"Pitch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Phineas walked over at him as though he were going to pitch him instantly out of the window. "You may go and write as many more as you like. It is your trade, and you must do it or starve. But do not come to me again." Then he opened the door and stood with ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... Mrs. Nelson to lose her appetite. Clayton was to her the limit of civilization; there was too much sunshine, too much fresh air, too much out of doors. She disliked nature in its crude state; she preferred it softened and toned down to drawing-room pitch. ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... and exposed for the monster which he was; and that the Lord would destroy him with the brightness of his coming; the man who had dressed the Christians in skins, and hunted them with dogs; who had covered them with pitch, and burnt them; who had beheaded St. Paul and crucified St. Peter; who had murdered his own wife; who had put to death every good man whom he could seize, simply for being good; who had committed every conceivable ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... Trinidad and Tobago Pitch Lake, on Trinidad's southwestern coast, is the world's largest natural reservoir ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... then, The nation that has doomed our Council-Fires— Splashed with our blood—will on its Father turn, Once more, whose lion-paws, stretched o'er the sea, Will sheathe their nails in its unnatural tides, Till blood will flow, as free as pitch in spring, To gum the chafed seams of our sinking bark. This opportunity, well-nursed, will give A respite to our wrongs, and heal our wounds; And all our nations, knit by me and ranged In headship with our Saganash allies, Will turn the mortal issue 'gainst our foes, And wall our threatened ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... band that drew them all to it finally; even the fishermen on the lower pier taking up their pitch within ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... object with which it was written. A play is to be criticised as a play, not merely as a poem. The whole structure of a piece depends on the fact that it is to be acted; its striking moments must be great dramatic, not merely beautiful poetic, moments. They must have the intensity of pitch by which the effect of action exceeds the effect of narrative. This intensity is made almost infinitely variable with the variations in the actor's mastery ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... tragedy is to begin with a short scene, or part of a scene, either full of life and stir, or in some other way arresting. Then, having secured a hearing, he proceeds to conversations at a lower pitch, accompanied by little action but conveying much information. For example, Romeo and Juliet opens with a street-fight, Julius Caesar and Coriolanus with a crowd in commotion; and when this ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... a road nearly a foot deep in mud. It had been churned to a thick paste by thousands of feet and all the heavy wheel traffic incident to the business of war. The rain was still coming down steadily, and it was pitch dark, except for the reflected light, on the low-hanging clouds, of the flashes from the guns of our batteries and those of the bursting shells of the enemy. We halted frequently, to make way for long files of ambulances ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... to do?" she asked helplessly. As they were nearly fifty feet apart, the pitch of her voice was necessarily above that used in ordinary conversation and gave to her words considerable melodramatic force. A fresh shout of laughter descending from the stairs made the ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... lovelier spots than this, and what right have I to suppose that contentment has housed itself as my guest in that old, mossy, brick pile, where mice and wrens run riot? Like Cain and Cartophilus, my curse travels with me, and I no sooner pitch my tent, than lo! the rattle and grin of my skeleton, for which earth is not wide enough to furnish a grave! Well! well! at least I shall not be stared to death here,—shall not be tormented by eye-glasses and sketch-books; can live in that dim, dark, greenish den yonder, unobserved and possibly ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... we make a camp of our own, don't we?" he said. "All my bones are stiff from so much bending and creeping. Moreover, my hunger has grown to such violent pitch that it is tearing at me, so to ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... tell them some lies, probably assert that we are French agents in disguise taking money to the French army. Indeed, there is neither order nor discipline among these bands, and, roused to a pitch of fury, they would murder their own leaders as readily as anyone else. The Junta acts as if the province were altogether independent, and numbers of men of position have been butchered on the pretence ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... reached him he made an exception to his practice in this respect. A young guardsman, whose lesson began shortly after the post arrived, remarked that Cashel was unusually distraught. He therefore exhorted his instructor to wake up and pitch into him in earnest. Immediately he received a blow in the epigastrium that stretched him almost insensible on the floor. Rising with his complexion considerably whitened, he recollected an appointment which would prevent him from finishing his lesson, and withdrew, declaring ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... to bring out the "taps," or else a wood-fibre half-sole, but no beginner should be worrying about this. Just remember, that you must never try to learn to dance in a French, Cuban or military heel, as they act as a handicap or "brake." No one can learn with them because they pitch one forward at the wrong angle and ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... and cross the great water in September or October, and try the experiment of a winter in America? I cannot but think that if we do not make out a case strong enough to make you build your house, at least you should pitch your tent among us. The country is, as you say, worth visiting, and to give much pleasure to a few persons will be some inducement to you. I am afraid to press this matter. To me, as you can divine, it would be an unspeakable ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the Valley itself, which is as dark as pitch; we also saw there the hobgoblins, bogies, and dragons of the pit; we also heard in that Valley a continual howling and yelling, as of a people under unutterable misery, who there sat bound in affliction and chains; and over ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... beard, and his usually benevolent expression was now dark and ominous, as if with gloom and anger. He spoke in a low tone as if not aware that he was heard, and his voice sounded as if he also did not hear it, and could not, therefore, give it pitch or intonation: ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... concentration combined with the extreme of movement; and the result is a picture in the 'grand style'—comparable to high tragedy—in which all the feeling-tones which wait on motor impulses are, as it were, while yet in the same reciprocal relation, tuned to the highest pitch. Such a picture is the Finding of the Ring, Paris Bordone (1048), in the Venice Academy. All the mass and the interest and the suggestion of attention is toward the right—the sweep of the downward lines and of the ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... done. The soldiers, having finished their task, now go after their pay. Jesus' garments are divided up among them, but when the outer coat is reached it is found to be an unusually good garment, woven in one piece. It was the love gift of some friend likely. So they pitch dice, and in a few moments one of them is clutching it greedily ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... had a cheery word for his young officers, and when he was not poring over the maps with his lieutenant of engineers, Meigs, he was inspecting his troops, and seeing that their equipment and discipline were carried to the highest pitch. He was the very essence of activity and the army, although not yet moving, felt at all times the tonic of ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... I thought so, that you might have all the talk to yourself. You had better let me speak; for if my thoughts fly to any pitch, I shall ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... in the cabin of a fourpenny steam-boat, and especially mistrusted the "metallic tinkling," and the noise resembling a blacksmith's bellows blowing into an empty quart-pot, which is called the bruit de soufflet. Take our word, when medicine arrives at such a pitch that the secrets of the human heart can be probed, it need not go any further, and will have the power ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... yards from shore all the time when you ought to be within fifty feet of it. You can't see a snag in one of those shadows, but you know exactly where it is, and the shape of the river tells you when you are coming to it. Then there's your pitch-dark night; the river is a very different shape on a pitch-dark night from what it is on a starlight night. All shores seem to be straight lines, then, and mighty dim ones, too; and you'd run them for straight lines, only ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... driven thither less by a thirst for blood than by a longing for death. For this reason he regrets his inability to storm the robber's castle forthwith, because it is well defended, and, moreover, night is fast falling; he is therefore obliged to pitch his tent. After raving for a while he sinks down for the first time exhausted, but being urged, like his prototype Hamlet, by the spirit of his father to complete his vow of vengeance, he himself suddenly falls into the power of the enemy during a night assault. ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... clothes, a ride in an automobile, theaters, excitement, bright lights, night life—a girl with a romantic disposition in whom all that was repressed at home. He knew it," she repeated, raising the tone to an almost hysterical pitch, "led me on, made me love him because he could give them all to me. And when I began to show the strain of the pace-they all show it more than the men—he cast me aside like ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... replied Joe, "but I'll bet when you see the rest of us getting busy, you'll pitch in too and make your own machine. Besides, from what the doctor says, it doesn't take a genius to ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... prescinding altogether from our perception of it. They say that here no levity of matter is allowed, that is to say, every violation, however slight, of either of these two commandments, is a sin. You cannot even touch this pitch of moral defilement without being yourself defiled. It is useless therefore to argue the matter and enter a plea of triviality and inconsequence; nothing is trivial that is of a nature to offend ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... any respect different from those who were about him. Those who came into close contact with him called him honourable and upright, indeed, over scrupulous in many points; and he, standing apart from them, and in a certain sense above them, was willing so to be called. But as one cannot touch pitch without being defiled, so a man must yield in time to the influences in the midst of which he has voluntarily placed himself. So it came to pass that, as the years went on, Allan ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... house in which they were reared; that my wife should be stabbed and scalped before my face; that I should be either murdered or captivated; or that for greater expedition we should all be locked up and burnt to ashes as the family of the B—- -n was? Must I with meekness wait for that last pitch of desolation, and receive with perfect resignation so hard a fate, from ruffians, acting at such a distance from the eyes of any superior; monsters, left to the wild impulses of the wildest nature. Could the lions of Africa be transported here and let loose, they would no ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... replied Norman. "To-night, if I am not mistaken, will be as black as pitch. But we need to make some preparations. It is near sundown, and we shall have just time to get ready for the business. Let us get ashore, then, as quickly ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... made them forget both God and man. But see the end of all this cunning: though this Caesar Borgia contrived all his businesse so warily, that our Author much commends him, and hee had attaind neere the pitch of his hopes, and had provided for each misadventure could befall him its remedy; Policy shewd it selefe short-sighted; for hee foresaw not at the time of his Fathers death, he himself should bee brought unto deaths doore also. And me thinks this Example might have given occasion ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... example of Montesquieu, to cry out with the voyager in Virgil, Italiam! Italian! But whether he is to land on a peaceful shore; whether the men who delight in a wreck, are to rush upon him with hostile pens, which in their hands are pitch-forks; whether his cargo is to be condemned, and he himself to be wounded, maimed, and lacerated; a little time will discover. Such critics will act as their nature prompts them. Should they cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war, it may ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... Thomas of Celano, the most moderate of the biographers, shows to what a pitch of vehemence and indignation the gentle Francis could be ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... Suddenly, behind the mound of dead animals arose a fitful light, and while the Europeans wondered at its meaning, a shower of burning projectiles flew through the air at the barricade. All four fired a volley in answer, hoping to wing the throwers, but the Arab scheme was a success. Tins of blazing pitch were rolling about the courtyard, close to the barrier, but before falling they had struck the piled mattresses and furniture, splashing fire and trickles of flame poured over the old bedticking, and upholstered chairs from the dining-room. At the same instant ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... hunter, Hilltop, who had discovered the whereabouts of the drove, preparations were made for the dangerous advance, and the first thing done was the breaking off of dry roots of the overturned pitch pines, and gathering of knots of the same trees, with limbs attached, to serve as handles. These roots and knots, once lighted, would blaze for hours and made the most perfect of natural torches. Lengths of bark of certain other trees ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... have saving efficacy and to bring about this inward transformation. But nowhere else in the universe—above us or within us—has the moral significance of life come so full into sight, or the reality of actual divine fellowship, whether in our aspirations or in our failures, been raised to such a pitch of practical certainty as in the personal life and death and resurrection and steady historical triumph of Jesus Christ. He exhibits in living fulness, with transforming power, a Life which consciously felt itself one with the heart and will of God. He reveals the inherent blessedness of Love—even ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... temper was brought to a pitch by what she called La Sarriette's ingratitude, and she spoke of the girl in the most violent and abusive language. They broke off all intercourse, the aunt fairly exasperated, and the niece and Monsieur Jules concocting stories about the aunt, ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... herd of deer, feeding intently and—save for one or two more timid hinds who started nervously—too used to the carriage to heed its approach, roused the poodle, as always, to a high pitch of excitement; they were old enemies and his annoyance gave vent to a sharp yelp as he sidled close to Gillian and endeavoured to attract her attention with an insistent paw. But for once she was heedless of the hints ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... pink of courteous servility, aping to the utmost pitch the prevalent extravagance of courtesy, Monsieur Jasmin had ever been too adroit to bring on himself such a humiliation, and in the few months during which he had been in Isidore's service he had never even suspected ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... my luds," he squeaked, turning suddenly to the judges, "the island was wrought up into a pitch of... ah... almost disloyalty. The... ah... planters were clamouring for... ah... separation. And, to be sure, I trust you'll hang the prisoner, for if ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... which had given the launch a great advantage on the first stretch, proved a serious drawback on her return, the prevalence of a very high wind, which increasing, kicked up a tremendous sea, and causing her to roll and pitch, very much deadened her headway. Gradually the first cutter crawled up; gallantly the launchers contested the space they had gained. "Give way, lads! give way, they're gaining on us!" and the oars bent like willows in the hands ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... this seed." To whom he said: "Other hands I do not ask. God is present, who first framed me, and who will give me new strength." After this, the skin was torn off the martyr's head, his tongue was cut out, and he was thrown into a vessel of boiling pitch; but the pitch by a sudden ebullition running over, the servant of God was not hurt by it. The judges next ordered him to be squeezed in a wooden press till his veins, sinews, and fibres burst. Lastly, his body was sawn with an iron saw, and, by pieces, thrown into a ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... the rapturous sorts of happiness of which the twice-born make report has as an historic matter of fact been through a more radical pessimism than anything that we have yet considered. We have seen how the lustre and enchantment may be rubbed off from the goods of nature. But there is a pitch of unhappiness so great that the goods of nature may be entirely forgotten, and all sentiment of their existence vanish from the mental field. For this extremity of pessimism to be reached, something more is needed than observation of life and reflection upon death. The individual ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... valuable properties in the spring, and be easily got out. We like the plan of having a barn on the side of a hill, and so arranged that you may drive your cart load in pretty near the ridge pole, and thus pitch most of your hay down instead of up. Having your stalls under the hay, you can continue to pitch the hay down, and if you have a cellar beneath, you can throw the manure down also, and thus make the attraction of gravitation perform much of the labor of transportation ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... Found nobler objects for our martial rage; And, with wise conduct, to his country show'd The ancient way of conquering abroad. Ungrateful then! if we no tears allow To him, that gave us peace and empire too. Princes, that fear'd him, grieve, concern'd to see No pitch of glory from the grave is free. 30 Nature herself took notice of his death, And, sighing, swell'd the sea with such a breath, That, to remotest shores her billows roll'd, The approaching fate of their ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... some hostile intention, and was for taking measures accordingly. It had required, he added, all the major's authority to keep the inhabitants from leaving the town, and retiring up into the country, to so extraordinary a pitch had their fears risen from their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... by the hair, and pulled around the house. When anyone ventured to light a lamp it would immediately be put out, while chairs and tables would be sent dancing round the room. At last matters reached such a pitch that the family found it impossible to remain any longer in the house. The night before they left Mrs. M—— was severely handled, and her boots left facing the door as a gentle hint for her to be off. Before they departed some of the ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... When would the day break? She turned, and tossed, and fidgeted. The string on her toe was very uncomfortable, but nothing would have induced her to be so weak as to take it off. One, two, three, she heard the church-clock strike, but it was still pitch dark. Then she dozed off again, but in a minute, as it seemed to her, she was re-aroused by the string. She gave a great weary sigh and opened her eyes. It was all grey ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... Mr. Gallilee proceeded, speaking in the oddest self-contradictory voice, if such a description is permissible—a voice at once high in pitch and mild in tone: in short, as Mr. Le Frank once professionally remarked, a soft falsetto. When the good gentleman paused to make his little effort of memory, his eldest daughter—aged twelve, and always ready to distinguish herself—saw her opportunity, and took the rest of the narrative ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... realization that it worked. Now he turned another knob more and more, and gradually from the speaker came a jumble of sounds much like "mob-mutter," but very low. He kept on turning the rheostat until the incoming voices seemed about the same pitch ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... were encountered not only with sword and musket, but with every implement which the burghers' hands could find. Heavy stones, boiling oil, live coals, were hurled upon the heads of the soldiers; hoops, smeared with pitch and set on fire, were dexterously thrown upon their necks. Even Spanish courage and Spanish ferocity were obliged to shrink before the steady determination of a whole population animated by a single spirit. Romero lost an eye in the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the same. As soon as he mentioned the prison, doors of opportunity closed to him. Nobody wanted to employ a man tarred with that pitch. It did not matter why he had gone, under what provocation he had erred. The thing that damned him was that he had been there. It ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... coffee shop in the Mile End Road—I'm not ashamed of it. We all have our beginnings. Young "Kipper," as we called him—he had no name of his own, not that he knew of anyhow, and that seemed to fit him down to the ground—had fixed his pitch just outside, between our door and the music hall at the corner; and sometimes, when I might happen to have a bit on, I'd get a paper from him, and pay him for it, when the governor was not about, with a mug of coffee, and odds and ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... you contrive, mother, always to say the most disagreeable things; the marvellous way in which you pitch on what will, at the moment, wound me most, is truly wonderful. I compliment you on your skill, but I confess I am at a loss to understand why you should, as if by right, expect me to remain here to serve as a target for the ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... the company, while the rest are eating. But they are sadly mistaken. Nothing is gained by the practice. On the contrary, much is lost by it. The bow cannot always remain bent, without injury. Neither can the mind always be kept 'toned' to a high pitch. Mind and body must and will have ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... baby-prince seems to have been a valorous little fellow. When his blood was up he seems to have given little thought to the superior age or strength of his opponents, but to have been always ready to "pitch in"; or, to use the more refined and courtly language of his tutor, M. Florschuetz, "he was not, at times, indisposed to resort to force, if his wishes were not at once ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... great fancy to some turtles which had been caught, though they seemed to regard nothing else with interest. They first took hold of one, and then attempted to carry it off; but, on being prevented, jumped into their canoes, and paddled away in a rage. On landing, they seized a brand from under the pitch-kettle, and with it set fire to the long grass. It blazed up so furiously that it was with the greatest difficulty that the tent in which Tupia was lying sick could be preserved, while the woodwork of the smith's forge was destroyed; it also caught a sow and young pigs, one of ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... of which were riveted. Over each joint flat iron bands were placed. The frames were about 21 inches (56 cm.) wide, and were placed close together, with only about an inch or an inch and a half between; and these interstices were filled with pitch and sawdust mixed, from the keel to a little distance above the water-line, in order to keep the ship moderately water-tight, even should the outer skin ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... give a comparatively smooth surface against which to place the water-proofing, no particular care was taken with the surface, except to avoid sharp projections which might cut through the felt and pitch used for this purpose. A rather porous concrete (with all the rock which could be safely embedded in it and have the wall stand) was used, so that it would not act as a dam, but rather tend to allow the ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 - The Bergen Hill Tunnels. Paper No. 1154 • F. Lavis
... minute of the stroke of twelve, and the revels at "The Twisted Arm"—wild at all times, but wilder to-night than ever—were at their noisiest and most exciting pitch. And why not? It was not often that Margot could spend a whole night with her rapscallion crew, and she had been here since early evening—was to remain here until the dawn broke grey over the house-tops and the murmurs ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... of these officers enthusiasm reached a high pitch and in no more striking manner did the new American reveal ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... of the pool-hall and explained the situation to him. The knowledge that The Laird had, in his extremity, placed reliance on him moved Dirty Dan to the highest pitch of enthusiasm and loyalty. He pursed his lips, winked one of his piggy eyes craftily, and, without wasting time in words of assurance, set forth in search of the man he was to follow and protect. Presently he saw Donald ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... ditches, obstructions, and barriers, and iron portcullises and a great square tower of stone. The gate was never closed from fear or against assault. The castle stood upon a high hill, and around beneath it flows the Thames. The host encamped on the river bank, and that day they have time only to pitch camp ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... rubbed until they are as flexible as narrow strips of leather. When all the sewing is done, the many narrow limber pieces of spruce are crowded into their places, giving the whole canoe its requisite proportions and strength. Then the seams and weak spots are well covered over with melted pitch, which the Indians obtain from ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... the pitch of the sound depends on the number of vibrations and the intensity, as already indicated by the amplitude of stroke—the timbre or quality of the sound depending upon factors which will be clearly set forth ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... I hold as of the rest, there's no content or security in any; on what course will you pitch, how resolve? to be a divine, 'tis contemptible in the world's esteem; to be a lawyer, 'tis to be a wrangler; to be a physician, [1791]pudet lotii, 'tis loathed; a philosopher, a madman; an alchemist, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... jest. This is the most kingly man that could be; and I ween that those two made a wager that he dared not carry a bundle up to the palace, whereby I was the gainer, for breath grows short up that pitch. And when I thanked him he bowed in that wise that can only come of being rightly taught when one is young. Now, I am going to ask Berthun who he is, for he spoke to him when he saw him, and that ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... between these six brothers no more unfriendly feeling than that caused by the secret and natural doubt that the others might be richer than themselves; a feeling increased to the pitch of curiosity by the approach of death—that end of all handicaps—and the great 'closeness' of their man of business, who, with some sagacity, would profess to Nicholas ignorance of James' income, to James ignorance of old Jolyon's, to Jolyon ignorance of Roger's, to Roger ignorance ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... shall he be the more heavily punished. There shall the slothful be pricked forward with burning goads, and the gluttons be tormented with intolerable hunger and thirst. There shall the luxurious and the lovers of pleasure be plunged into burning pitch and stinking brimstone, and the envious shall howl like mad dogs for ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... itself, which is as dark as pitch: we also saw there the hobgoblins, satyrs, and dragons of the pit; we heard also in that valley a continual howling and yelling, as of a people under unutterable misery, who there sat bound in affliction and irons; and over that valley ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... that guileless ally of the party of delirium, was less fortunate. Robespierre assailed the cosmopolitan for being a German baron, for having four thousand pounds a year, and for striking his sans-culottism some notes higher than the regular pitch. Even M. Louis Blanc calls this an iniquity, and sets it down as the worst page in Robespierre's life. Others have described Robespierre as struck at this time by the dire malady of kings—hatred of the Idea. ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... cheerful little group gathered near the lamp, and a sudden mist blurred her sight at thought of leaving them. She would not have exchanged the little brown house and what it held, just then, for a king's palace. Outside in the pitch-darkness of the night the rain beat against the window-panes like some poor beggar imploring to come in; and inside it was so cosy and bright with the warmth and cheer of home-loves and home-lights that Joyce ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... hands of the heathen. [32] The island is about three leguas distant from the shores of the island of Manila, opposite Tayauas. It is about three leguas in diameter, and about eight or nine in circumference. The products in which the tribute is paid are rice, pitch, palm-oil, and abaca—which is a kind of hemp, from which the best rope and some textiles are made. There is a good port in the island where a galleon was built in the time of Governor Don Juan de ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... closer; and she was panic-stricken and blissful at it. After standing still a few seconds, she went into the carriage and sat down in her place. The overstrained condition which had tormented her before did not only come back, but was intensified, and reached such a pitch that she was afraid every minute that something would snap within her from the excessive tension. She did not sleep all night. But in that nervous tension, and in the visions that filled her imagination, there ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... and tragedies and Waterloos draw the strings of the soul tighter and tighter, nearer and nearer to God's great concert pitch, where the discords fade from our lives and where the music divine and harmonies celestial come from the same old strings that had been sending forth ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... bulwarks and the stern, which had been much damaged by the wave that had lifted them over the bar. As there were not sufficient planks on board for this work, canvas was utilized for filling up the gaps in the bulwarks; and this, after being nailed to temporary stanchions, was coated with pitch. All hands worked cheerfully. The change of diet already benefited them, and the news that there was plenty of fresh water near enabled the remaining supply to be freely used—a matter of no slight consequence, to men ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... fifteen feet in length, at the upper end of which was another screw for securing a wooden column. These columns were prepared of Baltic timber; the one in the centre was fifty-six feet, and each of the remainder forty-six feet in length, bound firmly round with iron hoops and coated with pitch. ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... unless a vessel could be constructed. They made a voyage to the wreck and secured the shrouds, tackles and carpenters' tools, and then began to cut down the cedars, with which they constructed a vessel of eighteen tons. For pitch they took lime, rendered adhesive by a mixture of turtle oil, and forced it into the seams, where it became ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... order for us to understand this theory of Radiation and Absorption, it will be well for us if we look at a similar effect in the sphere of music and sound. Let us suppose that we have two tuning-forks of the same pitch, placed on a table at a distance of a foot from each other. If we set one of the forks vibrating, the waves which it radiates through the air will fall upon the other one, and will also set it in vibration, ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... always made people want to be on their best behaviour before her. Every one in the Valley was fond of the minister's wife, but most people stood in awe of her, and considered the turn of their sentences and the pitch of their voices when talking to her. She never had a pin awry. Her gray hair was always as smooth as a brush could make it, and every breadth of her skirts always fell in straight, precise folds. From bonnet-strings to shoe-laces there was ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the quiet fields opening here and there to the low hill ridges, and saw the cattle feeding, and heard a thrush singing in a thicket, I found myself letting go—how can I explain it?—relaxing! I had been keyed up to a high pitch there in that extraordinary room, Yes, it was beautiful—and yet as I thought of the sharp little green gate, the new gable, the hard, clean mantel with the cloisonne vase, it ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... Murchison, as he followed McNabb to the door. "An' no bunk, either, but a brass bed that I bought in Winnipeg out of respect for my old bones an' the weakening flesh that covers 'em. You an' me will pitch a tent, an' 'twill be the first time in many years, John, we've slept under ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... come and gone. From the grove of fir-trees near the village went forth an extraordinary odor of pitch; slow-running, amber colored streaks had oozed from the shaggy trunks; every drop of moisture seemed to have evaporated from the trees. In the stillness of the August afternoon one could hear the falling of needles and the crackling of twigs ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... till at last the floating immobility of that beshrouded thing seemed to grow upon him into something inexplicable and alarming. The twilight abandoned the zenith; its reflected gleams left the world below, and the water of the canal seemed to turn into pitch. Captain ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... for her three dead. They had no families. She held a taper in her hand and read a service over them. One bastion and so many men being disabled, a sentinel was posted in the turret after the gunners descended. The Swiss took this duty on himself, and felt his way up the pitch-black stairs. He had not seen Marguerite in the hall when he hurriedly took food, but she was safe in the tower. No woman ventured out in the storm of shot. The barracks were charred ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... our boats on shore and turn them over to recalk and pitch them, and Sumner is engaged in repairing barometers. While we are here for a day or two, resting, we propose to put everything in the best shape for ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... either side. Finally Armstrong resorted to some foul play, which roused Lincoln's indignation. Putting forth his whole strength, he seized the great bully by the neck and holding him at arm's length shook him like a boy. The Clary Grove Boys were ready to pitch in on behalf of their champion; and as they were the greater part of the lookers-on, a general onslaught upon Lincoln seemed imminent. Lincoln backed up against Offutt's store and calmly awaited the attack; but his coolness and courage ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... case of accident, stood Captain Carlson, the artillery officer. The heavy planks were drawn over the open hatch, locked, and bolted. Silently the men manned the cranks. The little engine of destruction gathered way. It was pitch dark, and very close and hot. There was no sound in the shell save the slight creaking of the cranks and the deep breathing of the crew ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... public square the sight of the discomfiture of the devil in scenes provoking the audience to laughter. The best example of such farcicality occurs in the eighth circle, fifth bolgia, where officials, traffickers in public offices, or unjust stewards are immersed in boiling pitch. From time to time when the fiends are not alert the reprobate here come to the surface for a breathing or cooling spell, like dolphins on the approach of a storm darting in the air and diving back again or like frogs with ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... the art of translating right reverend gentlemen to the moon; and, in the mean time, he resumed his general lectures on physics. From these, however, he was speedily driven, or one might say shelled out, by a concerted assault of my sister Mary's. He had been in the habit of lowering the pitch of his lectures with ostentatious condescension to the presumed level of our poor understandings. This superciliousness annoyed my sister; and accordingly, with the help of two young female visitors, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... of the enemy already beginning to appear on the right bank, and directing their march upon the bridge, raised his voice to its utmost pitch, and, pointing at the same time with his hand, exclaimed,—"Silence your senseless clamours, yonder is the enemy! On maintaining the bridge against him depend our lives, as well as our hope to reclaim our laws and liberties.—There shall at ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... is said, when he harangued the Roman populace, modulated his tone by an oratorical flute or pitch pipe. Wilhelmus Kieft, not having such an instrument at hand, availed himself of that musical organ or trump which nature has implanted in the midst of a man's face; in other words, he preluded his address by a sonorous blast of the nose; a preliminary flourish much ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... confidence upon the weakness of France, whose difficulties, instead of being at all diminished, are hourly increasing; their public credit falling even below what it was at the time of Neckar's appointment, and their discontents again getting to the most serious pitch. Add to this, that we have every reason to believe that we have the concurrence and good wishes of Spain in the object which we are pursuing, and I think we have, I may say, nothing to apprehend from measures which ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... practical inference is, that those parents who desire intellectual and moral children, must love each other; because, this love, besides perpetually calling forth and cultivating their higher faculties, awakens them to the highest pitch of exalted action in that climax, concentration, and consummation of love which propagates their existing qualities, the mental endowment of offspring being proportionate to the purity ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... pitch dark now, and only the stars lit up the Glass Mountain. The poor boy still clung on as if glued to the glass by his blood-stained hands. He made no struggle to get higher, for all his strength had left him, and seeing no hope ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... things, together with the consciousness that the culmination of the campaign was now at hand, raised the excitement of the army to a high pitch, and everyone lay down that night warmed by keen anticipations. An atmosphere of unrest hung over the bivouac, and few slept soundly. At three o'clock the troops were aroused, and at half-past four the final advance ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... Curtiss. It consists of two pear-shaped blades of laminated wood, each blade being 5 inches wide at its extreme point, tapering slightly to the shaft connection. These blades are joined at the engine shaft, in a direct line. The propeller has a pitch of 5 feet, and weighs, complete, less than 10 pounds. The length from end to end of the two blades ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... assailing the walls, but found them stoutly defended. The Swedes within poured boiling water and hot pitch on their assailants, threw down stones and beams, and hurled spears and arrows from the wall. For fourteen days the siege continued without effect, until the Goths, weary of their hard fighting and the mockery of the defenders, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... is known as Stravenhouse small coal, which costs 5s. per ton delivered. The experiment in each case lasted 48 hours. The tar employed was what is known as boiled tar; the naphtha having been previously removed, but the pitch oil left in the tar. The value of this tar in Dundee is about 4s. per ton. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various
... her right to a voice in the ultimate settlement and an initiative from the Western Hemisphere that will lead to a world congress. There are the two most hopeful sources of that great proposal. It is the tradition of British national conduct to be commonplace to the pitch of dullness, and all the stifled intelligence of Great Britain will beat in vain against the national passion for the ordinary. Britain, in the guise of Sir Edward Grey, will come to the congress like a family solicitor among the Gods. What is the good of shamming about this least ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... bridegroom, the plump and rustic Masetto. At last Don Juan is obliged to take refuge from the hatred of his pursuers. His flight brings him to the grave of the dead governor, in whose memory a life-size statue has been erected in his own park. Excited to the highest pitch and almost beside himself, Don Juan even mocks the dead; he invites him to a supper. The statue moves its head in acceptance of the dreadful ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... note: Pitch Lake, on Trinidad's southwestern coast, is the world's largest natural reservoir ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... Grizzel. As the diamond met the golden glow of the fading day its green rays gleamed and sparkled. "One might believe it was alive!" Mr. O'Rourke exclaimed. "I never saw anything like it. You kids ought not to have a jewel like that to play pitch-and-toss with; someone ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... with the storming of the Temple, but they were in the minority. All along, the crowd had been more inclined for private revenge than for martial deeds of valour; the Bastille had been taken by daylight; the effort might not have been so successful on a pitch-black night such as this, when one could not see one's hand before one's eyes, and the drizzling rain went ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... to describe Helen's indignation as she read this letter, which roused her to a pitch of anger such as Wilford Cameron had never imagined when he wrote the offensive lines. He had really no intention of insulting her. On the contrary, the gift of money was kindly meant, for he knew very well that Uncle Ephraim was poor, while the part referring to the dressmaker ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... is a small matter! an object of infinitesimal importance when the broad light of day illumines the interior of houses or the bosquets of a park, but it becomes an object of paramount importance, when the night is pitch dark, and when it is necessary to effect an exchange of clothing within the four walls of ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... "we need you. It will be a kind of camping-out for a day or two—merely that. We must have your help to pitch the tent, so to speak, and to pick up firewood, and to fry the bacon.... And this time," she added, "you shall not have that long tiresome trip by train. There will be room ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... double head The glorious fearful monster said "I am YES and I am NO, Black as pitch and white as snow, Love me, hate me, reconcile Hate with love, perfect with vile, So equal justice shall be done And life shared between moon and sun. Nature for you shall curse or smile: A poet you shall ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... "with the author of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, that Remorse is the most painful sentiment that can embitter the human bosom; an ordinary pitch of fortitude may bear up admirably well, under those calamities, in the procurement of which we ourselves have had no hand; but when our follies or crimes have made us wretched, to bear all with manly firmness, and at the same time have a proper penitential sense ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... the ship's outline seemed to me familiar. I knew the set of her short masts, the pitch of her smokestacks, the number of her guns. Yes, she was the Modeste of the English Navy—the same ship which more than a year before I had ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... and see how well he'll do it. Here he comes, and he will hit the right pitch on his ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... ancient palace of the Holy Inquisition and shut Him in it. The day passes and is followed by the dark, burning, 'breathless' night of Seville. The air is 'fragrant with laurel and lemon.' In the pitch darkness the iron door of the prison is suddenly opened and the Grand Inquisitor himself comes in with a light in his hand. He is alone; the door is closed at once behind him. He stands in the doorway and for a minute or two gazes into His face. At last he goes up slowly, sets the light on the ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... was tempted to succumb on the spot and have the long agony over. Then his horror of the woman rose to such a pitch that he uttered an execration, and, turning away from her face, which was rapidly growing loathsome to him, he ran out of the passageway into the garden, seeing as he ran a persistent vision of himself pulling off the ring and putting it back again, under the spell of a ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... what fatal star must I have been born, that I must sail in company with such monsters! But if my bark sinks in the sewer of these strumpets, may I be buried at the very threshold of the door; let this hag be stood upright on my grave, let her be coated alive with pitch and her legs covered with molten lead up to the ankles, and let her be set ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... Travis pitch forward off his horse and slide limply to the ground. He saw him totter and waver and then sit down in a helpless, pitiful way,—then lie down as if it ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... a pitch of grace is this! Christ is minded to amaze the world, and to show that he acteth not like the children of men. This is that which he said of old, 'I will not execute the fierceness of my wrath, I ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... almost quadrupled, and our boundaries have been extended from the Mississippi to the Pacific. Our territory is checkered over with railroads and furrowed with canals. The inventive talent of our country is excited to the highest pitch, and the numerous applications for patents for valuable improvements distinguish this age and this people from all others. The genius of one American has enabled our commerce to move against wind and tide and that ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Millard Fillmore • Millard Fillmore
... side and riveted to the keelson. The superstructure consists of four legs of angle iron 2-1/2 inches by 2-1/2 inches by 5/16 inch, the upper ends of the legs being attached to a square flanged plate for supporting the lighting apparatus. Four wooden battens of pitch pine, 4 inches by 1-1/2 inches, and bolted on to each cant of the angle iron superstructure, with 7/8 inch galvanized iron ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various
... little. So, in Shakespeare, we may find Traits that will stand the Test of the severest Judgment; and Strokes as carelessly hit off, to the Level of the more ordinary Capacities: Some Descriptions rais'd to that Pitch of Grandeur, as to astonish you with the Compass and Elevation of his Thought; and others copying Nature within so narrow, so confined a Circle, as if the Author's Talent lay only ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... the first shout. There was a wild expression on his somewhat weak face. It was the face of a weak nature suddenly worked up into the last pitch of frenzy. But even so the approach of Jake was not without its effect. His very presence was full of threat to the weaker man. Archie was no physical coward, but, in that first moment of meeting, he felt as if he had been suddenly taken by the ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... friend who hoped to have the pleasure of shocking a parson by leading him into the sort of place a parson ought not to visit. As a matter of fact the place was perfectly respectable, and the only part of me which was shocked was my nose. The smells in the pitch-dark gullies which led to that eating-house were the worst I ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... like the rest; but other than this, I used no stimulus and never had thought of keeping any at my lodgings. In fact, so little was I seasoned in this way that half a glass of ordinary wine was enough to elevate my spirits many degrees above their usual pitch. I know not why it never occurred to me to use habitually what I found occasionally to be such a relief. A few months after commencing school I attended with a party of friends the celebration of the Landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. The orator was exceedingly eloquent; the occasion ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... a change. The sea rose rapidly while we were running to the northward on her course, and after a lull of a few minutes the wind opened from the eastward, butt end foremost, a change of eight points. Nothing was to be done but heave to, and this in a cross sea where pitch, weather roll, lee lurch, followed one another in such earnest that it was a wonder her masts were not switched ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... the remainder of that night journey it would be hard to conceive. In the first place, when there are forty men in an open truck, it is very difficult to find room for two more. In the second place, it was bitterly cold, and a pitch-dark night. In the third place, the even-money chance of a slab or two of gun-cotton on the line ahead was not a pleasing one to contemplate. In the fourth place, the men were ordered to 'charge magazines,' and to spend several hours jolting along with the cold barrel of a loaded rifle poking ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... of marching the place where they should pitch the tent of Israel was not fixed upon. When Brigham was questioned around the camp-fire at night, his only reply was that he would know the site of their new home when he saw it. And it came to be told among the men that he had beheld in vision a tent settling down from ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... to flight, of whome (before they could get out of danger) a great number were slaine. But after that they had recouered themselues togither, and [Sidenote: Agnerus and Hubba.] found but a conuenient place where to pitch their campe, they chose to their capteines Agnerus, and Hubba, two brethren, which indeuored themselues by all meanes possible to repaire their armie: so that within 15 daies after, the Danes eftsoones fought with the Englishmen, and gaue them such an ouerthrow, that ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... one pile of all your winnings And risk it at one game of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again from your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss, If you can force you heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on, though there is nothing ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... one of the Hugos of the many parts that his comrades had seen him play. His blue eyes had become an inflexible gray. He was standing half on tiptoe, his quivering muscles in tune with the quivering pitch of his voice: a Hugo in anger! This was a tremendous joke. He was about to regain his reputation as a humorist by a brilliant display in keeping with the new ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... smiling complacency. One afternoon he had strolled for several miles along a road that was new to him, and then through a wood on bad advice from a colored woman... losing himself entirely. A passing storm decided to break out, and to his great impatience the sky grew black as pitch and the rain began to splatter down through the trees, become suddenly furtive and ghostly. Thunder rolled with menacing crashes up the valley and scattered through the woods in intermittent batteries. He stumbled blindly on, hunting for a way out, and finally, through webs of ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... coming down from the commander-in-chief to assault the bastion. He shrugged his shoulders, but said nothing. That same night the colonel and one of his lieutenants stole out of the trenches, and by the help of a pitch-dark, windy night, got under the bastion unperceived, and crept round it, and made their observations, and got safe back. About noon down ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... DOBBS is DOBBS, and faster Than pitch or mustard-plaster Shall it stick hereabouts, While Tappan Sea rolls yonder, Or round High Torn the thunder Along these ramparts shouts. No corner-lot banditti, Or brokers from the City— Like you—" Here Dobbs began Wildly both oars to brandish, As fierce as old Miles ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... husbandry. Under the later empire agriculture sank into a condition of neglect, in which it remained throughout the Dark Ages. In Spain its revival was due to the Saracens, and by them, and their successors the Moors, agriculture was carried to a high pitch of excellence. The work on agriculture1 of Ibn-al-Awame, who lived in the 12th century A.D., treats of the varieties of soils, manuring, irrigation, ploughing, sowing, harvesting, stock, horticulture, arboriculture and plant diseases, and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia |
