and to individuals, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... from a miser's standpoint, could not understand that there might lurk in the Indian a tinge of sentiment. He was mistaken, and the mistake was a little pitfall ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... eye, more than meets the ear; Delphic oracle; le dessous des cartes [Fr.], undercurrent. implication, logical implication; logical consequence; entailment. allusion, insinuation; innuendo &c 527; adumbration; something rotten in the state of Denmark [Hamlet]. snake in the grass &c (pitfall) 667; secret &c 533. darkness, invisibility, imperceptibility. V. be latent &c adj.; lurk, smolder, underlie, make no sign; escape observation, escape detection, escape recognition; lie hid &c 528. laugh in one's sleeve; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... before a tempest, false hearts speak fair To those they intend most mischief. [Reads.] 'Send Antonio to me; I want his head in a business.' A politic equivocation! He doth not want your counsel, but your head; That is, he cannot sleep till you be dead. And here 's another pitfall that 's strew'd o'er With roses; mark it, 'tis a cunning one: [Reads.] 'I stand engaged for your husband for several debts at Naples: let not that trouble him; I had rather have his heart than his money':— And I believe ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... his journey passed through the forest upon a dark and gloomy night. He journeyed in dread; he feared the robbers who infested the route he was traversing; he feared that he might slip and fall into some unseen ditch or pitfall on the way, and he feared, too, the wild beasts, which he knew were about him. By chance he discovered a pine torch, and lighted it, and its gleams afforded him great relief. He no longer feared brambles or pitfalls, for he could see his way before him. But the dread of robbers and wild beasts was ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... woodwork. When found and proved to be too extensive to be a partially buried box, it might safely be concluded to be some part of the roof, and only required to be skirted in order to reach the vertical entrance. The lost man often discovered this pitfall by dropping suddenly ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... brothers, my more than brothers— Lost and gone are those days indeed: Where are the bells, the gowns, the voices, All that made us one blood and breed? Gone—and in many an unknown pitfall You have swinked, and died like men— And here I sit in a quiet chamber Writing ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... in our pitfall; but being older than the first, they showed no inclination to become domesticated, so we were compelled to kill them, and to cut up and dry their flesh—which, though rather tough, was not otherwise unpalatable. Notwithstanding ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... Bertie; you were thinking of Doctor Bertie's 'only'," was the laughing contradiction; and Griswold was glad that the coming of the man with the trap saved him from the necessity of falling any farther into what might easily prove to be a dangerous pitfall. Later on, while he was mechanically lifting his hat in recognition of the many salutations acknowledged by his companion in their triumphal progress down Main Street, he was still thankful and still puzzling over the almost uncanny coincidence. It was not the first ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... Mrs. Frostwinch walking before him in a shimmer of Boston respectability. He had an uneasy feeling that he was passing from one pitfall to another. He was keenly conscious of the richness of the voice of the girl by his side, so that he felt that it was not easy for him to disagree with anything which she said. He let her remark ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... Ramsden's servant crouching in a corner, as far as possible from Mrs Forster, evidently about as well pleased with his company as one would be in a pitfall with a tiger. At last it stopped at the door of the lunatic asylum, and the post-boy dismounting from his reeking horses, pulled violently at a large bell, which answered with a most lugubrious tolling, and struck awe into the breast of ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... wished to oblige the beholder, on looking at the portrait, to think wholly of the face in front of him, and nothing of the man who painted it. And it is my opinion that the artist who paints portraits in this way need have no fear of the pitfall of mannerism either ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... he be often trapped in the pitfall. They affright people with the very mention of death, and many cross themselves, as it were the name of the devil. And because the making a man's will is in reference to dying, not a man will be persuaded to take a pen in hand to that ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... officers. I never fathomed the mystery of his military costume, but conjectured that a lurking sense of fitness had induced him to exchange his clerical garments for this habit of a sinner; nor can I tell precisely into what pitfall, not more of vice than terrible calamity, he had precipitated himself,—being more than satisfied to know that the outcasts of society can sink no lower than this poor, desecrated wretch ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... in his own practice to the most inscrutable of cryptograms. His true objective was the provision of a full, accurate, legible script for our noble but ill-dressed language; but he was led past that by his contempt for the popular Pitman system of Shorthand, which he called the Pitfall system. The triumph of Pitman was a triumph of business organization: there was a weekly paper to persuade you to learn Pitman: there were cheap textbooks and exercise books and transcripts of speeches for you to copy, and ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... fit for Phoebe's waist Which I would loosen; for I have the skill To handle lilies; and, by Venus' will, I'd handle thee, and comfort thee therein. For love's a sacrament I'd die to win, And not a toy nor yet a subterfuge; And not a pitfall ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... dispatches, one of which might have hurried the French up from Montreal here to save Fort Frontenac. Wherever you could, you bungled; but you rode on the full tide of luck. And even when you tumbled in love with this girl—oh, you needn't deny it!— even when you walked straight into the pitfall that ninety-nine men in a hundred would have seen and avoided—your very folly pulled you out of the mess! You escaped, by her grace, having foiled two dispatches and possessed your self of knowledge that might have saved Amherst from wasting ten minutes where he wasted two days. And ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... next moment, "Let me pass now and go first," he whispered. "The passage is very narrow, and dark as dark. Thanks, Saint Simon," he continued, as he squeezed by him; and then, as if to himself, but loud enough for Francis to hear, "and then if there is any trap or pitfall in the way I shall be the sufferer, and they will hear me and escape. Ah," he continued to himself, "the way seems easy, and what did the lad say?—that it led after several turns to some stairs which descended to the ground floor, and finally to a door which opened upon a bosky portion ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... was right. Russian craft had dug many a pitfall for the English diplomatist, and Brumsey had fallen into every one of them. Acting on secret information—all ingeniously prepared to entrap him—Brumsey had discovered a secret demand made by Russia to enable one of the imperial family to make ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... supported by the authorities at Home. They supplied him with neither men nor money, and on them therefore the chief responsibility of the Colony's troubles rest. But a study of his two years of rule fails to reveal any pitfall in his pathway into which he ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... failed to write, she slipped out of the house at night and paced Central Park for hours, fighting her rebellious nerves with her pride and the strong independent will that she had believed would enable her to leap lightly over every pitfall in life. ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... both, for we are saying what should wait to be said, and have talked of love only while vowing not to do so!... Let loose my hand, Euan—that somehow has stolen into yours. Ai-me! This is a very maze I seem to travel in, with every pitfall hiding all I would avoid, and everywhere ambush laid for me.... Listen, dear lad, I am more pitifully at your mercy than I dreamed of. Be faithful to my faithless self that falters. Point out the path ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... distance when a troop of giraffes hove in sight, and beautiful objects they were, with their heads elevated on their long necks. Influenced by the propensity of a hunter I dashed forward in pursuit. Suddenly, my horse swerved on one side, and I saw that he had narrowly escaped a pitfall. Almost directly afterwards, two of the giraffes sank into other pits, and on turning round I saw that the animals were pursued by a party of natives, who had them ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston
... truth the tracks all belong to one and the same brute. So acute is their perception, so narrowly do they scrutinize every minute object in their path, so suspicious is their nature, that anything new in their path, such as a pitfall, a screen of cut grass, a mychan, that is, a stage from which you might be intending to get a shot, nay, even the print of a footstep—a man's, a horse's, an elephant's—is often quite enough to turn them from a projected expedition, or at any rate to lead them to seek some new outlet from ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... to yield to ordinary measures. It was a difficult problem, for the rocky river-bed held many a snare and pitfall. There was a certain ledge under the water, so artfully placed that every log striking under its projecting edges would wedge itself firmly there, attracting others by its ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... wanted was a partner with a natural rural make-up to play a part in some little one-act outrages that I was going to book with the Pitfall & Gin circuit in some of the Western towns; and this R. Tatum was born for the role as sure as nature cast Fairbanks for the stuff that kept Eliza from ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... really? Well, never mind us. Tell me more about your work," she besought, setting the feminine pitfall—half unconsciously—into which trapper and prey so often walk ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... force and gave his travelers a free hand on the price list. Persuasion and diplomacy having failed, a frenzy like that of one who finds himself slipping into the sharp-staked pitfall prepared for others seized on him. It was the madness of those who have seen the clock hands stop and begin to turn steadily backward on ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... I say, And sheathe thy sword again. My followers Surround the house; my vessels are a match For all of thine, and I myself have come To win the country in an honest fight. Thyself hast urged me with thy plots to do it. Thou standest like a despicable thrall In his own pitfall caught at last; but I Will make no use of these advantages Which fate has granted me. I am convinced That I may boldly meet thee face to face. Thy purpose, as thou seest, has wholly failed, And in his own blood does thy Thorer swim. Thou seest 'twere easy for me to have seized thee; To ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... The second pitfall to avoid is any pulling or straining of the material during the operation of embroidering it. Success in avoiding this depends primarily upon the various threads being drawn at each stitch to the proper tension, so that ...
— English Embroidered Bookbindings • Cyril James Humphries Davenport
... is "white"; and the conclusions are directly at variance with the ideals that have been supposed to guide England and America. Incidentally the work speaks of the Negro and negroid population of Africa as "estimated at about 120,000,000." This low estimate has proved a common pitfall for writers. If we remember that Africa is three and a half times as large as the United States, and that while there are no cities as large as New York and Chicago, there are many centers of very dense population; if we ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... Similarly, while there is no doubt a bright future for somebody in Celluloid, Fiberloid, and Other Factitious Goods, instinct tells me that there is none for—" he pulled up on the verge of saying, "James Braithwaite Crocker," and shuddered at the nearness of the pitfall. "—for—" he hesitated again—"for Algernon ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... branch which rested against the pit's edge, and the lookout in the tree exercised an extra caution, since his comrade below could no longer attain safety in a moment. But the work was done at last, that is, the work of digging, and there remained but the completion of the pitfall, a delicate though not a difficult matter. Across the pit, and very close together, were laid criss-crosses of slender branches, brought in armfuls from the forest; over these dry grass was spread, thinly but evenly, and over this again dust and dirt and more grass and twigs, all precautions being ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... bungling for a few hours at a stretch, and I a-listening every night in the parlour of the 'Spotted Dog' to old seamen swearing and singing their songs. And I'll find an opportunity to give—Moll a hint of my past folly, and so rescue her from a like pitfall. I'll abide by your advice, Kit,—which is the wisest I ever heard from ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... as a moral pitfall is more potent in Hong Kong than in India or other Eastern lands possessing a sprinkling of Europeans. A newcomer's ears hear little but "chit." Every sentence uttered by friends, every proposal of obsequious native merchant, is freighted with the little ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... World! know all these beauties Mere shows and snares; know thee a gilded serpent, A flowery bank whose sweets smile o'er a pitfall; A splendid prison, precious tomb, fair palace, Whose golden domes allure poor wanderers in, And when they've entered, crush them! Such I know thee And, knowing, loath thy charms! Rise, rise, ye storms! Mingle ye elements! Flash lightnings, flash! Unmask this ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... he soon quitted the stream, hoping at least to get rid of the sight of himself; but he had scarcely gone twenty paces when he tumbled into a pitfall that was laid to catch bears; the bear-hunters, descending from some trees hard by, caught him, chained him, and only too delighted to get hold of such a curious-looking animal, led him along with them to the capital of his ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... this purpose, I made snares to hamper them; and I do believe they were more than once taken in them; but my tackle was not good, for I had no wire, and I always found them broken, and my bait devoured. At length I resolved to try a pitfall: so I dug several large pits in the earth, in places where I had observed the goats used to feed, and over those pits I placed hurdles, of my own making too, with a great weight upon them; and several times I put ears of barley and dry ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... in various ways. The pitfall is now prohibited, so also is the Assam plan of inclosing a herd in a salt lick. Noosing and driving into a kheddah or inclosure are now the only legitimate means of capture. The process is too long for description ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... often as sauce to our fish. As for the birds themselves, having long omitted to fire at them, I had an effectual means of taking them otherwise by nets, which I set between the trees, and also very large pitfall nets, with which I used to catch all sorts, even from the size of a thrush to that of a turkey. But as I shall say more of these when I come to speak of my ward by and by, and of my poultry, I shall omit any further mention ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... men who do things. The world judges by outward appearances. If your heart is sick, if your courage is low, don't show it. Put up a stiff attitude and act with confidence and that attitude will carry you over many a pitfall and past ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... the roadside, picking himself out as quickly as may be, or, in his weariness, choosing at least to sleep the night there and go on with his journey next morning. In the heart of Sally, whether it were a pitfall or not, love was an end in itself. She directed all her steps towards that destination, and any light ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... done, this would produce a certain sort of horror, that I do not remember to have seen effected in literature. Possibly the ancient emigrant might be supposed to have fallen into an ancient mine, down a precipice, into some pitfall; no, not so. Into a river; into a moat. As Middleton's pretensions to birth are not publicly known, there will be no reason why, at his sudden death, suspicion should fix on Eldredge as the murderer; and it shall be his object so to contrive his death as that it shall ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... puzzles, especially in the Arithmetical and Algebraical category, are quite easy. Yet some of those examples that look the simplest should not be passed over without a little consideration, for now and again it will be found that there is some more or less subtle pitfall or trap into which the reader may be apt to fall. It is good exercise to cultivate the habit of being very wary over the exact wording of a puzzle. It teaches exactitude and caution. But some of the problems are very hard nuts indeed, and not ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... impression—that what I saw was innocent and normal. Besides, I was thinking what I should say to Pavannes when I saw him—in what terms I should warn him of his peril, and cast his perfidy in his teeth. We had hurried along in this way—and in absolute silence, save when some obstacle or pitfall drew from us an exclamation—for about a quarter of a mile, when my companion, turning into a slightly wider street, slackened her speed, and indicated by a gesture that we had arrived. A lamp hung over the porch, to which she pointed, and showed the small side gate half open. ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... please, sir—your honor's will be done. Our guests are now, even as the visits of angels, unco few and far between; and thus, when one comes, we are loath to part with him. There is a deep pitfall, and an ugly gullyhole where the burn crosses the road at the town-head, and if ye miss the path, the rocks by the beach are steep, and ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... For over the pitfall the moon-dew is thawing, And, with never a body, two shadows stand sawing— The wraiths of two sawyers (step under and under), Who did a foul murder and were ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... the steps was reached in safety, the candle being held low down, so as to guard against any pitfall or fresh flight ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... be ashamed of, Ruth," he said, soberly. "I've always had the woman I should marry in my mind—'the not impossible she,' and my ideal has kept me out of many a pitfall I wanted to go to her with clean hands and a clean heart, and I have. I'm not a saint, but I'm as clean as I could be, and live ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... fortune. They did not hesitate, therefore, to offer her a compact by which she was to be a full partner, although they themselves had to risk all they possessed,—a capital of some twenty thousand dollars. You have seen what these respectable people proposed to make of her,—a snare and a pitfall. They knew very well that her matchless beauty would catch fools innumerable, and bring in a rich harvest ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... things—first that the Jinns are obliged to answer questions put to them in the name of Allah, or God; and also that though very powerful, they are very stupid, and do not see when they are being led into a pitfall. So he said, "I consent to die; but before I choose the manner of my death, I conjure thee, by the great name of Allah, which is graven upon the seal of the prophet Solomon, the son of David, to answer me truly a question I am going ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... with soulless swine, Nor let strange snares their path environ: Their only pitfall was a mine— Their pigs ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... breaking through that rent cave-mouth of the mountains and falling chill adown the haunted tunnel; Christian's further progress along the causeway, between the two black pools, where, at every yard or two, a gin, a pitfall, or a snare awaits the passer-by—loathsome white devilkins harbouring close under the bank to work the springes, Christian himself pausing and pricking with his sword's point at the nearest noose, and pale discomfortable mountains rising on the farther side; or yet again, the two ill-favoured ones ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... One pitfall has to do with Federal Cost-sharing and the way it affects the freedom of choice of the States and localities on which the primary responsibility for eliminating pollution must rest. In building treatment plants to lessen the load of wastes discharged ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... gentlemen then?" cried Barbara; "or where is the good of being a gentleman? Is it that he knows better how to lie to a woman? A knight used to be every woman's castle of refuge; a gentleman now, it seems, is a pitfall ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... make a mere guess, may have been its earliest use, if utilitarian contrivances can generally claim historical precedence, as is by no means certain. As long as man hunted with very inferior weapons, he must have depended a good deal on drives, that either forced the game into a pitfall, or rounded them up so as to enable a concerted attack to be made by the human pack. No wonder that the bull-roarer is sometimes used to bring luck in a mystic way to hunters. More commonly, however, at the present ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... the Puritan did not condemn bear-baiting because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectator. The Puritan regarded beauty as a pitfall and a snare: that which gave pleasure was a sin; he found his gratification in doing without things. Puritanism was a violent oscillation of the pendulum of life to the other side. From the vanity, pretense, affectation and sensualism of a Church and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... deliberately, in order to shine in politics, literature, art, commerce or private life—that these men should all marry with the intention of being happy, of governing a wife, either by love or by force, and should all tumble into the same pitfall and should become foolish, after having enjoyed a certain happiness for a certain time,—this is certainly a problem whose solution is to be found rather in the unknown depths of the human soul, than in the quasi physical truths, on the ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... for himself, fortunately—to seize the caves. As they raged against each other no less desperately than against their human adversaries, the issue of the war was never in doubt. The Hillmen stood together solidly, fought with all their cunning of pitfall and ambuscade, and overwhelmed the mightiest by sheer weight of numbers. But again the victory was dearly bought. When the last of the monsters, sullen and amazed, withdrew to seek less difficult encounters, he left mourning and lamentation in ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts |
