"Ripple" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Causing scarcely a ripple in the water, she paddled to the boat. There she clung to the rail and listened. She could not ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... With a ripple of leaves and a twinkle of streams The full world rolls in a rhythm of praise, And the winds are one with the clouds and beams— Midsummer days! Midsummer days! The dusks grow vast in a purple haze, While the West from a rapture of sunset rights, Faint stars their exquisite lamps upraise— ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... down the keys, rising above them to an extravagant height and pouncing down upon them again, those predatory hands that had pounced on the spoils of Susa! They began, in a moment, to flutter lightly over the upper end of the keyboard. It was extraordinary what a ripple poured as if out of those hands. Magin himself bent over to listen to the ripple, partly showing his face as he turned his ear to the keys. He showed, too, in the lessening gloom, a smile Matthews had never seen before, more extraordinary than anything. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... extinguishing the stars. Before long half the sky was overspread. Evidently motive power lay in the cloud itself, for there was not a breath of wind. Absolute calm reigned in the atmosphere; not a leaf stirred on the tree, not a ripple disturbed the surface of the water. There seemed to be scarcely any air even, as though some vast pneumatic machine had rarefied it. The entire atmosphere was charged to the utmost with electricity, the presence of which ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... people, that they might be taught the true way to life and eternal happiness. It was 9.30 p.m. when we paddled back to our camp. We met as usual around the camp fire, and each one repeated a verse of Scripture; then we knelt in the shade of the dark bush, with the ripple of the water in our ears, and God's heaven lighted up by His silvery moon, nearly at its full, and offered up our confessions, and prayers, and praises to Almighty God ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... and higher, chased by the shadows; and then, after lingering for a moment on their crests of honeysuckle and juniper, passed away, and the whole became sombre and grey. The sea-gull sprang upwards from where he had floated on the ripple, and hied him slowly away to his lodge in his deep-sea stack; the dusky cormorant flitted past, with heavier and more frequent stroke, to his whitened shelf high on the precipice; the pigeons came whizzing downwards from the ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... The ripple of events which we have recorded may seem too insignificant; of still less import is the story of the efforts of Clairborne, from 1634: to 1647, to gain, or retain possession of Kent Island, in the Chesapeake, on which he had "squatted" before Baltimore got his charter. Yet, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... and propagate it in reverse order. Each may become in turn a centre of influence; but so indivisible is the soul and mind of man, so indissolubly bound together the elements which constitute them, that the influence once commenced never stops where it began, but acts upon them all. The ripple, as that of a stone dropped into still water, no matter where, may be fainter and fainter the farther from the spot where the commotion began, but it will stop only with the bank. Ordinarily many functions of the mind are involved in each, ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... atmosphere, we seemed only five miles off, but in reality we were twenty, and the land improved as we neared it. It was the fiercest day we had had, the deck was almost too hot to stand upon, the sea and sky were both magnificently blue, and the unveiled sun turned every minute ripple into a diamond flash. As we approached, the island changed its character. There were lofty peaks, truly—grey and red, sun- scorched and wind-bleached, glowing here and there with traces of their fiery origin; but they were cleft by deep chasms and ravines of cool shadow and entrancing ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... ripple of the waters at New Orleans brings them over the banks and floods the streets, but ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, April 22, 1897, Vol. 1, No. 24 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... tipping back her head till it rested on the seat-back she let the savory breeze fan her eyes and ripple the fluffy curls of her bobbed hair. They were in the country now, hurrying between tangled growths of bright-green coppice and grass and tall trees that sent sprays of foliage to hang a cool welcome over ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... his voice again be heard. Disraeli did neither—he continued to speak on various occasions, and expressed himself so courteously, so modestly, so becomingly, that the members listened in awe and curiosity. Then soon it was discovered that beneath the mild and gentle ripple of his speech ran a deep current of earnest truth, tinged with subtle wit. When he spoke, the loungers came in from the cloakrooms, fearing to miss something ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... from a green, shelving bank, and shoved her off with the long sticks we carried. The wind caught her sail and drove her forward in fine style; she made a great ripple as she went. Once she caught in a drowned bush; but the current swung her clear, and she cut across the course of the brook like a Falmouth Packet. Hugh and I ran along the causeway, and over the bridge, to catch her on the other ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... junk to me. And, at that, I wa'n't sufferin' exactly; for when them actorines got too weird, all I had to do was swing a bit in my seat and I had a side view of a spiffy little white fur boa, with a pink ear-tip showin' under a ripple of corn-colored hair, and a—well, I had something ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... ship, and the merchant-folks' babble. The oily green waves in the harbour mouth glistened, Windless midnight it was, but the great sweeps were run out, As the cable came rattling mid rich bales on the deck, And slow moved the black side that the ripple was lapping, And I looked and beheld a great city behind us By the last of the moon as the stars were a-brightening, And Pharamond the Freed grew a tale of a singer, With the land of his fathers and the fame he ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... across the heather, or wrestling a fall in friendly rivalry with his cousin, a son of Anak, tall as himself? Does that purple sunset over Kensington Gardens remind him of Glaramara and Saddleback? Does that distant roar of wheels in Piccadilly recall the rush and ripple of the Solway charging up its tawny sands with the white horses all ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... together on to the wide lawn and sauntered down to a summer-house on the edge of the cliff, overlooking the whole mighty expanse of sea. It lay dreaming in the sunlight, with hardly a ripple upon the long white beach below. And here they came upon Muriel and Olga, sitting side ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... Dragon, had just smoked his pipe out. A bright moon hung in the frosty sky. The fells rose from the opposite edge of the lake like phantom mountains. The air was stirless. Through the boughs and sprays of the leafless elms no sigh or motion, however hushed, was audible. Not a ripple glimmered on the lake, which at one point only reflected the brilliant moon from its dark blue expanse like burnished steel. The road that runs by the inn door, along the margin of the lake, ...
— Madam Crowl's Ghost and The Dead Sexton • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... effect made by Miss Schley upon the audience. As she sang before the "imitations," if any effect were to be effaced it must be her own. The voice of the French actor ceased, almost drowned in a ripple of laughter, a burst of quite warm applause. He reappeared looking calm and magisterial. The applause continued, and he had to go back and bow his thanks. The tenor, who had not been recalled, looked cross and made a movement of his double ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... I draw from them. When the cliffs were at length scaled, and I was on the open tableland, I found the south wind blowing there with great violence, although in the valley there was scarcely breeze enough to ripple the river pools. The sun was falling into the yellow haze of the west as I began to descend towards the valley of the Dourdou. I came upon a tributary of this stream in the bottom of a deep and solemn gorge, whose steep sides were densely wooded except where ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... southwards with his wife. And while they were rowing, they saw a black ripple on the sea ahead. When they came to the place, they saw that it was the sea-lice. And the outermost layer of skins on the boat was eaten away ...
— Eskimo Folktales • Unknown
... swifter in their motion, until their brilliant colors blended and intermingled in a beautiful prismatic effect. It was like a wonderful rainbow dance, only the colors changed as the pigeons moved about, and they opened and closed their wings in such a way, that they seemed to ripple and flow as water does over ...
— The Pigeon Tale • Virginia Bennett
... scintillation, from how afar off! of the Immeasurable Love, of the Eternal Pity; though it seemed hardly more human than the play of kits and puppies, or than the anerithmon gelasma (the soulless, uncontrollable titter) of the tossed spring spray, or the blue, breezy ripple, for which overhaul your Prometheus, master Tom, and when found, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Transley's outfit were already singing their symphony in the meadows; she could hear the metallic rhythm as it came borne on the early breeze. She lay awake on her camp cot for a few minutes, stretching her fingers to the canvas ceiling and feeling that it was good to be alive. And it was. The ripple of water came from almost underneath the walls of her tent; the smell of spruce trees and balm-o'-Gilead and new-mown hay was in the air. She could feel the warmth of the sunshine already pouring upon her white roof; ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... winding slowly round a decaying stump. We walked in so pure and bright a light, gilding the withered grass and leaves, so softly and serenely bright, I thought I had never bathed in such a golden flood, without a ripple or a murmur to it. The west side of every wood and rising ground gleamed like the boundary of Elysium, and the sun on our backs seemed like a gentle herdsman driving us home ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... impressions; the one is like an impressionist sketch—blobs and dabs and great sloshy washes; but the memories of Pear-tree Gully, of the Kapanja Sirt, and Chocolate Hill are drawn in with a fine mapping pen and Indian ink—like a Rackham fairy-book illustration—every blade of dead grass, every ripple of blue, every pink pebble; and towards the firing-line I could draw it now, every inch of the way up the hills with every stone and jagged ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... again and stolen back to the balcony that opened upon the Canal Grande from the vast upper salon, impelled by her longing for freedom and light. The ripple of the water to the plash of passing gondolas took on the note of distance and soothed her like a lullaby, as the charming maid yielded herself to the golden daydream—the soft breezes lifting the bright rings ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... the high, old-fashioned pulpit, half-fearfully sitting down upon the minister's chair, or standing on tip-toe to peep over the sacred desk at the busy group below. Young girls moved silently about "helping." Over their pale lips not a ripple of laughter broke. The fire of youth seemed to have died out of their sad eyes, quenched for a time ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... the clam was soon brought to light and tumbled ignominiously into the basket,—to be followed every second or two by another of his companions; for the clam holes were many. The basket was soon full, but not before the cool ripple of the tide had passed the muscle rocks and ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... stretches of pasture were here and there broken by clumps of young trees. Huge oxen with almost white skins were lying in the short grass, motionless, as if plunged in peaceful thought. Hills sloped gently up to the horizon, and their velvety contours seemed to ripple in the bright rays of the moon. For the first time in my life I realized something of the voluptuous beauty and divine effluence of the night. I felt the magic touch of some unknown bliss. It seemed that for the first time in my life I was ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... make trial of the wine-dark sea. In the still, November woods, when the vapours curl like smoke among the dripping boughs, leaving a diamond on each sprouting bud where next year's leaf is hid; by the moorland river, on bright December mornings, when the grayling are lying on the shallows below the ripple where the rock breaks the surface; by the frozen shore where the land-springs lie fast, drawn into icicles or smeared in slippery slabs on the cliff faces, and hoar frost powders the black sea-wrack; on the lawns of gardens, where the winter roses linger and open dew-drenched and rain-washed in ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... looks a little like a catalogue of disasters (except the building of the new capitol and the visits of Presidents Hayes and Cleveland), but it must be remembered that Minnesota is such an empire in itself, that such happenings scarcely produce a ripple on the surface of its steady and continuous progress. It is because these events can be particularized and described that they assume proportions beyond their real importance, but when compared with the colossal advances made by the ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... one of those memorable nights when all things seem born anew into some larger heritage of beauty. The moon hung low over the quiet sea, sleeping now under the spell of the summer night, as if no storm had ever vexed it. So silent, so hushed was it that but for the soft ripple on the sand we should have thought it calmed in eternal repose. Far off along the horizon the stars hung motionless as the sea; overhead they shone out of the measureless depths of space with a soft and solemn splendour. Not a branch moved on the ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... with garlands where a happy throng of dancers trip the gladsome farandole standing in a circle, each a link in an endless chain. It is but a mirage; those who look down know that they are dancing on a silken thread stretched over an abyss that swallows up all who fall and shows not even a ripple on its surface. What foot is sure? Nature herself seems to deny you her divine consolation; trees and flowers are yours no more; you have broken your mother's laws, you are no longer one of her foster children; the birds of the field become silent ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... knee; the others in the car on ahead—including a tourist of note—outriders before and behind, clearing a pathway through the press. Vernon, jigging on his feet, was lost in wonder. Roy, like Aruna, said little. Only Thea kept up a low ripple of talk with ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... on the Lumbee river Where the eddies ripple cool Your boat, I know, glides stealthily About some shady pool. The summer's heats have lulled asleep The fish-hawk's chattering noise, And all the swamp lies hushed about You ...
— Songs, Merry and Sad • John Charles McNeill
... one small ripple in the strenuous world. The lady who had written the twelve-page letter ten months before sent him another of eight pages, analysing all the motives that were leading her back to him—should she come?—now that he was ill and alone. Much ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... number of Indians lined upon the opposite bank. But it was the only alternative, and the Indians thinking the two men were charging them, ran back out of sight. As they emerged from the river, which here was a shallow ripple, and started up the cut in the bank, the Indians discovered they were unarmed and attempted to close in on them. However, Clark and the boy had reached the top of the bank, and turning their horses up the river towards the mouth of Bridge ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... lining. Peace shall be born from war, and out of chaos order shall yet emerge. We shall dwell together in harmony, and but one nation shall inhabit our sea-girt borders. We seem sailing along the land, hearing the ripple that breaks upon the shore, where our recreated and regenerated Republic, after it has passed through this fiery furnace of war, these gates of death, shall be permanently installed. We shall yet tread ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... now, even the old friendship between them would be impossible. He wondered if his going out of her life would make any ripple in its calm, even current; if she would care ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... and look in that direction. Here and there, the set of the current had worn down the bank into a little creek, and we were all suspicious of such places, and eyed them nervously. Sometimes, "What was that ripple?" one of us would say in a low voice. Or another, "Is that a boat yonder?" And afterwards we would fall into a dead silence, and I would sit impatiently thinking with what an unusual amount of noise the oars worked ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... powerful current toward the open waters of Lake Erie. In this dilemma, his only resource was to paddle with his hands, and attempt by this tedious method to force his craft to the nearest shore. While he was thus awkwardly engaged, there came it ripple of laughter from close beside him, and he started up just in time to gaze squarely into the laughing face of an Indian girl, who instantly impressed him as the most graceful creature he had ever seen. She occupied, with a girl companion, ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... reads of a Roman country-seat called "Ad Vigilias Albas," "White Nights." A sense of dreamless sleep distils from the name. One remembers such nights, and the fresh world of the awakening in the morning. There are such days. There are days which ripple past as a night of sleep and leave a worn brain at the end with the same satisfaction of renewal; white days. Crystal they are, like the water of streams, as musical and eventless; as elusive of description as the ripple over ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... violin vented dismal and discordant howls at unpleasantly short intervals. All this attracted David's attention, and he soon found he could play upon Pepper as well as the fiddle, raising him and subduing him by turns; only, like the ocean, Pepper was not to be lulled back to his musical ripple quite so quickly as he could ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... for his pole, he pushed us into deep water. The grass disappeared, and a ripple on the water lipping dangerously within three inches of our uneven gunwale proved that we were more or less in the main stream. We had enjoyed that sensation for about a minute, and were headed toward where we supposed the opposite ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... melancholy Gascoigne followed them, looking as if he had gathered up all the gloom of the deserted spot, and was hearing it as a burden of inestimable treasure. But still they rambled on, and soon found themselves in a rocky dell, through the midst of which ran a streamlet, with ripple, and foam, and a continual voice of inarticulate joy. It was a wild retreat, walled on either side with gray precipices, which would have frowned somewhat too sternly, had not a profusion of green shrubbery rooted itself into their crevices, and wreathed gladsome foliage ...
— The Lily's Quest (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that apprehension, I said: "The business men are all debtors as well as creditors, and they cannot engage in a struggle over gold payments, and the small class of creditors who are not also debtors will not venture upon a policy in which they must suffer ultimately." The decision did not cause a ripple in the ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... view, he used the utmost care, causing only the faintest ripple, as he propelled the light craft over the ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... then into a black, well-like pool, ten or fifteen feet deep, with a smooth, circular wall of rock on one side worn by the water through long ages; or else into a deep, oblong pocket, into which and out of which the water glides without a ripple. ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... gigantic smile o' the brown old earth, This autumn morning! How he sets his bones To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet For the ripple to run over in its mirth; Listening the while, where on the heap of stones The white breast of the ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... mind; it had dimmed the senses sinking upon nature's night time and strengthened the dawning will and opening intellect. For as a ship furls her spread of sail on entering harbour, so age reduces the scope of the mind and its energies to catch every fresh ripple of the breeze that blows out of progress and change. The centre of the stage, too, gradually reveals new performers; the gaze of manhood is turned on new figures; the limelight of human interest throws up the coming forces of activity and intellect; while those who ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... A ripple of merriment ran around the circle. Every one laughed or ventured to smile, every one except the Hardings and Captain Hallett and, of course, Galusha Bangs. The latter's thoughts were not in the ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... stretched the submerged paddle and came out of the water edgewise at full reach behind, with an almost imperceptible swerving motion that kept the slender craft true to its course. No rocking; no rush of water before or behind; only the one constant glassy ripple gliding on either side as silently as a beam of light. Suddenly, without any apparent change of movement in the sinewy wrists, the narrow shell swept around in a quarter circle, and Narcisse sat ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... ye credit, Dick. I remember Tom's wife right well, and she was allers a right good housekeeper. Ye can't do too much for her, son. But about that ere fishin' hole, dye know I believe 'twas the same I used to hook 'em out of thirty-odd year ago. Is it the ripple just ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... riplet ye can glean A flower or two which bear poetic worth; And if ye see the stream go gliding on In pleasant ways, through the far distance, spread On fertile banks, till it at length attain A fair and undisturbed flow, and give A beauty to the scenes which round it lie, Or if it ripple for a weary while, And die at length into a marshy waste, Give choice to say the former; for the voice Of him who doth a tiding good convey Is sweeter far than his which ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... gave her no suffering; it rolled along without care or uneasiness; she was not afraid of losing it; each morning it shone upon her, with the same blue sky, the same smile, the same sweet words. That clear, still lake was unruffled by any breeze, even a zephyr; she would fain have seen a ripple on its glassy surface. Her desire had something so infantine about it that it ought to be excused; but society is not more indulgent than the God of Genesis. Madame de Vandenesse, having now become intelligently ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... in mid-ocean. Over the vast expanses of the oily sea no ripple was to be seen although Captain BABBIJAM kept his binoculars levelled at the silent horizon for three-quarters of an hour by the saloon clock. Far away in the murky distance of the mysterious empyrean, a single ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... up by some volcanic force. The Niagara flows out of Lake Erie, a broad, deep river; but for several miles its course is tranquil, and its shores perfectly level. By degrees its bed begins to sink, and the glassy smoothness is disturbed by a slight ripple. The inverted trees, that before lay so softly still upon its bosom, become twisted and tortured till they lose their form, and seem madly to mix in the tumult that destroys them. The current becomes more rapid at every step, till rock after rock has chafed the stream ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... citadel walls which spread out indefinitely, its gardens, blue waters, flaxen plains, and the mountains. Did he pause on the steps at sunset, the two harbours, rounded cup-shape, shone, rimmed by the quays, like lenses of ruby. To the left, the Lake of Tunis, stirless, without a ripple, as rich in ethereal lights as a Venetian lagoon, radiated in ever-altering sheens, delicate and splendid. In front, across the bay, dotted with the sails of ships close-hauled to the wind, beyond the wind-swept and shimmering intervals, the mountains of Rhodes raised their ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... more joyous, than these natural meadows in summer. The flash and ripple and glimmer of the tall sunflowers, the myriad voices of gleeful bobolinks, the chirp and gurgle of red-winged blackbirds swaying on the willows, the meadow-larks piping from grassy bogs, the peep of the prairie ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... A ripple of low, mild laughter, which only Kipping could have uttered, drifted forward, and the men exchanged glances and looked ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... hate a cat!" he exclaimed, startled. "I 'd like to set my dog on the beast." His irritation merely elicited a little ripple of amusement, for though she was submissive to his will, she was never afraid of his censure. "Come," he continued; "this is no place to stand. We will go into that new building across ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... view, bald, ragged, and desolate. Noll's face was very grave, but he kept his place and said nothing. Slowly the curve of the shore unfolded itself, a long line of yellow sand, length after length of scarred and jagged rock. The sound of the surf came faintly out, sounding over the ripple of water about the "Gull's" prow. Not a sign of life, as yet, had showed itself. The vessel kept steadily on till, at last, the whole great breadth of the Rock lay before them, rising huge and massive out of the sea, and, in a sheltered hollow on the shore, a great stone ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... the Riva, we involuntarily held our breath as we came in sight of the huge lake, for it is easy to forget that this is the Adria. The waters lay unruffled before us, not a ripple disturbed those glassy depths which reflected every tree and cottage on the opposite bank. Each star found its double twinkling in that placid mirror, and mountain frowned back on mountain. It was almost unreal, so marvellous ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... his body was tensed for the deadly spring that would bring him down upon my throat. I saw a ripple of galvanizing energy race through his hands; then I managed an outcry. At the same instant he ...
— The Homicidal Diary • Earl Peirce
... off Thomas's Point. Not a ripple could be seen down the Chesapeake, and the locusts and pines along the shore were shuddering uncomfortably with the heat of a July afternoon, hidden halfway to their tops in the summer haze. What was to be done? Five miles from home in a large sloop yacht filled with strangers ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... an undercurrent of circumstance existed which did not even ripple the surface of that apparently facetious brutality hurled ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... not so carefully made. This time only five eggs were laid, and at the present moment Mr. Wren is singing encouragement and appreciation to his brooding mate; and, although the thermometer registers 98 deg. in the shade, his notes joyously ripple out loud and clear, not only to Jenny's delight, but ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... and deep, like midnight lakes mirroring the stars of heaven. Her features are like sculptured marble and her mouth is a trembling, curving Cupid's bow. (PETER, ASIDE: "What kind of a thing is that?") Her creamy skin is as fair and flawless as the petals of a white lily. Her voice is like the ripple of a woodland brook and her slender form is matchless in its symmetry. (DAN: "That's Valeria's way of putting it, but Uncle Roger says she don't show her feed much." FELICITY: "Dan! if Uncle Roger is vulgar ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... A ripple of appreciation of his version of the familiar legend ran from jury-box to door, and Shelby, a psychologist, like every real orator, perceived it with stirring pulse. The instrument he knew best ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... But she had achieved a reputation for wit which insured applause for even her feebler efforts. Nap Ballou, the foreman, never left the escapement room without a little shiver of nervous apprehension—a feeling justified by the ripple of suppressed laughter that went up and down the long tables. He knew that Tessie Golden, like a naughty schoolgirl when teacher's back is turned, had directed one of ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... immediately upon the sandstone of the Vindhya range; and it must have been deposited on the sand, while the latter was yet at the bottom of the ocean, though this range is now, I believe, nowhere less than from fifteen hundred to two thousand feet above the level of the sea. The marks of the ripple of the sea may be observed in some places where the basalt has been recently washed off, beautifully defined, as if formed only yesterday, and there is no other substance to be ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... which winds the valley of the Black with miles of placid stream in view. Quite different is this from White river, which is ever hurrying, rushing along. The Black flows within its grassy banks for long distances with scarcely a ripple; then a whirling rapid is passed, beyond which glides another long ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... spoken through this fearless giant of other days. There was no mistaking the meaning that ran through that quietly worded message. It brought the crowd up with a thrill of apprehension, followed by honest shame. There was even a ripple of applause. The crowd started once more to file out, but in different mood. Some of the more impetuous, who had rushed downstairs before the judge had spoken, were hustled away from the agent's automobile, around which ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... happiness; and when I went to bed there was something almost terrifying in the pleasures that besieged me in the darkness. Wonderful tremors filled me; my head swam in the most delirious but enjoyable manner; and the bed softly oscillated with me, like a boat in a very gentle ripple. It does not make me write a good style apparently, which is just as well, lest I should be tempted to renew the experiment; and some verses which I wrote turn out on inspection to be not quite equal to Kubla Khan. However, I was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... trunk, Johnnie," came her mother's caution, with a girlish ripple of laughter in the tones. "Hit's a borried one. Now don't you roach up and git mad. I had obliged to have a trunk, bein' wedded and comin' down to the settlement this-a-way. I only borried Mildred Faidley's. She won't never have any use for it. Evelyn Toler loaned me the trimmin' ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... them, deep and deeper into the wild until the moon was down and darkness shut them in; wherefore Jocelyn drew rein and sat a while to listen. He heard the good steed, deep-breathing, snuff at dewy grass; a stir and rustle all about him; the drowsy call of a bird afar; the soft ripple of water hard by and, over all, the deep hush of the wild-wood. Then upon this hush ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... sent to her by the provident love of Miss Emily. It was wheeled in front of her room window, from whence she could look out upon the wide expanse of the ocean. It was a gloriously bright, calm morning, and the water lay clear and still, with scarce a ripple, to the far distant pearly horizon. She seemed to be looking at it in a kind of calm ecstasy, and murmuring the words ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... whirling their long canes and singing the depth monotonously, would shout a warning cry, but long before their lips had framed a caution, Yoka would have pulled the telegraph over to "stop." His eyes would have detected the tiny ripple on the waters ahead which denoted a ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... Nan as if she could overlook every foot of the motionless sea for miles before her; but she well knew how much it could conceal of ambush and death even when it professed so fairly to reveal all. Strain her ears as she would, the desert gave back no ripple of sound. No shot echoed from its sinister recesses—not even ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... ridden!' A subdued hum runs round the excited spectators. The ardent racers are nose and nose. One swift, sharp cut, the cruel whip hisses through the air, and the black is fairly 'lifted in,' a winner by a nose. The ripple of conversation breaks out afresh. The band strikes up a lively air, and the saddling for the ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... been dressed by art to present the perfection of symmetry; the dark green of the shrubbery that sprung up in the moisture of the islands was mingled with the golden hues of the sun, and here and there the gentle current, by passing over some obstructing object, broke into a ripple, that danced like ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... swung along with Jean by his side, his heart full of happiness. He had had a good winter's hunt and his wife had money for everything necessary. But more than anything else he wanted the golden sunshine, the ripple of the waters in the stream, the curved body of the salmon as they darted out of the water in their eagerness to get up the streams. He told his boy that though they had come out for game, he really just wanted to be in the woods when the buds ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... the second day out was unusually sultry, even for that tropical latitude. There was not a breath of wind, nor a ripple on the surface of the sea, but toward noon a breeze sprung up, which, before dark, threatened to become ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... the serious business of food-getting. The camps stood a pace or two above high-water mark in the meagre shelter of sighing casuarinas, and were often changed, for there were six miles of gently curving, ripple-embroidered shore on which to rest. To this day most of the traffic is regulated by the tide. High water drives the wayfarer to the loose, impeding sand, over which the great convolvulus sends its tireless tentacles, to be thrown back twisted and ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... blue water makes a marked contrast with surrounding objects, as the streams wind through the forests and fields on their banks. Though meandering through mountains, these rivers have few sharp falls or roaring rapids. Their current is usually gentle, broken here and there into a ripple over a slightly descending shallow, but observing uniformity in all ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... foliage rich in the depth of summer; behind, the old-fashioned house, unpretending, not mean, its open doors and windows giving glimpses of the comfortable repose within; before, the lake, without a ripple and catching the gleam of the sunset clouds,—all made a picture of that complete tranquillity and stillness, which sometimes soothes and sometimes saddens us, according as we are in the temper ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... consciousness of tragedy there was scarcely a ripple of applause at public functions where Socola had ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... of water, breaking over stones, slipping through the peaty earth, falling in a thin spray down the face of the cliffs, spreading out across the white rocks of an encircled cove, incessant movement and change of colour and light, a ceaseless ripple and gleam of reflected water across the lichened trunk of some old tree, sweet ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... detail of it, as in Holland, or Lincolnshire, or Central Lombardy, it appears to me like a prison, and I cannot long endure it. But the slightest rise and fall in the road,—a mossy bank at the side of a crag of chalk, with brambles at its brow, overhanging it,—a ripple over three or four stones in the stream by the bridge,—above all, a wild bit of ferny ground under a fir or two, looking as if, possibly, one might see a hill if one got to the other side of the trees, will instantly give me intense delight, because the shadow, or the hope, ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... ripple of grateful relaxation ran round the circle and presently it was clear that in taking himself off Captain Baster had lifted a wet blanket of quite uncommon thickness from the party. They were talking easily and freely; and Mrs. Dangerfield and Sir Maurice were seeing ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... costume might have come out of a Gilbert and Sullivan opera. He launched us, however, and the boat shot out into the lake, with Jimmie and me at the oars, and then we saw a sight that none of us had ever seen before. The air was wonderfully calm and still. The only ripple on the lake was that which was left by our boat as we rowed out to where there was a break in the hills. On the east and west, there the tallest hills fall away from the Achensee and make an undulating line on the horizon. As we reached this break, ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... bridge, standing on the quaking grass and willow roots, where the muskrats lurk, I heard a singular rattling sound, somewhat like that of the sticks which boys play with their fingers, when, looking up, I observed a very slight and graceful hawk, like a nighthawk, alternately soaring like a ripple and tumbling a rod or two over and over, showing the under side of its wings, which gleamed like a satin ribbon in the sun, or like the pearly inside of a shell. This sight reminded me of falconry and what nobleness and poetry are associated with that sport. ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... on a July night of the same summer, the air being hot and heavy. In the darkness the ripple of the river Tormes can be heard over the ford, which is near the foreground of ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... the "slimy things" that coil in the rotting sea; and the stages of his penance are marked by suggestions of his return to the privilege of human fellowship. The angels' music is like the song of the skylark, the sails ripple like a leaf-hidden brook—recollections of his happy boyhood in. England; and finally comes the actual land breeze, and he is in his "own countree." Observe the marginal gloss to ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... over all his limbs The sweat bursts out, and all adown a pitchy river swims: Hard grows his breath, and panting sharp shaketh his body spent. Until at last, all clad in arms, he leapt adown, and sent His body to the river fair, who in his yellow flood Caught him, and bore him forth away on ripple soft and good, And gave him merry to his men, washed from the ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... The enormous body appeared to waver slightly as a breath of wind washed against it: obviously it was not gaining weight as it grew. Almost, now, it appeared to float in the air. Swiftly it grew another twenty-five feet, and the gray expanse of its clothes shimmered strangely as a ripple ran over its ...
— A Scientist Rises • Desmond Winter Hall
... cleared under the kiss, and he held her at arm's length while paternal pride softened his look. "Do you really mean that you won't shock the young men away from you?" It was as near a jest as he had ever come, and a ripple of amusement ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... us, as being the profoundest and the most sober criticism we have had in our time. The only sting in it was an inoffensive humorous irony that now and then stole out for a roll over, like a furry cub, or the occasional ripple on a lake in grey weather. We have nothing left ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that lightly Ripple the silence deep! No; the swans that, circling nightly, Through the silver ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald
... too hot and clear and still that morning for the most expert of fishermen to cast his fly with any hope of success. The broad pale-green lily pads lay motionless on the unruffled breast of Silverwater. Nowhere even the round ripple of a rising minnow broke the blazing sheen of the lake. The air was so drowsy that those sparks of concentrated energy, the dragonflies, forgot to chase their aerial quarry and slept, blazing like amethysts, rubies and emeralds, ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... them. Neal and Triplett were killed, and fell into the river.—Rowell was missed and escaped by swimming the Kenhawa, the Indians shooting at him as he swam. In a few days after the dead were found in a ripple and buried. The Indians had not been able to draw them from their watery ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... faces as we paddled slowly along the lake, and as it went down behind the mountains a veil was gradually drawn over the lovely scene. Not a breath of air was stirring, and hardly a sound broke the stillness save the ripple at the bow of the canoe and the soft splash of the paddles. In the placid waters two otters were swimming and diving. One was timid and remained at a distance, but the other was bold and inquisitive ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... raise a laugh, but dangerous, for it is the greatest test of an orator's control of his audience to be able to land them again on the solid earth of sober thinking." I have known him at the very end of a sermon have a ripple of laughter sweep freely over the entire congregation, and then in a moment he has every individual under his control, ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... Paradise were weeping now by the fountain; the men gathered near, and their slow, hushed voices scarcely rose above the ripple of the stream where Robert the ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... solo by the teacher. He is blind and said to be the best player in Japan; he gave "Cotton Bleaching in the Brook," and said he rarely played it, only once a year. Well, you could hear the water ripple and fall, and hit the stones, and the women singing and beating the cotton. I could hear it better than I can hear spring in our music, so I think perhaps my ears are made to fit the Japanese scale, or lack of it. Then we were taken into the tea house and shown ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... joys in keeping of the Power Who holds these changing shadows in His hand; Believe and live, and know that hour by hour Will ripple newer beauty ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... spring was very early that year, and although it was not yet May, the green tassels were on the maples and the wild flowers made the ground gay in places. All around the clearing ran a ripple of bird song. The sunshine was 15 dreamy, ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... VICEROY'S reference to "the tranquillizing effect of Mr. MONTAGU'S approaching visit" the House rippled with laughter; and when he proceeded to say that Mrs. BESANT had undertaken to use her influence to secure "a calm atmosphere for my visit," the ripple became a wave. But with the stoicism of the unchanging East ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 24, 1917 • Various
... or only moments passed in that silence—whose speech was the soft ripple of the sea on the sand? Neither could have answered the question. At ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... Webster a clause smuggled into the Fortification Bill to give the President three millions to spend as he liked was struck out and the bill was subsequently lost. This affair, which brought us to the verge of war with France, soon blew over, however, and caused only a temporary ripple, although Mr. Webster's attack on the Fortification ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... machinery; for through some cause or other no soul inside it could think of a word to say. The lady symbolized her feelings, whatever they were, by urging the machine faster and faster until scattered woodlands went by them in one black blotch and heavy hills and valleys seemed to ripple under the wheels like mere waves. A little while afterwards this mood seemed to slacken and she fell into a more ordinary pace; but still she did not speak. Turnbull, who kept a more common and sensible view ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... tourists, being, as the crow flies, but eight miles from Pittsburg, and scarce twelve by the course of the river. For three-quarters of a mile below the entrance of the creek the Monongahela was unusually shallow, forming a gentle rapid or "ripple," and easily fordable at almost any point. Its common level is from three to four hundred feet below that of the surrounding country; and along its upper banks, at the second crossing, stretches a fertile bottom of a rich pebbled mould, about a fourth of a mile in width ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... high seas. I often cogitate over what accident must have befallen Jacob Canfield. He left the shore one morning when it was as mild and fair as the brightest June day that ever dawned, and it was pleasant and calm all day. The sun went down as serenely as it rose, and not a ripple was on the sea—yes, it was a mild, lovely October day, from sunrise to sunset. Jake was seen to go out in his boat, but neither Jake nor the boat was ever seen afterward. I tell you I've never made up my mind as to what ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey
... made the bold Sir Bedivere: "I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, And the wild ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... Charlotte laughed—a ripple of merriment which was contagious, for Captain Rayburn smiled over the evening paper, and Lanse himself ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... something under his feet. Sunlight burst upon him. He caught at a rock, and hung to it. His eyes cleared a little. He was within ten feet of a shore covered with sand and gravel. The water was smooth and running with a musical ripple. Waist-deep he waded through it to the shore, and fell down upon his knees, with his face buried in his arms. He had been ten minutes in the death-grip of the chasm. It was another ten minutes before he staggered to his feet and looked ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... in the historic controversy that has resulted in the extraordinary exposures that are being made as this book goes to press. When that first pebble was thrown, the surface of the insurance pond was as placid as a mountain lake, unruffled by a ripple, and in it were reflected the benignant faces of the noble philanthropists who consented to spend their days conserving the interests of the widows and the orphans of America. The people had grown so accustomed to regarding the McCalls, ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... akin to that of sublimity to find, even in our own land, and in the most remote situations of it, the lingering relics of the revolutions and deeds of these early ages, still remaining, like a faint ripple rolling gently upon a beach in a deep and secluded bay, which was set in motion, perhaps, at first, as one of the mountainous surges of a wintery storm in the most distant seas. For example, if we enter the most humble court in ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... with a start and stared confusedly about him. A ripple of low laughter came to his ears as he widened his pupils in the effort to accommodate his eyes to the murk. Then the moon broke out once more and the place became one of silver light and dark, soft shadow-blots. She was sitting with her back against a tree, her knees gathered ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... criticism. And I desire to say, in the outset, that in this lecture I shall endeavor to lift my subject above the plane in which it is ordinarily treated. I don't believe I ever announced a lecture on Matrimony, that I did not detect the ripple of a smile on the face of my audience, as if they regarded the whole subject as a huge practical joke, something wonderfully funny, on no account to be ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... Upon a ripple of golden tipple That tipsy ship'll convey you best. To king and cripple, the bottle's the nipple ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... source of pleasure, solace, and recreation, then, is open to him who knows how to distinguish and appreciate the beautiful in Nature! He hears in every breeze and every ripple of water a voice which the uncultivated ear cannot hear; and he sees in every fleeting cloud and varied aspect of Nature some beauty ...
— The Road and the Roadside • Burton Willis Potter
... his pipe. Chapel was over. The organist was prancing through the voluntary, and the first ripple of boys had already reached Dunwood House. In a few minutes the masters would be here too, and Ansell, who was becoming interested, hurried ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... present low state of the river, passed swiftly between, deep and black, and curled into many small whirlpools and counter currents, but unbroken by foam, and so still that scarcely the sound of a ripple was heard. The rock, for a considerable distance from the river, was worn over a large portion of its surface into circular holes and well-like cavities, by the abrasion of the river, which, at the season of high waters, is spread out ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... looked up, and her lips curved and parted; her eyelids fluttered twice or thrice—a movement remindful (Poesy forgive us!) of the tail-wagging of a faithful dog—and a little ripple went through her like the commotion set up in a weeping willow by a puff of wind. Thus she ever acknowledged his coming, were it twenty times a day. If they who sometimes sat over their wine in Coralio, reshaping old, diverting stories of the madcap career of Isabel Guilbert, ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... he was, he lost sight of the stranger who melted into the dusky cover of the shadows. Then came a quiet ripple of water close to his own hiding place. The man from the spacer camp was using the stream as ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... where, from beneath an arch, "the waters rush garrulously into a blue pool, and are there stilled for a time, for the pool is deep, and they appear to have sunk to sleep. Further on, however, you hear their voice again, where they ripple gaily over yon gravelly shallow. On the left, the hill slopes gently down to the margin of the stream. On the right is a green level, a smiling meadow; grass of the richest decks the side of the slope; mighty trees also adorn it, giant elms, the nearest of which, when the sun is nigh its meridian, ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt
... crying harshly across the ripple of the water, broke the spell and set every tongue free again. Aye, it was good to ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... It had been lowering all day. Dull clouds had hung in the sky since early morning and had kept the waters of the sea sombre. There was no wind—not the faintest breath or sigh. The harbour water was still; and the open—beyond the tickle rocks—was without a ripple or hint of ground swell. A thick, gray mist crept out from the hills, late in the afternoon, and presently obscured the shore. Jimmie and Bagg were then off Mad Mull. Two miles of flat sea and windless space lay between ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... driver largely, worked by making waves like those on a pond. They spread out and reached places where there were instruments to detect them, and that was that. Radar made the same kind of waves, only smaller, which bounced back to where there was an instrument to detect them. These were ripple waves. ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... on deck after dinner. Before us the Mediterranean lay without a ripple and shimmering in the moonlight. The great ship glided on, casting upward to the star-studded sky a long serpent of black smoke. Behind us the dazzling white water, stirred by the rapid progress of the heavy bark and beaten by the propeller, foamed, seemed to writhe, gave off so much brilliancy ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... triumphant. Before them lay a bit of Canada's loveliest lake, the Lake of the Woods, so-called from its myriad, heavily wooded islands, that make of its vast expanse a maze of channels, rivers and waterways. Calm, without a ripple, lay the glassy, sunlit surface, each island, rock and tree meeting its reflected image at the water line, the sky above flecked with floating clouds, making with the mirrored sky ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... bank Recline thee. If the Sun rides high, the breeze, That loves to ripple o'er the rivulet, Will play around thy brow, and the cool sound Of running waters soothe thee. Mark how clear It sparkles o'er the shallows, and behold Where o'er its surface wheels with restless speed ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... touched his harp, and in the perfect silence was heard the strains of the mermaid's song, and through it the pleasant ripple of summer waters on the pebbly beach. Then the theme was changed, and on the air was borne the measured sweep of countless oars and the swish of waters around the prows of contending galleys, and the breezy voices of the sailors and ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... exchange of compliment now culminating in a sob of passion, that the words are indistinguishable though the meaning is plain enough—love, laughter, flight, pursuit, celestial bliss—all floated out on the gayest ripple of tender endearment—until the sound of the silver horns, at first far distant, gradually sounds more and more distinctly, as if seneschals were saluting the dawn or proclaiming ominously the escape of the lovers.... The ...
— Monday or Tuesday • Virginia Woolf |
