"Tread on" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from our birth, Is it fit subject for our mirth, That thus awakening from her theme, Where she through air and sea pursues, And all things governs, all subdues, (Like fetter'd captive in a dream,) Blindly to tread on unknown land, Without a guide or helping hand, No previous usage to befriend, (As well we might an infant lend Our eyes' experience, ear, or touch!) Can we in reason wonder much, Her steps are tottering and unsure Where we have learnt to walk secure? Is it not true, what I have ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... beauteous maid, Could I thy troth obtain, Then thou shouldst tread on silk outspread, And ne'er on ...
— The Return of the Dead - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise
... is essentially a dancing man. I have only been able to teach him the waltz as yet, but at that he is faultless. Come, which of you ladies may I introduce him to, as a partner? He keeps perfect time; he never gets tired; he won't kick you or tread on your dress; he will hold you as firmly as you like, and go as quickly or as slowly as you please; he never gets giddy; and he is full of conversation. Come, speak up for ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... Chief-Justice Marshall has elsewhere in this decision expressed it, for the Supreme Court to undertake to inquire into the degree of their necessity "would be to pass the line which circumscribes the judicial department and to tread on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... said Lieutenant Bolton, a chum of Maguire's. "Go back when you feel a little better; tread on his toe, or dig your elbow into his ribs, and tell him quietly you intended to do so. It will ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... that is, of fundamental human nature, Mr. Raymount was not good at reading a man who made himself agreeable, and did not tread on the toes of any of his theories—of which, though mostly good, he made too much, as every man of theory does. I would not have him supposed a man of theory only: such a man is hardly man at all; but while he thought of the practice, he too sparingly ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... for any. Stokes was not a man to return favors in words; be brooded over his gratitude as if it were a grudge. "I'll get even with that young Jarvis yet," he muttered, as he nursed his leg over the fire. "I know he worships the ground that little Rolliffe girl treads on, though she don't tread on much at a time. She never trod on me nuther, though I've had her foot in my hand more'n once. She looked at the man that made her shoes as if she would like to make him happier. When a little tot, she used to say I could come and live ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... till night, from night till startled morn Peeps blushing on the revel's laughing crew, The song is heard, the rosy garland worn; Devices quaint, and frolics ever new, Tread on each other's kibes. A long adieu He bids to sober joy that here sojourns: Nought interrupts the riot, though in lieu Of true devotion monkish incense burns, And love and prayer unite, or rule the hour ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... in silence, careful not to tread on a twig, Sir Maurice walking a few feet in front, and all the while peering earnestly ahead through the branches. Now and again a loud yell came from the knoll; and once a chorus of yells. Finding that her coldness (the Terror frankly called it sulking) had no effect ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... to do with it at all I'd tread on Flannigan's coat, and you can tell him so, for disgracing the Corps.... Take off your jacket and help with my boots, ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... levied without the consent of Parliament, and that no one should be unlawfully imprisoned for refusing to pay such taxes. In the petition there was not an angry word, but as a member of the Commons declared, "We say no more than what a worm trodden upon would say if he could speak: I pray thee tread on me ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... the dog, to salute the friends, to flatter the gout, or the cold of the aunt, to say to her at opportune moments "You have good looks, and will yet write the epitaph of the human race." To please all the relations, to tread on no one's corns, to break no glasses, to waste no breath, to talk nonsense, to hold ice in his hand, to say, "This is good!" or, "Really, madam, you are very beautiful so." And to vary that in a hundred different ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... lamps," exclaimed the professor, "and pick your footsteps. Remember, you are about to tread on strange ground." ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... as palm-trees, a flame of fire proceeding from his mouth, the noise of his breath like the roaring of a tempest, and in his right hand a terrific iron club. Sentence is passed, and the wretched beings are doomed to receive punishment according to the nature of their crimes. Some are made to tread on burning sands, or sharp-edged stones. Others are rolled among thorns and spikes and putrefying flesh. Others are dragged along the roughest places by cords passed through the tender parts of the body. Some are attacked by jackals, tigers, and elephants. Others are pierced with arrows, ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder
... Humfrey and Philip were close behind him; but, in spite of the loud 'gare!' of the guide, Aime, or his horse,—for each was equally senseless with alarm,—were making inwards; the horse was trying to tread on the sandbank, which gave way like the water itself, under its frantic struggles—there was a loud cry—a shrill, unmistakable woman's shriek—the horse was sinking—a white face and helpless form were being carried out on the waves, ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... prairie; The splendour of mountain and lake With their hues that seem ever to vary; The mighty pine-forests which shake In the wind, and in which the unwary May tread on a snake; ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... be induced to leave London long enough for such an expedition. Next morning, after this talk at the Garrick, the elderly damsel of all work announced to me, as I was taking breakfast at my lodgings, that Mr. Sackville had called to see me, and was then waiting below. Very soon I heard a heavy tread on the stairs, and then entered a tall, white-haired stranger, who held out his hand, bowed profoundly, and with a most comical expression announced himself as Mr. Sackville. Recognizing at once the face ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... lightening of her anxiety caused by this Mehetabel fell asleep, for how long she was unable to guess. When she awoke it was not that she heard the cry of her child, but that she was aware of a tread on the floor ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... "but I am sorry. Mayn't I help you to fix your dress? I have pins, and it is hard for you to walk with it that way; for you tread on it at every step, unless you ...
— By the Roadside • Katherine M. Yates
... "Thou shalt tread devils" and "shall take upon the lion and adder: up serpents:" (as [in S. the young lion and the Luke x. 19] He had given dragon shalt Thou trample the Seventy "power to under feet.") tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the Enemy.") (C) —8:—The Pentecostal (C) —17:—The chief Gift foretold: "He shall Pentecostal Gift baptize you with the HOLY specified: "They shall GHOST." ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... royal Richard, know that the blood of the East flows not so temperately in the presence of beauty as that of your land. What saith the Book itself?—Her eye is as the edge of the sword of the Prophet, who shall look upon it? He that would not be burnt avoideth to tread on hot embers—wise men spread not the flax before a flickering torch. He, saith the sage, who hath forfeited a treasure, doth not wisely to turn back his head to gaze ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... 'Don't tread on my toes,' she said, though I had not even stirred. I told her as much, and we were getting a little animated when my bonnet was twitched off and ...
— HE • Andrew Lang
... the snares in its way, as it is constantly prying closely into every corner in order to lay snares for others. Whereas innocence, having no such purpose, walks fearlessly and carelessly through life, and is consequently liable to tread on the gins which cunning hath laid to entrap it. To speak plainly and without allegory or figure, it is not want of sense, but want of suspicion, by which innocence is often betrayed. Again, we often admire at the folly of the dupe, when we should transfer our whole surprize to ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... inveigh against vaine men, for thou canst doo it, no man better, no man so well; thou hast a libertie to reproove all and name none; for one being spoken to, all are offended—none being blamed, no man is injured. Stop shallow water still running, it will rage; tread on a worme, and it will turne; then blame not schollers who are vexed with sharpe and bitter lines, if they reproove thy too ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... heart, I've three others just as fine, and these skimpy skirts last for an age. No chance of any one planting a great foot on the folds and tearing them to ribbons as in the old days. There are no folds to tread on." ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... memory of one of the Athol family by his brother-officers of a local regiment of which he was colonel. At one of the side-entrances of the church, and forming the threshold within the thickness of the wall, so that the feet of all who enter must tread on it, is a flat tombstone of somebody who felt himself a sinner, no doubt, and desired to be thus trampled upon. The stone ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... uses his legs, how straight he holds himself. It is my own child! On the whole he's quite pretty, when one looks at him rightly. Quack! quack! come now with me, and I'll lead you out into the world, and present you in the duck-yard; but keep close to me all the time, so that no one may tread on you, and look out for ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... fingers of the lute-player rest idly upon the chords. It is twilight always for the dancing nymphs whom Corot set free among the silver poplars of France. In eternal twilight they move, those frail diaphanous figures, whose tremulous white feet seem not to touch the dew-drenched grass they tread on. But those who walk in epos, drama, or romance, see through the labouring months the young moons wax and wane, and watch the night from evening unto morning star, and from sunrise unto sunsetting can note the shifting day with all its gold and shadow. ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... can't, Levin. Meshach Milburn hates the ground I tread on. If he know'd I was in love with little Roxy he'd marry ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... things to be considered both ways," she said, taking him into her confidence. "You trample on others. How do I know you wouldn't tread on me?" ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... within the walls of the other. I speak in kindness, Senora, and of what I know. This palace is not all bowers and gardens. There be dungeons beneath those bowers, deep and dark. Santa Maria defend us! You tread on mines—hold your peace!' ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... with the spring, In the meadows green I'm found Peeping just above the ground, And my stalk is cover'd flat, With a white and yellow hat Little lady, when you pass Lightly o'er the tender grass, Skip about, but do not tread On my meek and healthy head For I always seem to say, Chilly ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various
... it with disgust and fear. Then with garments held tightly round her, and feverishly grasping her parasol, she was persuaded to venture on a little journey over the slippery rocks. Sophia Jane and Susan, on either hand, advised the safest places to tread on, watched each footstep carefully, and made encouraging remarks as though to a child. Finally, after many perils and narrow escapes, she was conducted with much applause safely back to the dry land, and up again to the ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... a degree very considerably beyond the common experience of towns reaching the same magnitude. How was this accounted for? The word tradesman is, more than even the term middle class, liable to great ambiguity of meaning; for it includes a range so large as to take in some who tread on the heels even of the highest aristocracy, and some at the other end, who rank not at all higher than day-labourers or handicraftsmen. Now, those who ranked with gentlemen, took the ordinary course of gentlemen in righting themselves ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... why of the lanterns I was seein' down by the forge. But it's black as the bowels of purgatory, your Honor, an' him a strong, wicked devil, cruel an' angry. God destroy him! If he'd tread on a poison snake! No night could be so black as ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Licorice had been— not very gentle with her, and had threatened to turn her out of the house the next morning unless she would trample on the cross, as a sign that she abjured all her Christian friends and Christ. That, she said, she could not do. 'I could tread on the piece of wood,' she said, 'and that would be nothing: but my mother means it for a sign of abjuring Christ.' And she earnestly implored me to get her into some nunnery, where she might be safe. Perhaps ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... different picture on my introduction to Union Place. I saw two imposing rows of brick buildings, loftier than any dwelling I had ever lived in. Brick was even on the ground for me to tread on, instead of common earth or boards. Many friendly windows stood open, filled with uncovered heads of women and children. I thought the people were interested in us, which was very neighborly. I looked up to the topmost ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... blessing and a trouble. It is not the 'pranks' of the farmers that have caused emigration, or threats of it. The farmer is unable to pay high wages, the men will not accept a moderate reduction, and the idle crowd, in effect, tread on each other's heels. Pressure of that kind, and to that extent, is limited to a few localities only. The majority have sufficient common sense to see their error. But it is in arable districts that agitation takes its extreme form. The very number ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... called kapu and aliinui. To tread on his shadow was a crime punished with death: He make ke ee malu. The chief next the throne took the title of Wohi. He who ranked next, that of Mahana. These titles could belong at the same time to several chiefs of the blood-royal, who were called Alii kapu, Alii ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... at once that it was a case of pure fright. The natives wrap themselves up in their cloths or blankets at night, and lie down on the floors of their huts. Turning about, or getting up for water or tobacco, or perhaps to put fuel on the fire, they unluckily tread on a snake, or during sleep they roll over on one. The snake gives them a nip, and scuttles off. They have not seen what sort of snake it is, but their imagination conjures up the very worst. After the first outcry, when the whole house is alarmed, the man ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... oughter have somebody for a company-keeper. She can't see nothin' but trees 'n' cows from her winders.... Beats all, the places they used to put houses.... Either they'd get 'em right under foot so 't you'd most tread on 'em when you walked along the road, or else they'd set 'em clean back in a lane, where the women folks couldn't see face o' clay week in 'n' ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... I left the room, carrying my shoes in one hand, the letter in the other, and the blanket under my arm. I draw myself up, set my teeth as I tread on the creaking steps, get happily down the stairs, and stand once more at the door. I put on my shoes, take my time with the laces, sit a while quietly after I'm ready, and stare vacantly before me, holding the letter in my hand. Then ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... this little river there were other things when the leaves grew brown. In those low, easy hills strange creatures dwelt. Birds of brown plumage and wondrous, soul-startling burst of wing. Large gray creatures, a foot long or longer, with light tread on the leaves, and long ears that went a-peak when you whistled to them. Were ever such beings before in any land? For the pursuit of these, it seems, one must have boots with copper toes, made waterproof by ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... open door there came the sound of a heavy tread on the stairs, mingled with various voices. Elena's shining face suddenly clouded, and Rossi, who read her thought, went out on to the landing. Bruno was coming up the staircase with something in his arms, and behind him were the Garibaldian and his old ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... oppressed me. I didn't so much mind when he made me give up one of my new suits, because, Jeeves's judgment about suits is sound. But I as near as a toucher rebelled when he wouldn't let me wear a pair of cloth-topped boots which I loved like a couple of brothers. And when he tried to tread on me like a worm in the matter of a hat, I jolly well put my foot down and showed him who was who. It's a long story, and I haven't time to tell you now, but the point is that he wanted me to wear the Longacre—as worn by John Drew—when ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... Performing Pigmies,' said Mrs. Langton, 'but the boys might tread on them, and that would ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... his dreams! And since his examination would not begin until to-morrow, he had a whole long day to make acquaintance with her. Half a dozen times he, had to interrupt his dressing to run and gaze out of the window, skipping back when he heard Blenkiron's tread on the staircase. And at breakfast again he must jump up and examine the door. Yes, there was a second door outside—a heavy oak-just as his father had described. What stories had he heard about these oaks! He was ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I noticed that the waiter was a young man who evidently had not been always thus. He had the air of one who yearns to have some one tread on the tail of his coat. Meekness, with me, is one of my characteristics. It is almost a passion. It is the result of personal injuries received in former years at the hands of parties who excelled me in brute force and who succeeded in drawing ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... go away, there is always a Confusion in the Room, of which you may take Advantage. You may then creep close up to your Mistress, may perhaps palm her, and gently tread on ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... uniforms of olden times. The cleverest among them served as guides to their companions, driving them impatiently. They had been there the day before. Go ahead! There was still a lot to see! And they ran toward the inner halls with the breathless curiosity of men who tread on new ground and expect something marvelous to rise ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Tame elephants never tread on the feet of their attendants or knock them down by accident; or, at least, no instances of the kind have come to my knowledge. The elephant's feet are large, his range of vision is circumscribed, and his extreme and ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... any advantage to people to be educated in man-stealing as a principle, to be taught systematically to rob the laborer of his wages, and to tread on the necks of weaker races? Who among you would wish your sons to become slave-planters, slave-merchants, slave-dealers? And shall we leave our brethren to this fate? Better a generation should die on the battle-field, that their children ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... employed in devising means to avert it, but its progress has never for a moment been arrested, and one by one have many powerful tribes disappeared from the earth. To follow to the tomb the last of his race and to tread on the graves of extinct nations excite melancholy reflections. But true philanthropy reconciles the mind to these vicissitudes as it does to the extinction of one generation to make room for another. In the monuments and fortresses of an unknown people, spread over the extensive regions of the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... Machudi's men. I recognized them by the red ochre in their hair and their copper-wire necklets. Big fellows they were, long-legged and deep in the chest, the true breed of mountaineers. I admired their light tread on the slippery rock. It was hopeless to think of evading such men in ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... travel along by till it was dark.] Being come at the River, we left the Road, and struck into the Woods by the River side. We were exceeding careful not to tread on the Sand or soft Ground, lest our footsteps should be seen; and where it could not be avoided, we went backwards, so that by the print of our feet, it seemed as if we had gone the contrary way. We were now gotten a good way ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... it was. It was nearly seven o'clock. But Mrs. Bingley could not blame her much, having herself forgotten to put on the electric bell, and Esther hurried through her dressing. But in hurrying she happened to tread on her dress, tearing it right across. It was most unfortunate, and just when she was most in a hurry. She held up the torn skirt. It was a poor, frayed, worn-out rag that would hardly bear mending again. Her mistress was calling her; there was nothing for it but to run down and ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... his chair, supporting his head vacantly on his hands, trying to think and fearing to think, de Spain heard Pardaloe's measured tread on the descending steps, and listened mechanically to the retreating echoes of his footsteps down the shaded street. Minute after minute passed. De Spain made no move. A step so light that it could only have been the step of a delicate girlhood, ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... "Don't tread on Mrs. Walker's dress," John began, and the sprites, as if in ready obedience, were off in an instant; but in reality they were gone to find vases for the flowers, Emily looking up with all composure, though a good deal of scrambling ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... spectrum gamut of the yellows and oranges and greens and blues and purples to the solitary star above the opaline peak, he had wanted to wait and see—what? He did not know. It had always seemed, if he watched, the primrose veil would lift and release some phantom with noiseless tread on a ripple of night wind. In his lonely vigils he used to listen for all the little bells of the nodding purple heather to begin ringing some sort of pixie music, or for the flaming tongues of the painter's flower to take voice in some chorus that would beat ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... the parting lovers heard? Nor leaf, nor ripple, nor wing of bird, But a listener's stealthy tread On ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... am sandaled with wind and with flame, I have heart-fire and singing to give, I can tread on the grass or the stars, Now at ...
— Rivers to the Sea • Sara Teasdale
... am safe in my sylvan home, I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome; And when I am stretched beneath the pines, Where the evening star so holy shines, I laugh at the lore and the pride of man, At the sophist schools, and the learned clan; For what are they all in their ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... seen him stand so faultlessly rigid. As we passed him on the way out a mean desire came over me to tread on his toes, just as an experiment. I wondered if he would change expression. But somehow I felt that he would say "Thank you, sir," and there would be no satisfaction in knowing that he had had all his ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... "Queer thing how trouble acts different on folks. Kind of like hot weather, sours milk, but sweetens apples. She's one of the sweetened kind. And yet, I cal'late she can be pretty sharp, too, if you try to tread on her toes. Sort of a sweet ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... tread on dangerous ground, and that was on her birthday. He stopped in a jeweler's on his way up-town and brought her a black pearl on a thin almost invisible chain, only to have her refuse to ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... at the various stages of their journey, they were at last within a few short miles of their destination; they were about to become acquainted with a people, who had never seen, or scarcely heard of a European, and to tread on ground, the knowledge and true situation of which had hitherto been wholly unknown. These ideas of course excited no common sensations, and could scarcely be unaccompanied by strong hopes of their labours being beneficial to the ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... was that same priest who had been their companion on the day of Godfrey's arrival. As usual he was prepared to be bellicose, and figuratively, trailed the tails of his coat before his ancient enemy. But the Pasteur would not tread on them. Indeed, so mild and conciliatory were his answers that at last the priest, who was a good soul at bottom, grew anxious and inquired if ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... I'm not sure. I may be a little muddled. But I see a principle ahead and I'm going straight at it, even though I may tread on some toes. I believe that the opinion doesn't hold good, any longer, as a matter of right, that because a man has secured a franchise, and his charter permits him to build a dam across a river or the mouth of a lake, he is thereby entitled to all the power and control and profit he can ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... the contrast: "We look around in vain," says he, "for any traces of the wonderful remains we have just seen, and are half inclined to believe that we have dreamed a dream, or have been listening to some tale of Eastern romance. Some, who may hereafter tread on the spot when the grass again grows over the Assyrian palaces, may indeed suspect that I have ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... upon the heels of Wenonga," said Nathan, "must walk wide of his footsteps, for fear lest he should suddenly tread on the old reptile's tail. Thee don't know the craft of an old Injun that expects to be followed,—as, truly, it is like the Black-Vulture may expect it now. Do thee be content, friend; there is more paths to Wenonah's town than them that Wenonga follows; and, truly, we may gain something ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... is difficult to describe the state of those times. James Naylor rode into Bristol, a multitude accompanying him, strewing their scarfs, handkerchiefs, and garments on the ground for his horse to tread on, and singing, Hosanna in the highest; holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of Israel. He was addressed as the everlasting son of righteousness, and prince of peace. His brain was bewildered with adulation. Women kissed his feet, and called him Jesus the Son of God. To stop the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... and, dullards that we are, how seldom we are aware of our offence! You may be hated by a man you have never seen in your life: you may be hated as often by one you have loaded with benefits; you may so walk as not to tread on a worm; but you must sit fast on your easy-chair till you are carried out to your bier, if you would be sure not to tread on some snake of a foe. But, then, what harm does the hate do us? Very often the harm is as unseen by the world as the hate ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... killed thy foes, O great king. O lord of men, the ways of the world are known to thee. Therefore, O my son, thou art never guided by avarice in any of thy dealings. O descendant of Bharata, do thou tread on the foot-prints of ancient saintly kings. My son, Yudhishthira, be steady in the path of liberality, and self-abnegation, and truth. And, O royal Yudhishthira, mercy and self control, and truth and universal sympathy, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... lifted up. The door was held in this position by a lever made of a piece of rail, which in turn was kept in its place by a wire fastened to one end and passing down to a spring concealed in the ground inside the cage. As soon as the lion entered sufficiently far into the trap, he would be bound to tread on the spring; his weight on this would release the wire, and in an instant down would come the door behind him; and he could not push it out in any way, as it fell into a groove between two rails firmly ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... had been before. A fortnight later they reached Kukawa, the capital of Bornu, once a great Mohammedan empire. "We were about to become acquainted with a people who had never seen or scarcely heard of a European," says Denham, "and to tread on ground, the knowledge and true situation of which had hitherto been wholly unknown. We advanced towards the town of Kuka in a most interesting state of uncertainty, whether we should find its chief at the head ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... me? I've kept my programme as free as I could till I found you. I thought the pixies must have spirited you away! What did you say? I ought to ask Gwen? It isn't necessary in the least. You know I'm a duffer at it, and I should probably tread on her toes and she'd hate me for evermore. May I ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... I thus wandered over the earth. A burning fever glowed through my veins, and with dreadful agony I perceived my intellect abandoning me. Misfortune would have it that I should carelessly tread on a traveller's heel; I must have hurt him, for I received a violent ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso
... with due allowance for the artist's point of view, his own portrait of himself. He pronounces himself to be a 'boundless friend, a bitter but placable enemy.' Making the necessary corrections, we should translate this into 'a bitter enemy, a warm but irritable friend.' Tread on his toes, and he would let you feel his claws, though you were his oldest friend; but so long as you avoided his numerous tender points, he showed a genuine capacity for kindliness and even affection; and in his later years he mellowed down into an amiable ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... said Joe thickly. "Keep away from me! If you tread on my toes you're going to get hurt! I've a hard fist ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... tread on the gravel walk caused them to turn as Arthur Sherwood came to greet his guest, and to welcome ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... rock where the earth has her bound, To have sight of my pangs, or some guerdon obtain— Lo, a god in the anguish, a god in the chain! The god Zeus hateth sore, And his gods hate again, As many as tread on his glorified floor, Because I loved mortals too much evermore. Alas me! what a murmur and motion I hear, As of birds flying near! And the air undersings The light stroke of their wings— And all life that approaches I wait ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... accursed street-urchins. Pelle is by no means in a warlike humor; he pretends not to see them. But they come up close behind him and tread on his heels, and before he knows what is happening they are upon him. The first he knows about it is that he is lying in the gutter, on his back, with all three on top of him. He has fallen alongside of the curbstone and cannot move; he is faint, too, as ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Him the form of a Servant—God's Servant, man's Servant. We see Him willing to have no rights of His own, no home of His own, no possessions of His own, willing to let men revile Him and not revile again, willing to let men tread on Him and not retaliate or defend Himself. Above all, we see Him broken as He meekly goes to Calvary to become men's scapegoat by bearing their sins in His own body on the Tree. In a pathetic passage in a prophetic Psalm, ...
— The Calvary Road • Roy Hession
... which the hunter had dug for a wolf-trap, and covered loosely with thin twigs. "The matter won't be settled by quarrelsome and angry words," cried he; "but come, let the four of us go to the wolf-pit; we will all tread on it at once, and whoever falls in shall be adjudged guilty." The rest agreed, and when they stood on the twigs, they broke under their weight, and precipitated them into the pit, and even Reynard was unable to escape. He had trusted too much to the lightness of his tread, and ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... out with my prize, I happened to tread on the toes of a tall raw-boned fellow, with a hooked nose, fierce eyes, black thick eyebrows, a pigtail wig of the same colour, and a formidable hat pulled over his forehead, who stood gnawing his fingers in the crowd, and he sooner felt the application of my ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... mechanically as if ordered by a superior, opened the door, and disappeared into the dark hall. The doctor listened for the sound of his footsteps. When he heard the tread on the ground beneath the office window, he sighed and stepped out into the hall. His daughter was standing in the doorway at the farther end, as if looking ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... her little hand, and stamping her foot on the floor in a passion I could not understand. 'That is you! That is M. de Marsac all over. You say nothing, and men think nothing of you. You go with your hat in your hand, and they tread on you. They speak, and you are silent! Why, if I could use a sword as you can, I would keep silence before no man, nor let any man save the King of France cock his hat in my presence! But you! There! go, leave me. Here is your coin. Take it and go. Send me that lad of yours to keep ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... face surprised. "You! you! with such murderous thoughts—you, who can not bear to see a chicken killed, who can not bring yourself to tread on a spider or to stick a butterfly on ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... cries out "unclean," as if he had never known it before, and so Job, "Since I saw thee I abhorred myself in dust and ashes." Ye hear much of him, and it doth not abase you, but if ye saw him, ye would not abide yourselves; ye would prefer the dust you tread on to yourselves. Ye who know most, there is a mystery of iniquity in your hearts, that is not yet discerned, ye are but yet on the coast of that bottomless sea of abomination and vileness. Among all the aggravations of sin, nothing doth so demonstrate the folly, yea, the madness ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... of the guard she must keep over herself if she would return to Ulm the same modest girl whom her aunt could acquit of all indiscretion. Her cheeks flamed, as she sat alone, with the very thought, and the next time she heard the well-known tread on the stair, she fled hastily into her own turret chamber, and shut the door. Her heart beat fast. She could hear Sir Eberhard moving about the room, and listened to his heavy sigh as he threw himself into the large chair. Presently he called her by name, and she felt it needful ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dear Cambridge, pause upon my own reflections. If I stopped awhile, "to plume contemplation's wings, so ruffled and impaired," some of the low realities, some of the impertinent necessities of fashionable life, would tread on my heels. The order of the day or night was for ever pressed upon me—and the order of the day was now to go to this new sentimental comedy—my mother's favourite actor, the silver-toned Barry, was to play ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... in the limb, as though a tall man's body had been mounted on a little man's legs. He made up for this turnspit construction by striding to such an extent, that you would have sworn he had on the seven-leagued boots of Jack the Giant Killer; and so high did he tread on parade, that his soldiers were sometimes alarmed lest he should trample himself ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... pleased to find that my wind-inflated rubber tyre had not, like the brazen chariot wheel, crushed his delicate vertebra; he quickly recovered, and when released glided swiftly and easily away into cover. Twice only have I deliberately tried to run down, to tread on coat-tails so to speak, of any wild creature. One was a weasel, the other a stoat, running along at a hedge-side before me. In both instances, just as the front wheel was touching the tail, the little flat-headed rascal swerved ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... table was lumbered; "she has promised to stay a week, and has come in time to go with me to the singing class this afternoon. She's a darling girl, as fond of painting and drawing almost as I am, and hates cats. Oh, I do so love a girl that doesn't like cats. Eh, pussy, shall I tread on your tail?" ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... forgotten," said he, "to tell you what I was most anxious to say. If I had seen no other prospect for you, I should be the last man to make you discontented with your profession. My only request is, that when you once more tread on English ground, you will seriously consider whether you will continue in the army. If know you at all, I think that you would not be altogether satisfied with wearing your epaulettes at reviews and parades. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... of this awful silence, and then I was aware of a soft tread on the boards of the verandah, so stealthy that it seemed an impression directly on my brain rather than upon the nerves of hearing. Immediately afterwards a black figure darkened the glass door, and I perceived ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... become to my lonely hours by the kitchen stove, with Samuel curled up at my feet, that when one night, about six months after my mother's death, I heard the unexpected sound of my father's tread on the pavement outside, I turned almost with a feeling of terror, and waited breathlessly for his unsteady hand on the door. It came after a minute, followed immediately by his entrance into the kitchen, and to my amazement I saw presently that he was ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... neighbourhood would have declared him to be especially the poor man's friend. With L500 a year he could have done much; with half that income he could do something to assist them, and something he still did. He had his foibles, and fancies, but such as they were they did not tread on the corns of any of his poorer neighbours. He was proud of his birth, proud of his family, proud of having owned, either in his own hands or those of his forefathers, the same few acres,—and many more also, for his forefathers before him had terribly diminished the property. There ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... something about worms, or it may be giants or beetles, turning if you tread on them too severely. The safest plan is never to tread on a worm—not even on the last new subaltern from Home, with his buttons hardly out of their tissue paper, and the red of sappy English beef in his cheeks. This is the story of the worm that turned. For the sake of brevity, we will ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... through her. It well be a fearful ordeal, be not deceived in that, but it will be only a short time, and you will then rejoice more than your pain was great. From this grim tomb you will emerge as though you tread on air. But you must not falter when once you have begun. Only think that we, your true friends, are round you, and that we pray ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... them up while I should keep my glass upon their backs and make certain of the color of their rumps as they opened their wings. We were already within a very few paces of them, but they ran before him as he advanced, and in the end he had almost to tread on them. ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... another of these proverbial expressions which, I think, has also lost its pristine sense. By "Tread on a worm and it will turn" is usually meant that the very meekest and most helpless persons will, when harshly used, turn on their persecutors. But the poor worm does, and can do, no such thing. I therefore ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 211, November 12, 1853 • Various
... old man talking in the kitchen, and then came his heavy tread on the loose and flapping boards of the passage-way. The door was cut so low that he had to duck his head. He came in with a stoop, but straightening himself in the majesty of conscious hospitality, he bowed and said: "Gentlemen, you will ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... Charlie seemed to tread on air as he walked home. Flying up to Esther—his usual confidant—be related to her the whole affair, and gave at great length his conversation with ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... on my head, and grandmamma says she has nothing further to teach me in that respect, and that I have mastered the fact that a gentlewoman should give the impression that the ground is hardly good enough to tread on. She has also made me go through all kinds of exercises to insure suppleness, and to move from the hips. And the day she told me she was ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... the kingdom of Pluto. Its rivers never mirrored a sunbeam, and ever moaned low as an earthly river moans before a coming flood, and the feet that trod the gloomy Cocytus valley were the feet of those who never again would tread on the soft grass and flowers of an earthly meadow. Yet when Demeter had braved all the shadows of Hades, only in part was her end accomplished. In part only was Proserpine now her child, for while half her heart was in the sunshine, ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... her, also, to learn the true meaning of neighborliness, that kindliness of spirit which is stifled by stress in the crowded places, and stimulated by like stress amid surroundings where life is noncomplex, direct, where cause and effect tread on each other's heels. Every day, if she failed to drop into their cabin, came one of her neighbors to see if all were well with her. Quite as a matter of course Jake kept steadily replenished for her a great pile of firewood. ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... she arranged to meet it, while she herself struck right over the hills as the crow flies, crossing the burns on her way in the same manner as the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, only the water did not stand up on each side and leave dry ground for her to tread on; but she ignored the water altogether, and walked straight through. The young ladies, knowing this, took an extra supply of stockings and shoes with them, but Lady Arthur despised such effeminate ways and drove home in the footgear she set out ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... Molly; "you never tread on my toes now, nor crumple my pinafore, nor pull my hair. I do not want to go away from you, but it is time for me to go back to the other side of the sun. Will you please show me how to get ...
— All the Way to Fairyland - Fairy Stories • Evelyn Sharp
... would hardly occur to him to signalize the sex of the rural wives and mothers as the selfish sex. And in town, although there are a few fleeting hours of flattered youth in which the beautiful and fortunate Helen may tread on air and breathe adulation until she feels herself a goddess, yet a newer and younger Helen is always gently pushing her from the throne. Of all seasons that of blossoms is the briefest, and the maturer Helen, of whom the sex is ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... their idol, madam, I am one which they may tread on as they list when down; but which, by my soul and knighthood! the ten best battle-axes among them shall find ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... the door, and heard Lira's slow tread on the stairs. Before long he appeared, and glanced up at me from the steps, which he climbed, one at a time, with ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... of course, was not without its disadvantage. Vaguely he felt that in some subtle way he was gaining the disapproval of his fellows. Men were apt to look at him askance, half doubtful, half-indignant. They tread on his toes in the Elevated. His work, too, was going to pot; he could not stick to his figures. His chief, an old fragile-necked book-keeper, had spoken ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... therefore you are often touched. He amongst you who has this morning watched the awaking of his little child is a good man. Hearts are all alike. Humanity is nothing but a heart. Between those who oppress and those who are oppressed there is but a difference of place. Your feet tread on the heads of men. The fault is not yours; it is that of the social Babel. The building is faulty, and out of the perpendicular. One floor bears down the other. Listen, and I will tell you what to do. Oh! as you are powerful, be brotherly; as you are great, be tender. If you only knew what ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... among the wonderful things of the Earth. They are immense in extent, and the trees which form them grow so close together that they tread on one another's toes. All are lashed, and bound, and relashed, into one huge magnificent tangled net, by the thickest underwood, and the most marvellous parasitic growths that nature has ever devised. No human being can force his way through ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... every box on the ears he gave used regularly to cost him 200 florins, a very costly passion to indulge in. And besides he was particularly anxious just then to keep Margari in a good humour. A man may loathe a viper but he had better not tread on its tail if he cannot tread on its head. Horrified at his own outburst of rage, the moment he saw Margari disappear in the vine-arbours, he rushed after him, freed him with his own hands, picked him up, set him on his legs again and ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... the desperate urgency and fervor of her low voice. Phillida uttered an exclamation of fear. Vere wheeled about and left the room. The front door closed behind him. The gravel crunched under his tread on the path to the garage, and the rate at which the light he carried moved through the fog showed that he was running. He obviously accepted the warning exactly as it was given. After the briefest indecision, Phillida hurried out ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... not object to come down from mine, but it must be in my own way, and not at the bidding of others. Must they be able to say to me, Crawl—and behold me, forced to crawl? That is the worm's way, and it is mine; we both of us follow it—the worm and I—when they leave us alone, but we turn when they tread on our tails. They have trodden on my tail, and I mean to turn. And then you have no idea of the creature we are talking about. Imagine a sour and melancholy person, eaten up by vapours, wrapped twice or thrice round in his dressing-gown, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... or the style Had trac'd the shades and lines, that might have made The subtlest workman wonder? Dead the dead, The living seem'd alive; with clearer view His eye beheld not who beheld the truth, Than mine what I did tread on, while I went Low bending. Now swell out; and with stiff necks Pass on, ye sons of Eve! veil not your looks, Lest they descry the evil of ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... of the world be countless, and most of the trails be tried; You tread on the heels of the many, till you come where the ways divide; And one lies safe in the sunlight, and the other is dreary and wan, Yet you look aslant at the Lone Trail, and the Lone Trail lures you on. And somehow you're sick of the highway, with its noise and its easy needs, ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... ladder we descend to another with the guide ever in advance, continually assuring us that there was no danger so long as we held firmly to the rounds and did not look at our feet, and that we must not for our lives tread on the side plank, where the buzzing barrel-rope runs, and where two weeks ago a careless man was knocked down, unfortunately breaking his neck by the fall. Far below is a confused rustling and humming, and we continually bump against beams and ropes which are in motion, winding ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... red. I wouldna say but what there's something no just canny about a cave with red sides to it higher than a man can stretch. Eh, but you've the chiney white feet, Miss Una. Mind now you dinna scrab them on the wee shells. Bide now, bide like a good lassie, till I spread the sheet for you to tread on. You will no be for going right intil the cave? Would it no do you to shout when you got to the mouth of it? I dinna like that cave with the red sides till it. I'm thinking maybe there was red sides to the cave where the witch of Endor ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... foot by all kinds of men; Gracing the mountain or hid in the fen; Never adorning the brow of the fair; Seldom deemed worthy some corner to share In the bouquets that are cast in the way Princely feet tread on reception's proud day; The glory of roses do not attain; Beautiful mosses, ye grow ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant |
