"At sea" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wreckage is thrown upon the beach, and you wonder what dire disaster happened far out at sea, and if the rest of the ship went to the bottom with all on board. But take it home, let it dry in the sun, then place it on your open grate fire, and as you watch the iridescent blaze curl up the chimney, dream dreams, and weave strange ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... nothing less. There was hardly a man who joined in that psalm, but knew that he carried his life in his hand from year to year, that any day might see him a corpse—drowned at sea. Hardly a woman who sang that psalm but had lost a husband, a father, a brother, a kinsman—drowned at sea. And yet they believed that God preserved them. They were fishers and sailors, earning an uncertain livelihood, on a wild and rocky coast. A ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... and bully, strode into the room, his sword clanking. O'Shaughnessy arose and respectfully drew him aside, offering him a "gasper". They were joined by a lean hawk-faced individual answering to the name of Fish, who said he had been in the American navy until buried alive at sea for smiling ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... association with the spirit of war. As they swung through the gates a virtual wonderland of the machinery of sea battles greeted their eyes—powerful battleships, lithe and speedy cruisers, spider-like destroyers, tremendous colliers capable of carrying thousands of tons of coal to the fleets at sea, and in the distance a transport, waiting to take on its human freight of Uncle Sam's ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... attention from outside, shed a dim light over my ghostlike companions clad in their night-dresses. The younger ladies were almost hysterical, and all looked as if they had passed through a fearful storm at sea, as various experiences were recounted. The house had been ransacked from garret to cellar, and what could not be devoured or carried off was scattered about, and such things as sugar, vinegar, flour, salt, etc., ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... in both their working craft and life-saving systems. It was a great success. The total visitors numbered 2,703,051 and there was a financial surplus of L15,243. Of this, two-thirds was put aside to assist the families of fishermen who had lost their lives at sea, and L3000 was used to organize a Fisheries Society in order to keep up the interest in the subject and encourage the study of ways and means ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... we was gettun furder an' furder away. Tired I was wi' goun, though I had n' walked more n' a twenty or thirty mile, mubbe, an' it all comun down so fast as I could go up, an' faster, an' never stoppun! 'T was a tarrible long journey up over the driftun ice, at sea! So, then I went on a high bit to wait tull all was done; I thowt 't would be last to melt, an' mubbe, I thowt 'e may capsize wi' me, when I did n' know (for I don' say I was stouthearted); an' I prayed Un to take care o' them ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... recession of the water and the desiccation of the soil under a warm sun.** Exactly resembling new mown hay in the perfume which it gives out even when in the freshest state of verdure, it was indeed sweet to sense and lovely to the eye in the heart of a desert country. When at sea off Cape Leeuwin in September 1827, after a three months' voyage and before we made the land, I was sensible of a perfume from the shore which this ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... to come up and decide the action. Besides as the Bisayan Indians are perfectly acquainted with the mode of making war on the Moros, the meaning of their signals and manoeuvers and the kind of places on shore in which they take shelter when pursued at sea, the employment of such ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... gale at sea where the sailors are half drowned all the time; but it ain't a marker alongside of these 'ere red-hot blizzards, eh, Parsons?" one of the horsemen said as he threw off the blanket from his head with ...
— Dick in the Desert • James Otis
... of those delicious balmy evenings which one gets only at sea and in the warmer latitudes. The sky was alive with myriads of twinkling and palpitating stars, which seemed to come and go, like sparks on a fire-back, as one gazed upward into the vast depths and tried to place them. They played hide-and-seek ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... attention. He now commenced teaching in Edinburgh; but soon obtained, through the recommendation of Mr Jeffrey, the appointment of schoolmaster in the "Doris" frigate, about to sail for South America. At sea, he continued to apply himself to mental improvement; and on his return from a three years' cruise along the coasts of the Western world, he published, in the pages of the Edinburgh Magazine, a series of papers, under the title of "Letters ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... little rowboats meet us, well out at sea, buffeted and tossed by the waves: they are fishing: see! one of the men has a strike, he pulls in his trolling-line, hand over hand, very slowly, it seems, as the steamship rushes by. I lean over the side, run to the stern of the ship to watch,—hurrah, he pulls in a silvery fish nearly ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... least not in haste for an affirmative. But supposing it were a negative, what certainty had he that a negative from Morgana would not be followed by a negative from Melpomene? Then his heart would be at sea without rudder or compass. We shall leave him awhile to the contemplation of ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... experience. Such, alas! is the present condition of a large number of professing Christians. Many are ignorant of what the finished work of Christ on the cross means. On account of this ignorance, they are ever trying to do what God has done for them. How many more are at sea about their position in Christ, and know next to nothing of the priestly work of Christ. The confusion is the greatest in respect to His future work as King. Our theme is therefore an important one. But even God's people, who in a measure have laid ...
— The Work Of Christ - Past, Present and Future • A. C. Gaebelein
... chastisement, and the hiding of God's face (Hosea 5:14,15; Isa 26:16; Cant 5:6). But I say, this hiding of this sweet face is bitter to the soul, and oft-times puts both faith and hope to a sad and most fearful plunge. For at such a day, it is with the soul as with the ship at sea, that is benighted and without light; to wit, like a man bewildered upon the land; only the text saith, for the help and succour of such, 'Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light? Let him trust ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... supposed to be raging, and the accompanying music must of course be suitably descriptive; but the difficulty was that Haydn had never seen the sea: therefore had not the slightest notion of what a storm at sea was like. Kurz tries to describe the waves running mountains high, the pitching and tossing, the roll of thunder, and the howling of the wind; and Haydn produces all sorts of ugly, jerky, and noisy ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... could see their own roof, weighted down by stones, peeping over the edge of the hill long before they were anywhere near it, and they fastened their homesick eyes upon it as a sailor fixes his upon the North Star at sea. Now they could see the whole house, with the goat-shed and cow-stables back of it, the straw-stack, and the ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... yet had one that would not keep. Come and see if your pavilion—isn't that a grand name?—is arranged to your liking, and then let us go to dinner, for Agatha here is dying of hunger—she has to make up for her abstinence at sea." ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... or condition or combination or process exhibits a beauty: the multiplication-table its—old age its—the carpenter's trade its—the grand opera its: the huge-hulled clean-shaped New York clipper at sea under steam or full sail gleams with unmatched beauty—the American circles and large harmonies of government gleam with theirs, and the commonest definite intentions and actions with theirs. The poets ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... embodied, and in the summer of 1900 by an arrangement with McClure's Magazine he went to Newfoundland to gather impressions and material for a series of sea-tales. Up to this time he had never spent a night on the ocean nor been at sea on a sailing vessel; in his boyhood he had rather feared the great gray ocean, and only later in life did he become so strongly attracted by its power and mystery and by the impression of its eternal struggle against those who must wrest a precarious living from its depths ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... that nothing in this act shall extend, or be deemed to extend, to any negro or mulatto slave that may be on board any vessel belonging to this colony, now at sea, in her present voyage." Heavy penalties are laid for bringing in Negroes in order to free them. Colonial Records, ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... of America as far north as Vancouver Island, and disclosed to England the secret of the Spice Islands. The very name of Drake calls up a vision of thrilling adventure on the high seas. He had been at sea since he was a boy of fifteen, when he had been apprenticed to the master of a small ship trading between England and the Netherlands, and many a time he had sailed on the grey North Sea. "But the narrow seas were a prison for so large a spirit born for greater undertakings," and in 1567 we ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... the great Danish sculptor, died suddenly on March 25, at Copenhagen. Thorvaldsen was the son of an Icelandic sailor, who incidentally earned a living by carving wooden figure-heads for ships. The boy was born at sea, in 1770, while his mother was making a voyage to Copenhagen. At the age of twenty-four, young Thorvaldsen, who had attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts at Copenhagen, won the grand prize, which enabled him to pursue his studies at Rome. His first work was the model of ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... proved of inestimable value. Airplanes, instead of flying aimlessly, kept in constant touch with headquarters. Bodies of troops moved alertly and intelligently. Ships at sea talked freely, over hundreds of miles. Scouts reported. Everywhere ...
— The Radio Amateur's Hand Book • A. Frederick Collins
... Putting her wealth on board ship, she mixed some bags filled with sand among those that contained gold, for the purpose of deceiving those whom the king had sent to observe her and to escort her to Tyre. When out at sea, she threw the bags overboard, to appease the spirit of her husband, as she pretended, by sacrificing those treasures that had cost him his life. Then addressing the officers that accompanied her, she assured ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... we have seen, not a person who could sit still and peacefully do nothing. Inactivity was always a horror to him; even his domestic happiness and his wholesome joy in his wife and daughters could not entirely fill his life when he was not at sea. His first naive and childish pleasure in his immense fortune was an old story, and the King couldn't provide a battle for him every moment. The real events of his life were war cruises, but in between he began to take a hand in the politics of New York. He was high ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... been so long at sea," rejoined Karlsefin, smiling, "that I have lost my relish for beer. We had nothing but water with us. Where got you this tankard, Leif, it is very massive and the workmanship such as one seldom meets with ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... a singular occurrence, of which I have only an imperfect remembrance. There was a port there with many vessels in it; and near this port stood a house with a high tower, in which I saw a pagan whose office was to watch these vessels. He had often to ascend this tower, and see what was going on at sea. Having heard a great noise over the vessels in the port, he hurriedly ascended the tower to discover what was taking place, and he saw several dark figures hovering over the port, and who exclaimed to him in plaintive accents: 'If thou desirest to ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... archangels, and principalities and powers—punish me; may I be tormented wherever I am—in the house or in the garden, in the fields or in the roads, in church or in chapel, at home or abroad, on land or at sea; may I be afflicted in eating and in drinking, in growing up and in growing old, in living and dying, inwardly and outwardly, and for always, if I ever speak of my life as a shepherd boy, or of what I have seen done on this Marlbury Down. So be it, and so ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... wondered why these poor wretches should pray to be delivered from the sea, when all that was before them was lifelong slavery; but I was perhaps able to look more calmly on the matter myself as having been at sea, and not thinking that the vessel was going to founder because of the noise. Yet the storm rose till 'twas very plain that we were in a raging sea, and the streams which began to trickle through the joinings of the hatch showed that ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... running at cross purposes with the ground swell. 'Twas evil sailing for small craft: so whence came this man's courage for the passage 'tis past me even now to fathom; for he had no liking to be at sea, but, rather, cursed the need of putting out, without fail, and lay prone below at such unhappy times as the sloop chanced to toss in rough waters, praying all the time with amazing ferocity. Howbeit, across the bay he came, his ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... week we got out of the tropics, having had the sun vertically overhead, so as to have no shadow, on the preceding day. Strange to say, the weather was never at all oppressively hot after latitude 2 degrees north, or thereabouts. A fine wind, or indeed a light wind, at sea removes all unpleasant heat even of the hottest and most perpendicular sun. The only time that we suffered any inconvenience at all from heat was during the belt of calms; when the sun was vertically over our heads it felt no hotter than on an ordinary summer day. ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... with something of the old teasing intonation that had once deluded Lydia Sessions into the faith that she held a relation of some intimacy to this man. She glanced at him fleetingly; then, though she felt utterly at sea, ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... Maiestie, the 21. of September, in the yeere 1585 hauing besought her, that their ships might passe quietly vnto Spaine and Portugal, without stop or hindrance either in their passage or repassage, by her Maiesties Captaines at Sea, receiued not they ...
— A Declaration of the Causes, which mooved the chiefe Commanders of the Nauie of her most excellent Maiestie the Queene of England, in their voyage and expedition for Portingal, to take and arrest in t • Anonymous
... was the shame, and the sting of my sentiments towards you. I am not naturally afraid of danger, though my nerves are sometimes weak and have sometimes shrunk from it. I have known something of peril in late years when my frame has been bowed and broken—perils by storms at sea, and the knives of robbers upon land—and I have looked upon it with a quiet eye. But you, Morton Devereux, you I always feared. I had seen from your childhood others whose nature was far stronger than mine yield ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... determined outcasts, accustomed to the sea,—Genoese, Corsicans, Sardinians, ex-Carbonari of the best sort,—no silly patriots, but liberal cosmopolitans, who have iron at the disposal of any man's gold. I have a priest to perform the nuptial service, and deaf to any fair lady's 'No.' Once at sea, and wherever I land, Violante will lean on my arm ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... twenty-five sail-of-the-line, two of which with 1300 soldiers went on to attempt the British Tobago. The attack on Santa Lucia failed, and the French returned to Martinique; but learning there that Rodney was at sea, heading southward, De Grasse became alarmed for his detachment at Tobago, and moved to its support with his entire fleet. Rodney, knowing of the detachment only, sent against it six ships under Rear Admiral Drake; a half-measure severely censured by Hood, whose comments throughout ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... after Leon announced that he was going on board his yacht that evening; a south wind was blowing, and he should take a cruise up the Channel. Would the baron go with him? They were sure to have fine weather, and it would be delightful at sea in this heat. The baron declined the invitation, as he was a wretched sailor; but that evening, when he and Leon were smoking after dinner, he said, suddenly, "Where are ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 353, October 2, 1886. • Various
... made them wot that something needed them at sea. They began to get ready a little boat, bringing it down from its wooden rest on high dry ground beneath the cliff. Whilst they pushed and dragged through the deep-furrowed sand I gazed seaward. The shore was raised; I could see straight athwart the waters. ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... under the influence of compulsion. In this way:—"There is a law among the Rhodians, that if any vessel with a beak is caught in their harbour, it shall be confiscated. There was a violent storm at sea; the violence of the winds compelled a vessel, against the will of her crew, to take refuge in the harbour of the Rhodians. On this the quaestor claims the vessel for the people. The captain of the ship declared that it was not just that it should be confiscated." ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... now?" he asked one of the boys. "Are we out at sea? There does not seem to be any land ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... very easy to get over the examination necessary to qualify him for lieutenant, as a turkey and a dozen of brown stout in the boat with him on the passing day, as a present to each of the passing captains, would pass him, even if he were as incompetent as a camel (or, as they say at sea, a cable), to pass through the eye of a needle; that having once passed, he would soon have him in command of a fine frigate, with a good nursing first lieutenant; and that if he did not behave himself properly, he would make his signal to come on board of the flag-ship, take him ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... the hour that wakens fond desire In men at sea, and melts their thoughtful heart, Who in the morn have bid sweet friends farewell, And pilgrim newly on his road with love Thrills, if he hear the vesper bell from far, That seems to mourn for the expiring day: When I, no longer taking heed to hear Began, with wonder, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... him. A British sloop-of-war was cruising in the Mexican Gulf, and, hearing that Lafitte, himself, was at sea, kept a sharp lookout at the mast-head for the sails of ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... was with me at Oxford, in 1755, he gave to the Bodleian Library a thin quarto of twenty-one pages, a work in Italian, with an English translation on the opposite page. The English titlepage is this: 'An Account of an Attempt to ascertain the Longitude at Sea, by an exact Variation of the Magnetical Needle, &c. By Zachariah Williams. London, printed for Dodsley, 1755.' The English translation, from the strongest internal marks, is unquestionably the work of Johnson. In a blank ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... friends astir, and their first sight on reaching the deck was the Girondin coming down-stream. They exchanged hand waves with Captain Beamish on the bridge, then, swinging their own craft, followed in the wake of the other. A couple of hours later they were at sea. ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... that your mother was to elope with her lover on his next arrival in port. All plans were to be made by him during the voyage on which he went forth, after a stolen interview with your mother. He was lost at sea, and all on board the ship perished with him. Mr. and Mrs. Marchmont chanced to be sojourning in the place at the time of your birth. Mr. Marchmont had longed for a child, and the tragic story came to his ears through the physician of your mother's family, and he and his wife decided to adopt ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... eccentricities a humorous kind of religion which belonged exclusively to themselves, but which gave their characteristics a touch of sublimity. We have travelled far since those days of aboriginal stupidity and sordid blood-sucking. The contrast between the comforts and conditions of life at sea then and now cannot be imagined. We may only talk of it; we can never truly estimate the change. I do not draw attention to the comparison because I think the sailor has got any more than he is entitled to. I refer to ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... careful to express the utmost of his own power, commanding them to obey what orders they should receive from the Parliament, &c., of both or either of the Generals. My Lord told me clearly his thoughts that the King would carry it, and that he did not think himself very happy that he was now at sea, as well for his own sake, as that he thought he might do his country some service in keeping ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... efforts, drove the whole squadron to the eastward, and obliged them, after several fruitless attempts, to bear away for the River of Plate, where Pizarro in the Asia arrived about the middle of May and a few days after him the Esperanza and the St. Estevan. The Hermiona was supposed to founder at sea for she was never heard of more and the Guipuscoa was run ashore and sunk on the coast of Brazil. The calamities of all kinds which this squadron underwentin this unsuccessful navigation can only be paralleled by what we ourselves experienced in the same climate when buffeted ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... we were fairly out at sea, with a favourable breeze, and the pilot left us in view (it might be the last) of the old country ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... means of making men open out to each other. In the latter the uniformity of posture disposes to dozing, and the definiteness of the period at which the company will separate, makes each individual think of those 'to' whom he is going, rather than of those 'with' whom he is going. But at sea more curiosity is excited, if only on this account, that the pleasant or unpleasant qualities of your companions are of greater importance to you, from the uncertainty how long you may be ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... figures, and a breath of incense came when the doors were opened. The Hindus prostrated themselves on the floor, and hid their faces; it was explained as their oriental custom, but it is certainly favorable to Thaumaturgy. Two days afterwards I was told, being then at sea, that while we visited the shrine a mysterious bell had sounded. No such incident was mentioned at the time, and I felt quite sure that Madame Blavatsky and myself were the only persons present whose ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... from her smiles was he summon'd away, His fortunes at sea to pursue: And grav'd on their hearts was the sorrowful day That witness'd their ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... richly-wooded plains, the navigable rivers, and the abundance of its fish,[54] are each and all mentioned by the early geographers. The description given by Diodorus Siculus of a "certain large island a considerable distance out at sea, and in the direction of the west, many days' sail from Lybia," if it applies to Ireland, would make us suppose that the Erinn of pagan times was incomparably more prosperous than Erinn under Christian rule. He also specially mentions the fish, and adds: "The Phoenicians, ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... but Harry went so quickly that not another word was spoken. To him the idea of a neighbor in the bush refusing such assistance as he had asked was as terrible as to us is the thought of a ship at sea leaving another ship in distress. He unhitched his horse from the fence, and galloped home as fast as the animal would ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... Knight Sutton, at present living at Sutton Leigh, a small house on his father's estate, busied with farming, sporting, and parish business; while his active wife contrived to make a narrow income feed, clothe, and at least half educate their endless tribe of boys. Roger, the eldest, was at sea; Frederick, the second, in India; and Alexander owed his more learned education to Uncle Geoffrey, who had been well recompensed by his industry and good conduct. Indeed his attainments had always ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... divides the 5,500,000 people into 2,700,000 males and 2,800,000 females; from whence (considering the females exceed the males in number, and considering that the men marry later than women, and that many of the males are of necessity absent in the wars, at sea, and upon other business) it follows that a large proportion of the females remain unmarried, though at an adult age, which is a dead loss to the nation, every birth being as so much certain treasure, upon which account such laws must be for the public ...
— Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic • Sir William Petty
... there at night; but in the daytime he perched himself on a pole on the roof, and bellowed out that now he was sailing. Sometimes he rode astraddle on the roof ridge, and dug his sheath-knife deep into the rafters, so that people might think he fancied himself at sea, holding fast on to ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... at sea he seldom rose before ten o'clock in the morning. The 'Orient' had the appearance of a populous town, from which women had been excluded; and this floating city was inhabited by 2000 individuals, amongst whom were a great number of distinguished ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... waked before the citadel entry and on the town walls and by the three gates. The town folk slept, all but the sick and the sorrowful and the careful and those who had work at dawn. Listen, and you might hear sound like the first moving of birds, or breath of dawn wind coming up at sea. The greater part now of the town folk were Christian, brought in since the five-year-gone siege that still resounded. Moors were here, but they had turned Christian, or were slaves, or both slave and Christian. I had seen monks of all habits ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... associated many points of critical definition which cannot be found elsewhere. Thus, in addition to naval terms, he has introduced others relating to fortification; to ancient and modern arms and armour; to objects of natural history occurring at sea, in travel, &c.: the whole forming such an assemblage of interesting and instructive matter as will prove valuable ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... people worst of all. Dreadful stories they were; about hanging, and walking the plank, and storms at sea, and the Dry Tortugas, and wild deeds and places on the Spanish Main. By his own account he must have lived his life among some of the wickedest men that God ever allowed upon the sea; and the language in which he told these stories shocked our plain country people almost as much as the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that. Why, that is the best of all the tramps—a clear moonlight night along these downs; and you have the whole world to yourself; everything and everybody asleep, except maybe a watchdog up at one of the farms. And the ships out at sea—you can tell whether they're going up or down Channel by the red or the green light, and you think of the poor chap at the helm, and hope he'll get soon home to his wife and children. That is a real fine tramp, Miss; you want to sing almost, ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... were accompanied by the Australian cruisers Melbourne and Sydney. The latter was dispatched to go to the Cocos Islands, and by getting up a speed of 26 knots she reached them in less than three hours. Von Mueller knew that escape by flight was impossible, for his ship had been weeks at sea; her boilers were crusted, her machinery badly in need of repair, and she had not too much coal. He therefore decided to give battle, and went straight for the Sydney at full speed. His object was to meet her on even terms, for her ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... father, and the most intellectual of his children, but she lacked the gentle, feminine graces, and was so wanting in tenderness and sympathy that Angelina charitably implies that her heart was sunk forever with her lover, Professor Fisher of Yale, who perished in a storm at sea. With independence, striking individuality, and entire freedom from timidity of any sort, it would appear perfectly natural that Catherine should espouse the Woman's Rights reform, even though opposing that of abolitionism. But she presented the singular anomaly of a strong-minded ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... only with smaller rivers. Where the stream is stronger, the mud-banks are often formed much farther out at sea; and more often still the river-detritus is carried away and shed over the ocean-bed, beyond the reach of our ken. The powerful rush of water in earth's greater streams bears enormous masses of sand and mud each year far out ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... dress? Only look at him standing by his gun, when broadside after broadside is pouring into the timbers of some sanguinary Yankee or blustering Frenchman. What is his uniform then? Let them declare who have seen that most awful of human sights, a great battle at sea; but let them not whisper it in ears feminine ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... of lamentation barely grew in her voice, but it was there. To turn her mind from the recollection that provoked it, Granny Marrable thought it well to say that Nicholas Cropredy, her first husband, whom the forged letter had drowned at sea, had not been buried at Darenth Mill, but at Ingatestone, with his kindred and ancestors. "Did they find his body?" said old Maisie. She knew that he was dead long years back, but had not received any new impression of ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... worse was that we were in harbor At sea, our quickness in handling our ships would have made us a match for the Spanish fleet; but at anchor, and with the guns of the port commanding us, we did not truly see how we were to ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... these parts call a "Hellespontine"—burst upon them; as many of them then as perceived the gale increasing, and who were able to do so from their position, anticipated the storm by hauling their ships on shore, and both they and their ships escaped. But such of the ships as the storm caught at sea it carried away, some to the parts called Ipni, near Pelion, others to the beach; some were dashed on Cape Sepias itself; some were wrecked at Meliboea, and others at Casthanaea. The storm was ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... Domitius Calvinus, consul B.C. 53. In the Civil War he sided with Pompey, and perished at sea after ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Bell, the inventor of the telephone, read a paper giving a possible method of communication between ships at sea. The simple experiment that illustrates the method which he proposed is as follows: Take a basin of water, introduce into it, at two widely separated points, the two terminals of a battery circuit which ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... when the weather was rough, windy, and wet, and the cold penetrated through the thickest clothing, especially at sea, a wretched boat went out to sea with only two men on board, or, more correctly, a man and a half, for it was the skipper and his boy. There had only been a kind of twilight all day, and it soon grew quite dark, and so bitterly cold, that the ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... said the captain. "Why, what an ignoramus you must be, not to know what a compass is, and you at sea all your life? Do you ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... a plucky old lady, and I respect you," he said. "But here you must stay until your daughter is safely out of the country. I shall take her far beyond your reach, and I shall marry her. When we are well out at sea, Tomaso will come back and release you. If he attempts to do so sooner, I shall blow his head off. Meanwhile you can be as comfortable here as you made your daughter; and as you brought a week's supply of bread, you ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... they took ship to return to Rome; but they were detained at sea for five days by a tempest which seems to have imperilled the vessels. The Pope was on board the captain's galley with his cardinals-in-waiting and servants, and when these were reduced by the storm and the imminent danger to a state of abject terror, ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... can't be anything wrong with the door. But he says: Thanks—never mind, never mind. . . All hands looking out now for the life-boat. Everybody thinking of himself rather. Cloete asks himself, will they miss him? But the fact is that Mr. Stafford had made such poor show at sea that after the ship struck nobody ever paid any attention to him. Nobody cared what he did or where he was. Pitch dark, too—no counting of heads. The light of the tug with the lifeboat in tow is seen making for the ship, and Captain Harry asks: Are we all there? . . . Somebody answers: All ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... explains the origin of the poem: "There is no sort of historical foundation about Good News from Ghent. I wrote it under the bulwark of a vessel off the African coast, after I had been at sea long enough to appreciate even the fancy of a gallop on the back of a certain good horse 'York,' then in my stable, at home." It would require a skilful imagination to create a set of circumstances ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... perceiving by his style that he was a seafaring gentleman, observed that their landlady was not used to lodge such company; and expressed some surprise that he, who had no doubt endured so many storms and hardships at sea, should think much of travelling five or six miles a-horseback by moonlight. "For my part," said he, "I ride in all weathers, and at all hours, without minding cold, wet, wind, or darkness. My constitution is so case-hardened that I believe I could live all the year at Spitzbergen. ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... It is curious, like many things that fall out at sea, but not so wonderful as her towing a ship of four hundred tons, with the foresail, mizzen, and jib all aback. Well, sir, did you ever hear of Nantucket? It is a port in the United States; and our harpooner happened to be there full four ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... over it during the day. At times the moan of the sea could be heard there, when the surf rolled in strongly upon the shore of Cobo Bay. The white crest of the waves could be seen from it, tossing over the sunken reefs at sea; yet it lay in the heart of our island. She had chosen the spot for herself, not very long ago, when we had been there together. ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... himself wrote an account of his fortunes on board that vessel. Lyde's great bitterness against the French is explained by the fact that he had already suffered intensely at their hands. Two years before he had been captured at sea by a French privateer, and imprisoned at St Malo, 'where we were used with such inhumanity and cruelty that if we had been taken by the Turks we could not have been used worse.' The prisoners were almost starved, and their ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... and physical exhaustion, but there was no food aboard the dory. He had, of course, the breaker of water that was part of his regular equipment; but this was more for use during a long day of fishing than for the emergency of being lost at sea. ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... two servants were aware of it; the Turks making a great difficulty of allowing mummies to be carried away, because they fancy that the Christians make use of them for magical operations. When they were at sea, there arose at sundry times such a violent tempest that the pilot despaired of saving the vessel. A good Polish priest, of the suite of the Prince de Ratzivil, recited the prayers suitable to the circumstance; but he was tormented, he said, by two hideous black spectres, a ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... that he was vain, for though he thought he attracted women strangely, that, I maintain, is a weakness common to all men, and so no more to be marvelled at than a stake in a fence. Foreign oaths were the nails with which he held his talk together, yet I doubt not they were a curiosity gathered at sea, like his chains of shells, more for his own pleasure than for others' pain. His friends gave them no weight, and when he wanted to talk emphatically he kept them back, though they were then as troublesome to him as eggs to the bird-nesting boy who has to speak with his ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... hike, Katherine, Hazel and Miss Ladd walked together and discussed plans for creating a condition of affairs that might be expected to produce results in harmony with the purpose of their mission. They were all at sea at first, but after a short and fruitless discussion of what appeared to be next to nothing, Katherine made a random suggestion which quickly threw a more ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... Good-bye! The spirit breaks; The fountain soon must dry. If not, good God! The temple shakes; It totters! What am I? A wreck of hope!—An aimless thing! A helmless ship at sea To whose last spar love still must cling, And ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... up, and grasping me by the arm, he drew me across the room where he also seized Harley in his muscular grip—"mates," he went on earnestly, "she was the sweetest, prettiest little gal as a man ever clapped eyes on. One of yer walk into Limehouse Station an' put the koppers wise. I'd sleep easier at sea if I knew old Kwen Lung 'ad gone west on ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... Bellefontaine and Gabriel Lajeunesse, who were betrothed with the usual rejoicings just before the coming of the English. They had expected, when their people were arrested, to be sent away together; but most of the men were kept under guard, and Gabriel was at sea, bound neither he nor she knew whither, when Evangeline found herself in her father's house alone, for grief and excitement had been more than her aged parent could bear, and he was buried at the shore just before the women of the place were crowded ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... monastery are situated on a lofty point, on the north side of the entrance into the river Tyne, about a mile and a half below North Shields. The rock on which the monastery stood rendered it visible at sea a long way off, in every direction, whence it presented itself as if exhorting the seamen in danger to make their vows, and promise masses and presents to the Virgin Mary and St ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... the bridge over the Hellespont, and the canal of Athos, and the innumerable host and fleet. They knew that these were intended to avenge the defeat of Marathon. Their case seemed desperate, for there was no Hellene likely to assist them by land, and at sea they were attacked by more than a thousand vessels;—their only hope, however slender, was in victory; so they relied upon themselves and upon the Gods. Their common danger, and the influence of their ancient constitution, greatly tended to promote harmony among them. Reverence and fear—that ...
— Laws • Plato
... than kind. They had done many repairs and fittings for us and had sent fatigue parties to do it, thus releasing men for a certain amount of freedom on shore, which was appreciated after some nine weeks at sea. I can remember my first ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... time at sea, and indulged in the usual amusements, beginning with keeping journals, in which I succeeded in inserting two remarks on the state of the weather, when I found my inclination for book-making superseded by the more disagreeable study of appearing eminently happy under ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... their brave captains newly returned triumphant from a naval victory they had obtained over the Lacedaemonians near the Arginusian Isles, the most bloody and obstinate engagement that ever the Greeks fought at sea; because (after the victory) they followed up the blow and pursued the advantages presented to them by the rule of war, rather than stay to gather up and bury their dead. And the execution is yet rendered more odious by the behaviour of Diomedon, who, being one of the condemned, and a man of ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... or are increased in power, as the court of Areopagus at Athens, having procured great credit during the Median war, added firmness to their administration; and, on the other hand, the maritime force, composed of the commonalty, having gained the victory at Salamis, by their power at sea, got the lead in the state, and strengthened the popular party: and at Argos, the nobles, having gained great credit by the battle of Mantinea against the Lacedaemonians, endeavoured to dissolve the democracy. And at Syracuse, the victory in ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... of December 24, 1752, Paul saw a signal indicating that a vessel was descried at sea, and he hastened to the city. A pilot went out to reconnoitre her according to the custom of the port; he came back in the evening with the news that the vessel was the Saint Gerard, and that her captain hoped to bring her to anchor off Port Louis on the following ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... was a light once; men set it on high within a lighthouse, that it might yield light to all souls at sea; that afar off they might see its steady light and find harbour, and escape ...
— Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland • Olive Schreiner
... death penalty by almost forty years, Carracioli argues that since man's right to life is inalienable, no government can have the power of capital punishment.[4] Misson's belief in equality is extended to include the negro slaves the Victoire takes at sea as well as the natives of Madagascar. After asking the negroes to join his crew, Misson tells his ...
— Of Captain Mission • Daniel Defoe
... neighbors, but am determined to attack any place which sends Dyaks to rob in my country; and that I call on them to restrain their subjects from making incursions here. In case this warning is neglected, I must strike one blow suddenly, as a farther warning, and keep a good lookout at sea to destroy any Dyak fleet that may be prowling outside. A good-sized boat, with a six-pounder and a swivel or two, will effect the latter object, backed by two or four light, fast-pulling boats, with musketry, which, when the Dyak prahus fly, may keep pace with them and thin their ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... York, February twenty-eighth, 1842. . . . The Caledonia, I grieve and regret to say, has not arrived. If she left England to her time, she has been four-and-twenty days at sea. There is no news of her; and on the nights of the fourteenth and eighteenth it blew a terrible gale, which almost justifies the worst suspicions. For myself, I have hardly any hope of her; having seen enough, in our passage out, to convince me that steaming across ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... his youth. After that they both went to the youngest, mocked him, and said, "You certainly found the water of life, but you have had the pain, and we the gain; you should have been sharper, and should have kept your eyes open. We took it from you whilst you were asleep at sea, and when a year is over, one of us will go and fetch the beautiful princess. But beware that you do not disclose aught of this to our father; indeed he does not trust you, and if you say a single word, you shall lose your life into the bargain, but if you keep silent, you shall ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... he, "I am mad, Sir, very mad, Sir; yes, I am, Sir; look at me, only look at me! In rough weather we do not expect pleasant times at sea, but, Sir, ever since I have been on board, Sir, your infernal officers, Sir, have thrown this ship into all manner of unpleasant situations, kept the decks wet, rattled chains over my berth, wang-banged the rigging ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... mathematics; but with respect to these studies, your schools will require to be divided into three groups: one for children who will probably have to live in cities, one for those who will live in the country, and one for those who will live at sea; the schools for these last, of course, being always placed on the coast. And for children whose life is to be in cities, the subjects of study should be, as far as their disposition will allow of it, mathematics and the arts; for children who are to live in the country, natural ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... newly-made roads I met people in flannels coming back from tennis and the beach, and a coastguard from the wireless station, and donkeys and pierrots padding homewards. Out at sea in the blue dusk I saw lights appear on the ARIADNE and on the destroyer away to the south, and beyond the Cock sands the bigger lights of steamers making for the Thames. The whole scene was so peaceful and ordinary that I got more dashed in spirits every ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... had her there, a figure faintly rose-colored against the deepening background of the sea. She stood erect and curiously still beside a grave, her hands clenched, her eyes narrowed. In Urkey they always put up a stone for a man lost at sea; very often they went further for the comfort of their souls and mounded the outward likeness of an inward grave. Well, that was Andrew's stone and Andrew's grave. Some one in the Memorial Day procession last week had laid a wreath of lilacs under the stone. And now, wandering ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... qualities were chiefly of the bull-dog order. He did not take things in with the rapidity of some fellows, but when he did get his teeth into a fact he held on like grim death. So it was now. In the first excitement of the discovery he had been as much at sea and as wild in his conjectures as anybody. But after a little he stumbled upon a piece of evidence which gave him a serious turn, and had kept him serious ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... another being, exalted, sublimated, lifted from this little world with its petty affairs and vanities up to dizzy heights. She had felt the same sensation when for the first time she had viewed the glories of the snow clad Matterhorn, she had felt it when on a summer's night at sea she had sat on deck and watched with fascinated awe the resplendent radiance of the countless stars, she felt it now as she looked at the foaming, ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... supplies of all sorts were brought to the ships on their station, either at sea, or in unfrequented roadsteads within the limits of the cruising ground. "I never could have spared the ships to go to Gibraltar for them," he wrote to St. Vincent, to whom he expressed his satisfaction with the way the plan worked. ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... Munden was waiting to see my eyes seek her. I guessed the meaning of the wait; what was one, this time, to say? Oh first and foremost assuredly that it was immensely droll, for this time at least there was no mistake. The lady I looked upon, and as to whom my friend, again quite at sea, appealed to me for a formula, was as little a Holbein, or a specimen of any other school, as she was, like Lady Beldonald herself, a Titian. The formula was easy to give, for the amusement was that her prettiness—yes, literally, ...
— The Beldonald Holbein • Henry James
... sounded like 'an echo in a cave.' Many of the outlandish words were Mediterranean terms which the scientific Italian navigators had brought north. Others were of Oriental origin, which was very natural in view of the long connection between East and West at sea. Admiral, for instance, comes from the Arabic for a commander-in-chief. Amir-al-bahr means commander of the sea. Most of the nautical technicalities would strike a seaman of the present day as being quite modern. The sixteenth-century skipper would be readily ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... seen a sunset when returning from work. You must have been a peasant among peasants to keep the splendour of it in your eye. You must have been at sea with fishermen at all hours of the day and night, have fished yourself, struggled with the waves, faced the storm, and after rough work experienced the joy of hauling a heavy net, or the disappointment of seeing it empty, to understand the poetry of fishing. You must have spent ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... seas. As a matter of fact, immediately after the settlement of the Arabic incident, Mr. Lansing sent a peremptory Note to England. But the prospect of any favorable result for ourselves from this exchange of Notes was never fulfilled, as our methods of war at sea always resulted in fresh incidents and fresh conflicts. There was, of course, a second possibility: that is, while persisting in the submarine campaign to recognize that it was inevitably bound to lead to friction with America, and to discount ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... those all but universal and deadly bowel affections arose from the same causes, and derived their fatal character from the same conditions which produced the scurvy. In truth, these men at Andersonville were in the condition of a crew at sea, confined in a foul ship upon salt meat and unvarying food, and without fresh vegetables. Not only so, but these unfortunate prisoners were men forcibly confined and crowded upon a ship tossed about on a stormy ocean, without ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... coming on, they would cut wounds in their flesh, that Odin might receive them as warriors slain. Old kings, about to die, had their body laid into a ship; the ship sent forth, with sails set and slow fire burning it; that, once out at sea, it might blaze-up in flame, and in such manner bury worthily the old hero, at once in the sky and in the ocean! Wild bloody valour; yet valour of its kind; better, I say, than none. In the old Sea-kings too, what an indomitable rugged energy! Silent, with closed lips, as I fancy them, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle |
