"Solid ground" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... don't croak, if you've got a chance to laugh! There's few enough chances in this world," cried Eva, with boisterous good humor. "As for me, I've come out of deep waters, and I'm goin' to take what comfort I can in the feel of the solid ground under my feet." She began to force Amabel into a dance in time with the music, and ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... and for a moment watched the car laboriously climb the Sacramento Street hill and disappear over the crest; then we turned for another look at the mass of buildings now resting on the solid ground which had taken the place of the shining waters of Yerba ...
— The Lure of San Francisco - A Romance Amid Old Landmarks • Elizabeth Gray Potter and Mabel Thayer Gray
... making desperate efforts to cling to the trail with its fore feet, at the same time trying to get its hind feet back on solid ground. That effort was fatal. Little by little the frightened beast slipped toward the great gulf. Evidently realizing the fate that was in store for ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... surveys of his surroundings before trusting his feet on solid ground again. When he found himself there he grasped his rifle firmly, half expecting the formidable cougar to pounce upon him from some hiding-place; but everything remained quiet, and he finally ventured to move off toward the eastward, feeling quite nervous until he had gone a couple ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... the landscape. "'T ain't reasonable," he said, jealously. "A thing o't to be wuth more'n a picter of it. There's more to a thing." He struck the solid ground of fact ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... "and yet I should like to see these new-fangled theories about Scriptural inspiration, plenary or otherwise, lifted from the shaking quagmires of conjecture onto the solid ground of demonstration." ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... roads criss-cross in riotous manner over the vast tapestry; pleasant villages and farm buildings snuggle in the valleys or straggle on the slopes. The wide and changing perspective is full of a harmony unspoiled by the jarring notes evident on solid ground. Ugliness and dirt are camouflaged by the clean top of everything. Grimy towns and jerry-built suburbs seem almost attractive when seen in mass from a height. Slums, the dead uniformity of long rows of houses, sordid back-gardens, bourgeois public statues—all ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... took a deep hold upon her. The real cause of Archie's death was the wine he had taken in the house of her friend. But for that he could never have lost his way in the streets of his native city, never have stepped from solid ground into the ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... by this time coming back from the horses. In his fear of being seen the boy rendered detection certain by nervous motion. The heather and peat stratum overhung the brow of the pit in mats, hiding the actual verge. The boy had stepped beyond the solid ground; the heather now gave way, and down he rolled over the scarp of grey sand to the ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... "Solid ground for me, every time, except when I'm in swimming, or skimming along over the ice in winter!" Andy interjected, without once removing his eager eyes from the object that had so suddenly caught ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... shallow, usually about two feet, and in Persia the grave is often arched over with soft mud bricks; these weaken and dissolve after the rains and snows of winter, and a cemetery becomes a place of exposed remains and of pitfalls, where an unwary step on what appears solid ground may precipitate one into the undesirable company of a skeleton. By the time Semnoon is reached the day has grown warmer, and the sun favors the cold, dismal earth with a few genial rays, so that the blooming orchards of peach and pomegranate that brighten and enliven the environs ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... solid ground for man; the deductions he draws from them are a very different matter. Outside the facts of nature all is a question of probabilities, and the most that can be said is that some conclusions are ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... remarked, "is an absurdity of the almanac, it is a daily pretext that men have invented in order to put off their business today. Tomorrow may be an earthquake. Today, at any rate, we are on solid ground." ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... commerce and industry of the country, however, it must be acknowledged, though they may be somewhat augmented, cannot be altogether so secure, when they are thus, as it were, suspended upon the Daedalian wings of paper money, as when they travel about upon the solid ground of gold and silver. Over and above the accidents to which they are exposed from the unskilfulness of the conductors of this paper money, they are liable to several others, from which no prudence or skill of those ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... question of the place of warfare in Nature and the effect of war on the human race. These have long been debated problems concerning which there is no complete agreement. But until we make up our minds on these fundamental questions we can gain no solid ground from which to face serenely, or at all events firmly, the crisis through which mankind is ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... master, as he mounted the heavy stone stairs to an upper floor, pointing, as he spoke, to a new and beautiful boat, which lay in a corner of the large vestibule, as carriages are seen standing in the courts of houses built on more solid ground. "He who would find favor with Jupiter must put his own shoulder to the wheel, ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... attempt to reply, but kept sidling my way along slowly and cautiously, and finding the task much easier than I thought it would prove; in fact, if it had been solid ground below me instead of that awful torrent, I felt that the task would have been nothing. It was the thought that a slip would be fatal which made all the difference, and I had hard work to resist the ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... giving it a bend towards Circaeum to make it enter the sea by Tarracina, with the view of giving security and facility to those who came to Rome for the purpose of trade: besides this he designed to draw off the water from the marshes about Pomentium and Setia,[586] and to make them solid ground, which would employ many thousands of men in the cultivation; and where the sea was nearest to Rome he designed to place barriers to it by means of moles, and after clearing away the hidden rocks and dangerous places on the shore of Ostia[587] to ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... hot stones fell like hail on every side, setting fire to the dead wood which, after so long a rest, had completely grown over the ground, and causing it at night to assume the appearance of one vast mountain of flame. For fifteen hours the solid ground rolled like a wave of the sea. Fort Orange, which had withstood numberless earthquakes for two centuries and a quarter, was almost overwhelmed. The people betook themselves to their boats, for the ocean and land seemed to have exchanged natures; the ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... that followed as a consequence of his own acts. The Irish Party leaders, who had a few months before still persisted in describing the Ulster preparations as "a masquerade" and "a sham," were now in a state of funk and panic. They found the solid ground they thought they had stood on rapidly slipping from under them. There was to be no prosecution of the Ulster leaders, no proclamation of their organisation, nothing to compel them to surrender the arms they had so brazenly and ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... sawing for a moment. "What say, men? Let's be Yankee sailors from this time on! We'll be the right sort, eh? We'll put this brave little girl where she belongs—on God's solid ground!" ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... made camp outside the spaceship. There was no reason to leave the comfortable quarters inside the ship, except that, faced with a possibility of sleeping on solid ground, they ...
— The Planet with No Nightmare • Jim Harmon
... was fighting her way through the gale, those aboard ate a midnight lunch, with as good appetites as though they were on solid ground. For, in spite of the fact that they were in the midst of danger, they were fairly comfortable. True the aircraft was tilted upward, for she was still climbing on a steep slant, but they had gotten used to this. The gyroscope stabilizer ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... many legends. It is, indeed, a remarkable territory. In summer it seems a vast moor carpeted by glowing purple heather, which one can traverse up to a certain point, but woe betide him who would advance farther, for, surrounded by what seems solid ground, lies a treacherous quagmire declared by the people of the neighbourhood to be unfathomable. This part of the bog, whose victims have been many, is known as the Youdic. As one leans over it its waters may sometimes be seen to simmer and ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... horns and is tied by a rope;" which proved to be the case, for there stood the only object that bore my name, chewing its cud, on the forward deck. How she liked the voyage I could not find out; but she seemed to relish so much the feeling of solid ground beneath her feet once more, that she led me a lively step all the way home. She cut capers in front of the White House, and tried twice to wind me up in the rope as we passed the Treasury. She ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... the roots of the bullock's horns, and the team was attached to the fall. Then a slow, steady strain drove Damper's nose into the ground, and gently shifted him, first forward, then upward, then on to the surface, where he slid smoothly to the solid ground. We released him there, and he staggered to his feet, shook himself thoroughly, and followed the team to the camp, ravenously snatching mouthfuls of ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... broke in earnest over the Hudson Bay territory that day, and despite the efforts of the voyagers they could not rise in the Snowbird above the tempest. Had there been solid ground beneath them they could easily have descended and remained upon terra firma until the storm ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... time it lost that reputation. It's all very well to hang on to your dignity when you're on solid ground, but when you feel things slipping from under you the thing to do is to grab on to anything that'll keep you on your feet for a while at least. I tell you the women will go wild over this knickerbocker idea. They've been waiting ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... you, than for any I shall take in recalling my own. I say there has been but one event in my life; it was that which left me an orphan. O girls, we speak of Clara's coming down to the ground; we speak of seeing our way clear, and treading on solid ground; these are expressions of those whose feet only would walk upon the ground, while their hearts and eyes are on a level with those about them, who have never known how hard to the forehead is the ground, when all we love lie ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... on it, otherwise the statue was uninjured. The clock on the shattered Parish Church recorded the fatal hour when it had stopped in the general ruin: 2.42 p.m. As far as I could learn, the earthquake had not taken the form of a trembling motion, but the solid ground had twice risen and fallen eight feet, a sort of land-wave, which apparently was confined to the light sandy Liguanea plain, for where the mountains began no shock had been felt. The fine old church of St. Andrew had been originally ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... aloud, at the same time trying to help the horse with a lift of the reins. It was too late to turn back. Her only salvation lay in reaching the solid ground such a few yards ahead—and yet so fearfully far away. Old Blue struggled madly to go forward, gaining a little but at each effort sinking deeper into the sand. Carolyn June tried to ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... be on solid ground and away from this powder mill. You know that sometimes there is such a thing as an unaccountable explosion. A heavy sea must cause motion or friction in the cargo, and friction often starts a fire on shipboard. Fire on this vessel means a ...
— Frank Merriwell's Nobility - The Tragedy of the Ocean Tramp • Burt L. Standish (AKA Gilbert Patten)
... Reaching solid ground again, there was another easier spell of bush tramping. Then the trail began the ascent of a hill—a rocky, loose-bouldered slope that could only be traversed by a narrow path that somewhat resembled a strip of ribbon on the ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... and discriminating type, such as M. Bourget, mingle not a little vinegar with their syrup of appreciation. But the fact remains that almost every book on the United States contains a chapter devoted explicitly to the female citizen; and the inevitableness of the record must have some solid ground of reason behind or below it. It indicates a vein of unusual significance, or at the very least of unusual conspicuousness, in the phenomenon thus treated of. Observers have usually found it possible to write books on the social and economical traits of other countries without ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... tastes every moment of the day; likes pain because it makes him feel himself and realize things; as we pinch ourselves to know that we are awake. He keeps the plain; he rarely mounts or sinks; likes to feel solid ground and the stones underneath. His writing has no enthusiasms, no aspiration; contented, self-respecting, and keeping the middle of the road. There is but one exception,—in his love for Socrates. In speaking of him, for once his cheek flushes and ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... part, they threw turpentine balls between the lines, which would certainly have disclosed any outward movement, but the movement was inward, and their handsome fires availed them nothing. This experiment, however, was followed by another, more successful. By placing a drum on the solid ground and a marble on the head of it, they discovered a jar in the earth. This was sufficient, and gathering up their traps they evacuated early in the evening of the 2nd of July, our forces following on the morning ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear
... appeared to decrease slightly. The damp mist began to clear away, and a sudden gleam of light revealed a low-lying shore about six miles distant. They were driving right down on it. Enormous breakers fifty feet high were dashing over it, and the fact of their height showed John there must be solid ground before they could make ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... globe and subsequent masses; an origin, therefore, which cannot be considered as having been produced from natural operations, or as effected in the course of known causes. Now, if it can be made to appear, that there is no solid ground for this distinction; and if it can be shown, that there is truly no mineral body in this earth which may not have been produced by operations natural to the globe, we should thus procure a certain confirmation ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... relief to Denis; it was like a piece of solid ground to a man laboring in a morass; his mind seized upon it with avidity; and he stood staring at it and trying to piece together some logical conception of his surroundings. Plainly there was a flight of steps ascending from his own level to ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... the course of his journey, subscriptions poured in to the extent of one thousand; and Mr. C. on his return, after what might be called a triumph, discovered the elasticity of his spirit; smiling at past depressions, and now, on solid ground, anticipating ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... considerable commercial interests. Away from the coasts the limits and extent of the sultan's authority were far from being clearly defined. The sultan himself claimed that it extended as far as Lake Tanganyika, but the claim did not rest on any very solid ground of effective occupation. The little-known region of the Great Lakes had for some time attracted the attention of the men who were directing the colonial movement in Germany; and, as has been stated, a small band of pioneers actually landed on the mainland opposite Zanzibar in November 1884, and made ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... for the first ten minutes fully occupied in trying to keep a respectable distance from a number of dogs of all sizes and breeds, which had the usual appetite for fresh meat and tweed trowsering, and, at the same time, endeavouring in vain to find solid ground upon which to stand, for the place at the entrance and all round the tents was one regular mass of deep "slush." It soon became known that my pockets were plentifully supplied with half-ounces of tobacco and sweets. These ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... never!" ejaculated Miss Polly, rooted to the spot. "Well, I never!" In the ten years she had lived with Gabriella she had never seen her cry—not even after George's flight—and she felt as if the solid ground on which she stood had crumbled without warning, and left her insecurely balanced in space. "Something certainly must be wrong, for it ain't like you to give way. Are you real sure you ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... she was privately congratulatory to as great an extent as her husband would allow her to go, and which ended with a hope that if they lived to be married they would content themselves with doing their explorations on solid ground. She did not want to come back until she had seen the pole, but some of her ideas about that kind of travelling were getting to be a good deal more fixed than they ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... the face back of them is that of a friend to me now. We'll shake again. Good-by;" and I went home feeling as if I had solid ground under my feet. At supper I went over the whole scene, taking off the man in humorous pantomime, not ridicule, and even my wife grew hilarious over her disappointed hopes of the "new-fangled truck." I managed, however, that the children ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... formed the deeps unknown; He gave the seas their bound; The watery worlds are all his own, And all the solid ground. ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... of the glaciere, near the entrance, was occupied by a columnar cascade, behind which I forced a passage by chopping away some lovely ornaments of ice. Here also the solid ground-ice falls away a little under the surface, leaving a cavern 8 or 9 feet deep, on the rock side of which every possible glacial fantasy was to be found. The stalactites here presented the peculiar prismatic structure so often noticed; ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... the spectre of the dog, and the different objects thrown out of the projectile, which obstinately accompanied it. Diana howled lamentably when she perceived the remains of Satellite. All the things seemed as motionless as if they had rested upon solid ground. ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... either side are full of water birds. One of the most common is a small chestnut-brown wading bird—the jacana—whose toes are immensely long in proportion to its size, enabling it to run over the surface of the aquatic vegetation as if it were solid ground. It is their breeding season—January. At every turn of the boat we start them up—usually in pairs. Their flat, open nests generally contain five flesh-coloured eggs, streaked in zig-zag with dark brown lines. Among the other ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... of these great universities is the most epoch-making feature of our American civilization, and they are to become more and more the leaders and the makers of our civilization. They are of the people. When a state university has gained solid ground, it means that the people of a whole state have turned their faces toward the light; it means that the whole system of state schools has been welded into an effective agent for civilization. Those ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... slavery. It is that accursed system that obscures their reason. If they fight, the best of them will fight out of a mistaken loyalty to their State, but most will fight for the right to keep their slaves.... If you are to have bridges, you must have solid ground at both ends. I've heard a tale of some church members that wanted to build a bridge over a dangerous river. Brother Jones suggested one Myers, and Myers answered that, if necessary, he could build one to hell. This alarmed the church members, and Jones, to ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... the boat, and dragged him down to the bottom. It was a lucky thing that Hans had his walking-stick with him that day, and had just time to catch hold of it when he felt Old Eric's claws in his neck, so when they got down to the bottom he said, 'Stop now, just wait a little; here is solid ground.' With that he caught Old Eric by the back of the neck with one hand, and hammered away on his back with the staff, till he beat him out as flat as a pancake. Old Eric then began to lament and howl, begging him just to ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... found the mason and his men at work on the cellar wall, which was almost to the top of the ground. The house was on wheels, and had made most of its journey. The house mover was in a rage because he had to put the house on a hole instead of on solid ground, as he had expected. "I have sent for every stick of timber and every cobbling block I own, to get this house over that hole; there's no money in this job for me; you ought to have dug the cellar after the house was placed," ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... great THREE-ONE we find A Saving with a Dooming Godhead joyn'd. (But why, oh why! if such restraining pow'r Can bind Omnipotence, should Kings wish more?) A Constitution, so Divinely mixt, Not Natures bounded Elements more fixt. Thus Earths vast Frame with firm and solid ground, } Stands in a foaming Ocean circled round; } Yet This not overflowing, That not drown'd. } But to rebuild their Altars, and enstal Their Moulten Gods, the Sanedrin must fall; That Constellation of the Jewish Pow'r, All blotted ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... which had taken place in the traditional texts and ritual have little solid ground for the popular devotion entertained for them. The liturgy was corrupted by the superstitious veneration paid it by the ignorant. False readings had crept into the books which contained the various local "uses," to borrow a term from the Anglican ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... shot; 'Twas wise of George, a second shot Might have consigned to luckless pot, His marksman's name, and half a shilling, His renown in the art of killing. It was a stirring place of trade Where famous spinning tops were made. And splendid water power was found Where now there's nought but solid ground, Covered with numerous loads of wood, A costly item bad or good. In modern times—of old it stood, Maple at ninety cents a cord, Just four and six-pence, by my word! And Julius Burpee, gone! well, well! He kept the old Rideau Hotel, ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... burden reached the lowest rung of the ladder, Ida was unconscious. She lay lifeless and helpless in her preserver's arms. When they were on the solid ground, he bent his bare head over hers, which rested on his shoulder, and kissed ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... been, and must be, when the affairs of life, in courts of law and the relations of society, or the conduct or feelings of individuals, are suffered to be under the control of fanciful or mystical notions. When a whole people abandons the solid ground of common sense, overleaps the boundaries of human knowledge, gives itself up to wild reveries, and lets loose its passions without restraint, it presents a spectacle more terrific to behold, and becomes more destructive and disastrous, than any convulsion of mere material nature; ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... drew nigh, and only four ships were able to take their intended places; the other two had to anchor outside their consorts, and fire as they could through the intervals. This mishap lessened by one-third the fighting power of the British, and, coupled with the acknowledged superiority of guns on solid ground over those afloat, reduced them to inferiority. Their disadvantage was increased by the arrangements of the French admiral, carefully elaborated during the two preceding days. Had the preparations of Brueys at the Nile equalled those ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... establishment of this, to us, somewhat unwelcome fact marked an increase of positive human knowledge of the territory that bears the name of King Edward VII.; and with the geological specimens that we had collected, we were in possession of a tangible proof of the actual existence of solid ground in a region which otherwise bore the greatest resemblance to what we called "Barrier" elsewhere, or in any case to the Barrier as it appears in the neighbourhood of ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... and caught the tree closer, when it, too, leaned to fall. It hung for a moment over the steep slope, and I could not save myself. The frost had not clamped the over-hang to the solid ground. The last fall rains had cut it under; the first spring thaw would have brought it down, had not my weight been ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... correspondence, the critical acuteness of the editor was imposed upon, and that some of the letters inserted were not written by the persons alleged to be the authors. But of the majority of the letters there seems no solid ground for questioning the authenticity. Indeed, in the later and more important portion of the correspondence, that which belongs to the period after the death of the Empress-queen, the genuineness of the Queen's letters is continually supported by ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... country" when he remembered that God was just and that "His justice would not sleep forever." Patrick Henry said "that a serious view of this subject gives a gloomy prospect to future times." So Mason and other patriots wrote and felt, fully impressed that the high, solid ground of right and justice had been left for the ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... have referred, M. Filhol describes no fewer than seventeen varieties of the genus Cynodictis, which fill up all the interval between the viverine animals and the bear-like dog Amphicyon; nor do I know any solid ground of objection to the supposition that, in this Cynodictis-Amphicyon group, we have the stock whence all the Viveridae, Felidae, Hyaenidae, Canidae, and perhaps the Procyonidae and Ursidae, of the present fauna have been evolved. On the contrary, ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... expression when William was momentous at Hastings, and when Pitt solemnly ordered the map of Europe to be rolled up, was in accord with the light in the elm, and the superior and convincing insolence of the blackbirds. They all suggested the tantalizing idea that solid ground is near us, in this unreasonable world of anxious change, if only we had intelligence enough to know ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... flourishing capital P, embellished with floral wreaths. Eventually some of the silver went the way of the piano and washing machine. But Milly Pardee clung stubbornly to a dozen and a half of everything. She seemed to feel that if once she had less than eighteen fish forks the last of the solid ground of family respectability would sink under her feet. For years she carried that silver about wrapped in trunks full of the precious linen, and in old underwear and cotton flannel kimonos and Sam's silk socks and Maxine's discarded baby-clothes. ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... on wave, you see the woods and orchard, the fields of ripe corn, and the meadows reaching to the reed-beds by the river. You see me standing here beside you, and hear my voice; but I tell you that all these things—yes, from that star that has just shone out in the sky to the solid ground beneath our feet—I say that all these are but dreams and shadows; the shadows that hide the real world from our eyes. There is a real world, but it is beyond this glamour and this vision, beyond these ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... account of the clear evidence of miraculous occurrences in the New Testament (evidence which is valid, even if that book was not inspired). Thus, a stand could be taken against the generalization of science on the firm ground of historical fact. That solid ground, however, has given ...
— A History of Freedom of Thought • John Bagnell Bury
... catholicity of sentiment and charity of spirit, Dr. Ryerson was a man of strong convictions, and he always had the courage of his convictions as well. When it came to a question of principle he was as rigid as iron. Then he planted himself on the solid ground of what he believed to be right, and ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... company, whose work it was to set things right, Eudoxia Pence felt smaller than ever. What were her imponderable emanations of goodwill and good intention when compared with the robust masculinity that was marching in firm phalanxes over solid ground toward the mastery of the great Problem? She drooped visibly. Little O'Grady, studying her pose and expression from afar, wrung his hands. "That fellow will drive her away. Ten to one we shall never see her profile here again!" Yes, Eudoxia was feeling, with a sudden ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... acknowledged him as the most capable of modern theologians and historians, he spoke of the hopelessness of trying to discover the meaning of terms used in definitions. To his archbishop he wrote that men may discuss the mysteries of faith to the last day without avail; "we stand here on the solid ground of history, evidence, and fact." Expressing his innermost thought, that religion exists to make men better, and that the ethical quality of dogma constitutes its value, he once said: "Tantum valet quantum ad corrigendum, purgandum, sanctificandum hominem confert." In theology ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... direction to the Zuyder Zee. Thus these two great marshes were a frame—an almost impassable barrier—by which the northern third of the whole territory of the republic was encircled and defended. Throughout this great morass there was not a hand-breadth of solid ground—not a resting-place for a human foot, save the road which led through Coeworden. This passage lay upon a natural deposit of hard, dry sand, interposed as if by a caprice of nature between the two swamps; and was about half a mile ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... prenotion; whereof the one is honoured with the inquiry of Aristotle, and the other of Hippocrates. And although they have of later time been used to be coupled with superstitions and fantastical arts, yet being purged and restored to their true state, they have both of them a solid ground in Nature, and a profitable use in life. The first is physiognomy, which discovereth the disposition of the mind by the lineaments of the body. The second is the exposition of natural dreams, which discovereth the state of the body by the ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... those tubes which might direct their powers downward or laterally upon the earth were capable of instantaneously propelling every portion of solid ground or rock to a distance of two or three hundred yards, while the particles of objects on the surface of the earth were instantaneously removed to a far greater distance. The tube which propelled the bomb was of a force graduated according to circumstances, and it would carry a bomb to as ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... say that swimming is an impossible thing, inasmuch as, to learn to swim, we must begin by holding ourselves up in the water and, consequently, already know how to swim. Reasoning, in fact, always nails us down to the solid ground. But if, quite simply, I throw myself into the water without fear, I may keep myself up well enough at first by merely struggling, and gradually adapt myself to the new environment: I shall thus have learnt to swim. So, ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... smaller crevasses, but they could make their way around the ends of these, and it was not long before they had scrambled over the rocks at the glacier's edge and once more stood on solid ground. Even Bello seemed to realize that their troubles were now nearly over, for he barked and ran round them in circles and leaped up with his paws on their shoulders to give them dog kisses, and, as for his tail—he ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... This region is composed of vast tundras or marshes and the balance of the entire province is covered with almost impenetrable forests of pine and evergreen of different varieties. The tundras or marshes are very treacherous, for the traveler marching along on what appears to be a rough strip of solid ground, suddenly may feel the same give way and he is precipitated into a bath of ice cold muddy water. Great areas of these tundras are nothing more than a thickly woven matting of grasses and weeds overgrowing creeks or ponds and many a lonely traveler has been known to disappear in one of ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... these Germans as their duty to make one parcel of everything artistic there is in a country and swallow it whole; which seems to an ignoramus like me, a stupid piece of pretentiousness. The French, on the contrary, are on more solid ground; they don't understand anything that is not French, and they travel to have the pleasure of saying that Paris is the finest thing ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... came creeping up from his gun in the ravine, and called to me, "Ned, that isn't making batter-cakes, is it?" The constant recoiling of our gun cut great furrows in the earth, which made it necessary to move several times to more solid ground. In these different positions which we occupied three of the enemy's shells passed between the wheels and under the axle of our gun, bursting at the trail. One of them undermined the gunner's (Henry's) footing and injured him so as to necessitate his ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... system; whereas it is really itself the parent of all that is systematic in our cognition of nature. These principles are not mere hypotheses employed for the purpose of experimenting upon nature; although when any such connection is discovered, it forms a solid ground for regarding the hypothetical unity as valid in the sphere of nature—and thus they are in this respect not without their use. But we go farther, and maintain that it is manifest that these principles ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... exaggeration of that sense of bodily realities which is one of the things that has always helped to secure for him the plain man's confidence. Throughout his life he kept his {20} feet firmly based on the solid ground of fact. Human life, as it is actually and visibly lived, was the subject of his study and conversation from first to last. He always put fine-spun theories to mercilessly positive tests such as the ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... soothe and tranquilize the passions, or that it may not be innocently used, or that it may not be made, under limitations, a cheerful companion in solitude. But it is urged against it, that it does not tend, like many other studies, to the improvement of the mind; that it affords no solid ground of comfort either in solitude or affliction; that it is a sensual gratification; and that sensual gratifications, if indulged in leisure hours, take up the time which should be devoted to those of a higher nature, that is, intellectual and moral pursuits. It ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... mirror in such a position that the infatuated man shall see reflected in it the under and ailing side of the beam that lies between him and the abyss. The work is done: the object is gained: the confident fool, made wise at length, leaps for life upon the solid ground. ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... trembling. She was conscious more than anything else of the vast spaces about her in every direction, of the loneliness of the spot, and her own desolate condition. She had wanted the horse to stop and let her get down to solid ground, and now that he had done so and she might dismount a great horror filled her and she dared not. But with the lessening of the need for keeping up the tense strain of nerve and muscle, she suddenly ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... in the atmosphere of this literary feud, from which we draw confirmatory proof that our theory stands on the solid ground of historical fact. ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... commence that delightful process of disruption which introduces this charming season of the year, the relative position of wolf and man is reversed. The snow becomes suddenly soft, so that the short legs of the wolf, sinking deep into it, fail to reach the solid ground below, and he is obliged to drag heavily along; while the long legs of the horse enable him to plunge through and dash aside the snow at a rate which, although not very fleet, is sufficient nevertheless to overtake the chase and give his rider ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... patriotism which, glowing like a central sun, burns away all the dross of our earlier materialism, gives as self-reliance, and frees us at last from our long tutelage to the Old World. And never had patriotism a more solid ground than ours, since the power, growth, and safety of our nationality are the progress, happiness, and prosperity of humanity itself. Everything that breathes the breath of human life, however opposed to it now, is really benefited by our growth. As a Government we stand first upon ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... slaying and the slain; 'Tis Richard bathes his hands in Moslem blood, And tinges Jordan with the purple flood. Yet where the timbrels ring, the trumpets sound, And tramp of horsemen shakes the solid ground, Though 'mid the deadly charge and rush of fight, No thought be theirs of terror or of flight,— Ofttimes a sigh will rise, a tear will flow, And youthful bosoms melt in silent woe; For who of iron frame and harder heart Can bid the mem'ry of his home depart? Tread the dark desert and ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... brought him to his feet, anxiety and dread in his heart. What could have become of Walter? It took the thoroughly alarmed lad but a moment to reach the wall where his chum had disappeared. He swarmed up it like a monkey and dropped down on the other side. But no solid ground met his descending feet. Instead, he crashed through leafy boughs and landed in a tangled mass of vines. In the second before the vines gave way under his weight, Charley succeeded in grasping a limb and swinging himself in to the trunk of the tree where he found a safe resting-place ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the wine, the extraordinary grandeur of the house, and the wonderful nature of the adventure altogether, Cherry hardly knew whether or not she any longer trod on solid ground as she pursued her way along the streets clinging tight to Cuthbert's arm. It was growing dusk now, and Cuthbert was anxious to get his charge home before the early darkness should have fallen upon the city. They hardly spoke as they wended their way. Cherry gave a little gasp from time to time indicative ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... from fifty to seventy-five yoke of oxen to haul them across, often being compelled to double the leading yoke as far back as the wheelers, then doubling again, would start them on a trot, and with all in line and pulling together, would land the deeply sunken wheels on solid ground. It took one entire day to again reach river trail, which was hard and smooth. O'Fallow's Bluffs was a point feared by freighters and emigrants alike. At this point many a band of pilgrims met destruction at the hands of the fiendish redskins of the ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... redemption of souls a precious and wonderful work, if it were considered! Would not souls stand at this anchor immoveable in temptation, if their faith were pitched on this sure foundation and their hope cast upon this solid ground! O know your Redeemer is strong and mighty, and none can pluck you out of his hand, and himself will cast none out that comes! If the multitude of you believed this you would not make so little account of the gospel that comes to you, and make so little of your sins which ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... will delineate with noble pathos, few can exceed in moral interest that which the Piazza of San Marco, at Venice, presented on Christmas Eve, 1821. There is not a spot in Europe, within the limits of a city, more distinctly remembered by the transatlantic traveller,—the only spacious area of solid ground under the open sky, in that marvellous old city of the sea,—the gay centre of a recreative population, where the costumes and physiognomies of the Orient and the West mingle in dramatic contrast,—the nucleus of historical and romantic associations, singularly domesticated in two hemispheres ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... "every man that is worth calling such has so much courage, see you, but there are different kinds. As Mr. Carlton well called it, there is land mettle, and that good swordsman was not afraid when his feet were on the solid ground, then there is sea mettle, and faith he had not much of that, a trifle too little, I grant you, for a gentleman. So it is in measure with us all I never saw the horse I would not mount or the wall within reason I would not take, but I cannot put my foot in a little boat ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... deduce the true laws of planetary motion. But after all these centuries the sidereal world embraced no objects, barring an occasional comet or temporary star, that lay beyond the vision of the earliest astronomers. The conceptions of the stellar universe, except those that ignored the solid ground of observation, were limited by the small aperture of the human eye. But the dawn of another age was ...
— The New Heavens • George Ellery Hale
... holding on to some rushes," the voice said, and Katherine fairly gasped with amazement to find the submerged one so close at hand; for the patch of rushes to which she was holding the boat was the only one anywhere near, and a little ridge of solid ground connected it with the river bank, which was perhaps ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... fear, only an overwhelming contempt. "I mean," she said, "that to save you—to leave you a chance of getting back to solid ground—Donovan and I deceived Burke. He supplied the money, and I put ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... from the crowds below kept us awake for some time, and that night in my dreams I still fancied that I was on the train and that I could hear the surging of the rails beneath me. Glad, indeed, was I the next morning to wake and find that I was once more on solid ground. ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... the bosom of the woman To the man, from sire to mother: the caressing and the fondling, All love's foolish playfulnesses, mirthful cry and shout of rapture, Alternating, deafen me. Naked, without wings, a genius, like a faun, with nothing bestial, On the solid ground he springeth; but the ground, with counter-action, Up to ether sends him flying; with the second, third rebounding Touches he the vaulted roof. Anxiously the mother calleth: Spring amain, and at thy pleasure; But beware, think not of flying, unto thee is flight denied. And ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... with the due attainment of the end proposed. If, therefore, any society shall deem the common good and interests of the whole society best promoted under the particular circumstances in which it is placed by a restriction of the right of suffrage, it is not easy to state any solid ground of objection to its exercise of such an authority. At least, if any society has a clear right to deprive females, constituting one-half of the whole population, of the right of suffrage (which, with scarcely an exception, has been uniformly maintained), it will require some astuteness to find upon ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... it attracts light-headed, variable men by its very awfulness. They have been so tried among the inconstant squalls and currents, so often sailed for islands in the air or lain becalmed with burning heart, that they will risk all for solid ground below their feet. Desperate pilots, they run their sea-sick, weary bark upon the dashing rocks. It seems as if marriage were the royal road through life, and realised, on the instant, what we have all dreamed on summer Sundays ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to find it. If a man put up for the club who had an open mind on the subject of property in umbrellas, I should blackball him. An open mind is all very well in clever talky-talky; but in conduct and in business give me solid ground. ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... not my own! You shall see all that it writes. I will seem to you no better than I am. I do not tell you to be a Republican, but an Italian. If I had room for myself in my prayers—oh! one half-instant to look on you, though with chains on my limbs. The sky and the solid ground break up when I think of you. I fancy I am still in prison. Angelo was music to me for two whole days (without a morning to the first and a night to the second). He will be here to-morrow and talk of you again. I long for him more than for battle—almost ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... He felt solid ground under his feet, and his eyes, snapping open, saw an alien land. It was a land of somber color, with great gray moors, and beetling black cliffs. There was something queer about it, an ...
— Hellhounds of the Cosmos • Clifford Donald Simak
... of fact, the great number of the animals had filled the narrow gully, and the last few charged across the bodies of their fallen comrades to solid ground ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... beads. Perhaps his suspicions were not on any too solid ground. Yet a string of jade beads like that in exchange! Something ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... ready.) Space bows before such a man, and shrivels itself up into a mere nothing. Land and water are alike to such a one. It matters not to him whether the waves roll beneath his possessions, or the solid ground upholds them. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... downward. There lay the great shell directly under him, although under it and around it, extending as far beneath it as it extended in every other direction, shone the light from his own lamp. Nevertheless, that great shell, weighing many tons, lay as if it rested upon the solid ground! ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... Burns? Lite and I offered to take you out on solid ground, but your man seemed to think ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... out to them, making the last few rods in low gear and knowing how risky it was to stop. They were rather helpless, he had to admit, and did all the standing around while Casey did all the work. But he shoveled the rear wheels out, waded back to the tiny island of solid ground and gathered an armful of brush, which he crowded in front of the wheels, covering himself with mud thereby; then he tied the tow rope he carried for emergencies like this, waded to the Ford, cranked and trusted the ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... of the patriotic member of the opposition who formed the regulator and balance-wheel of the Commission. When Senator Gray objected, we all reexamined the processes of our reasoning. When he assented, we knew at once we must be on solid ground and went ahead. It was an expected gratification to have with you also the accomplished secretary and counsel to the Commission, a man as modest and unobtrusive as its president, and, like him, equal to any summons. In his regretted ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... it was right for you to go, and I know you will go again should there be the slightest occasion. Therefore I am eager to reach solid ground. Please, Webb." ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... substantial virtues which gave him a firm place in the memory of his parishioners. But the fact that after he resigned his ministry he was recorded as "remarkably blest in private estate," shows some slight foundation for the suggestion, and gives solid ground for Dudley's special ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... delay and several journeys by Champlain to Rouen, these difficulties were overcome. There was, indeed, no solid ground of opposition, as none were debarred from engaging in the enterprise who were willing to share in the burdens as ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... whole material of an advanced civilization. But the legends were manifestly largely imaginative—deities and demi-gods, men and fabulous monsters, were mingled in them on the same plane—and it seemed impossible that we should ever get back to the solid ground, if solid ground had ever existed, on which ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... his generous blood like water, before he knew whether it would fertilize a land of freedom or of bondage!—how shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle the utterance of thy name! Our poor work may perish; but thine shall endure! This monument may moulder away; the solid ground it rests upon may sink down to a level with the sea; but thy memory shall not fail! Wheresoever among men a heart shall be found that beats to the transports of patriotism and liberty, its aspirations shall be to claim kindred ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... up and meet the descending machine. It looked as if a terrific smash were inevitable. A sea-plane alighting upon solid ground has a thousand chances against her, for, being unprovided with landing wheels, she is not adapted to withstand successfully the impact ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... because mercy is justice; and declares with what measure we mete to others, it shall be surely measured to us again. If therefore my words shall seem to some here, to be not so much a humble request as a peremptory demand, I cannot help it. I have pleaded the cause of this hospital on the only solid ground of which I am aware, for doing anything but evil to everyone around us who is not a private friend, or a member of one's own family. I ask you to help the poor to their share in the gifts which Christ ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... ayuda nino," said the Governor to me; I feared we should never play chess any more. "Que tonteria, andar a dormir in una barca, quando se lo podia sobre tierra firma!" (What folly to go sleep in a boat, when it can be done upon solid ground!) ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... black foetid mud in a semi-liquid state, so that in order to land it was necessary for us to make our way as best we could for a distance of some two hundred feet over the roots of the mangrove trees which thickly bordered the stream, before we were enabled to place our feet on solid ground. ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... now, unreservedly glad, that Tavender had come to London, that things had turned out as they had. In truth, he stood now for the first time on solid ground. When he thought of it, now, the risk he had been running all these months gave him a little sinking of the heart. Upon reflection, the performance of having sold the same property first to Tavender in Mexico and then to the Rubber Consols ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... to the fascinating bait. She considered it enchanting to live in a house where she could be acquainted with the cook stove; and Miss Martha felt that she had sheered off the thin ice upon solid ground at last. ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... could not remember her name, it was equally possible that already she had forgotten his. Conscience was always digging sudden pits for his feet and common sense ridiculing his fears. Mirages, over which he was constantly throwing bridges which were wasted efforts, since invariably they spanned solid ground. ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... closely locked together for the purpose of transhipping the coal. But notwithstanding the breeze, the day was so hot as to deter Captain Semmes from visiting the shore, despite the inevitable longing, after a confinement on board of more than three months, to find the foot once more planted on solid ground. Some of the other officers, however, explored the island, which they found a barren place enough; the three herdsmen, who constitute the entire population of the country, maintaining themselves after a fashion, by rearing ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... found access to a black bog, of tremendous extent, full of large pit-holes, which they traversed with great difficulty and some danger, by tracks which no one but a Highlander could have followed. The path itself, or rather the portion of more solid ground on which the travellers half walked, half waded, was rough, broken, and in many places quaggy and unsound. Sometimes the ground was so completely unsafe that it was necessary to spring from one hillock to another, the ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... the woodmen began to probe with the end of a staff among the ivy. For some time he was met by the solid ground, but presently the butt of the staff went through suddenly, pitching him on his head, amid a suppressed laugh ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... from the waters that Cortes saw flowing in ample canals through all the streets. Formerly the houses stood on elevated piles and were independent of the floods which rose in Lake Tezcuco by the overflowing of other lakes on a higher level. But when the foundations were on solid ground it became necessary to provide against the accumulated volume of water by excavating a tunnel to drain off the flood. This was constructed about one hundred years after the invasion of the Spaniards, and has been described by Humboldt as "one of ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... much deliberation was necessary. It was foreseen that his Lordship would have recourse to art. If he was tried as a commoner he might claim to be a peer; if tried as a peer he might claim to be a commoner. Everything was fully considered; the true solid ground upon which he was tried as a peer, was the presumption in favour of the ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... is doing now!" exclaimed Ralph, clutching the sleeve of his companion's coat in his excitement. "He's headed the nose of the air craft downward, and seems to be just whooping it up for solid ground! I hope nothing has happened, or that they'll strike hard, for poor Bud will be smashed, ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... sergeant, as he appeared to be from the chevrons on his arm, advanced and asked for the commanding officer; and Deck was pointed out by the riflemen, as his men ascended the bank to the solid ground. He presented himself to the lieutenant, ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... weak becomes a stepping-stone in the pathway of the resolute. The difficulties which dishearten one man only stiffen the sinews of another, who looks on them as a sort of mental spring-board by which to vault across the gulf of failure to the sure, solid ground of full success. ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... precedence of the ornamental. The latter is not to be despised when in company with the former; nor has it been, for not a few who were once on the anti-popular side have entered public life, and even secured the highest prizes. This necessitated a descent from cloudland to the solid ground of colonial society. The alternative was extinction, and wisely, in most cases, the ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... being everywhere, and traverses the whole heaven in divers forms appearing—when perfect and fully winged she soars upward, and orders the whole world; whereas the imperfect soul, losing her wings and drooping in her flight at last settles on the solid ground—there, finding a home, she receives an earthly frame which appears to be self-moved, but is really moved by her power; and this composition of soul and body is called a living and mortal creature. For immortal no such union can be reasonably believed to be; although fancy, ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... principles which created and are to keep us a united nation. Let us not tempt the strength of the ice that covers the waters of political and partisan problems, while we have enough to do to protect and cover the solid ground already in our possession. The President of the United States, be he who or what he may—think he how or what he will, enact he what he chooses—is, let us remember, the corner stone of our political liberty. The Constitution is a piece of parchment—sacred and to be revered—but ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... sufficient faculty left to hate the English, to oppress the people, to be corrupt and venal beyond all conception, and to appoint subordinates as flagitious as himself. 'Bad ministers,' wrote Burnes, 'are in every government solid ground for unpopularity; and I doubt if ever a king had a worse set than has Shah Soojah.' The oppressed people appealed to the British functionaries, who remonstrated with the minister, and the minister punished the ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... appeared very unlikely ever to take place—namely, the junction of inhabited dwellings with the trees of Mahim—seems to be in rapid course of fulfilment; the land has been drained, many portions formerly impassable filled up, and rendered solid ground, while the houses are extending so fast, that the Burruh Bazaar will in no very long period, in all probability, extend to Mahim. Those who attach some faith to the prophecy, yet are unwilling to believe that evil and not good will befal the "rising presidency," are of opinion that some change ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... restored. Enterprise, like Icarus, had soared too high, and melted the wax of her wings; like Icarus, she had fallen into a sea, and learned, while floundering in its waves, that her proper element was the solid ground. She has never since attempted so ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... solid ground. He thinks that Fate is with him, and that, in taking risks, he is infallible. But the best system breaks at political roulette sooner or later. You have got to work for something outside yourself, something that is bigger than the game, or the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... say, "Treat me as 'folks around,'" but this tall country girl had put us on other terms. On discovering I was not "folks around," she had taken refuge in deriding me, but swiftly feeling no solid ground there, she drew a firm, clear woman's line between us. Plainly she was a comrade of men, in her buoyant innocence secure, yet by no means in ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... Jack perked up his nose and stared with his mouth wide open. The trees on the right and left set out and ran with all their might, one after another. There must be witchcraft in it. Jack jumped out of the cart and again felt the solid ground under his feet. But he once more stood with his mouth wide open. The trees now stood still, but the cart moved on further and further. "Stop, father, stop, so I can see how the wheels turn," the ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... great social scheme of General Booth for uplifting the "sunken tenth," has been, so to speak, "in the air." Monday night's meeting at Exeter Hall may be said to have set it on the solid ground and given good hope that it will run as fast and as far as the supplied resources will allow. The great audience to which the General had to address himself, was not mainly of the usual enthusiastic Army type; but it cannot be said that it was not ready to approve and applaud ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... known as the miracle of the Holy Thorn: a thorn reputed to have been preserved from the Crown of Our Lord was pressed upon an ulcer which quickly healed. Sainte-Beuve, who as a medical man felt himself on solid ground, discusses fully the possible explanation of this apparent miracle. It is true that the miracle happened at Port-Royal, and that it arrived opportunely to revive the depressed spirits of the community in ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... passion had had its say, the calmer emotions had opportunity of expression. When I was satisfied afresh of her affection, I began to value her care for my safety, and so I went back to the subject. Her very insistence, based on personal affection, gave me more solid ground for fear. In the moment of love transports I had forgotten, or did not think, of what wonderful power or knowledge she must have to be able to move in such strange ways as she did. Why, at this very moment she was within my own gates. Locks and bars, ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... give me sufficient means of living. I have the outward bearing of a very ordinary man. I go to the soirees in Paris like any other empty-headed fop; and if I drive, the wheels of my carriage do not roll on the solid ground, absolutely indispensable in these days, of property invested in the funds. But if I am not rich, neither do I have the reliefs and consolations of life in a garret, the toil uncomprehended, the fame in penury, which belong to men who are worth far ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... and finding still more rents in the floor and roof, Sinclair thought it must just be as he had seen it in other places of a like kind, the weight of the upper metals which were breaking over the solid ground by reason of the hollow beneath between the stoops, though in this case it did not amount ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... again until they came to solid ground, a massive column bearing the arms of France was erected, and by its side was planted a great cross. At the foot of the column was buried a leaden plate, on which, in Latin, the following words ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... which the land ends of these enormous suspension chains were rooted to the solid ground on either side of the Strait, was remarkably ingenious and effective. Three oblique tunnels were made by blasting the rock on the Anglesea side; they were each about six feet in diameter, the excavations being carried down an inclined plane to the depth of about twenty yards. ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles |
