"Topmost" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... question and answer again,' said Hillner. This exchange of shots had not gone on for very long, however, before the fire of the Swedes destroyed the topmost parapet of the tower. The gun planted there was silenced, and had to be moved down to a lower chamber. By way of covering this movement, the garrison opened a heavy fire with cannon and double arquebuses on the Swedes, ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... the title of count, and lavishing gold by handfuls, bewitched court and city, and induced Councillor d'Epremesnil to say, "The friendship of M. de Cagliostro does me honor." At the same time splendid works in the most diverse directions maintained at the topmost place in the world that scientific genius of France which the great minds of the seventeenth century had revealed to Europe. "Special men sometimes testify great disdain as regards the interest which ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... time to utter any protest he had snatched the lantern from his hand and was racing up the third flight to the topmost landing. ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... what I will do," said Bevis, "I will shoot the weasel with my brass cannon. Ah, that is the way! And I know where papa keeps his gunpowder; it is in a tin canister on the topmost shelf, and I will tell you how I climb up there. First, I bring the big arm-chair, and then I put the stool on that, and then I stand on the lowest shelf, and I can ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... tinkled and plashed over the stones on its way to the near-by Catawba; and its peaceful brawling, and the evensong of a pair of clear-throated warblers poised on the topmost twigs of one of the trees, should have been sweet music in the ears of a returned exile. But on that matchless bride's-month evening of dainty sunset arabesques and brook and bird songs, I was in little humor ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... his sanctuary "in the rocky Pytho"—a rugged and uneven recess, of no great dimensions, embosomed in the southern declivity of Parnassus, and about two thousand feet above the level of the sea, while the topmost Parnassian summits reach a height of near eight thousand feet. The situation was extremely imposing, but unsuited by nature for the congregation of any considerable number of spectators; altogether impracticable for chariot-races; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... right-hand corner, facing west, sideways to the river, the trees grow quite close to the windows, so that an active man or a boy might without great risk leap from the eaves below the dormer window into the topmost branches of the linden, which here grows strong and tough, as it surely should do ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... trampled down under the windows. The clump of burdock against the wall under the window turned out to have been trodden on too. Dyukovsky succeeded in finding on it some broken shoots, and a little bit of wadding. On the topmost burrs, some fine threads of dark blue wool ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... placed him upon the topmost turret of contemporary literary fame. Since the publication of the work he was fairly prosperous, although his temperament was of that gently procrastinating and gracious kind that buys peace with a faith in men and things. Mary had an eager, alert and enthusiastic way ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... compliments, and played with his advances, after the fashion of the trained ball-room belles, who know how to be almost caressing in manner, and yet are really as far off from the deluded victim of their suavities as the topmost statue of the Milan cathedral from the peasant that kneels on its floor. He admired her all the more for this, and yet he saw that she would be a harder prize to win than he had once thought. If he made up his mind that he would have her, he must go armed ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... your stories in the first place, sir, and I don't care if they are true in the second. What is the life or happiness of such a low creature as yourself to the prosperity of Strong, Palmer or Griswold? I think that impudence has mounted its topmost round, when you ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... bundle of jointed rods, which could be put together like a fishing-rod, and on the topmost of these was a white flag two feet square. On the buoy itself was firmly lashed a step similar to the "bucket" (I believe it is called) in which a carriage- whip is placed when not in use by the driver. The rods, taken ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... star and cradle and 'gain he speak his thought. He say: "What is cradle, Sensei? I know 'bout star. Every night at my honorable home I open shoji to see old priest strike bell and make him sing. Then I see big star hang out light over topmost of mountain." One more time he say, like thinking to himself: "Cradle. Maybe him shrine for new ...
— Mr. Bamboo and the Honorable Little God - A Christmas Story • Fannie C. Macaulay
... every few steps, they climbed over rocks and fallen trees, keeping as close as possible to the stream, until suddenly they found themselves gazing up at a beautiful waterfall which came gushing from a pile of giant rocks reaching up among the topmost ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... fears—like everything else in the world, this is unjust. For a little while, five or ten minutes, not more than ten, I would let my mind dwell on that thought, trying to dig down to its roots which doubtless drew their strength from the foetid slime of human superstition, trying to behold its topmost branches where they waved in sparkling light. No, that was not the theory; I must imagine those invisible branches as grim skeletons of whitened wood, standing stirless in that ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... side, except for its narrow riband of tree-tops among the fields; but within its narrow limits it is glorious with flowers, cascades, pools full of trout, set with water-plants in blossom, and the haunt of innumerable birds. Even the wild ducks ascend to the topmost pools, and are constantly in flight down the narrow winding vistas of grass, water, and trees, which they, like the kingfishers and water-hens, seem to think are set out for ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... courage to start on the journey of life. A tall twig led from the nest straight up into the air, and this was the ladder he mounted. Step by step he climbed one leaf-stem after another, with several pauses to cry and to eat, and at last reached the topmost point, where he turned his face to the west, and took his first survey of the kingdoms of the earth. A brother nestling was close behind him, and the pretty pair, seeing no more steps above them, rested a while from ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... Lanyard went on down the steps, at their foot pausing to spy out through a half-open doorway to the topmost storey. ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... dust of his ancestors, he followed the example of most ambitious men of his class by repairing to St. Petersburg (whither, as we know, the more spirited youth of Russia from every quarter gravitates—there to enter the Public Service, to shine, to obtain promotion, and, in a word, to scale the topmost peaks of that pale, cold, deceptive elevation which is known as society). But the real starting-point of Tientietnikov's ambition was the moment when his uncle (one State Councillor Onifri Ivanovitch) instilled into ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... strange curves of strength and grace as they bend themselves against the mountain side; they breathe more freely and toss their branches more carelessly as each climbs higher, looking to the clear light above the topmost leaves of its brother tree; the flowers which on the arable plain fall before the plough, now find out for themselves unapproachable places where year by year they gather into happier fellowship, and ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... the oriole possesses! His song has a saucy note of challenge running through it, and also a human intonation that makes it rarely attractive. All day long the male sings his cheery solos, scarcely pausing for breath or food, now sitting on the topmost twig of a dead apple tree in the orchard, now amid the screening foliage of a maple in the yard, and anon on the other side of the street in a stately cottonwood. But where is that modest little personage, his ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... mosquitoes had become more intolerable than ever. At last, half mad with irritation, I set off straight up the side of the nearest mountain, in hopes of attaining a zone too high for them to inhabit; and, poising myself upon its topmost pinnacle, I drew my handkerchief over my head—I was already without coat and waistcoat—and remained the rest of the morning "mopping and mowing" at the world ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... skirts of Le Berry stands a town which, watered by the Loire, infallibly attracts the traveler's eye. Sancerre crowns the topmost height of a chain of hills, the last of the range that gives variety to the Nivernais. The Loire floods the flats at the foot of these slopes, leaving a yellow alluvium that is extremely fertile, excepting in those places where it has deluged them with sand and ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... the name is a misnomer, for there are no books in it and our courteous guides said there never had been. We ascended the narrow stairs leading from the vast, empty, dusty room on the lower floor through an equally empty second story to the third and topmost story, which is the home of hundreds of doves. Going out on the narrow balustrade under the eaves in the gray dawn of the morning, I looked upon the gorgeous gilded roof of the temple near by and then ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... Beauvais explored the recesses, and threw down to the laughing crowd embroidered shawls and scarfs yellow with age, soft muslins of antique pattern, stiff big-flowered brocades, scraps of gauze ribbon, gossamer laces. On one topmost shelf he came upon a small wooden box inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Felice reached up for it, and, moved by some undefined impulse, Richard came and stood by her side while she opened it. A perfume which he recognized arose from it as she lifted a fold of tissue-paper. ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... traveling with their shells horizontal as do earthly beetles, these insects stood erect on their two lower pairs of legs, which were of different lengths so that all four feet touched the ground when the shell was vertical. The two upper pairs of legs were used as arms, the topmost pair[A] being quite short and splitting out at the end into four flexible claws about five inches long, which they used as fingers. These upper arms, which sprouted from a point near the top of the head, were peculiar in that they apparently had no joints like the other three pairs but were flexible ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... came the cool breath of evening air and the sound of water lapping against stone. A patch of faint light showed pale against the iron bars, and as Angela looked that way, a great grey rat leapt through the grating, and ran along the topmost bin, making the bottles shiver as he scuttled across them. Then came a thud on the sawdust-covered stones, and she knew that the loathsome thing was on the floor upon which she was standing. She lowered her light shudderingly, and, for the first time since she ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... enough in summer, but had no especial charm at this time. The level expanse of bare ploughed fields on each side of the narrow road had a dreary look; the hedges were low and thin; a tall elm, with all its lower limbs mercilessly shorn, uplifted its topmost branches to the dull gray sky, here and there, like some transformed prophetess raising her gaunt arms in appeal or malediction; an occasional five-barred gate marked the entrance to some by-road to the ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... also to publish most enthusiastic criticisms of her concerts, calling her "the wonder-child," and "the first German artist," one who "already stands on the topmost peak of our time." He even printed verses upon her genius. In a letter to Wieck, in 1833, he says, "It is easy to write to you, but I do not feel equal to write to Clara." She was still, however, the child to him; the child whom he used to frighten with his gruesome ghost-stories, ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... he admission gives. Of all kinds a single pair, And the members safely there Of his house he doth embark, Then at once he shuts the ark; Everything therein has pass'd, There he keeps them safe and fast. O'er the mountain's topmost peak Now the raging waters break. Till full twenty days are o'er, 'Midst the elemental roar, Up and down the ark forlorn, Like some evil thing is borne: O what grief it is to see Swimming on the enormous sea Human corses pale and white, More, alas! than I can write: O what grief, what grief profound, ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... 'Alta California'," says Noah Brooks, "made him famous. It was my business to prepare one of these letters for the Sunday morning paper, taking the topmost letter from a goodly pile that was stacked in a pigeon-hole of my desk. Clemens was an indefatigable correspondent, and his last letter was slipped in at the bottom of ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... lieutenants, the master, and a couple of mates took the command. Dicky Esse and I accompanied the Second-Lieutenant. Our orders were to board the prows, and if they offered any resistance, to destroy them. The water was smooth and beautifully blue, while the rising sun tipped the topmost heights of the lofty hills, which rose, as it were, out of the ocean, feathered almost from their summits to the water's edge with graceful trees. There lay the brig, while the prows were clustered like so many beasts of prey around their quarry. The pirates seemed in no way alarmed at our ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... In the topmost height of the celestial world the Lord appears as a sun, and all the infinite multitudes of angels, swarming up through the innumerable heavens, wherever they are, continually turn their faces towards him in love and joy. But at the bottom of the infernal ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... it was my duty Thus much to speak; but think not I forget— Dear Father! how could I forget and live— You and the story of that doleful night When, Antioch blazing to her topmost towers, You rushed into the murderous flames, returned Blind as the grave, but, as you oft have told me, Clasping your ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... long line of upheaven rocks seek again the ocean which gave them birth in its far-separated divisions of Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic. The sun sank slowly behind the range and darkness began to fall on the immense plain, but aloft on the topmost edge the pure white of the jagged crest-line glowed for an instant in many-coloured silver, and then the lonely peaks grew ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... flooded the topmost branches of the forest foliage. My eyes came round to the aureole which was their ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... none howled more fiercely with delight than did Steelkilt, as he strained at his oar. After a stiff pull, their harpooneer got fast, and, spear in hand, Radney sprang to the bow. He was always a furious man, it seems, in a boat. And now his bandaged cry was, to beach him on the whale's topmost back. Nothing loath, his bowsman hauled him up and up, through a blinding foam that blent two whitenesses together; till of a sudden the boat struck as against a sunken ledge, and keeling over, spilled out the standing mate. That instant, as he fell on the ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... exclamation of hope, got upon her feet and ran forward to him. He hurried her to the window. She obeyed him in silence, for it was clear that terror had robbed her tongue of all articulate speech. He clambered out, turned on the topmost rung, and flinging an arm round her waist, was lifting her out, when the other figure stepped forward and set a hand on his shoulder. The look on this woman's face was now terrible. Something seemed working in her throat ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... from the front of the storey below it, but equidistant from the two sides, where the platforms were 21 ft. wide. The three upper storeys were 45 ft. in height altogether, the two below these were 26 ft. each, and the height of the lowest is uncertain. The topmost storey probably had a tower on it which enclosed the shrine of the temple. This edifice was for a long time a bone of contention among savants, but Colonel Rawlinson's investigations have brought to light the fact that it was a temple dedicated to the seven heavenly ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... other branches of the Civil Service are so rigidly provided for that the foreign service is like the topmost rock which you sometimes see in old pictures of the Deluge. The pressure for a place ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... White Logic grins. "At the end of all his thinking he still clung to the sentiment of immortality. Facts transmuted in the alembic of hope into terms of faith. The ripest fruit of reason the stultification of reason. From the topmost peak of reason James teaches to cease reasoning and to have faith that all is well and will be well—the old, oh, ancient old, acrobatic flip of the metaphysicians whereby they reasoned reason quite away in order to escape the pessimism consequent upon the grim and honest ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... draping down over the nape of his neck protects it from the fervid rays of the Chaco sun. It is a costume imposing and picturesque; while the caparison of his horse is in keeping with it. The saddle, called recado, is furnished with several coverings, one upon another, the topmost, coronilla, being of bright-coloured cloth elaborately quilted; while the bridle of plaited horse-hair is studded with silver joints, from which depend rings and tassels, the same ornamenting the breast-piece and neck straps attaching the martingale, ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... since Maurice's arrival at the farm. Elsie was sitting on the topmost step of the store-house stairs, intent upon some kind of coarse knitting-work, whose bag-like convexity remotely suggested a stocking. Some straggling rays of the late afternoon sun had got tangled ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... pealing shriek, Lo, from Ilion's topmost tower, Ilion's fierce prophetic flower Cried the coming of the Greek! Black in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... land, while at another time two sharks towed his vessel against a head wind with such speed that the sea fowl could hardly keep him in sight. Clearing his eye by a fast and prayer, he climbed to the topmost height of the Waianae Mountains and closely scanned the horizon. The earth was as brick, and the sky as brass, and the sea as silver, save in one quarter: a tiny blur on the universal glare could be seen, he fancied, over Maui. He would ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... Little River drains a province larger than a European kingdom. Chungking is built at a great height above the present river, now sixty feet below its summer level. Its walls are unscalable. Good influences are directed over the city from a lofty pagoda on the topmost hill in the vicinity. Temples abound, and spacious yamens and rich buildings, the crowning edifice of all being the Temple to the God of Literature. Distances are prodigious in Chungking, and the streets so steep and hilly, with flights of stairs cut from the solid rock, that only a mountaineer ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... wilder. They passed an immense tree, under which Indians may have bivouacked, and in some storm long past the lightning had plowed its way from the topmost ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... thoughts must through the creature's brain have past! Even from the topmost stone, upon the steep, [24] Are but three bounds—and look, Sir, at this last— O Master! it has been a ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... and with the tiny tweezers lifted up one of the gray-coloured, diamond-shaped paper seals. He moistened the adhesive side, and, still holding it by the tweezers, dropped it on his handkerchief and pressed the seal down on the face of the topmost package of banknotes. He tied the parcel up then, and, picking up the pen, addressed it in ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... William Dale, faint imperceptible pushes for fifteen years, and see now at the end where it had pushed him. First it had pushed him upward, higher and higher, to a position of conspicuous pride, to the topmost summit of a fair mountain, where he could look round and say, "I have all that I pined for. This is the world's castle, and I am the king of the castle." Then it had begun to push him down the other side of this mountain, the dark side, the side that was always ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... went, sometimes stumbling in the dark, sometimes emerging into the light, until at last they reached the topmost step where ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... thrasher, strong and able without being familiar, and easily seen and heard. Rosy purple evenings after thundershowers are the favorite song-times, when the winds have died away and the steaming ground and the leaves and flowers fill the air with fragrance. Then the male makes haste to the topmost spray of an oak tree and sings loud and clear with delightful enthusiasm until sundown, mostly I suppose for his mate sitting on the precious eggs in a brush heap. And how faithful and watchful and daring he is! Woe ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... until he knew everything about them; and he was certain they told no story. When he was certain, he rearranged the letters, as Roy had done, in rows of five each. Then he laid down his pencil and began another careful search. He read the topmost line from left to right, and from right to left. It made no sense. He took the second and found no meaning in it. Another boy might have skipped the others, but not Willie. Each of the thirteen rows he studied ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... quiet retreat is at the Ventnor end of the Landslip and within a short distance of Old Bonchurch. The two thatched cottages are almost grown in, and the bright red cliff which forms the prominent feature consists of the topmost beds of the lower Greensand. The lower beds behind the cottage are of geological interest from the diversity of colour in the beds. The sands are white and firm, and there are rocks and pools where children love to play. Close by is the path leading ...
— Pictures in Colour of the Isle of Wight • Various
... he strained at his oar. After a stiff pull, their harpooneer got fast, and, spear in hand, Radney sprang to the bow. He was always a furious man, it seems, in a boat. And now his bandaged cry was, to beach him on the whale's topmost back. Nothing loath, his bowsman hauled him up and up, through a blinding foam that blent two whitenesses together; till of a sudden the boat struck as against a sunken ledge, and keeling over, spilled out the standing mate. That instant, as he fell on the whale's ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the broad-backed hills, Hear the uproar of their joy; We will mark the leaps and gleams Of the new-delivered streams, And the murmuring rivers of sap Mount in the pipes of the trees, Giddy with day, to the topmost spire, Which for a spike of tender green Bartered its powdery cap; And the colors of joy in the bird, And the love in its carol heard, Frog and lizard in holiday coats, And turtle brave in his golden spots; While cheerful cries of crag and plain Reply to the thunder ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... add salt if desired, and a half cup of sweet cream, mix well, and bake for twenty minutes. Or, fill a pudding dish with alternate layers of peeled and sliced tomatoes and bread crumbs, letting the topmost layer be of tomatoes. Cover, and bake in a moderate oven for an hour or longer, according to depth. Uncover, and brown for ten or ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... he asks for more cloth. The really practical statesman does not fit himself to existing conditions, he denounces the conditions as unfit. History is like some deeply planted tree which, though gigantic in girth, tapers away at last into tiny twigs; and we are in the topmost branches. Each of us is trying to bend the tree by a twig: to alter England through a distant colony, or to capture the State through a small State department, or to destroy all voting through a vote. In all such bewilderment he is wise who resists ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... ridge and riverside the western mail has gone, Across the great Blue Mountain Range to take that letter on. A moment on the topmost grade while open fire doors glare, She pauses like a living thing to breathe the mountain air, Then launches down the other side across the plains away To bear that note to 'Conroy's ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... fell upon a medley of photographs; snaps from her own camera, which had tumbled out of her bag in unpacking. The topmost one represented a group of young men and maidens standing under a group of stone pines in a Riviera landscape. She herself was in front, with a tall youth beside her. She bent ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... after this, to watch the daily feeding of the little birds, and to observe how, when not feeding them, the mother sat brooding on the nest, warming them under her soft wings, while the father-bird sat on the topmost bough of the apple-tree and sang to them. In time they grew and grew, and, instead of a nest full of little red mouths, there was a nest full of little, fat, speckled robins, with round, bright, cunning eyes, just ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... information that cannot perhaps be regarded as strictly legal, but such as he was afterwards able to turn to admirable account. He would seem to have studied the profession exhaustively in all its branches, from the topmost Tulkinghorns and Perkers, to the lowest pettifoggers like Pell and Brass, and also to have given particular attention to the parasites of the law—the Guppys and Chucksters; and altogether to have stored his mind, as he had done at school, with a series of invaluable notes and observations. ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... how Baby allowed me to roll him down hill, crawling and puffing up again each time with perfect good-humor; how he climbed a young sapling after my Panama hat, which I had "shied" into one of the topmost branches; how, after getting it, he refused to descend until it suited his pleasure; how, when he did come down, he persisted in walking about on three legs, carrying my hat, a crushed and shapeless mass, clasped to his breast with the remaining ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... these trials for conspiracy in the prisons. Forty-nine accused crowded the tiers of seats. Maurice Brotteaux occupied the right-hand corner of the topmost row,—the place of honour. He was dressed in his plum-coloured surtout, which he had brushed very carefully the day before and mended at the pocket where his little Lucretius had ended by fretting ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... windows seemed to melt asunder into nothingness as we passed—and there was no stop to our onward progress till suddenly I saw before me a steep and narrow spiral stairway of stone winding up into the very centre of a rocky pinnacle, which in its turn lifted its topmost peak into the darkness of a night sky sprinkled with millions of stars. The sombre Figure paused: and again I felt the search-light of its invisible eyes burning through me. Then, as though satisfied with its brief survey, it began ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... convey the idea of immense and incalculable age than the hoary beard and venerable appearance of this monarch of the woods. Spanish moss of a silvery grey covered the whole mass of wood and foliage, from the topmost bough down to the very ground; short near the top of the tree, but gradually increasing in length as it descended, until it hung like a deep fringe from the lower branches. I separated the vegetable curtain with my hands, and entered this august temple with feelings of involuntary awe. The change ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... hardy, and powerfully built. He had come from the New Brunswick woods some three years ago, and had wrought and fought his way, as he thought, against all rivals to the proud position of "boss on de reever," the topmost pinnacle of a lumberman's ambition. It was something to see LeNoir "run a log" across the river and back; that is, he would balance himself upon a floating log, and by spinning it round, would send it whither he would. At Murphy's question LeNoir ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... rows of nests and the beautiful brown eggs in them. Jimmy Skunk couldn't climb, and so he could have gotten only the eggs in the lower nests. Now if he, Unc' Billy, had been there, he could have climbed to the very topmost nest and—but what was the use of thinking about it? He hadn't been there, and he couldn't go ...
— The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum • Thornton W. Burgess
... they leave under an olive tree, Which by the reins two Sarrazins do lead; Those messengers have wrapped them in their weeds, To the palace they climb the topmost steep. When they're come in, the vaulted roof beneath, Marsilium with courtesy they greet: "May Mahumet, who all of us doth keep, And Tervagan, and our lord Apoline Preserve the, king and guard from ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... fresh star-shell lit up the trench they saw a man in khaki thrust his head and shoulders over the topmost bag and look under his hand in ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... profusion of sweet-scented flowers clothe their banks; above, waves the mountain-ash, glowing with scarlet berries; and beyond, rise hills and rocks and mountains, piled upon one another, and fringed with fir to their topmost acclivities. Perhaps the Norwegian forests alone equal these in grandeur and extent. Those which cover the Swiss highlands rarely convey such vast ideas. There, the woods climb only half way up their ascents, and then are circumscribed by snows: here, no boundaries ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... was often a cause of great anxiety and pain to him; for it was difficult to satisfy men of all tempers, and some of these not of the most generous sort. On such occasions he might be seen with his right-hand thumb thrust through the topmost button-hole of his coat-breast, vehemently hitching his right shoulder, as was his habit when labouring under any considerable excitement. Occasionally he would take an early ride before breakfast, to inspect the progress of the Sankey viaduct. He had a favourite horse, ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... raven, who sat upon the topmost stone, black against the bright blue sky, flapped lazily away, and sunk down the abysses of the cliff, as if he had scented the corpses beneath the surge. Below them from the gull-rock rose a thousand birds, and filled the air with sound; the choughs ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... the earth with beauty. Thousands, and tens of thousands, blue, and yellow, and pink, and violet, and white, of every shadow and every form, are to be seen, vying with each other, and eclipsing every thing besides. Midway they meet you again, sometimes fragrant, and always lovely; and in the topmost places, where the larch, and the pine, and the rhododendron (the last living shrub) are no longer to be seen, where you are just about to tread upon the limit of perpetual snow, there still peep up and blossom the "Forget me not," the Alpine ranunculus, and the white and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... in the sideboard, and after she had drunk it they sat for some few minutes in agitated silence. The street sounds outside had died away. Julian's was the topmost flat in the block, and their isolation was complete. He suddenly ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... rapture in the song of the bluebirds was sweeter than the voice of Cyrus to which he had listened. And in a meadow on the right, an old grey horse, scarred, dim-eyed, spavined, stood resting one crooked leg, while he gazed wistfully over the topmost rail of the fence into the vivid green of the distance—for into his aching old bones, also, there had passed a little of that longing for joy which was born of the miraculous softness and freshness of the spring. To him, as well as to Gabriel and to the ploughmen and to the bluebirds flitting, ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... you down the stairs if you'll say the word," he said as they paused a moment at the topmost step. ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... the race instinct ran powerfully, and who was not untainted of antipathies to red men and yellow men and black men and all men not wholly white, Richard did not pause to inquire the rights and the wrongs of the altercation. He seized upon the topmost person of color and pitched him into the street. Then he pitched another after him. The third, getting some alarming notions of what was going on, arose and fled. None of the three came back; for discretion ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... of some horse-chestnuts at the rear of the garden, were almost destitute of leaves, but they were not neglected on that account. An agile boy, armed with a lantern, climbed each tree, and explored even the topmost branches. ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... bobolink. He comes amid the pomp and fragrance of the season; his life seems all sensibility and enjoyment, all song and sunshine. He is to be found in the soft bosoms of the freshest and sweetest meadows, and is most in song when the clover is in blossom. He perches on the topmost twig of a tree, or on some long, flaunting weed, and, as he rises and sinks with the breeze, pours forth a succession of rich, tinkling notes, crowding one upon another, like the outpouring melody of the skylark, and possessing ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... forests, was hastily scraped together and fired; and as the blaze lighted up the forest, three other heaps were collected in a circle around the tree, which were also fired, and larger sticks brought and heaped upon them—the smoke and heat of which drove the children to the topmost limbs of the tree. It is well they had decided on the fires, for they had not been blazing ten minutes, when the whole pack of beasts, numbering full fifty, with ferocious growls, came down from the hills ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... But he dismisses this thought as impossible; for if there were a future life, I should be the first to know of it. It would certainly have been revealed to a splendid mind like mine. It is the mountain peak that catches the first flush of the dawn, not the valley: it is the topmost branch of the great tree that gets the first whisper of the coming breeze. It is a pity that Cleon had not heard the Gospel. I thank thee, O Father, that Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... he said; "I can show you something," and he unlocked the door of a cabin. There appeared to be nothing in it but a huge piece of tarpaulin, which depended, bulging, from the topmost bunk. He pulled it up. The lower bunk had been removed, and in its place was the ugly body ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... sure, Dagaeoga. Look at the bird with the red crest, perched on the topmost tip of the tall, green bush directly in front of us. I can distinguish his song from those of the others, and it seems that the note contains something ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... abrupt— In spite of those heart-bracing colloquies, 470 In spite of real fervour, and of that Less genuine and wrought up within myself— I could not but bewail a wrong so harsh, And for the Matin-bell to sound no more Grieved, and the twilight taper, and the cross 475 High on the topmost pinnacle, a sign (How welcome to the weary traveller's eyes!) Of hospitality and peaceful rest. And when the partner of those varied walks Pointed upon occasion to the site 480 Of Romorentin, home of ancient kings, [T] To the imperial edifice of Blois, [U] Or to that rural castle, name now slipped ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... world as in the chorus of the Nephelai. Such a morning may be chosen for the giro of the island. The Blue Grotto loses nothing of its beauty, but rather gains by contrast, when passing from dense fog you find yourself transported to a world of wavering subaqueous sheen. It is only through the very topmost arch that a boat can glide into this cavern; the arch itself spreads downward through the water so that all the light is transmitted from beneath and colored by the sea. Outside the magic world of pantomime there is nothing to equal ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... this smooth channel in the midst the late sun streamed toward us, a soft wash of gold. Behind all this the sky, pale to whiteness immediately overhead, deepened to the splendid orange of the sunset. Each tree cast his shadow upon his neighbour, so that only the topmost branches burned in the light. Over and above us floated the drowsy hum of the insect world; rarely we heard the moaning of a wood-dove, more rarely still the stirring of deer hidden in the thicket shade. This was a magical evening, primed with wonders, in the glamour of which Master Harkness could ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... small fire, he baked the nuts slightly, and then pealed off the husks. After this he wished to bore a hole in them, which, not having anything better at hand at the time, he did with the point of our useless pencil-case. Then he strung them on the cocoa-nut spine, and on putting a light to the topmost nut, we found to our joy that it burned with a clear, beautiful flame; upon seeing which, Peterkin sprang up and danced round the fire for at least five minutes in the excess ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... inborn propensity to go out into the world to see the regions beyond, he had the intensest desire to climb upward—so that without shifting his horizon, he could yet extend it, and take in a far wider sweep of vision. "I envied every bird," he goes on, "that sat singing on the topmost bough of the great, century-old cherry tree; the weathercock on our barn seemed to me to whirl in a higher region of the air; and to rise from the earth in a balloon was a bliss which I would almost have given my life to enjoy." His desire to ascend soon ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... only get nearer, so as to touch them," said he, and immediately the obedient cloak ducked down; Prince Dolor made a snatch at the topmost twig of the tallest tree, and caught a bunch of leaves ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... Taking out the topmost sheet, she shook it open. Then the next and the next till she reached the bottom of the box. Nothing of a criminating nature came to light. The box as well as its contents was without mystery of any kind. This was not an unexpected result of course, ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... ceased their work and watched it. The vibrations became more violent, and the sounds they produced grew louder and louder till they reached a shrill wild cry. There came a pause, then a deep shuddering groan. The topmost branches began to move slowly, the whole stately bulk swayed, and then shot towards the ground. The gigantic trunk bounded from the stump, recoiled like a cannon, crashed down, and lay conquered, with a roar as of an earthquake, in a cloud ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... Bennett in 1828, when in his thirtieth year, became the Washington correspondent of the New York Enquirer, which was then on the topmost round of the journalistic ladder. It is related of him that during his stay in this position he came across a copy of Walpole's Letters and resolved to try the effect of a few letters written in a similar strain. The truth of this is doubtful. It ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... unquestionably very ill. Sarah had been quite right in telegraphing so peremptorily to Hilda; and if she had not so telegraphed she would have been quite wrong. On the previous day she had been sitting on the cold new oilcloth of the topmost stairs, minutely instructing a maid in the craft of polishing banisters. And the next morning an attack of acute sciatica had supervened. For a trifling indiscretion Sarah was thus condemned to extreme physical torture. Hilda had found her rigid on the bed. She suffered ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... waves his wings, and sinks to the swaying twigs. I hear too a quail piping from the meadow fence, and another trilling his answering whistle from the hills. Nearer by, a tyrant king-bird is poised on the topmost branch of a veteran pear-tree, and now and then dashes down, assassin-like, upon some homebound, honey-laden bee, and then with a smack of his bill resumes ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... him. Unable to, I stopped him. I seized his arm. But he shook his head, pointed to the mountain's topmost peak, and ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... condescend to shine upon Indian Bar at all, and the old settlers tell me that he will not smile upon us for the next three months, but he nestles lovingly in patches of golden glory all along the brows of the different hills around us, and now and then stoops to kiss the topmost wave on the opposite shore of the Rio ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... of sprightfulness; And he ought to let Scripture alone—'tis self-slaughter, For nobody likes inspiration-and-water. He'd have been just the fellow to sup at the Mermaid, Cracking jokes at rare Ben, with an eye to the barmaid, His wit running up as Canary ran down,— The topmost bright bubble on the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... tree resting, I heard a roundelay, The nightingale was singing On the oak tree's topmost spray. ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... lea, Fat and full-fed; their kine, as home they wind, The lagging traveller of his rest remind! With might and main their fallows let them till: Till comes the seedtime, and cicalas trill (Hid from the toilers of the hot midday In the thick leafage) on the topmost spray! O'er shield and spear their webs let spiders spin, And none so much as name the battle-din! Then Hiero's lofty deeds may minstrels bear Beyond the Scythian ocean-main, and where Within those ample walls, with asphalt made Time-proof, Semiramis her empire swayed. I am but a single voice: ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... blue infinite:- Which is so strong, my strongest throes And the rough world's besieging blows Not break it, and so weak withal, Death ebbs and flows in its loose wall As the green sea in fishers' nets, And tops its topmost parapets:- Which is so wholly mine that I Can wield its whole artillery, And mine so little, that my soul Dwells in perpetual control, And I but think and speak and do As my dead fathers move me to:- If this born body of my bones The beggared soul so barely owns, What money ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Christmas-tree! And look, O look to its tip and see The feathery slim fir leaves and where, In the topmost boughs, is the image fair Of the Christ-child nestling amid the green And the little brown ...
— Child Songs of Cheer • Evaleen Stein
... regarding her son with a little puzzled frown. Suddenly she reached out and tapped the topmost of the scribbled sheets strewn the length of Jock's side ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... however, and those of the airplane, are in the control of men; and there may be still a chance of bringing about a better state of affairs than now exists. While the war correspondents were actually in France, and while they were often forced to write at topmost speed, there was excuse for avion and camion, vrille and escadrille, and all the other French words which bespattered the columns of British and American, Canadian and Australian newspapers. I doubt if there ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English
... traversed all about it, with great interest, and had gone up to the topmost round of seats, and turning from the lovely panorama closed in by the distant Alps, looked down into the building, it seemed to lie before me like the inside of a prodigious hat of plaited straw, with an enormously broad brim and a shallow ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... honour of Saturn;[477] either because their religious principles are derived from the Idaei, who are supposed to have been driven out with Saturn and become the ancestors of the Jewish people; or else because, of the seven constellations which govern the lives of men, the star of Saturn moves in the topmost orbit and exercises peculiar influence, and also because most of the heavenly bodies move round[478] their ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... through the little window and fell directly upon the pile of newspapers he had brought from the kitchen and thrown on the floor. His glance chanced to rest for an instant upon the topmost paper of the pile. It was a New York journal which devotes two of its inside pages to happenings in society. When he threw it down it had unfolded so that one of these pages lay uppermost. Absently, scarcely realizing ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... rising perpendicularly from the plain! Here and there loose rocks lay at its base, as if they had fallen from above; and trees grew out of its face, clinging by their roots in the seams of the cliff. Scattered pines standing upon its topmost edge, stretched their branches out over the plain; and the aloe plants, the yuccas, and cacti, added to the wild picturesqueness of ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... darkness had crept down over the mountain and into the peaceful valley. Then began the tortuous descent. Quinnox in the lead, they walked, crawled and ran down the narrow path, bruised, scratched and aching by the time they reached the topmost of the summer houses along the face of the mountain. After this walking was easier, but stealthiness made their progress slow. Frequently, as they neared the base, they were obliged to dodge behind houses or to drop into the ditches by the roadside ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... most punctual of men. He entered his office in Mincing Lane precisely at ten o'clock on Thursday morning. His letters had already been sorted and arranged in two neat piles on his desk. Topmost on one of them was a cablegram from Toronto: "Meet me home eleven p.m. Smith." He never admitted that anything would surprise him, and in fact he showed no sign of excitement, but looked through his correspondence methodically, distributing the papers among several ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... by way of being a non-party affair, took place on a blustering February afternoon. The elite of Stoneleigh were picturesquely grouped upon the steps of the main entrance of the Library, from the topmost of which the Mayor, the Dean, and the Candidates addressed a shivering ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... appreciate the character of the fog, my companion proposed that we should 'put off into the unknown dark.' Not till I had got into the street, and was groping my way among the pedestrians, instead of watching them in security from the topmost of a flight of steps, could I estimate its real nature. To my bewildered eyes it had the appearance of a solid wall constantly opposing our further progress. The blazing torches that we met were invisible at fifty yards' distance. The tradesmen had ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... hundred and eight such signal stations as this, modest, inexpensive little offices, established over the United States, from the low sea-coast plains to the topmost peak of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... divine in Ischia. From the topmost garden terrace of the inn one looks across the sea toward Terracina, Gaeta, and those descending mountain buttresses, the Phlegraean plains and the distant snows of the Abruzzi. Rain-washed and luminous, ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... try the experiment took possession of the boy as he sat on the topmost rail with the glossy back temptingly near him. Never thinking of danger, he obeyed the impulse, and while Charlie unsuspectingly nibbled at the apple he held, Dan quickly and quietly took his seat. He did not keep it long, however, for with an astonished snort, Charlie reared straight up, and deposited ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... was not so; the eagle sunk gradually into the abyss beneath, and the branches of trees and bushes were broken by its weight. Then the hunters roused themselves: three of the longest ladders were brought and bound together; the topmost ring of these ladders would just reach the edge of the rock which hung over the abyss, but no farther. The point beneath which the eagle's nest lay sheltered was much higher, and the sides of the rock were as smooth as a wall. After consulting ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... the Broom, and especially the topmost young twigs, are purgative, and act powerfully on the kidneys to increase the flow of urine. They contain chemically an acid principle, "scoparin," and an alkaloid, "sparteine." For medical purposes these terminal twigs are used (whether fresh or dried) to make a decoction which ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... gently swelling ridge on which the ancient roadway lies. They near the mound, and a solemn stillness succeeds their chanting songs; the priests ascend the hill of sacrifice and prepare the sacred fire. Now the first beams of the rising sun shoot up athwart the ruddy sky, gilding the topmost boughs of the trees. The holy flame is kindled, a curling wreath of smoke arises to greet the coming god; the tremulous hush which was upon all nature breaks into vocal joy, and the songs of gladness burst ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... on his way too; and if he was merry before, he was now ten times more so. He had not gone far before he met an old miser: close by them stood a tree, and on the topmost twig sat a thrush singing away most joyfully. 'Oh, what a pretty bird!' said the miser; 'I would give a great deal of money to have such a one.' 'If that's all,' said the countryman, 'I will soon bring it down.' Then he took up his bow, and down fell the thrush into the bushes at the foot of ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... that well-remembered evening when Wilhelmine was installed lady-in-waiting to her Highness, a tall fir-tree was planted in a gilded barrel. A thousand twinkling lights burned on the branches, and little trinkets dangled temptingly. Overhead, on the topmost branch, the waxen Christmas angel with tinsel wings hovered over this family gathering. Symbol of peace and goodwill, this angel would look down pitifully on the men and women round the Christmas tree, whose hearts were full of bitterness, of envy and hatred! ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... in by railroad from the lakes, and are placed on board the ships with a rapidity which must be seen to be appreciated. The blocks are packed in sawdust, which is used very much as mortar is used in a stone wall. Between the topmost layer of ice and the deck there is sometimes a layer of closely packed hay, and sometimes one of barrels of apples. It has occasionally happened that the profit upon the apples has paid the freight upon the ice, which usually amounts to about ten thousand dollars, or ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... weight of lead upon her. She rushed into the room, but at the very entrance Lottchen fell. At that moment the assassin exchanged his stealthy pace for a loud clattering ascent. Already he was on the topmost stair; already he was throwing himself at a bound against the door, when Louisa, having dragged her sister into the room, closed the door and sent the bolt home in the very instant that the murderer's hand came into contact with the handle. Then, from the violence of her ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... sheep clambering among the mossy ruins, and cropping the little tufts of grass sprouting out of the sides of the embrasures for cannon. And once I saw a black goat with a long beard, and crumpled horns, standing with his forefeet lifted high up on the topmost parapet, and looking to sea, as if he were watching for a ship that was bringing over his cousin. I can see him even now, and though I have changed since then, the black goat looks just the same as ever; and so I suppose he would, if I live to be as old as ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... always thus that his madness declared itself: there were moments when it rose to appalling frenzy. Then he imagined himself to be again hurling the Christian assailants from the topmost walls of the besieged temple, in that past time when the image of Serapis was doomed by the Bishop of Alexandria to be destroyed. His yells of fury, his frantic execrations of defiance were heard afar, in the solemn silence of pestilence-stricken Rome. ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... throng the hollows; new tints and half-tints flicker and shift everywhere; mists hang floating over ravines and precipices; the vegetation grows more various, here slenderer, there richer and more luxuriant; whilst high over all, bright on the topmost summits, is a new strange something—the white snows of purity, catching the morning streaks on them of a brighter day, that has never as yet risen upon the ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... these things, the younger brother was in the valley of the acacia; there was none with him; he spent his time in hunting the beasts of the desert, and he came back in the even to lie down under the acacia, which bore his soul upon the topmost flower. And after this he built himself a tower with his own hands, in the valley of the acacia; it was full of all good things, that he might provide for himself ...
— Egyptian Tales, Second Series - Translated from the Papyri • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... seemed an endless time, amid a growing grind of thunder and in the almost darkened room, the phial in Chris's hand gave off an arching rosy glow. Chris, his cheeks hot from excitement and the fire, tiptoed out just as Mr. Wicker's step creaked on the topmost tread of the spiral stair. With infinite caution Chris closed the door silently behind him, and running lightly forward, reached the figure of ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... wind. The night was perfectly still. Not a leaf quivered on the topmost branch of the linden which tapped our chamber-window. Yet a Power like a mighty rushing blast gainsaid me and smote ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... glances to make sure that the bull was neither after us on the road, nor watching us from behind this bush or that hillock. Turkey never left me till he saw me safe up the ladder; nay, after I was in bed, I spied his face peeping in at the window from the topmost round of it. By this time the east had begun to begin to glow, as Allister, who was painfully exact, would have said; but I was fairly tired now, and, falling asleep at once, never woke until Mrs. Mitchell pulled the clothes off me, an ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... not easily baffled, and he determined to scrutinize every shelf, of this particular section in turn. With the aid of one of those step-ladders folding into a chair which you sometimes see in libraries, he examined the topmost shelves but without result. He took down in turn Macaulay's History of England, a handsome edition of the works of Swift, and a set of Moliere without getting any nearer the end of ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... grew shorter, and she toiled on in a resolute uncomplaining manner after his long, vigorous steps, till he looked round, and seeing her panting far behind, turned to help her, lead her, and carry her, till the top was achieved, and the little girl stood on the topmost stone, gazing round at the broad sunny landscape, with the soft green meadows, the harvest fields, the woods in their gorgeous autumn raiment, and the moorland on the other side, with its other peaks and cairns, ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in your seat. Now the black Maltese crosses on the German's wings stand out clearly. You think of him as some sort of big bug. Then you hear the rapid tut-tut-tut of his machine gun. The man that dived ahead of you becomes mixed up with the topmost German. He is so close it looks as if he had hit the enemy machine. You hear the staccato barking of his mitrailleuse and see him pass from ...
— Flying for France • James R. McConnell
... midwinter, but a south-wind sweeps up the Mississippi, so mild and balmy that the blue-birds and robins are out. The steamboats are crowded with troops, who are waiting for orders to sail, they know not where. Groups stand upon the topmost deck. Some lie at full length in the warm sunshine. The bands are playing, the drums beating. Tug-boats are dancing, wheezing, and puffing in the stream, flitting ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... he, when all the place he had gone o'er. And with much trouble clomb the broken stair, And from the topmost turret seen the shore And his good ship drawn up at anchor there, Came down again, and found a crypt most fair Built wonderfully beneath the greatest hall, And there he saw ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... all the books at home from Inchbald's Theatre to White's Farriery; he ransacked the neighbouring book-cases. He found at Clavering an old cargo of French novels, which he read with all his might; and he would sit for hours perched upon the topmost bar of Doctor Portman's library steps with a folio on his knees, whether it were Hakluyt's Travels, Hobbes's Leviathan, Augustini Opera, or Chaucer's Poems. He and the Vicar were very good friends, and from his Reverence, Pen learned that honest taste for port wine which distinguished ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had at last left the dense woods behind him and had come to a cleared place, he saw the singer. At the top of the highest peak was a cairn, and on the topmost stone of this cairn silhouetted against the pale evening sky stood Glory Goldie Sunnycastle, ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... ripples on, a quiet undertone of perfect confidence, freedom without reserve as to another self, suddenly discovered in the working identity of a fellow-creature. It ripples on just thus, all the distance of the walk along the topmost down, in the evening sunlight, and then comes a pause to negotiate the descent to their handy little forest below. Then a sense that they are coming back into a sane, dry world, and must be a lady and a gentleman again. But there must be a little farewell ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan |
