"Topsy-turvy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fault," he answered laughing. "I thought I was stepping across about a foot's distance, and I fell into a hole ten feet deep! I never shall get used to it. It will teach us to sound every step before we advance. Ears hear and eyes see all topsy-turvy in ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... feverish idea that she resembled the girl pictures of his mother. Nor could he rid himself of the fantastic impression. In the growing unreality of it all, in the distorted outlines of a world gone topsy-turvy, amid the deadly blurr of things material and mental, Ailsa Paige's face alone remained strangely clear. And, scarcely knowing what he was saying, he leaned forward ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... Gothic church of St. Eloi, of which one aisle had been shattered; then, turning another corner, we came on a poor bourgeois house that had had its whole front torn away. The squalid revelation of caved-in floors, smashed wardrobes, dangling bedsteads, heaped-up blankets, topsy-turvy chairs and stoves and wash-stands was far more painful than the sight of the wounded church. St. Eloi was draped in the dignity of martyrdom, but the poor little house reminded one of some shy humdrum person suddenly exposed in the glare of a ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... things"—was from the first his endeavour in literature, nay more, it was the main passion of his life: and the instrument that should serve his purpose could not be forged in haste. Neither was it easy for this past master of the random, the unexpected, the brilliantly back-foremost and topsy-turvy in talk, to learn in writing the habit of orderly arrangement and organic sequence which even the lightest forms of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... me progenissors did, in Munster, before you English konkered us an' turned us topsy-turvy. But nivver mind. I don't bear no ill-will to 'ee, darlint, bekaise o' the evil deeds o' yer forefathers. I'm of a forgivin' disposition. An' it's a good quane you'll make, too, av ye don't let the men have too much o' their own way. But I do think that you an' me togither'll be more ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... out, for we can't have her here," said Briar. "It is absolutely impossible. She'll try to turn us into fine ladies, and she'll talk about the dresses we should have, and she'll want father to get some awful woman to come and live with us. She'll want the whole house to be turned topsy-turvy." ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... gift. The little bit of stone which I possess is worth much more than that. And the proof of it lies in all the pains which you are at to take it from me. Aha! Months devoted to looking for it, as you yourself confess! Months in which you turned everything topsy-turvy, while I, who suspected nothing, did not even defend myself! Why should I? The little thing defended itself all alone.... It does not want to be discovered and it sha'n't be.... It likes being here.... ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... year. This, indeed, I can well believe, for I have seen the ancient mines which were worked, for the most part as open quarries, still showing plenty of visible gold on the face of the slopes. Yet to these alleged Jews this gold was of no account. Imagine it; as Quick said, such a topsy-turvy state of things was enough to make a mere Christian feel cold down the back and go to bed thinking that the world must ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... is very funny about Maud, the oddest thing about us, though we are rather a topsy-turvy family. Maud is only eight and a half, but she's ...
— The Girls and I - A Veracious History • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... than the doctor," I thought, half angrily, "and yet the General will be a gay old bird as long as the gout permits him to hobble." And it seemed to me suddenly that the moral order, on which the doctor loved to dilate, had gone topsy-turvy while I stood on the General's porch. As if reading my thoughts the great man looked up at me, with his ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... topsy-turvy in the excitement of getting the injured father, and weary, distracted mother started on their brief journey; but finally they were off, and a row of sober-faced children stood on the bluff overlooking the flats below, watching ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... arm-in-arm with me, or you'll be judging by appearances, and says you, 'Lor', what a thousander fellow this is!' and 'What a millioner fellow that is!' You'll be giving your millions and your thousands to the wrong people, when they haven't got a penny. All London 'll be topsy-turvy to you, unless you've got a guide, and he'll show you a shabby-coated, head-in-the-gutter old man 'll buy up the lot. Everybody that doesn't know him says—look at him! but they that knows him—hats off, I can tell you. And talk about lords! ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... passed a hand over it. Yes, undoubtedly it was a table-leg and the table lay topsy-turvy. But how came it so? Who had upset it, and why? I took another step, sideways, and my boot struck against something light, and, by its sound, hollow and metallic. Stooping very cautiously—for by this time I had taken alarm and was holding my breath—I passed ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... all topsy-turvy once more. The seventh Janissary regiment, when the two-and-thirty Janissaries returned to them with bloody swords boasting of their deed, rushed upon them and cut them to pieces. The new Janissary Aga was shot dead within his own gates. ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... in one corner of the place, and making believe to read out of a picture-book, which one of them held topsy-turvy. It was a grave and dreadful tract, of Mr. Bolton's collection. Fanny did not hear her sisters prattling over it. She noticed nothing ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... solitary line of verse might be romantic or classic, according as the humor took it. When we received this intelligence, we could not close our eyes all night. Two years of peaceful conviction had vanished like a dream. All our ideas were turned topsy-turvy; for it the rules of Aristotle were no longer the line of demarcation which separated the literary camps, where was one to find himself, and what was he to depend upon? How was one to know, in reading a book, which school it belonged to? . . . Luckily ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... "Get out, you topsy-turvy old humbug," cried Tom wrathfully. "Think I don't know you?" and he ran on, and caught up to his uncle as he was passing ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... broomstick, perhaps you will say, is an emblem of a tree standing on its head; and pray what is man but a topsy-turvy creature, his animal faculties perpetually mounted on his rational, his head where his heels should be, groveling on the earth! and yet, with all his faults, he sets up to be a universal reformer and corrector of abuses, a remover of grievances, * * sharing deeply all the ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... small schooners which carry on the St. Lawrence trade head up the bay. They work in close to shore, drop their anchors and wait for the tide to go out. It leaves them high and dry, and tilted sometimes at an angle which suggests that everything within must be topsy-turvy, until the vessel is afloat again. With a strong wind blowing from the north-east the bay is likely to be, at high tide, an extremely lively place for the mariner; a fact which helps perhaps to explain the sinister French name of Malbaie. The huge waves, ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... whose square answereth to the square of her figure, and to the character which her Lord hath given of his own, and so the game began. For so soon as this mistress became a dame in the world, and found that she had her stout abettors, she attempts to turn all things topsy-turvy, and to set them and to make of them what she lists. And now she will have an altar like that which was Tiglath-pileser's. Now must the Lord's brazen altar be removed from its place, the borders of the basis must be ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of a joke On the poor, long-suffering mortal folk; And a few mysterious words he said, His fool's cap close to her flower-crowned head. Then he laughed till he made his cap-bells ring, At the thought of the topsy-turvy Spring. "'Tis a fair exchange," he said, with a wink— "It is!" she said, and what do you think? The flowers that should bloom in the month of May Every one of them came on an April day! And they looked for April showers in vain, But all through May it ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... opposite position to the goal of his desires as I was at that moment. The regions around the North Pole — well, yes, the North Pole itself — had attracted me from childhood, and here I was at the South Pole. Can anything more topsy-turvy be imagined? ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... homewards, he was almost frightened out of his wits by the shrieks of some little creature captured by the cruel owl, and, immediately afterwards, a rabbit, alarmed by the same ominous sounds and bolting to her warren in the wood, knocked him topsy-turvy as he crouched in hiding among the leaves. These adventures taught him salutary lessons, and henceforth the confidence of youth gave place to extreme caution; he avoided the risk of lying near a rabbit's "creep," and was quick to discern the ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... closet topsy-turvy to find her a spoon and a napkin; and she took her seat opposite him, assisting him and laughing a little at the difficulties attending her entertainment. She was less pale already, and there was a pretty sparkle in her eyes, composed of the tears of a moment ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... raising him to the Chinese equivalent of the peerage. Henceforth he belonged to the distinguished company of Iron Hatted Dukes—at least not he but his ancestors did, for this was no ordinary father-to-son patent of nobility. The topsy-turvy honour reached backward instead of forward, diminishing one rank with each ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... they belong to the young men who have turned the house topsy-turvy with their tableaux, their Revolution celebration, their banner, and carousing generally," said Mrs. Jeffrey, rather pleased than otherwise at being the first ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... became so boisterous and mischievous that they not only handled the dogs too roughly, but when the old Indian and his wife left camp at any time, they went on the rampage: chasing the dogs about, ransacking the larder, turning the camp topsy-turvy, and scattering everything in confusion. So the old couple decided that it was now high time to put their skins upon the skin-stretcher in readiness to sell to ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... mean with your topsy-turvy? Everything will be ruled like a sheet of music-paper. Have you forgotten what I have just told you about turning the staircase and hiring the first floor of the next house?—which is all settled with the umbrella-maker, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... see it dipped in the water, and let it come out with the cut cicatrised. The miracle will be quite as great, and I shall bow to it respectfully." Then he added: "If I possessed a source which could thus close up sores and wounds, I would turn the world topsy-turvy. I do not know exactly how I should manage it, but at all events I would summon the nations, and the nations would come. I should cause the miracles to be verified in such an indisputable manner, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... way," muttered Rachel; "shut the stable door after the horse is stolen. Folks never learn from experience till it's too late to be of any use. I don't see what the world was made for, for my part. Everything goes topsy-turvy, and all sorts of ways except the right way. I sometimes think 'tain't much ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... think that if you marry Ida this place will, as times are, keep your hands pretty full, especially when you have an obstinate donkey like that fellow George to deal with. I am getting too old and stupid to look after it myself, and besides things are so topsy-turvy that I can't understand them. There is one thing more that I want to say: I forbade you the house. Well, you are a generous- minded man, and it is human to err, so I think that perhaps you will understand my action and ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... want that—go on Bruyn!" Bruyn! Bruyn! And always Bruyn in such a way that Bruyn was more worn-out by the clemency of his wife than he would have been by her unkindness. She turned his brain wishing that everything should be in scarlet, making him turn everything topsy-turvy at the least movement of her eyebrow, and when she was sad the seneschal distracted, would say to everything from his judicial seat, "Hang him!" Another would have died like a fly at this conflict with the maid's innocence, but Bruyn was of such an iron nature ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... policy. If something is not done pretty soon, decisive, either evacuation or expulsion, the whole country will become so disgusted with the sham of Southern independence that the first chance the people get at a popular election they will turn the whole movement topsy-turvy so bad that it never on ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... that upon arrival we should find that those same birds had played havoc with our previous day's work. And so we did; for when we reached the spot we found our neatly arranged rows of oysters turned topsy-turvy by the birds in their endeavours to get at the fish, while the odour that emanated from the millions of dead bivalves was already powerful enough to upset any but a ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... scales could there be in the heart of this woman? By what measure did she weigh her love? She took off her ducal coronet, and flung it on the platform of a clown! She took from her brow the Olympian aureola, and placed it on the bristly head of a gnome! The world had turned topsy-turvy. The insects swarmed on high, the stars were scattered below, whilst the wonder-stricken Gwynplaine, overwhelmed by a falling ruin of light, and lying in the dust, was enshrined in a glory. One all-powerful, revolting against beauty and splendour, gave herself to the damned of night; preferred ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... DeSmythe home; "confusion worse confounded;" everything topsy-turvy. Mrs. DeSmythe on couch; Madam Sateene and she looking over lace samples, of which they have a great number. Madam in "swell" ...
— The Sweet Girl Graduates • Rea Woodman
... of Roosevelt spring from his sense of humor—humor which recognizes the topsy-turvy of life and its swift changes, and still laughs—or from the instinct which knows that even in the sweetest of all experiences there must be a drop of bitterness? Whatever their cause, they proved to be a true foreboding. He had not been home twenty four hours before he perceived, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... shall return to the Kempt family now and then, if they will let me. I must get away for a time and think. My life has suddenly become all topsy-turvy, and I need to get my bearings, as does a ship that has been through a ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... mortal son an' gal of ye! I'm riled—I'm mad. Here am I left in charge, so to speak, of your doin's, and of the work on the ranch, anyways. Your smart-aleck work has turned everything topsy-turvy. Men took from their reg'lar jobs to go hunt worthless Chinamen, and take his place a-cookin'. Hens dyin' to right an' left—pizened by some your ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... be. I saw the money; saw it in the hand of the person who hid it there. Let me look for it, constable. I will not give up the search till I have turned the place topsy-turvy." ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... an honest soaker, he has a cellar at your antipodes. If I travel, aunt, I touch at your antipodes—your antipodes are a good rascally sort of topsy-turvy fellows. If I had a bumper I'd stand upon my head and drink a health to 'em. A match or no match, cousin with the hard name; aunt, Wilfull will do't. If she has her maidenhead let her look to 't; if she has not, let her keep her own counsel in the meantime, and ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... return home with the rich prize he had brought from the Indian seas and the coast of Africa, and meantime he lay there in the Delaware Bay waiting for a reply. Before he left he turned the whole of Tom Chist's life topsy-turvy with something that he ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... answer, in the mildly deprecating tone in which the elder sometimes do answer the younger in these topsy-turvy days:— ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... "Everything's topsy-turvy nowadays," said Frank. "It used to be armies that did the fighting. Now it's whole nations. But look at that scrap going on ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... hast not tumbled the bed topsy-turvy. I am glad to see thou hast yet some grace and manners in thy vocation. Now, Sir Messenger, to requite thee for this thy courtesy and forbearance, I will show thee a secret tabernacle, which all thy prying has not ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... the high-flown in such a paragraph as that which tells us that "a common bond unites all these men—Dickens, Carlyle, Ruskin and Morris. They differed in much; but, like great mountains lying apart in the base, they converge high up in the air." The landscape suggested in these sentences is more topsy-turvy than the imagination likes to dwell upon. And the criticisms in the book are seldom lightning-flashes of ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... though more or less occult, head of the present Administration in France. 'M. Ferry,' said a caustic French Radical to me in Paris, 'ought to be the mask of M. Carnot. Nature gave him a Carnival nose for that purpose. Everything is topsy-turvy now in France, and so M. Carnot is the mask of M. Ferry. But the nose will ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... topsy-turvy world it was, to be sure! What alternations between despair and hope! What rebound from the gates of Death to the threshold of Eden! How untrue, after all, was the nebulous philosophy of Omar, the Tentmaker. Surely in the happenings of the bygone day there was more ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... cattle, and do him all manner of mischief.[62] She hath been known to come at the head of these rascals, and beat her lover until he was sore from head to foot, and then force him to pay for the trouble she was at. Once, attended with a crew of ragamuffins, she broke into his house, turned all things topsy-turvy, and then set it on fire. At the same time she told so many lies among his servants, that it set them all by the ears, and his poor Steward was knocked on the head;[63] for which I think, and so doth all the Country, that she ought to be answerable. To conclude her character; ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... recall to mind the observation of the old gentleman with whom we travelled from Cobourg to Rice Lake. We console ourselves with the prospect that by next summer the boards will all be seasoned, and then the house is to be turned topsy-turvy, by having the floors ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... "unassisted triple play" in a world's series, and doubtless that night the Cleveland second baseman was the most envied baseball player in the world. For one man to do, alone, what thousands of onlookers could not do, was enough to turn all fandom topsy-turvy in ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... you hurry me so, it puts every thing topsy-turvy in my head; I could tell it as fast as possible ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... first thing done was to change the officers, and to order a place to be made round the mouth of the pit for the Swaggerer and the Huntress, linked face to face, and for the other rebels, bound topsy-turvy together; and a law was published that whosoever of the demons or of the damned thenceforth transgressed his duty should be thrown into their midst till doomsday. At these words all the fiends and even Lucifer himself trembled and were sore ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... Shopman; Monsieur de Soulanges and Monsieur de Ronquerolles and others, they are satisfied. When I think that if that cuirassier had only had the courage to let himself be killed like the rest I should still be happy at the gate of the Avonne, and that it was he that turned my life topsy-turvy, it ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... reverence came to me, leaving the porter just outside the door in older to come to his help should I be violent, and then he read me a very purty lecture on my conduct, saying I had turned the religious house topsy-turvy, and corrupted the scholars, and that I was the cheat of the world, for that on inspecting the pack he had discovered the dirty marks which I had made upon the trump cards for to know them by. He ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... by which he gains his livelihood, and with which he toils. So would it be if the falcon were to flee from the duck, and the gerfalcon from the heron, and the great pike from the minnow, and if the stag were to chase the lion; so do things go topsy-turvy. But a desire comes upon me to give some reason why it happens to true lovers, that wit and courage fail them to express what they have in their thoughts when they have leisure and opportunity ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... but convicts could colonists look to cultivate their lands, to tend their flocks, to reap their harvests?" In the month of May, 1853, Sir William wrote that "the discovery of gold had turned him topsy-turvy altogether," and he rejoiced that no gold had been discovered in his island. Then the Legislature perversely offered a reward of five thousand pounds to any man who would discover a gold field in Tasmania, but, as a high-toned ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... you, I am not responsible for that. It is I who should rather complain; you prostituted me vilely to scoundrels, whose laudations and cajolery of you were only samples of their designs upon me. As to your saying that I wound up by betraying you, you have things topsy-turvy again; I may complain; you took every method to estrange me, and finally kicked me out neck and crop. That is why your revered Dame Poverty has supplied you with a smock-frock to replace your soft raiment. Why, I begged and prayed Zeus (and Hermes heard me) that I might be excused from ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... inversion &c. 218; the opposite, the reverse, the inverse, the converse, the antipodes, the antithesis, the other extreme. V. be contrary &c. adj.; contrast with, oppose; diller toto coelo[Lat]. invert, reverse, turn the tables; turn topsy-turvy, turn end for end, turn upside down, turn inside out. contradict, contravene; antagonize &c. 708. Adj. contrary, contrarious[obs3], contrariant[obs3]; opposite, counter, dead against; converse, reverse; opposed, antithetical, contrasted, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... the two boys. And David Linton's went further back, to the day when he had first driven Norah's mother over the Billabong track; little and dainty and merry, while he had been as always, silent, but unspeakably proud of her. The little mother's grave had long been green, and the world had turned topsy-turvy since then, but the old track was the same, and the memory, and the pride, were no ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... over the world as quickly as you could write them. Her mother had tried to explain it, but granny declared it sounded like some wicked thing done by evil spirits, and she wasn't going to believe it. Elsie was inclined to feel very much like poor old granny, who thought the world was turning topsy-turvy since her young days. But although she could not understand it, Elsie had a dim uneasy feeling that there was too much likelihood of Mrs. Donaldson's words being true ones ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... thoughts in great measure from the other events which were preparing, and finally carried her off altogether on the eve of many and great changes, such as turned topsy-turvy the life of the Warrenders. She was naturally very much taken up by her husband and her new surroundings, and the delightful trouble of settling down in her new parish and home. And she was at a considerable distance from them, half a day's journey, which made very ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... house turned topsy-turvy!" said Lucy. "Really and truly, mother, I wish we had thought it over before we did ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... that in my absence you could have behaved badly! Another in your place would have turned the house topsy-turvy, but you have only broken a pane of glass! God bless you for your considerateness. Go on in the same way and you will ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... bid him clear the way. The poor man used his utmost endeavors to avoid the danger that threatened him, but his horse proved unmanageable. To make short of it, the coach-and-six turned them both topsy-turvy; but at the same time the coach, too, was completely overturned. In an instant the horse and the man, instead of amusing themselves with having their limbs broken, rose almost miraculously; the man remounted, and galloped away, and is galloping still, for aught I know; while the ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... blue glass windows should have power to turn the whole world topsy-turvy, or to create a new one, of an entirely original colour-scheme! But so it was. Those people seated in their grand, travelling "bed-sitting rooms," had only a superficial resemblance to the passengers of ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... morning Sholto MacKim had other views of it. Even when at last he was relieved from duty he never closed an eye. The blowing out of the lamp had turned his ideas and hopes all topsy-turvy. His heart sang loud and turbulent within him. He had kissed other girls indeed before at kirns and country dances. He laughed triumphantly within him at the difference. They had run into corners and screamed and struggled, and held up ineffectual hands. And when his lips ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... What's the row here—hey? I was gone just half an hour, and everything has gone topsy-turvy. Lipa, why did you let the chickens get into the raspberry bushes? Go and drive 'em away, damn you! I am talking to you—yes, to you! Go, or I'll go ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... Issoudun and go to America on a venture. I should be the first to advise you to give him an outfit, and to wish him a safe voyage. He would soon make a fortune there, and that is far more honorable than turning Issoudun topsy-turvy at night, and playing ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... which, as he said at Liverpool the other day, he is thoroughly attached, "to see how good Conservatives enjoy CHAMBERLAIN'S Speech. They are as jubilant now as they were a few years ago, when I attacked JOSEPH in connection with Aston-Park Riots. A topsy-turvy world; most of us where we never thought to find ourselves, or be found; oddest of all, surely, is to hear CHAMBERLAIN of Birmingham enthusiastically cheered in House of Commons by great Conservative Party. They mean it, too," GRANDOLPH ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 22, 1893 • Various
... habit then of parting and brushing about an inch of his hair, leaving the rest all topsy-turvy. My recollection of that boyhood habit served me as a defense in later years when he would call my attention ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... not come on that occasion and have my place searched?' I did so, hah! hah! I went when you were ill in bed—but, let me tell you, not officially, not in my magisterial capacity; but go I did. We had your rooms turned topsy-turvy at our very first suspicions, but umsonst! Then I said to myself: 'That man will make me a call, he will come of his own accord, and that before very long! If he is guilty, he will be bound to come. Other kinds of men would not do so, ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... them. To mark the fifth, they chose a V, which is made out by bending inwards the three middle fingers, and stretching out only the thumb and the little finger; and for the tenth they used an X, which is a double V, one placed topsy-turvy under the other. From this the progression of these numbers is always from one to five, and from five to ten. The hundred was signified by the capital letter of that word in Latin, C—centum. The other letters, D for 500, and M for a 1000, were afterwards added. They subsequently abbreviated ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... the many topsy-turvy things in topsy-turvy China that this prosaic people is so addicted to picturesque and significant terms. I found the names of some of the monasteries quite as interesting as anything else about them. From the "Pinnacle of Contemplation" ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... the point of view of the mere systematist, seems as far removed from those that wear hoofs as it could be, but the philosopher, considering the point at which it has arrived, rather than the route by which it got there, will class it with them, for its idea of life is just theirs turned topsy-turvy. The nails of the sloth, instead of being hammered into hoofs on the hard ground, have grown long and curved, like those of a caged bird, and become hooks by which it can hang, without effort, in the midst of the leaves on which it feeds. A minimum of intellect is required ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... question with me, as a man of honour (and I may tell you an over-nice sense of honour has been a drawback I've had to struggle against all my life), the question with me is this: Is it not my plain duty to step in and put a stop to this topsy-turvy state of things, to show you up as the barefaced young impostor you are, and restore my unhappy brother-in-law to ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... Dream reasoning, turning common-sense topsy-turvy, and treating the words of God in the very reverse way from that in which all sane people agree to treat the words ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... like a May lady, and, as most of our gentlewomen are, "was [5037]more solicitous of her head-tire than of her health, that spent her time between a comb and a glass, and had rather be fair than honest" (as Cato said), "and have the commonwealth turned topsy-turvy than her tires marred;" and she did nought but brag of her fine robes and jewels, and provoked the Roman matron to show hers: Cornelia kept her in talk till her children came from school, and these, said she, are my jewels, and so deluded and ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... irritable sort, and generally took the form of scolding. She was not a stupid woman by any means, but there was one thing in the world she never could understand, and that was Austin himself. He wasn't like other boys one bit, she always said. He had such a queer, topsy-turvy way of looking at things; would express the most outrageous opinions with an innocent unconsciousness that made her long to box his ears, and support the most arrant absurdities by arguments that conveyed not the smallest meaning ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... think so once, Julie," said Peter, "but I believe you're right now. It's a topsy-turvy world, little girl, and one never knows where one is ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... sky and hills of Hymettus, with its paradoxical antitheses: of flowers and flannels; strawberries and sealskin sacks; open fires with open windows; snow-capped mountains and orange blossoms; winter looking down upon summer—a topsy-turvy land, where you dig for your wood and climb for your coal; where water-pipes are laid above ground, with no fear of Jack Frost, and your principal rivers flow bottom side up and invisible most of the time; where the boys climb ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... made it substantial, as nothing else did, was the girl—the girl and all she meant to him. It must be a very genuine emotion to turn the world topsy-turvy for him as it had. This afternoon for instance, it was she who filled the sunbeams with golden light, who warmed the blue sky until it seemed of hazy fairy stuff, who sang among the leaves, who urged him on with a power that placed ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... was a pause, while Mr. Bill Hen wondered if this were a floating lunatic asylum or a nest of pirates, that had come so easily up their quiet river and turned the world topsy-turvy. At length—"Your force, Senor Pike," the Skipper said, "I perceive it not, for to take away this child. Have you the milizia—what you call soldiers, police—have you them summoned and concealed behind the rocks, as in the theatres of Havana? I see no one but your one self. Surely you have ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... curious and interesting enough, if comprised in a single essay, but rather long-drawn-out, when spread over four hundred pages. Suppose, for instance, is the writer's mode of argument, a malicious demon let loose, with power to set the earth topsy-turvy, on condition of keeping it still an earth. With what exultation does he bestride the Himalayas to watch the convulsions which he causes! How does he kick his heels against the mountain-flanks, in ecstasy at seeing men bleached and blistered with the chlorine or nauseated with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... It may have been that the quarrel between the Bergenheims and Corandeuils had reached the canine species; it may have been at the instigation of the footmen, who all cordially detested the beast—the sad fact remains that she was pounced upon in a moment as if she were a deer, snatched, turned topsy-turvy, rolled, kicked about, and bitten by the forty four-legged brigands, who each seemed determined to carry away as a trophy some portion ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... is a misfortune. It is a misfortune to feel guilty because you do not give something you cannot give. O my God!' he added, with a gesture of his arm. 'If it all happened reasonably, and not all topsy-turvy—not in our way but in a way of its own! Why, it's as if I had stolen that love! You think so too, don't deny it. You must think so. But will you believe it, of all the horrid and stupid things I have found time to do in my life—and there are many—this is ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... and were cast together into the basket. The last fragment of all that we saw tumble down was the head, and no sooner had that touched the ground than he who had snatched up all the limbs and put them in the basket turned them all out again topsy-turvy. Then straightway we saw with these eyes all those limbs creep together again, and in short, form a whole man, who at once could stand and go just as before, without showing the least damage! Never in my life was I so astonished as when I beheld this wonderful ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Highness Eberhard Ludwig of Wirtemberg; in having kept back from his knowledge many facts in the administration of the country, and destroying documents addressed to him. Also in having been untrue to him in word and deed. Almost comic this last—a sort of topsy-turvy adultery charge! ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... LAETITIA,—I promised to write to you when I should have returned home. Returned home I am, but you may conceive that many, many matters solicit attention and demand arrangement in a house which has lately been turned topsy-turvy in the operation of unroofing. Drawers and cupboards must wait a moment, however, while I fulfil my promise, though it is imperatively necessary that this fulfilment should ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... accommodating itself kindly to the knobs of coal; it would lean forward with a drunken air, and dribble, a very Idiot of a kettle, on the hearth. It was quarrelsome, and hissed and spluttered morosely at the fire. To sum up all, the lid, resisting Mrs. Peerybingle's fingers, first of all turned topsy-turvy, and then, with an ingenious pertinacity deserving of a better cause, dived sideways in—down to the very bottom of the kettle. And the hull of the Royal George has never made half the monstrous resistance to coming out of the water which the lid of that kettle employed against Mrs. ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... represented as the highest aim of life. Woman's virtues, yea, even her vices, were invested with exaggerated importance. Woman became accustomed to think that she could be neither faithful nor faithless without turning the world topsy-turvy. She shared the fate of all objects of excessive adulation: flattery corrupted her. Thus it came about that love of woman overshadowed every other social force and every form of family affection, and so ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... black, and the red spots burned again, as Marcia replied: "Well, I should think so—he proposes to turn things topsy-turvy!" ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various
... language; but the occasion warranted it. I was flabbergasted, bewildered, out-raged, humiliated, delighted, incredulous, and generally turned topsy-turvy. In conversation one has no time for so minute an analysis of one's feelings. I therefore summed them up in the only word. Captain Vauvenarde! The wild goose of my absurd chase! Found by this Flibbertigibbet ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... whilom capital of the tiny feudal kingdom; topsy-turvy, higgledy-piggledy, coated of many colours are its zig-zag little streets, one house tumbling on the back of its neighbour, another having contrived to wedge itself between two of portlier bulk, a third coolly taking possession of some inviting frontage, shutting out its fellow's light, ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... stop, as if by enchantment, and in the course of a very few years the poor little framework of human society, of which we are now so proud, would totally change its aspect, and the whole world would be turned topsy-turvy. ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... I got from the hotel to the hill in a wagon. The sight from our eminence was one that I shall never forget—that I can never fully describe. The whole world appeared to be topsy-turvy and at the mercy of an angry and destroying demon of the elements. People were floating about on housetops and in wagons, and hundreds were clinging to tree-trunks, logs and furniture of every ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... indeed, as though the sense of sin did not reside in the act at all, but only in the sense that the act is committed in defiance of light and higher instinct. Even our own morality, on which we pride ourselves, how confused and topsy-turvy it is in many respects! How monstrous it is that a hungry man should be punished legally for theft, while an ill-tempered and unjust parent or schoolmaster should be allowed, year after year, to make the lives of the children about them into misery and heaviness. ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the wildest whirl of weather imaginable. The rains have been terrific, blinding, tropical in their almost ceaseless roar and fury. Surely only madmen or fiends would fight in such an elemental maelstrom. We may be both, and perhaps we are, now that the whole world is topsy-turvy; for we are going savagely on at this dread business, half blind and wholly desperate. If the furious sky were to rain red-hot pitchforks the contending armies would still be undismayed and would crawl, if not ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... murder'd Common Sense. Farewel, vain world! to Ignorance I give thee, Her leaden sceptre shall henceforward rule. Now, priest, indulge thy wild ambitious thoughts; Men shall embrace thy schemes, till thou hast drawn All worship from the Sun upon thyself: Henceforth all things shall topsy-turvy turn; Physick shall kill, and Law enslave the world; Cits shall turn beaus, and taste Italian songs, While courtiers are stock-jobbing in the city. Places requiring learning and great parts Henceforth shall all be hustled in a hat, ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... for my hat; it was lying topsy-turvy in the middle of the path, and Ethelbertha's favourite hound was swallowing the balls as fast as he ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... are no dead lifeless dogs, as you mayhap think them. All sorts of things dwell and bustle about in them, things that you call powers and the like: these can't endure to have their old quiet abodes turned topsy-turvy in this manner, and dug away and blown up with gunpowder under their very feet. The whole country for miles and miles round is smoking and steaming, and clattering, and hammering; people are shovelling and poking, and digging, ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... door, and looked forth, while Bob, in eager curiosity, looked out the same instant. There was now sufficient light for them to see every object in the room. A scene of wild disorder revealed itself. All the furniture was turned topsy-turvy. The door leading to the gallery was open, and there, before their eyes, standing on the sofa, was the being that ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... Alcides always managed to send the canoe on to some rock, which quickly brought me back, not to earth but to water. His principle in life was always to do the worst thing and then you knew that nothing worse could happen—a topsy-turvy philosophy for which we all had to suffer. Emerging from the basin, we had two channels before us, one to the N.N.E., the other N.N.W. Gigantic palm trees such as we had seen along the River Arinos were now to be seen all ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... topsy-turvy. The valet de chambre had not dared to put the things in order, as if there reigned, amid the scattered packages and the yawning drawers, the majesty ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... Lady Chelford chose to patronise Mr. Page, the Dollington professor, and partly, I fancy, to show that she could turn things topsy-turvy in this town of Gylingden, had made a point, with the rulers of the feast, that her client should sing half-a-dozen songs in the ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... vision. It seemed to be running straight for them, and instinctively they dodged—all but Tom and John. These old veterans continued to gaze coolly straight ahead as though nothing had happened. Crash-h! went a clap of thunder. It seemed as if the whole heavens were being turned topsy-turvy. Even the airplane, usually so steady, heaved and rode like ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... said; "everything seems topsy-turvy up here. Why, to-day I saw a man come in with a box of apples which the crowd begged him to open. He was selling those apples at a dollar apiece, and the folks were just ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... thirty-five. Her hair was still soft and shining. She had been a pretty girl, she was a beautiful woman. But the greatest change was in her attitude toward life. In Paris her golden-rule philosophy had been turned topsy-turvy. ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... turn off was found the question of Wade versus Washington Street was settled. A topsy-turvy sign at the intersection announced that Wade Street was ahead. Emma Sanderson's grandson lived a couple of blocks ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... forgiven; an exile from France of his own free will when Louis banished his first cousin, the King of England, in order to truckle to the triumphant usurper. He had led an adventurous life, and had cared very little what became of him in a topsy-turvy world. But now all things were changed. Richard Cromwell's brief and irresolute rule had shattered the Commonwealth, and made Englishmen eager for a king. The country was already tired of him whose succession had been admitted with blank acquiescence; ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... themselves of their mess. But they had done what they wanted—they had finished the door on the birthday, and proud enough they were of it. The griffins, cupids, and so on, were, I must own, most beautiful to behold; though so many in number, so entangled in flowers and devices, and so topsy-turvy in their actions and attitudes, that you felt them unpleasantly in your head for hours after you had done with the pleasure of looking at them. If I add that Penelope ended her part of the morning's work by being sick in the back-kitchen, it is in no unfriendly spirit ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... from the stepladder. He and Yardsley go out. The pictures are piled up on the floor, the furniture is topsy-turvy, and the portieres lie in a heap on ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... brought into incongruous juxtaposition. The exercise of this sense of humour ... compels the mind to form a picture to itself, accompanied by pleasurable emotion; and what is this but setting the imagination to work, though in topsy-turvy fashion? Nay, in such a case, imagination plays a double part, since it is only by instantaneous comparison with ideal fitness and proportion that it can grasp at full force ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... that was distressing to some of the Melmottites. There was much to be done about the dinner,— which could not be omitted; and much also as to the election,—which was imperative. The two Grendalls, father and son, found themselves to be so driven that the world seemed for them to be turned topsy-turvy. The elder had in old days been accustomed to electioneering in the interest of his own family, and had declared himself willing to make himself useful on behalf of Mr Melmotte. But he found Westminster to be almost too much ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... corps that shows itself efficient is sure to be chosen when there is work to be done, and will be doing outpost duty, whilst many of the others will be kept within the walls as being of no practical use. Just at present everything is topsy-turvy, but you may be sure that Trochu and Vinoy, and the other generals will gradually get things into shape, and will not be long before they find what corps are to be depended on ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... fifty, which were supplied to the favored few at "Special Rates." This was just such a freak as would have occurred to Field, and in Denver there was no restraint upon the act following upon any wild thought that flitted through his topsy-turvy brain. ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... going to turn around and fight our way back against the gale. We may be turned topsy-turvy ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... Sheepshanks, with a gleeful laugh. "I have made a discovery, sir—a great discovery. I happened to look out of the window, a moment ago, and I saw a couple of little chaps racing up and down, and playing at that topsy-turvy game you saw me trying just now. Their cheeks were so fat, and their frames so sturdy, that I feel convinced such exercises are the best promoters of health in the world; and as I am getting rather broken ...
— Funny Big Socks - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... astonishment to observe the great uneasiness you show in your last letter, lest, through my not having written, I should have forgotten you. Still it is nothing new or marvellous when so many other things go counter, that this also should be topsy-turvy. For what your lordship says to me, I could say to yourself: nevertheless, you do this perhaps to try me, or to light a new and stronger flame, if that indeed were possible: but be it as it wills: I know well that, at this hour, I could as easily forget your name as ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... a crazy world. Everything's topsy-turvy. Even the streets have gone insane. They wind and twist until they cross their own tracks. I know I'll get lost looking for that French bakery. (He goes to the ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... linguistic cracks of the whip certain theories which seemed to be advanced by the bolder auditors with a view to palliating, persuading and tranquilizing his just wrath, he made for the nearest paillasse, turned it topsy-turvy, slit it neatly and suddenly from stem to stem with a jack-knife, banged the hay about, and then went with careful haste through the pitifully minute baggage of the paillasse's owner. Silence fell. No one, least of all the owner, ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... felt uncannily that Jolyon would rather like to pay them—the chap was so loose. Besides, to claim damages was not the thing to do. The claim, indeed, had been made almost mechanically; and as the hour drew near Soames saw in it just another dodge of this insensitive and topsy-turvy Law to make him ridiculous; so that people might sneer and say: "Oh, yes, he got quite a good price for her!" And he gave instructions that his Counsel should state that the money would be given to a Home for Fallen Women. He was a long time hitting off exactly ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... residents on the new building estate found his cupboard doors numbered on the panels two, six, eight, in gilt figures inside, and in fact they were made of pew doors which the contractor had got out of some old church he had ransacked and turned topsy-turvy to the order of the vicar. He would have run up a new Salt Lake City cheap, or built a new Rome at five per ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... joining, the dispersing and collecting which will take place in the course of a battle, may give the appearance of disorder when no real disorder is possible. Your formation may be without head or tail, your dispositions all topsy-turvy, and yet a rout of your forces quite out ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... what it rightly is to faint, but I do know that for the next little while the whole world swam away from before me in a whirling mist; Silver and the birds, and the tall Spy-glass hilltop, going round and round and topsy-turvy before my eyes, and all manner of bells ringing and distant ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... history. He evidently looked upon Shelby as a new-comer who might be pre-empted for a regular customer before Mrs. L. Bowers, the rival grocer, got him. It somehow hurt Shelby's homesick heart to be unrecognized, more than it pleased him to enjoy time's topsy-turvy. Here he was, returned rich and powerful, to patronize the taskmaster who had worked him hard and paid him harder in the old years. Yet he dared not proclaim himself and take ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... no topsy-turvy straining after new effects, which is so wearisome to those who love the racy naturalism of Parson Adams and Edie Ochiltree. But let us have no pessimism also. The age is against the romance of colour, movement, passion, and jollity. But ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... it, my darling; and if you had as much to do with Aunt Vi Truefitt as I have, you would realize how often my spirits turn topsy-turvy. I often hope that I'll be Englishized quickly, so that I may get back to my dear parents. But there, Molly is ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... little into the country, lest worse should befall. Disappear he did, remaining for the next two months concealed in the outskirts of Paris, where he practised swordsmanship against his next meeting with his enemy. The situation was cynically topsy-turvy. As M. Foulet points out, Rohan had legally rendered himself liable, under the edict against duelling, to a long term of imprisonment, if not to the penalty of death. Yet the law did not move, and Voltaire was left to take the ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... "that men's heads do not grow out of their sides, or from their breasts, and that they do not walk topsy-turvy, with ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... GOOSE; Who near, on a common, en passant, they saw, [p 26] And had heard she had lately come out of the straw. But the GOOSE of their tale not a word understood, And still cackled away to her terrified brood; While immers'd in a pond, to complete their ill luck, Topsy-turvy appear'd, at a distance, ...
— The Peacock and Parrot, on their Tour to Discover the Author of "The Peacock At Home" • Unknown
... it: in concession to which weakness, it was agreed that I should call in about an hour at the office of the lawyer, whom (as he left the library) Uncle Adam should waylay and inform of the arrangement. I suppose there was never a more topsy-turvy situation: you would have thought it was I who had suffered some rebuff, and that iron-sided Adam was a generous conqueror who scorned ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... it go:—it will one day be found With other relics of 'a former world,' When this world shall be former, underground, Thrown topsy-turvy, twisted, crisp'd, and curl'd, Baked, fried, or burnt, turn'd inside-out, or drown'd, Like all the worlds before, which have been hurl'd First out of, and then back again to chaos, The superstratum which will ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... children. Josie, mother feels dreadfully because you all have been so naughty. Winthrop!—your finger! Instantly! Clemence, baby, where on earth did you acquire all that grime on your face and fists?" And to her brother: "Such a household, Phil! Everybody incompetent—including me; everything topsy-turvy; and all five dogs perfectly possessed to lie on that pink rug in the music room.—Have they been there to-day, Drina?—while you ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... departure!—for we shall find our delicate modern ears unable to endure the vast uproar which is about to commence in celebration of the king's escape! Listen! it has already commenced. See!—the whole town is topsy-turvy. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... called me one side this afternoon and asked me, in a whisper, to buy for them a skillet and a pair of green belluses, with a sprig of flowers painted on them, and a brass nose. Who'd thought of a wedding setting her topsy-turvy! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... thought of the mask which I had brought in case of emergency; and, clapping it on, resolved to brazen out the affair. Meanwhile I saw all notions of gallantry turned topsy-turvy, for my Lord was laughing quietly, while my adored Dorothy called aloud upon the name ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... Monsieur at the bureau, of the prison. Monsieur made me turn everything topsy-turvy and inside out. Monsieur expressed great surprise at a huge shell: where did I get it?—I said a French soldier gave it to me as a souvenir.—And several tetes d'obus?—also souvenirs, I assured him merrily. Did Monsieur suppose I was caught in the act of blowing ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... their constitutions. So the rich Aldermen's daughters were actually out in the fields herding sheep, and their sons sweeping chimneys or carrying newspapers; and while the poor charwomen's and coal-heavers, children spent their time like princesses and fairies. Such a topsy-turvy state of society was shocking. While the Mayor's little daughter was tending geese out in the meadow like any common goose-girl, her pretty elder sister, Violetta, felt very sad about it and used often to cast about in her mind ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... walking the other day, she said she had often thought what a beautiful world this would be, when we should see every thing right side up. Now, we see every thing topsy-turvy, and all is confusion.' For a person who knows nothing of this fact in the science of optics, this seemed quite a ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth |
