"Ladder" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the window, dragging a small step-ladder and a pail of glistening, soapy water. Her head was coifed in a fresh starched towel, giving her the appearance of a holy sister of some clean blue-and-white order; her eyes were large and mournful. She appealed ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... kinds of animals. She had a chimney built on the floor prepared for the school-room, the Sisters cooking and eating there, when school was dismissed. The loft of the stable served for a dovecot and granary, and was reached by an outside ladder. This she arranged as a dormitory and a community-room. All things being now in working order, they began to receive boarders and day-pupils. One of the latter, Marie Barbier, who was afterwards called in religion Sister Mary of the Assumption, succeeded Sister Bourgeois ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... lecturer to the great ladder of animal life, beginning low down in molluscs and feeble sea creatures, then up rung by rung through reptiles and fishes, till at last we came to a kangaroo-rat, a creature which brought forth its young alive, the direct ancestor of all mammals, and presumably, ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... my boy, that the way of progress is the way of unselfish labor. 'This is my work,' says the Lord, to labor for those who are yet on the lower rungs of the ladder, to institute laws whereby those below may climb up higher; (note I used the word climb, not float); to use His greater experience, knowledge, and power for others; to pass down to those in lower or primary stages that which they cannot get by self-effort alone. ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... his companion, "you must contest the point, must you? Nay, if thou art so lazy, I must give your honour a ladder, and perhaps a kick to hasten your journey." Something then, of very great size, in the form of a human being, jumped down from the trap-door, though the height might be above fourteen feet. This figure was ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... on until he is led up to two curious houses. The first of these was the house of Apuleius, where in a subtle and brilliant system of ideas it seemed as if a ladder had been set up from earth to heaven. But Marius discovered that what he wanted was the thing itself and not its mere theory, a life of realised ideals and not a dialectic. The second house was more curious still. Much pains is spent upon the description of it with its "quiet signs ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... foremost of us, among whom I was, gained that portion of the fortification of which I have already spoken, the sergeant was lowering a long ladder over the stockade, and up this we clambered without delay, the entire party getting inside the fort within two minutes ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... and they rushed in. Ned in the dusk saw some horses eating in their stalls, and he also saw a steep ladder leading to lofts above. The Ring Tailed Panther never hesitated, but ran up the ladder and Ned followed sharply after him. He heard Obed panting at ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... all boy in his games, he would never cherish anything but a boy-doll, generally a Highlander, in kilts and with a glengarry, that came off! And although he became foreman of a juvenile hook-and-ladder company before he was five, and would not play with girls at all, he had one peculiar feminine weakness. His grand passion was washing and ironing. And Ann Hughes used to let him do all the laundry-work connected with the wash-rags and his own pocket-handkerchiefs, ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton
... attendance upon Mademoiselle Caracoline, little Tom Tufthunt was in attendance upon Lord Colchicum; and rather pleased, too, with his position. When Don Juan scales the wall, there's never a want of a Leporello to hold the ladder. Tom Tufthunt was quite happy to act as friend to the elderly viscount, and to carve the fowl, and to make the salad at supper. When Pen and his young lady met the viscount's party, that noble peer only gave Arthur a passing leer of recognition as his lordship's ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... prominent also as the happy possessor of the best coloured meerschaum pipes in the county, and this, in those days, was no small distinction. But a man does not achieve greatness by his own unaided efforts. Others, his subordinates, help him to climb the ladder. It was so with Mr. Swarbrick. There was a tall policeman in the service of the company, the possessor of a fine figure, and a splendid long sandy-coloured beard. His primary duty was to air himself at the front entrance of the station arrayed in a fine uniform and tall silk hat, and this duty he ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... then, hurled back by the rolling, it cut in two an unfortunate fifth man, and struck and dismounted one of the guns of the larboard battery. Hence the cry of distress which had been heard. All the men rushed to the ladder. The gun-deck was empty in the twinkling of ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... crew lowered buntlines and clewlines, to which I attached my boat's stores. These were hoisted up the high sides of the ship, and, after bending on a line to the bow and stern rings of the canoe, I ascended by the ladder, while Captain Johs. Bergelund and his mates claimed the pleasure of landing the paper canoe on the deck of the Rurik. The tiny shell looked very small as she rested on the broad, white decks of the emperor ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... out of the front door and run down? And where's the stove that the pipe belongs to? Is it in a cellar?" Then both the aunties laughed, and they went to this doorway without any door, and there was a funny thing that looked like a clumsy ladder. Aunty Edith told me those were our best stairs, and that once they were ...
— W. A. G.'s Tale • Margaret Turnbull
... time could do nothing to smooth their path; so it was determined that Hyppolito should bring a ladder to Dianora's window, and, aided by their friend, they should find their way to a priest prepared to give them his blessing. The night appointed came—still and beautiful as heart could wish; the stars sparkling in the deep blue sky, bright as they may now be ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... he thought and distinctive. His success in this attempt must be esteemed but partial since all the related forms, immediately listed, nod as well. Bulliard's name as applied by Persoon is therefore to be preferred. But the transfer from Tilmadoche to Physarum loses for us one step in the ladder of priority. P. album (Bull.) may not enter here, since Fries has given us one species under that title. So Persoon comes next on the list, all the world now ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride
... discrimination, its rules are not so arbitrary as its enemies declare them, and its heart is at times susceptible to the pleadings of misfortune for mercy. Woman, alas! has her fallen sister on every rung of the social ladder, though from general appearances one would be led to judge, that wealth and position and fame, claim virtue as all their own, it seems, that vice and error thrive only where poverty and ignorance and destitution abide, ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... wide ruffles of his shirt so that he looked like a mildly angry turkey. Thrusting his spectacles up into the roots of his hair, he rose, and led me into a large room adjoining his bedroom, which contained nothing but tall bookcases, threw open the doors of one, pushed up a little ladder before it, for me to mount to a row of volumes bound in calf, whose backs were labeled "British Classics." "There," he said, "you will find 'The Spectator,'" and trotted back to his sermon, with his pen in his mouth. I examined the books, and selected Tom Jones ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... had been taken ill. Maudie from the top of the ladder had watched their dying contortions with the cynical interest of a Roman matron criticizing the death-agonies of a gladiator in the arena. When after staggering about the fan-tails turned over on their backs and flopped, Maudie descended from her perch and toyed with them daintily during ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... said that, read as the record of man's failures and successes, history is an inspiring thing. Perhaps of the history of no country is this so true as of that of ours. By far the larger part of our great men have started at the very bottom of the ladder, in poverty and obscurity, and have fought their way up round by round against all the forces of society. Nowhere else have inherited wealth and inherited position counted for so little as in America. Again, we have had no wars of greed or ambition, unless the war with ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... man is distinguished from another by the kind of question that he asks. A man is to be measured by the size of his question. Small men ask small questions: of here and now; of to-day and to-morrow and the next day; of how they may quickest fill their pockets, or gain another step upon the social ladder. Great men are concerned with great questions: of life, of ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson
... the yard toward the large ladder leaning against the stable. She lifted it up with vigorous hands, carried it across the yard, and placed it against the dwelling- house, so that its top reached the open window of the prisoner. She examined if the ladder stood ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... big drop, with a kind of ladder down it, and at the foot a shallow ledge running to the left into a pit of darkness. Hussin gripped my arm and pointed down it. 'Follow it,' he whispered, 'and you will reach a roof which spans a street. Cross it, and on ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... girl of fourteen or fifteen, formerly a pupil in the Kindergarten, was washing windows and paint. Well dressed, she was poised on a step-ladder, polishing a large pane of glass with a chamois skin. Her pail of suds stood on the shining floor, with a bit of oil-cloth under it, that not a drop of water should touch the varnish. I involuntarily looked at the wall-paper along the edges of the window ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... had some sticks," exclaimed Andy hopelessly. "We could drive them in the dirt, leaving the ends projecting, and then we could go up, like on a ladder." ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... ladder infinite-stepped that hides its rungs from human eyes: Planted its foot in chaos-gloom, its head ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... lunched. In the afternoon the fort with its gigantic ramparts and magnificent views was visited. There was a State dinner in the evening, in the French ship Bretagne. The Emperor received the Queen at the foot of the ladder. The dinner was under canvas on deck amidst decorations of flowers and flags. The Queen sat between the Emperor and the Duke of Cambridge; the Empress sat between the Prince Consort and the Prince of Wales. The speechmaking, to which one may ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... the twilight she creeps out behind the brew-house, which stood three or four feet from the convent wall, so that no one in the convent could see what she was about, draws a ladder after her, sets it against the wall, and mounts, intending to spring down into the river below ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... determination to venture his eternal state with Christ, whether he had present comfort or not. His state of mind he thus describes—'If God doth not come in (to comfort me) I will leap off the ladder, even blindfold, into eternity, sink or swim, come heaven, come hell. Lord Jesus, if thou wilt catch me, do; I will venture all for thy name.' From this time he felt a good ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... book-plates aim at humor or caricature. One familiar example represents an old book-worm mounted on a tall ladder in a library, profoundly absorbed in reading, and utterly unconscious that the room beneath him ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... covered up my face, and looked at the cabin hatch. The smoke had disappeared, and all was silent. I went to the hatchway, and although the smell was still overpowering, I found that I could bear it. I descended the little ladder of three steps, and called "Mother!" but there was no answer. The lamp fixed against the after bulk-head, with a glass before it, was still alight, and I could see plainly to every corner of the cabin. ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... ceased, his face lighted up again; he drew out of his pocket his one dearest treasure, from which night or day he was never separated, his pocket-knife, and, propping the bench lengthways slanting against the wall like a ladder, he managed to fix it pretty securely by scooping out a little hollow in the roughly-boarded floor, so as to catch the end of the bench and prevent its slipping down. And just as Superintendent Boyds was stepping into Squire Bartlemore's ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... back; I went on board, and he sat on the steps of the accommodation-ladder, with his feet in the water. I handed him a wineglass of brandy, and screened him from the burning sun. He was in a sullen mood, but after a time resumed his usual tone. Nothing could induce him to be landed in the schooner's boat, though I protested ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... poor child from my friend who's attended her; and I'm sorry to say I don't think there's much hope.' Then he goes to the bed and looks at her. 'Ah,' says he, 'there's just the same expression in her face that I remember seeing in a mason's boy—a patient of mine—who fell off a ladder, and lost his hearing altogether by the shock. You don't hear what I'm saying, do you, my dear?' says he in a hearty cheerful way. 'You don't hear me saying that you're the prettiest little girl I ever saw in my life?' She looked up at him confused, and quite silent. He didn't speak to her ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... the breath which comes out of our mouth is warm, lighter than the air, and rises to the ceiling; and therefore in any unventilated room full of people, there is a layer of foul air along the ceiling. You might soon test that for yourselves, if you could mount a ladder and put your heads there aloft. You do test it for yourselves when you sit in the galleries of churches and theatres, where the air is palpably more foul, and therefore more injurious, ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... "How childish!" But my last was: "What genius!" How charming the picture of the Fall, and how lovely Eve! And what grandeur of style despite the smallness of the space. A God a few inches high separates light from darkness, but there is omnipotence in the movement of His arm. Jacob sees the ladder to Heaven in his dream; and this ladder, which altogether has six angels upon it, seems to reach from Earth to Heaven, infinitely long and infinitely peopled; above, we see God the Father, at an immense distance, spread His gigantic embrace (which covers ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... he taken on his head and hands this new burden of toil, which was greater than all the others? Why, in general, this climbing a sky-touching ladder with exertion of all his strength of nerve and brain? To what kind of heaven could he climb upon that ladder? New profits, ever-increasing wealth? But he had ceased to desire these! Although that seemed marvellous ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... debt, Owed to School-Mistress sage his Alphabet; But quickly wiser than his Teacher grown, Discover'd properties to her unknown; Of A plus B, or minus, learn'd the use, Known Quantities from unknown to educe; And made—no doubt to that old dame's surprise— The Christ-Cross-Row his ladder to the skies. Yet, whatsoe'er Geometricians say, Her lessons were his ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... thy chilling silence waketh dread; Yet in thy darkest hour there may be light. Earth's garden reaper! from the grave's cold bed The soul on Jacob's ladder ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... and before a single ladder could be placed, our great blocks of rock went crashing down on them, hurling the top men in all directions, and driving in the wooden roofs on those who ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... to the ladder, but a bullet from a German revolver halted him halfway. He toppled over without a word. Edwards glanced at him quickly once, saw that he was beyond help, and sprang to the ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... a poorer still, these chief servants had a crowd of underlings responsible to themselves alone. The head cook had a wife, two children and two servants that got into their quarters by crawling up an old ladder. I climbed up one day to see how much space they had. I put my head in at the the opening that served them for door and window, but could not get my shoulders in. The whole garret was about eight feet long and six ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... the sire for ever being good.— First hang the child, that he may see it sprawl,— A sight to vex the father's soul withal. Get me a ladder. ...
— The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Gussie loyally, smiling gratefully as she thought of the liberal number of packages old Santa had left hanging to her door during the night. But at length the meal was ended, Marie had carried the dishes away, Jud appeared with a step-ladder and hammer, and the younger trio were banished upstairs to amuse themselves until the last of the party decorations were put in place. This was not a hard thing to do, fortunately, and for once not one of them raised any objection to ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... West Moor Pit crosses this road close by the east end of the cottage. The dwelling originally consisted of but one apartment on the ground-floor, with the garret over-head, to which access was obtained by means of a step-ladder. But with his own hands Stephenson built an oven, and in the course of time he added rooms to the cottage, until it became a comfortable four-roomed dwelling, in which he lived as long as ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... you beware that, in accepting these conclusions, you are placing your feet on the first rung of a ladder which, in most people's estimation, is the reverse of Jacob's, and leads to the antipodes of heaven. It may seem a small thing to admit that the dull vital actions of a fungus, or a foraminifer, are the properties of their protoplasm, and are the direct ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... one with the hostess, capable even of greeting her guest with insolent discourtesy did such a one chance to intrude at an hour when her presence might imperil the next step of the social climber's ladder. ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... Yahweh to Abraham and Lot is connected with three, afterwards two, men or messengers; but possibly in the original form of the story Yahweh appeared alone.[11] At Bethel, Jacob sees the angels of God on the ladder,[12] and later on they appear to him at Mahanaim.[13] In all these cases the angels, like the Mal'akh Yahweh, are connected with or represent a theophany. Similarly the "man" who wrestles with Jacob at Peniel ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... sea-battle was fought in the channel and many ships of the Armada wrecked along this Devonshire coast. And always coming back to sleep in the fascinating little "New Inn," as old as the hills, built on both sides of the one rocky ladder street of Clovelly, the street so steep that no horses can go in it, and at the bottom of whose breezy tunnel one sees the rolling floor of the sea. In so careless a way does the Inn ramble about the cliff that when I first went to my room, two flights ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... rope ladder in view of descending from the castle, he ordered Francis de Rochefort, his page, to get into his bed and feign sleep. Then he descended by the rope, the Baron of Arros and a valet following him. ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... Ireland, Essex was to seek a ladder for his ambitions, and to find, as others before and after him have found, the ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... the break of the poop, some half a fathom of rope-ladder trailed over the rail, and by this we made ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the eternal. The tragedy of human life consists in our vain attempts to stretch the limits of things which can never become unlimited,—to reach the infinite by absurdly adding to the rungs of the ladder of the finite. ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... up there," remarked Bob, as he scanned the height. "How under the sun d'ye suppose that old professor could ever get up and down? Too far for him to have a rope ladder; and even if he had, how could he reach the place at first? Frank, all the way up, I can't see the first sign of any rock shelves, where ladders might have rested ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... FIRE LADDER.—Johan Blomgren, Galesburg, Ill.—The main feature in this invention is a telescopic tube, expanded or closed by a coil fitting within it, and ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... if he'd 'a' stayed up that tree and died, instead o' runnin' around and raisin' young ones. Accordin' to my way of thinkin' a garden ain't a garden with a snake in it, nohow. Now, Mrs. Eve—if she'd had to take a hammer and nails and make a ladder to get to them apples, by the time she got the ladder done I reckon them apples wouldn't 'a' looked so good to her. That's what comes of havin' a snake handy. 'Course, bein' a woman, she jest nacherally couldn't wait for ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... the ship, and were watching our piles of luggage arrive up the accommodation ladder when the solution of Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon's problem appeared. She arrived alongside in the official boat of the German consulate, a German officer in white uniform on either hand, and the ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... word climax means literally a ladder, and implies ascent, upward movement. The best authors use it only in this sense, and not to ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... Toubac, knew the way to my little lodging as well as I did, and was not afraid to climb the ladder. Every week his ugly head, adorned with a reddish cap, raised the trapdoor, his fingers grasped the ledge, and he cried ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... with which Michelangelo surrounded himself keenly excited public curiosity. In spite of the painter's objection, Julius frequently visited him in the chapel, and notwithstanding his great age ascended the ladder, Michelangelo extending a hand that he might with safety reach the platform. He grew impatient; he was eager that all Rome should share his admiration. It was in vain that Michelangelo objected that all the machinery would have to be reconstructed, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... scene in which a fire ladder is placed against the wall of a burning building, only the lower part of the ladder showing in the picture. A fireman starts to mount, and finally disappears overhead. The scene changes, and we see the upper ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... transferred from the House of Representatives. This transfer of a Member, though eagerly sought, is not for a time agreeable. However conspicuous the Member may have been in the House, he must take his place in the Senate at the bottom of the ladder, and, according to Senatorial usage, must be reasonably modest in expressing his opinions. The withdrawal of so many Senators in 1861, however, gave the new Members better positions than usual. I was assigned to the committee on finance ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... naturally, at once occasioned the utmost confusion, in the midst of which the mainsail promptly threshed itself to rags, the mate sprang down the poop ladder and rushed to the spot, yelling a whole string of orders, to which nobody paid the slightest attention, and Dick, with two or three others, abandoned their posts and ran to the ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... when the meal was ended, he made his way leisurely through the lounge and along the decks in search of her. There were girls, girls everywhere, but not the one he sought; and finally, with a little smile, he mounted the ladder which led to ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... came on in the character of Hector, they cried out with one voice: 'Here is Astyanax; and where is Hector?' On another occasion, an exceedingly tall man was taking the part of Capaneus scaling the walls of Thebes; 'Step over' suggested the audience; 'you need no ladder.' The well-meant activity of a fat and heavy dancer was met with earnest entreaties to 'spare the platform'; while a thin performer was recommended to 'take care of his health.' I mention these criticisms, not on account of their ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... strange that it should have played such a part in the history of the village, as in my own life. You must know that people living in secluded places are mostly superstitious. Well, when my fort was built to such proportions that a small ladder must be used to fix new mud and mortar in place upon ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... sentences. He thought with wonder and sympathy of the blindness of those youths who cursed life because of a failure, and were capable of giving their health, their vigor, in exchange for the sorry glory of a picture, less lasting even than the frail canvas. Every medal was a rung on the ladder; they measured the importance of these awards, giving them a meaning like that of a soldier's stripes. And he too had been young! He too had embittered the best years of his life in these combats, like amoebae who struggle together in a drop of ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... agitated to tears; he came out wringing his hands, and urging upon us that any attempt on our part to enter would cause a rush that would break his house down. We listened to his entreaties on the condition that we should be allowed to mount to the roof with a ladder, to get away from the annoying curiosity of the crowd. There we sat through the evening twilight, while the crowd below, somewhat balked, but not discouraged, stood taking in every move. Nightfall and a drizzling rain came at last ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... although he had already been driven by the unhappy circumstance of his peerage from the House of Commons which he loved so well, there were still open to him many fields of political work. But if he should once consent to stand on the top rung of the ladder, he could not, he thought, take a lower place without degradation. Till he should have been placed quite at the top no shifting his place from this higher to that lower office would injure him in his own estimation. The exigencies ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... sign that they had sought the land of Shinar, where of old the mighty leaders of the folk had lived at ease. And they sought out men for this work and deed of sin, in rash pride showing forth their strength. Greedy for glory, they reared a city with their hands, and raised a ladder up to heaven, and in their vain strength built a wall of stone beyond the measure ...
— Codex Junius 11 • Unknown
... a sense of the woods coming quite down to the house, but if this was so I do not know what to do with a grassy slope which seems to have stretched part way up the hill. As I approached, I looked for the tower which the author was fabled to climb into at sight of the coming guest, and pull the ladder up after him; and I wondered whether he would fly before me in that sort, or imagine some easier means ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... DC. This week I will send you our detailed proposals; tonight let us speak of our responsibility to redefine government's role: not to control, not to demand or command, not to contain us, but to help in times of need and, above all, to create a ladder of opportunity to full employment so that all Americans can climb toward economic power and justice ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... Parbasdorf toward Wagram, where it was connected with the center. These arrangements were all completed by July first, on which date the Emperor left Schoenbrunn for the Lobau. During the fighting at Aspern he had observed the field from the swinging rungs of a rope-ladder fastened to one of the tall trees on the island. This time he brought with him a long step-ladder, one of those used in the palace gardens to trim high shrubs. The Archduke John was now in Presburg; the Archduke Charles had raised ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... looking at it in my hand and laughed out bitterly, as I realised his mistake; then went to the ramparts, and flung it far into the air like blood-money. The night was falling; through an embrasure and across the gardened valley I saw the lamp-lighters hasting along Princes Street with ladder and lamp, and looked on moodily. As I was so standing a hand was laid upon my shoulder, and I turned about. It was Major Chevenix, dressed for the evening, and his neckcloth really admirably folded. I never denied the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... more. He entrusted everything to the man who had promised to save him. He was led up two flights of stairs, when they came to a ladder reaching to an attic, and they went up this attic ladder to a chamber, where there was a narrow bed, with soft, clean sheets and pillows, the first the prisoner had seen in the ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... at his heels, muttering indignantly, till the humour of the thing struck and doubled him up with laughter at the foot of the gang-way ladder. ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... become one of the representatives of the town in Parliament, he was only forty years of age. It will also be noted that very soon after making his appearance in the House of Commons he quickly got his foot on the ladder and rapidly mounted the rungs that lead to pre-eminence, and in a very few years attained the position ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... the climax and the crisis. A climax is the climbing to the top rung of the ladder. A crisis is the meeting place of possible victory and possible disaster. A single step divides between the two—the precipice-height, and the canon's ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... to play, The moon does shine as bright as day, Leave your supper, and leave your sleep, And meet your play-fellows in the street; Come with a whoop, and come with a call, And come with a good will, or not at all. Up the ladder and down the wall, A half-penny roll will serve us all. You'll find milk and I'll find flour, And we'll have ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various
... rigid father Soundly sleeps bedrench'd with wine; 'Tis thy true-love holds the ladder, To his care thyself resign! Now my arms enfold a treasure, Which for worlds I 'd not forego; Now our bosoms feel that ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Heidi was sleeping soundly, the old man climbed up the ladder. Placing a little lamp beside the sleeping child, he watched her a long, long time. Her little hands were folded and her rosy face looked confident and peaceful. The old man now folded his hands and said in a low voice, while big tears rolled down his cheeks: ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... rolling heavily in the sea. Sharp up into the wind comes the midget, and almost before she has lost steerage way a yawl is slid over the side, the pilot and two oarsmen tumble into it, and make for the side of the steamship. To climb a rope-ladder up the perpendicular face of a precipice thirty feet high on an icy night is no easy task at best; but if your start is from a boat that is being tossed up and down on a rolling sea, if your precipice has a way of varying from a strict ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... reason, a thief, who steals In by a ladder at a window, and takes all imaginable care to cause no disturbance, is in no respect criminal. For either he will not be perceived, or if he be, it is impossible he can produce any error, nor will any one, from ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... most thrilling thing that had ever come into Peggy's simple life. Probably she would have had courage to resist an invitation from any of the frolicsome parties that came and went through her room; she had no power to resist this. Silently she followed the Scapegoat down the iron ladder of the fire-escape, across the lawn, out into ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... palace of gold ever had a room equal to that chamber? It had a row of barrels, behind which or in which you could safely hide. It had a ladder that would let you smartly bump your head against the highest rafter in the roof, a cross-beam, too, from which you could suspend a swing, and a window in the rear from which you could look upon the Missigatchee River (supposed to have been christened by the Indians). This river-view you could ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... generations of the dead, for all that ladder of humanity that has descended down to us, there is scarcely anything afield, scarcely anything! The earth takes them back, oblivion ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... of a bad turn it was a good one, that he took you for Sir Signal! the Scandal lies at his door now Sir,—so the Ladder's fast, you may ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... be in your room at this moment," I replied; "but we must think of something. It is impossible for you to remain behind; we were invited more on your account than our own, for you are Dr. La Touche's friend, and the dinner is especially in his honour. Molly, have you a ladder?" ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the way Peter began,—as all great men begin, at the foot of the ladder; for great as it was to be born a prince, it was greater to learn how to be a general. In this fantastic conduct we see three things: a remarkable sagacity in detecting the genius of Lefort, a masterly power over his own will, and a ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... had enough of this slavery," she declared. "My husband and all his friends are fools, and the life they lead is impossible for me. It takes too many years to climb even a step in the social ladder. I've had enough of it. ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... close at hand. They had approached against the wind so that sound had been deadened. Five horses with riders, Dale made out—saw them loom close. Then he heard rough voices. Quickly he turned to feel in the dark for a ladder he knew led to a loft; and finding it, he quickly mounted, taking care not to make a noise with his rifle, and lay down upon the floor of brush and poles. Scarcely had he done so when heavy steps, with accompaniment of ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... already acting on the oldest Rover boy's suggestion and going up a ladder nailed to one side of the barn. Randy and the others followed, Fred ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... sovereign. Roused from the intoxication of his own greatness by this sudden reverse of fortune, he compared the authority which he had possessed, with that which had deprived him of it; and his ambition marked the steps which it had yet to surmount upon the ladder of fortune. From the moment he had so bitterly experienced the weight of sovereign power, his efforts were directed to attain it for himself; the wrong which he himself had suffered made him a robber. Had he not been outraged ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... blind in love you could not see a hole in a ladder or tell the signs on a woman's face. Denas be 'fraid of her own self. Let her be. Let her be. If you do say a word now about your love she will run back and hide herself in an old love—that be a woman's way. See, now! As the old love quails the new love will fetch up—but time given ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... universe, wandered long over its bleak and dismal surface, until his attention was attracted by a gleam of light which appeared through an opening at its zenith right underneath the Empyrean. Thither he directed his steps, and perceived a structure resembling a staircase, or ladder, which formed the only means of communication between Heaven and the new creation, and upon which angels ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... very imprudent, a dog is," said Jerome K. Jerome. "He never makes it his business to inquire whether you are in the right or wrong—never bothers as to whether you are going up or down life's ladder—never asks whether you are rich or poor, silly or wise, saint or sinner. You are his pal. That is enough for him, and come luck or misfortune, good repute or bad, honour or shame, he is going to stick to you, to comfort you, guard you, and give his life for you, ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... the boat-hook, drew the boat close to where the painter was fastened, and then hauled her along, after casting off, to where a rough wooden ladder was clamped to the side ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... clapboarded, and well painted in oil, it might cost $150 to $200. Stone, or brick, without paint, would add but little, if anything in cost over the last sum. The ceiling of the main floor is 8 feet high, and a low chamber or garret is afforded above it, into which a swing-step ladder ascends; and when not in use, it may be hung to the ceiling overhead by a ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... evening would flavor all her receptions for the winter, whether the good lady's diamonds ever appeared there again or not. In her secret heart, she always had the perception, when striving to climb up on this kind of ladder, that the time might come when she should be found out; and she well knew the absolute and uncomprehending horror with which that good lady would regard the French principles and French practice of which Charlie Ferrola and Co. were the ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... slide up and down a rope," answered Uncle Wiggily. "I have a strong cord fastened to the chimney, and I crawl up it, just like a monkey-doodle, and when I want to come down, I slide down. It's better than a ladder, and I can climb a rope very well, for I used to be a sailor on a ship. See, ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... niched in the wall. Then a voice from above called to her, "Courage!" and she felt the flap of a twisted sheet lowered from an upper window against her face. She grasped it eagerly; it held firmly. Then she heard a cry from below, saw them carrying a ladder, and at last was lifted with her burden from the ledge by powerful hands. Then only did she raise her eyes to the upper window whence had come her help. Smoke and flame were pouring from it. The unknown hero who had sacrificed ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... talked of woman's affairs. On the streets of the towns on fair days lawyers, doctors, the officials of the county courts, and the merchants walked about in their shirt sleeves. The house painter went along with his ladder on his shoulder. In the stillness there could be heard the hammers of the carpenters building a new house for the son of a merchant who had married the daughter of a blacksmith. A sense of quiet growth awoke in sleeping minds. It was ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... flash of the lightning showed the bare ribs of the ascent, the hill-crest standing steely blue against the black sky, the little falling lines of the rain, and, a few yards to their left flank, an Afghan watch-tower, two-storied, built of stone, and entered by a ladder from the upper story. The ladder was up, and a man with a rifle was leaning from the window. The darkness and the thunder rolled down in an instant, and, when the lull followed, a voice from the watch-tower cried, 'Who ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... had left the room with the step-ladder; when he came back, he was to bring with him the manuscript—the silent snowfall of knowledge which had been deepening about him for a year. The time had already passed for him to return, but he did not come. Was there anything ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... old sword-blade, A garden spade, A hoe, a rake, a ladder, A wooden can, A close-stool pan, ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... rose from the table, and mounting the ladder, "On second thought," said he, addressing Skysail again, "I won't throw the cats overboard; the sailors have a foolish superstition about that animal—its d——d unlucky. No; put them alive in a bread-bag, and send them ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... commendo spiritum meum, quia tu redemisti me, Domine, Deus veritatis!" Then, again crossing himself, he said, "Per crucis hoc signum fugiat procul omne malignum! Infige crucem tuam, Domine, in corde meo;" and again, "Jesus Maria! Maria, mater gratiae!" In the midst of these prayers the ladder was drawn away, and, by the express command of the King, he remained hanging from the gallows until ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... garrison. He next besieged Perth. After having discovered the shallowest part of the moat, he made a feint of raising the siege, and, after an absence of eight days, made a sudden night-attack, wading through the moat with the water up to his neck, and a scaling-ladder in one hand, while with the other he felt his way with ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... there; and as it's just under that there gallows, why, of course, it was used for traitors or spies as well. That reminds me, sir, as a lot of that ivy ought to be cut away. We don't want any one to make a ladder of it ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... my good sister," he laughingly said to me one day,—(he could jest on the subject now,)—"that I have not the fortune of our John,—I did not marry an heiress, and I have my own way to make. I had got up a few rounds of the ladder when an adverse fate dragged me down. Being a free man once more, I must struggle up again as quickly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... Calabrian brigands, and the alluring attractions of the Court of Naples and Sicily. One hundred grenadiers, each six feet high, waited at table when he was being banqueted. The owner of a Magdeburg hotel where he stayed made money by setting up a ladder outside Nelson's sitting-room and charging a fee for mounting it and peeping at the hero inside the room. An aged wine merchant at Hamburg offered him through Lady Hamilton six dozen bottles of Rhenish wine of the vintage ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... blessing, and then instantly burst forth again as from a parenthesis and clattered on with might and main till every stomach in the party was laden with all it could carry. And when the new-comers ascended the ladder to their comfortable feather beds on the second floor—to wit the garret—Mrs. Hawkins was ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... their victims the Priest, the Scripture, and the Cross! But Faith builds in the dungeon and the lazar-house its sublimest shrines; and up, through roofs of stone, that shut out the eye of Heaven, ascends the ladder where the angels glide ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... on its carriage seemed as big as a cottage, and much more imposing. My young pilot went up like a bird. There was an idle, able- bodied ladder loafing against a shed within fifteen feet of me, but as nobody seemed to notice it, I recommended myself mentally to Heaven and started climbing after the pilot. The close view of the real fragility of that rigid structure startled me considerably, while Commander ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... audacity; as his accomplice was about to suffer, he elbowed the person who was standing next to him, and pointing to his fellow criminal, he smiled and said, "Look, poor wretch, he is afraid, I declare he even trembles." When it came to his turn he mounted the ladder with as cheerful an air as if he was merely going to his breakfast, and to the last moment preserved ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... Keene's eyes occasionally wandered from the charming prospect towards the companion-ladder. Presently she became ominously and ostentatiously interested in the view again, and at the same moment a young man's head and shoulders appeared above the companionway. With a bound he was on the slanting deck, moving with the agility and adaptability ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... will see that no one is at the ladder of the main hatch," continued the principal, turning ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... glance at Neeland, who remained seated under the level threat of Ali Baba's pistol, the big, handsome German removed his overcoat. Under it was another coat. He threw this off in a brisk, businesslike manner, unbuckled a brace of pistols, laid them aside, unwound from his body a long silk rope ladder which dropped to the floor ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... the brute could—if he were sufficiently agile—leap upon the narrow ledge, seize the rope-ladder and climb up it until he reached the safe haven of the niche, and could draw the ladder in after him. And fear of death doth ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... recognition, and showed much misery. (Author's Note.) ————— me as follows:—"There are two streams or currents, an upward and a downward one, by which souls are continually passing and repassing as on a ladder. The carnivorous animals are souls undergoing penance by being imprisoned for a time in such forms on account of their misdeeds. Have you not heard the story of my lion?" I said yes, but that I did not understand it, because I thought it impossible ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... whole. This view of philosophy, because it deals with the universe in its fulness and variety, alone can make claim to real concreteness. Nor are the other views false. They form for Hegel the necessary rungs on the ladder which leads up to his own philosophic vision. Thus the Hegelian vision is itself an organic process, including all other interpretations of life and of the world as its necessary phases. In the immanent unfolding of the Hegelian view is epitomized the onward march and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various |
