"Pitch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... old son," he said, "there's nothing to worry about. We're all pals here. You can pitch it straight to us. We won't ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... dispatch away all the ships he can,) I home: where no sooner come, but news is brought me of a couple of men come to speak with me from the fleet; so I down, and who should it be but Mr. Daniel, all muffled up, and his face as black as the chimney, and covered with dirt, pitch, and tar, and powder, and muffled with dirty clouts, and his right eye stopped with okum. He is come last night; at five o'clock from the fleet, with a comrade of his that hath endangered another eye. They were set on shore at Harwich this morning, and ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... gibbet empty, matters grew serious indeed. The day passing away and no news arriving, and the night going on also without any intelligence, the thing grew more tremendous still; in short, the neighbourhood worked itself up to such a comfortable pitch of mystery and horror, that it is a great question whether the general feeling was not one of excessive disappointment, when, on the second morning, Will ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... which made him the dread of all candidates who appeared before the session desiring "to come forward." It was to many an impressive sight to see Straight Rory rise in the precentor's box, feel round, with much facial contortion, for the pitch—he despised a tuning-fork—and then, straightening himself up till he bent over backwards, raise the chant that introduced the tune to the congregation. But to the young men under the gallery he was more humorous than impressive, ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... indifference to it is the strength and beauty of his personal self. This is readily seen; a garden flower becomes a mere degenerate copy of itself if it is simply neglected; a plant must be cultivated to the highest pitch, and benefit by the whole of the gardener's skill, or else it must be a pure savage, wild, and fed only by the earth and sky. Who cares for any intermediate states? What value or strength is there in the neglected garden rose which has the canker in every bud? For diseased or dwarfed blossoms are ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... arrived before St. Malo, and were saluted by a fire of artillery from that town, which did little damage in the darkness. Under cover of this, the British set fire to the ships, wooden buildings, pitch and tar magazines in the harbour, and made a prodigious conflagration that ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... prevailed on her not to refuse to see Sir Benjamin, which she once promised Clerimont to do. I entreated her to plead my cause, and even drew her in to answer Sir Benjamin's letters with the same intent. Of this I have made Clerimont suspicious; but 'tis you must inflame him to the pitch I want. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... courage, had strung up my nerves and restored my self-possession. I must have been more or less than woman if my self-respect had not been wounded, if my curiosity had not been wrought to the highest pitch, by the extraordinary conduct of my husband's mother when Eustace presented me to her. What was the secret of her despising him, and pitying me? Where was the explanation of her incomprehensible apathy when my name was twice ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... tongues have always possest that excellence which characterized them at the time of Homer, Demosthenes, Virgil, and Cicero? And if these authors were of the opinion that a little diligence and culture were incapable of producing greater fruit, why did they make such efforts to bring it to the pitch of perfection it is in to-day? I can say the same thing of our language, which is now beginning to bloom without bearing fruit, like a plant which has not yet flowered, waiting till it can produce all the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... he succeeded in stirring up his neighbors to the proper pitch of enthusiasm. They knew him at Sintaluta, listened to him seriously, and the leaders of the little community shook hands on the idea of organizing, in the form of a joint stock company, "a scheme for the co-operative marketing of ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... approaching, and the darkness falling more and more dense and black around them; two or three carriages had already given false alarms, but had had no other effect than preparing them for the real attack. At half-past eight the night was pitch-dark, and a sort of natural fear, which the conspirators had felt at first, began to ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... one moment to become a civil war in Mayo was put down without the loss of a drop of blood by an imposing military force, and the lesson so well illustrated at Ballinrobe is hardly likely to be lost in other rebellious districts. Yesterday, the affair at Pallas came to such a pitch that extraordinary measures were resolved upon. A bailiff had been shot because he, in the execution of his duty, occupied the dwelling of an evicted farmer, one Burke; hence it was decided that a police-hut should ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... dark green waters of the harbor - everything exactly as I can still see it to-day - my future dwelling-house already looked at me with familiar friendliness from out its cool, dark window-eyes; the doves cooed in the softly rustling elms; it smelled of pitch and tar and of the inevitable Dutch peat-smoke, which rose from the stove pipes of the fishing smacks lying in the harbor, where the fishermen's wives were ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... executor of his estate, examined the bundle which contained all his worldly effects. They consisted of two shirts and a half, two stocks for the neck, a pair or two of worsted stockings, an old pair of corduroy small-clothes, a rusty razor, a book of psalm tunes full of dog's ears, and a broken pitch-pipe. As to the books and furniture of the school-house, they belonged to the community, excepting Cotton Mather's History of Witchcraft, a New England Almanac, and a book of dreams and fortune-telling; in which last was a ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... Stephen, with whom I had only lately made warm and close friends, I had a copy bound, without the final chapter, that the book might not, by its tragic close, depress one who had known so much sorrow. Sir Alfred Lyall thought—"the story reaches a higher pitch of vigor and dramatic presentation than is to be found even in your later books"; while Lord Halifax's letter—"how lovable they both are, each in his way, and how true to the ideal on both sides!"—and others, from Mr. Godkin, ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... afternoon he slipped down into the basement soon after school. It was as black as pitch in the cellar. He took up a position ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... of times. There were several ways of answering it, and he gave considerable thought to each one during the watches of an agitated night. That on which, when morning came, he finally decided was to pitch some clothes into a portmanteau and jump on board a boat that was leaving that ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... or under, neglect and disgrace were the most dreadful of punishments; but on her they made no impression. Sometimes, exasperated to the utmost pitch, I would shake her violently by the shoulder, or pull her long hair, or put her in the corner; for which she punished me with loud, shrill, piercing screams, that went through my head like a knife. She knew I hated this, and when she had shrieked her utmost, would look ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... denying that. I was even compelled to remind myself that with all his coolness and suavity he was still a car-thief, or perhaps something worse. And I had no intention of sitting there and watching him pitch ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... the revolution, and extinguish the restless ardor of the French. It needed the massacres of September, the gloomy days of the Terror, the anarchy of the period of the Directory, to throw dismayed France into the arms of the crowned soldier who was to carry to so high a pitch her glory and her influence. The facts correspond; I explain, and I approve. In the eyes of the modern ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... Joel, stoutly; "I did't touch him a single bit! But he shan't scare Phronsie, or I'll pitch into him. Yes, sir-ree!" ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... of God, abandon these useless evasions!" said Signor Deodati, roused to a high pitch of excitement by his impatience. "Why should not Mr. Van de Werve know that which, in your opinion, would give us a clue to ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... Barrels of burning pitch in front of the manor house threw a rosy glare over the wintry landscape; distant sounds of music came ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... huts and smoking cane-fields in their wake; he saw skeletons of men and women seeking for food among the refuse of the street; he heard the order given to the firing squad, the splash of the bullets as they scattered the plaster on the prison wall, and he saw a kneeling figure pitch forward on its face, with a useless bandage tied ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... isn't the essential things, still it changes her. She is less woman, less—whatever you choose to call it. A coarser touch has come upon her, and she is changed. Well, I say I believe all this, and I do, with all my soul; and yet, as you say, it's cruel hard for a young creature, all keyed up to a pitch of enthusiasm and devotion and noble aspiration, to be checked like a boy's kite, and brought down to the ground and told to mind her seam. It's cruel hard, I can see that; I can feel and sympathise intensely with ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... brave and say nothing could hurt me, but I couldn't help but hear the funny noises and I was so awfully alone. I started to walk again, just somewhere, because when I walked I couldn't hear all the sounds and every now and then I'd call out. And just as it was almost pitch dark in the wood something big came rushing toward me and sprang at me and, Beryl, I fainted dead away! Well, the next thing I knew something was licking my face. And someone was saying something queer, and ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... if you talk about dead people,' said she, and began whooping at the pitch of her voice. On my wishing to know why she did it, her reply was that it was to make the dead people hear. My feelings were strange: the shops not open, and no living people to be seen. We climbed trees, and sat on a branch talking of birds' eggs till hunger ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was not out at all that night. Calne pitched upon me, because there was no one else in particular to pitch upon. A dozen poachers were in the fray, most of them with guns; little wonder the random shot from one should have found a mark. I know nothing more certain than ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... count a "Charles Robert" in our environment. Someone whose "worm i' the bud" of their character has so completely spoilt its early flower on account of the "one ruinous vice" of "censoriousness," of perpetual nagging, and fault-finding developed to such a pitch that it has eaten out at last the fair heart of human forbearance and kindness which is the birthright of everyone. Such a person makes the true, free development of others in his proximity a harder task than God intended ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... be back until to-morrow, but I promised to pitch the bags into his granary," he said. "If I hump them up the trail here it will save us driving ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... I've had an abominably hard time of it! And now I'm fairly cornered, and you must see plainly why I'm thinking of the river. If I take to it, they'll shed a tear over me, I know; whereas, if I don't, they'll all pitch into me, and Louie'll only laugh. Look here, old boy, ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... day arrived. All the bells in Compostella pealed. The whole populace thronged from their houses, a thousand troops were drawn up in the square, the expectation of all was wound up to the highest pitch. A procession directed its course to the church of San Roque; at its head was the captain-general and the Swiss, brandishing in his hand the magic rattan, close behind walked the meiga, the Gallegan witch-wife, by whom the treasure-seeker ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Winsen, then came Cella. Here a curious thing happened. The piano proved to be a half tone below pitch, but Brahms was equal to the dilemma. Requesting Remenyi to tune his violin a half tone higher, making it a whole tone above the piano, he then, at sight, transposed the Beethoven Sonata they were to play. It was really a great feat, but Johannes performed it as though ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... Tobago Pitch Lake, on Trinidad's southwestern coast, is the world's largest natural ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... and tribulation. The spoiled child screamed and beat her little hands, and worked herself up into such a pitch of excitement that that night she found her way in her sleep to Annie's room, and Annie had to quiet her by taking her into her bed. In the morning the doctor had to be sent for, and he instantly prescribed a day or two more of Annie's company for ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... haccident flag, don't you know," and he pointed to an ambulance officer just passing with the cross device on his arm. The Dannebrog the "haccident flag"! What did I do? What would you have done? I just fumed and suppressed as well as I could a desire to pitch that cockney into the crowds below, with his pipe and his miserable ignorance. But I had to go down to ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... material form of that city, which during the period between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars reached the highest pitch of military, artistic, and literary glory. The latter portion of this period, or that comprised under the ascendency of Pericles, exhibits Athenian art in its highest state of perfection, and is therefore by way of excellence commonly designated as the age of Pericles. ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... he cried. "Go away; you poison the air that honest men breathe, and you are as fit and well as I am. Why don't you pitch him into the street, Steel? Why don't you telephone to Marley at the police-station, and say that the Huddersfield swindler is here? Oh, if you only knew what an effort it is to keep my hands ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... ideal monster might pass for an innocent conceit; and there appears even consummate wisdom in erecting a colossal power for our common security; but Hobbes assumed that Authority was to be supported to its extreme pitch. Force with him appeared to constitute right, and unconditional submission then became a duty: these were consequences quite natural to one who at his first step degraded man by comparing him to a watch, and who ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... two remained silent. The minutes sped rapidly and half an hour passed. All about was pitch black now. The wind was tearing and shrieking from every direction at once. The sleigh seemed to be the center of its attack. The blinding clouds of snow, as they swept up from the ground, were becoming denser and denser and ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... mean of me, fellows," he admitted, as he glanced at the gun he had snatched up so eagerly. "And likewise silly in the bargain, because in this pitch darkness I'd like as not only stub my toe, and take a beastly header into some snake hole. I guess I'll simmer down, and stay ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... Abolition wave had begun to flood the country. Thurlow Weed, William Lloyd Garrison, Parson Brownlow, John Brown and Mrs. Stowe, by the power of tongue and pen and printing press, endeavored to stir up the North to the pitch of fanatical desperation, and the slaves to revolt against their masters. It was not for the sake of the Union. Perish the Union, if only the slaves were freed. Drive out the Southern States if they refused to abolish them. Their acts ...
— Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War • Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... exclaimed. "Do you throw that up to me—you of all men? Who, I ask you, was the cause of all the shame and misery and violence that I suffered there? Who was the one that made it necessary? Who was the one that brought me to such a pitch of desperation that I was ready to do any thing, however wild or frantic? Who? Why, you yourself—you, who come to me now, and with a solemn voice ask me to calm myself. Is it not possible for you to see what ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... pitch-black inside the gate. Maskull struck a match, and the flickering light disclosed the lower end of a circular flight of stone steps. "Are you coming ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... for your machine," I said to him. "Try it in three dimensions. Instead of sine waves, visualize it as two coil springs that are all snarled up in each other. Each has a different pitch, perhaps different diameter. But at certain points the coils touch each other, and at those ...
— The Right Time • Walter Bupp
... to that on the right; imagine also a line of roof, extending over both western transepts, situated in a line with the foot of the three lancet windows just below the clock; imagine also, further, a roof of similar pitch over the galilee porch,[6] and, instead of the present Decorated stage at the summit, a pyramidal spire of timber, leaded. "The front, with its tower thus terminated, with leaded spires also on the four ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting
... will play an increasing part in warfare in the future. Only those officers and men who served afloat in the years immediately preceding the opening of hostilities know how great the struggle was to gain that high pitch of efficiency which the Navy had reached at the outbreak of war, and it was the devotion to duty of our magnificent pre-war personnel that went far to ensure our victory. It is essential that the Navy of the future should not be given a yet harder task than fell to the Navy of ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... ravine," she shrieks against the creed that her Maker is a God of love. The only morality which she inculcates is that of a tiger in the jungle, or at best that of a wolf-pack. "It is not strange (says Lotze) that no nature-religions have raised their adherents to any high pitch of morality or culture.[390]" The answer to this is that Nature includes man as well as the brutes, and the merciful and moral man as well as the savage. Physical science, at any rate, can exclude nothing from the domain of Nature. And the Christian may say with all reverence that Nature includes, ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... the King!" says he at the highest pitch of his voice. "Who dares abuse the King's religion? You, you d—d psalm-singing cobbler, as sure as I'm a magistrate of this county I'll commit you!" The fellow shrank back, and my lord retreated with all the honors of the day. But when the little flurry caused by the scene was over, ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... monopoly of the carrying trade between England and all other countries which sent goods to English or to colonial shores. This policy was supported by a network of minor measures giving bounties to our colonies for the exportation of shipping materials, pitch, tar, hemp, turpentine, masts, and spars, and giving bounties at home for the construction of defensible ships. This Navigation policy gave a strong foundational support to the whole protective policy. Probably the actuating motives of this policy were more political than industrial. ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... Vodell's chances of final victory. The strike leader knew that if these days immediately following Captain Charlie's death passed without closing the Mill, his cause was lost. The workmen were now aroused to the highest pitch of excitement. The agitator realized that if they were not committed by some action to his cause before the fever of their madness began to abate, his followers would, day by day, in ever increasing numbers ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... of the big-league stuff. Next winter I'll try to get the real sporting spirit into this gang of sedentaries up here; buy 'em uniforms and start a winter-sports club. Their ideal winter sport so far is to calk up every chink in the bunk house, fill the air-tight stove full of pitch pine and set down with a good book by Elinor Glyn. They never been at all mad about romping out in the keen frosty air that sets the blood tingling and brings back the roses ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... pitch until Panek had to grab his arm and shake him to make him keep still. People at the nearer table were beginning to look at them. But Panek was impressed now with Hanlon's sincerity—the SS man could read that ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... had been already long enough in the country to raise to the highest pitch Captain Mitchell's opinion of the extraordinary value of his discovery. Clearly he was one of those invaluable subordinates whom to possess is a legitimate cause of boasting. Captain Mitchell plumed himself upon his eye for men—but he was not selfish—and in the innocence ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... pitch of her voice, neither so high nor so low as to attract more than passing attention, won approval which Lanyard put into the pressure of his lips upon her hand and the bow, at once punctilious and ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... These grunters are just up there on the hillside. If you go and stand with Ralph in the lee of yon cliff, I'll cut round behind and drive them through the gorge, so that you'll have a better chance of picking out a good one. Now, mind you pitch into a fat young pig, Peterkin," added Jack, as ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... hurt?" is the whispered inquiry his brother-officer can barely gasp for want of breath, and, reassured by the faint grin on Mr. Billings's face, and a barely audible "Arm busted,—that's all; pitch in and use them up," he pushes on with ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... most dainty to the eyes but very unsure to the foot; — there were sharp turns in the rocky way, with huge granitic obstacles before and around them; — Winnie could not keep on her feet without Winthrop's strong arm; although in many a rough pitch and steep rise of the way, young hickories and oaks lent their aid to her hand that was free. Mosses and lichens, brown and black with the summer's heat, clothed the rocks and dressed out their barrenness; green tufts of fern nodded in many a nook, ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... you," replied Franz; "pray explain your meaning, for you excite my curiosity to the highest pitch." ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Friendly Society in the village, which was at that time famous for its drunkenness and immorality. We drove ourselves to the meetings in a high two-wheeled dog-cart behind a fast trotter, coming back late in pitch darkness along icy roads. These drives to Innerleithen and our moonlight talks are among my ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... the closing Sentence of the preceding Exhortation, seems to have a double force, moral and vocal; and to point to the careful solemnity with which the Confession should be said. A low pitch of voice, therefore, such as is easily within the reach of all, and a moderately slow ...
— Ritual Conformity - Interpretations of the Rubrics of the Prayer-Book • Unknown
... of man to humanity, and the warmth of his temper, may raise his character to this fortunate pitch. His elevation, in a great measure, depends on the form of his society; but he can, without incurring the charge of corruption, accommodate himself to great variations in the constitutions of government. The same integrity, and vigorous spirit, which, in democratical states, renders him tenacious ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... France, the hope of that liberty of which he had so long been deprived was again kindled in the breast of Captain S., and at length rose to such a pitch as to overpower all other considerations, till he made his escape en garcon from the depot. The unpleasant situation of his wife when she found herself thus abandoned in the midst of a foreign land may be imagined; but she was not the type of woman to give herself ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... go on with the stupendous folly. Loans were effected with surprising and fatal facility, and, "before the end of the year, work had begun at many points on the railroads. The whole State was excited to the highest pitch of frenzy and expectation. Money was as plenty as dirt. Industry, instead of being stimulated, actually languished. We exported nothing," says Governor Ford, "and everything from abroad was paid for by the borrowed money expended among us." Not only upon the railroads, but on the canal as well, ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... to works, the Councell contriue the Fort, the rest cut downe trees to make place to pitch their Tents; some provide clapbord to relade the ships, some make gardens, some nets, &c. The Salvages often visited vs kindly. The Presidents overweening iealousie would admit no exercise at armes, or fortification but ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... Chris!" he exclaimed. "What are you patching those old things for? Why don't you pitch 'em out and ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... tell you my little story." And she gave a rapid vivid account of the remarkable scene at the Embassy. She concluded abruptly: "Do you think one could tell that a man's eyes were hazel—the golden-brown hazel—across a pitch dark room above the ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... a steepish rise through a region which seemed crowded with dug-outs and piles of stores, we gained the crest where we had been urged to extend. It was pitch dark, with a steadily increasing drizzle of rain and an occasional rumble of thunder. In front there were as yet no indications of shell-fire, only an intermittent ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... a Yankee, a New-Englander,—he said,-as if all of 'em were just the same kind of animal. "There is knowledge and knowledge," said John Bunyan. There are Yankees and Yankees. Do you know two native trees called pitch pine and white pine respectively? Of course you know 'em. Well, there are pitch-pine Yankees and white-pine Yankees. We don't talk about the inherited differences of men quite as freely, perhaps, as they do in the Old World, but republicanism doesn't alter ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... a white-washed wall, and plain deal pews and pulpit, contains a closely-packed congregation, as different in dress, as they are opposed in manner, to that we have just quitted. The hymn is sung—not by paid singers, but by the whole assembly at the loudest pitch of their voices, unaccompanied by any musical instrument, the words being given out, two lines at a time, by the clerk. There is something in the sonorous quavering of the harsh voices, in the lank and hollow faces of the ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... 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 ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... little man had worked himself up to an astonishing pitch of excitement; his eyes snapped; his words came like pistol shots; his ejaculations were genuine explosions. He tapped with his feet; rapped with his cane; shook his finger; and fidgeted in his chair. "We want you ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... toward Yusuf's house. He was not at home, and I went to his garden to read the letter with perfect freedom. It was sealed and without any address, and the slave might have made a mistake; but my curiosity was excited to the highest pitch; I broke the seal, and found the following note written in ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the climax of insult, and Giovanni, driven to the highest pitch of fury, unable longer to control himself, tore his stiletto from its sheath and, raising it aloft, made a frantic dash at the gigantic brigand. Instantly the latter fired. Giovanni dropped his weapon; his right arm ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... pitch-boiler. You can smell him from afar, and see him glitter through the thicket. His pitch-oil is bought by the wood-cutter for his wounds, by the charcoal-burner for his burns, by the carter for his horse, by the brandy-distiller for his casks. It is a remedy for all ailments. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... with kindling eyes, leant over to Mrs. Orton Beg, grasped her arm, and said something eagerly. Mrs. Orton Beg nodded. The word went round. Beth held the hall, and was still rising from point to point, carrying the audience with her to a pitch of excitement which finally culminated in a great burst ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... them I feel as though the night had come and with it my accursed sleeplessness. I lie on my bed, then get up and walk about the room, then lie down again. As a rule it is after dinner, at the approach of evening, that my nervous excitement reaches its highest pitch. For no reason I begin crying and burying my head in the pillow. At such times I am afraid that some one may come in; I am afraid of suddenly dying; I am ashamed of my tears, and altogether there is something insufferable in my soul. I feel that ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... goes up the chimney along with the smoke, depends on the angles of fireplace sides and back. The former should be set at an angle of about 60 degrees so that they flare outward from the back wall. There are two schools of thought regarding the back. One would have the forward pitch begin one third of the distance from floor to lintel; the other favors the slope starting at the bottom and continuing upward in an unbroken plane. In the former, the pitch should be about 23 degrees from the vertical; with the latter, ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... for such as our boy for nothin'," said the miller. "Bring me the purse, mother, I say. There ar'n't much in it, but there's a few guineas as 'll do for that, perhaps. As well pitch 'em away that ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... telling how our workers are nearly twice as efficient as those of any other country. If we are the greatest nation the sun ever shone upon, it would seem to be mainly because we have been able to goad our wage-earners to this pitch of frenzy; though there are a few other things that are great among us including our drink-bill, which is a billion and a quarter of dollars a year, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... realized the danger that threatened. Of the three girls only Ruth knew what was just ahead. The maddened mules were dragging the emigrant wagon for a pitch into the ravine that boded nothing less ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... on Donohue's delivery so as to report whether he's the wonder they've been told. But Jack was too clever for them, I guess. They say he had his battery off practicing in secret most of the while; and whenever Donohue did pitch for the local games he was held back. That's why some people said they believed he must be over-rated, and might prove a disappointment. But Jack only gave them the merry ha! ha! and told them to wait ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... makes during the night, in the breeding season, from its swampy retreats. From the loudness and solemnity of its note, an erroneous notion prevails with the vulgar, that it either thrusts its head into a reed, which serves as a pipe for swelling its note beyond its natural pitch, or that it immerges its head in water, and then produces its boomings by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Odyssey, marks the difference at once. The parts stand out more conspicuously from the whole, and admit more readily of being felt and appreciated in detached recitation. We may also add, that it is of more unequal execution than the Odyssey—often rising to a far higher pitch of grandeur, but also occasionally tamer: the story does not move on continually; incidents occur without plausible motive, nor can we shut our eyes to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... be so, it is so!" exclaimed the young midshipman, worked up to a pitch of enthusiasm by this ideal ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... freezing, we regret our mirth, and we cannot be cheerful until he is fed and warmed, not to mention the impossibility of imagining people who can indulge in such mirth as causes suffering to others. The mirth of wicked little boys, who pitch a dog's tail in a split stick, and make merry over it, is ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... listened to any absurdity they proposed, eagerly fell in with this scheme as one full of promise; and so indeed it was, but not as he imagined; for the intention of his two advisers was to make off with the boat, and pitch the old ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... transept parts of the cross have been demolished; and, beyond the tower, to the east, is only an addition that looks more like an apsis than a choir, a small semi-circular building with a roof of a peculiarly high pitch, like those of the stone-roofed chapels in Ireland, which, I trust, I shall be able hereafter to convince you were undoubtedly of Norman origin. But the most curious feature in this building is, that one of the buttresses is pierced with a narrow lancet window; ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... and put my arm around her waist, being so terribly restricted in the matter of Lorna, and knowing the use of practice. Not that I had any warmth—all that was darling Lorna's—only out of pure gallantry, and my knowledge of London fashions. Ruth blushed to such a pitch at this, and looked up at me with such a gleam; as if I must have my own way; that all my love of kissing sunk, and I felt that I was wronging her. Only my mother had told me, when the girls were out of the ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... been running toward the ridge of sand, the avalanche bearing Cap'n Ira and the Queen of Sheba on its bosom swept down the slope of the huge windrow, but not altogether along its spine. The mass slid over one pitch of the ridge, and suddenly, following on the heels of Cap'n Ira's final question, the old man was shot to the beach, several tons of loose sand and the snorting mare almost on top ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... the rat-holes in the banks, a stupidity so crass that it merits instant death, which it somehow always escapes. Then they come out in couples and waddle under the wrong fence into the lower meadow, fly madly under the tool-house, pitch blindly in with the sitting hens, and out again in short order, all the time quacking and squawking, honking and hissing like a bewildered orchestra. By dint of splashing the water with poles, throwing pebbles, beating the shrubs at ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... character. He had, in fact, seen the wonderful orchestra-leader who, for more than fifty years, conducted the tumultuous concert of serious or court-vetues ideas, and who, always on the stage, always chief, the recognized leader of universal conversation, supplied the motives, gave the pitch, marked the measure, stamped the inspiration, and drew the first note on ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... at 'Enley, old oyster—I did 'ope you'd shove in your oar. We 'ad a rare barney, I tell you, although a bit spiled by the pour. 'Ad a invite to 'OPKINS's 'Ouse-boat, prime pitch, and swell party, yer know, Pooty girls, first-class lotion, and music. I tell yer we ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... In pitch this form of flute is considerably higher than the previous one but in other respects the music ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... his voice so low that Curdie could hear only a growl. The growl went on in the low bass for a good while, as inarticulate as if the goblin's tongue had been a sausage; and it was not until his wife spoke again that it rose to its former pitch. ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... from the upper octaves; in orchestral compositions a like opposition of heavy to light brasses, of cello to violin, of cymbals to triangle, is employed to produce rhythmical effects, the change being one in timbre, combined or uncombined with pitch variations; and in all percussive instruments, such as the drum and cymbals, the rhythmic impression depends solely on intensive variations. The peculiar rhythmic function does not lie in these elements, but in a process ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... particular voyage, which at once introduced the subject of fog at his table, a subject that was greedily pounced upon by all. London fog and other fogs were discussed, and no one noticed that the ship had come to a full stop and was gradually beginning to pitch heavily, a motion that soon had the effect of causing several of the ladies to abandon the conversation and play nervously with their coffee-spoons, as the nightmare of seasickness forced itself every moment ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... of a mazurka stole out of the open windows, and across the level could be seen a blaze of fat pine torches tied to poles and shedding lustre and black pitch over the negro quarters—they also were celebrating "Mahs Ken's" return. Above the dreamy system of the parlor dances they could hear at times the exuberant calls and shouts of laughter where the dark people made merry. ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... danger, or may be thrown wildly over the head. * * * In other cases there is a sudden and uncontrollable tendency to headlong flight; and so strong is this that the boldest soldiers may be seized with a sudden panic. As fear rises to an extreme pitch, the dreadful scream of terror is heard. Great beads of sweat stand on the skin. All the muscles of the body are relaxed. Utter prostration soon follows, and the mental powers fail. The intestines are affected. The sphincter muscles cease to act ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... over the houses, the lamp goes out—THE WINE HORN becomes shadow. Then from the doorway of the Inn, in the shrill grey light SEELCHEN comes forth. She is pale, as if wan with living; her eyes like pitch against the powdery whiteness of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... aroused themselves to such a pitch that they acted half insane. Forward they charged in howling masses—but the bullets and arrows pelted them thickly, more warriors fell—they scattered and ran away. ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... Thursday.—K. of K. read brief paper on Military Situation in Flanders. In matter of picturesque detail it did not quite come up to pitch of "EYE-WITNESS'S" despatches from the Front, which in the main it resembled. But it was as comforting as it was concise. Summed up in sentence the position to-day of Expeditionary Force: "Reinforcements have replaced our casualties, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... friend,—I received the other day your piano, and give you my best thanks. It arrived in good tune, and is exactly at concert-pitch. As yet I have not played much on it, for the weather is at present so fine that I am almost always in the open air. I wish you as pleasant weather for your holidays. Write me a few words (if you find that you have not sufficiently exercised your pen in the course of the day). May you all ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... forms of sculpture call for special attention. The decoration of armour reached a high pitch of elaboration; and the beautiful armour of Minamoto Yoshitsune is still preserved at Kasuga, Nara. And masks to be used in mimetic dances, such as the No, received attention from many great ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... the Project he has been hatching, for an English Academy to bring our Tongue to his pitch of Perfection, is that he has assign'd, that Task to the Tories, whose Wit have so distinguish'd them in all Times. If there had ever been a Man among 'em who had a right Notion of Letters or Language, who had any relish of Politeness, it had been something. But as there never was one, ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon
... little ill-natured, and writes, "Laugh, if thou art wise, girl, laugh, said Ovid, but he did not say this to all girls, not, for instance, to Maximina, who has only three teeth, and those the colour of pitch and boxwood. Avoid the pantomimes of Philistion and gay feasts. It befits you to sit beside an afflicted mother, and a wife lamenting her husband. Weep, if ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... expectations; for from her husband's representations of me, she had formed a notion that she was to see a fine, tall, officer-like looking man (I use her very words); the very reverse of which proved to be the truth. This was candid; and I had the civility not to ask her in return, how she came to pitch upon a standard of personal accomplishments for her husband's friends which differed so much from his own; for my friend's dimensions as near as possible approximate to mine; he standing five feet five in his shoes, in which I have the advantage of him by about half an inch; and he no ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... brought them in line ready dressed for a charge. I know not how you fared, gentlemen, but, with me, the sight of twenty such vagabonds would have been a joyous spectacle; we would have tossed that Captain Borroughcliffe and his recruits on the point of our bayonets, as the devil would pitch——" ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... help me out, I suppose," said the father of the twins, with a grin. "All right. Take off your coats, roll up your sleeves and pitch in. There is plenty ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... saw something white run away from me—I felt sure it was Mirza—and so I ran after it. But I could find nothing. I called 'Mirza! Mirza!' and still nothing. I searched under all the trees, and yet I could not find her. It was as dark as pitch, and suddenly a terrible fear seized hold of me—such a terrible fright that I really believe I called for help, and I ran back to ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... said the leader, "this will do you no good; we're bound to have that man, and if he won't come out we must go after him. If you stand in the way we'll pitch you aside. We ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... 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, and my next younger brother,—in subsequent ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... two out of the nullah we encountered the rest of the brigade, and gradually a troop from one unit or a squadron from another joined the column. By now it was pitch dark, but as far as one could judge we were taking a different route from that by which we had come. Our present direction was due west, and had we persisted in following it this route would have led us straight into the Turkish lines ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... question of how long he could stick on. He knew he would be done if the sorrel started to roll, but as yet the beast had shown no inclination that way. But as the bucks grew quicker and more jerky, Wilbur began to wonder within himself whether he would prefer to pitch over the pony's head or slide off over his tail. Suddenly, with a bound, the pony went up in the air and gave a double wriggle as he came down and Wilbur found himself on the ground before he knew what had happened. The sorrel, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... . . And though it is most certain that two lutes, being both strung and tuned to an equal pitch, and then one played upon, the other, that is not touched, being laid upon a table at a fit distance, will (like an echo to a trumpet) warble a faint audible harmony in answer to the same tune; yet many will not believe there is any such thing as a sympathy of souls, and I am well pleased ...
— Andrew Lang's Introduction to The Compleat Angler • Andrew Lang
... Lord! where do the critic's rights begin Who has of literature some clear-cut notion, And hears a voice from Heaven say: "Pitch in"? He finds himself—alas, poor son of sin— Between the devil and the ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... brings ill luck.) The cooped-up dogmatists whose very citadel of belief he was attacking, and who had their hot water and boiling pitch and flaming brimstone ready for the assailants of their outer defences, withheld their missiles from him, and even sometimes, in a movement of involuntary human sympathy, sprinkled him with rose-water. His position in our Puritan New England was ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... lifeless grey of the perfume-or snuff-maker, it was a prison pallor of a bloodless lividness unknown today, the ghastly complexion of a wretch of the Middle Ages shut up till death in a damp, airless, pitch-dark in-pace. ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... with great difficulty, from fear of the stones and arrows hurled upon the assailants by the besieged, still neither the balistae nor the scorpions rested a moment, the first shooting javelins, and the latter hurling showers of stones, and baskets on fire, smeared with pitch and tar; and as these were perpetually rolled down, the engines halted as if rooted to the ground, and fiery darts and firebrands ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... some almost impassable passage of the hills that must yet be held. You see a gun of 6 inches or even of 8 inches emplaced where, had you been climbing for your pleasure, you would hardly have dared to pitch the smallest tent. You hear the story of how the piece was hoisted there by machinery first established upon the rock; of the blasting for emplacement; of the accidents after which it was finally emplaced; ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... wel to be drawen from this land, as from the exceeding large countries adioyning; there is nothing which our east and northerly countries doe yeelde, but the like also may be made in them as plentifully by time and industrie: namely, rosen, pitch, tarre, sope, ashes, deel boord, mastes for ships, hides, furres, flaxe, hempe, corne, cables, cordage, linnen-cloth, mettals, and many more. All which the countries will aford, and the soyle is ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... me, Mrs. Lovick—pray for me, Mrs. Smith, that I may—I have great need of your prayers.—This cruel man has discomposed me. His persecutions have given mea pain just here, [putting her hand to her heart.] What a step has he made me take to avoid him!—Who can touch pitch, and not be defiled? He had made a bad spirit take possession of me, I think—broken in upon all my duties —and will not yet, I doubt, let me be at rest. Indeed he is very cruel —but this is one of my ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... chateau that I heard the story—a story characteristic of modern warfare at its highest pitch—and felt its thrill when told by the tongues of its participants. There were twenty bedrooms in that chateau. If I wished to stay all night I might occupy three or four. As for the bathroom, paradise to men who have been buried ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... crop." So the woolly backs are bent all the night, the soft ears not erected as by day, but laid back against the shoulders. Sheep sleep little. They lie down suddenly, as though they were settled for the night; but in a little there is an unsteady pitch fore and aft, and the animal is again at the work of munching, steadily and apparently mechanically. I have often half believed that sheep can eat and walk and sleep all at the same time. A bivouac of sheep without ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... name and age and etc. and what I done in civil life so I said "I guess you don't read the sporting page." So he says "Oh are you a fighter or something?" So I said "I am a fighter now but I use to pitch for the White Sox." So then he asked me what I done before that so I told him I was with Terre Haute in the Central League and Comiskey heard about me and bought me and then he sent me out to Frisco for a while and I stood that league ...
— Treat 'em Rough - Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer • Ring W. Lardner |
