"Pitch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sudden march upon Alencon. The disloyal burghers received the duke with mockery of his birth. They hung out skins, and shouted, "Hides for the Tanner." Personal insult is always hard for princes to bear, and the wrath of William was stirred up to a pitch which made him for once depart from his usual moderation towards conquered enemies. He swore that the men who had jeered at him should be dealt with like a tree whose branches are cut off with the pollarding-knife. The town was taken ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... while the drift terrace elevated about thirty feet above the level of the lake, being an open pine plain, affords excellent camping ground, and is the most central and convenient spot for the traveler to pitch his tent, while he examines the most interesting localities in the series which occur in the vicinity, particularly the Castle and ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... where your gang are to meet you. This man can get over to the boat now and warn them to show up, carefully, one by one, and hide around there till dark. Not in the tower itself, for some of the coast-guard roundsmen might take shelter there and pitch into them for smugglers. I'll stay here till he comes back. If old Simpson should come along too early, why, you and I could hide him away here till it is dark enough to throw him over. And you'll surely catch old Fraser and the two women ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... crowned by pyramidal caps; and such towers, finely proportioned, would give the church the height which it so much needs, and the lack of which we feel so acutely to-day. The raising of the roofs at the time of the restoration to their original pitch was an undoubted gain, for without it the building looked lower and longer even than it does now. The church as we see it has been sadly injured by Lord Grimthorpe's work at both ends of the transepts, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... you can make one pile of all your winnings And risk it at one game of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again from your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss, If you can force you heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on, though there is nothing in you Except the will ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... more terrible efforts, and drumming its round barrel with vindictive heels. His hair blew black; his face flushed; and in his eyes there was the joy of the sailor, long land-bound, who climbs at last the tallest mast and feels it pitch beneath him and catches the sharp tang ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... baronet of as good birth as any in the country; and my father, sir"—(Jasper's voice trembled) "my father," he repeated, fiercely striking his clenched hand on the table, "was a gentleman every inch of his body; and I'll pitch any man out of the window who says ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... adapted to the cooking kettle, to be used when needed, by which abundance of fresh water may always be secured while cooking the ships provisions, sufficient to preserve the lives of the crew. In default of that useful appendage, a still may be easily constructed for the occasion, by means of the pitch kettle, a reversed tea kettle for a head, and a gun barrel fixed to the spout of the tea kettle, the breach pin being screwed out, and the barrel either soldered to the spout, or fixed by a paste of flour, soap and water, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... She says: "The sight of the river rouses me to a considerable pitch of enthusiasm. How dirty and muddy a river it is, and how it roars and rages. There is a great rapid a quarter of a mile above where we cross. While we are to cross in still water, the current is strong and bears ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... observed many facts about sounds, among others that blows struck upon a bell produced sympathetic sounds in a bell of the same kind; and that striking the string of a lute produced vibration in corresponding strings of lutes strung to the same pitch. He knew, also, that sounds could be heard at a distance at sea by listening at one end of a tube, the other end of which was placed in the water; and that the same expedient worked successfully on land, the end of the tube being placed ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... peculiar to the American Indian. With pathetic eloquence he dwelt upon the insatiable land-greed of the white men, and predicted the extinction of his race if they committed the insensate folly of selling their beloved hunting-grounds. Roused to a high pitch of oratorical fervor, the savage with uplifted arm fiercely exhorted his people to resist further encroachments at all hazards—and left the treaty ground. This incident brought the conference to a startling and abrupt conclusion. On the following ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... the night, the soft ears not erected as by day, but laid back against the shoulders. Sheep sleep little. They lie down suddenly, as though they were settled for the night; but in a little there is an unsteady pitch fore and aft, and the animal is again at the work of munching, steadily and apparently mechanically. I have often half believed that sheep can eat and walk and sleep all at the same time. A bivouac of sheep without lambs in the summer ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... of the exiles, assembled them in barns and had them trodden under the feet of cattle. The rich reentered the city and became masters of it. In their turn they seized the children of the poor, coated them with pitch, and ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... And moreover he said, "If any one shall ask why you have taken them down, say it is to clean them and scour them from the rust which they have gathered since the owner of this house went for Troy." And as Telemachus stood by the armour, the lights were all gone out, and it was pitch dark, and the armour gave out glistering beams as of fire, and he said to his father, "The pillars of the house are on fire." And his father said, "It is the gods who sit above the stars, and have power to make ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... a reprobate for feeling compassion at the doom divine. Through the semi-darkness the poets looked down into pit five, where devils with fantastic names pitched barrators into a lake of boiling pitch and speared those who dared to raise their heads above the surface. From these Evil Claws Dante and Vergil escaped only by running into the sixth pit, where walked the hypocrites in richly gilded mantles. When Dante wondered at their weary faces ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... circles, hide under the willows, and attempt to creep into the rat-holes in the banks, a stupidity so crass that it merits instant death, which it somehow always escapes. Then they come out in couples and waddle under the wrong fence into the lower meadow, fly madly under the tool-house, pitch blindly in with the sitting hens, and out again in short order, all the time quacking and squawking, honking and hissing like a bewildered orchestra. By dint of splashing the water with poles, throwing pebbles, beating the shrubs at the pond's edges, "shooing" frantically with our ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... what it means to me, and pretty good ones too, I suppose, for everything has grown to such a pitch of extravagance in these days that one is expected to come down handsomely. When we were married we thought ourselves rich with twenty or thirty offerings, but now they are reckoned by hundreds, and the happy recipients have to employ detectives to guard their treasures. ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... naturalization. V. place, situate, locate, localize, make a place for, put, lay, set, seat, station, lodge, quarter, post, install; house, stow; establish, fix, pin, root; graft; plant &c. (insert) 300; shelve, pitch, camp, lay down, deposit, reposit[obs3]; cradle; moor, tether, picket; pack, tuck in; embed, imbed; vest, invest in. billet on, quarter upon, saddle with; load, lade, freight; pocket, put up, bag. inhabit &c. (be present) 186; domesticate, colonize; take root, strike ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... roof, through which he supposed the sounds uttered by its inmate must be ascending. He was too far off to distinguish the words; but that there were words uttered, and probably as strange as the music itself, if music he could call it, he was very certain. Now the strains rose to a high pitch, now they swelled, now decreased into a low moan ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston
... assembled crowd, and then, jumping into the air with great violence, brought both feet down on the plank floor with a resounding thump; then, spinning round on one foot with his arm extended, he quickly altered the tone of his voice to a more gentle pitch, and, quivering with excitement, quietly sank down into his place amid a dead silence. The speech was a stirring one, and created an impression. Others spoke a few words to the pig, and it was then taken to one side and stabbed in the throat with a spear, after which the liver was taken out and ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... said, 'You'—the ladies will excuse me, I'm sure—'You lying rascal,' s' I, 'don't you dare to contradict me! You're all tarred with the same pitch,' s' I. 'Everything you touch turns corrupt and rotten. Look at Henry G. Surface,' s' I. 'The finest fellow God ever made, till the palsied hand of Republicanism fell upon him, and now cankering and rotting ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... less think of a figurative sense, that bodily disfiguration forms the climax of misery, and that, in this part, the whole of the miserable condition is delineated. Even the severe inward sufferings are a matter of course, if the outward ones have risen to such a pitch. How both of these go hand in hand is seen from Ps. xxii. These interpreters are, farther, wrong in this respect, that they refer the pretended figurative expression solely to the lowliness and humility of the Messiah, and not, at the same time, to His sufferings ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... wuz de oberseah w'at had cotch' 'im wastin' 'is time. But dey wa'n't no oberseah in sight, so he 'cluded it must 'a' be'n de mule. So he pitch' inter de mule en lammed 'im ez ha'd ez he could. De mule tuk it all, en 'peared ter be ez 'umble ez a mule could be; but w'en dey wuz makin' de turn at de een' er de row, one er de plough-lines got under de mule's hin' leg. Dan retch' down ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... close together, and Sile felt something prick him sharply on the left arm near the shoulder. At the same moment he saw the red man reel to and fro upon his horse, and then pitch off ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... I might as well make it more convenient to carry, as there was no saying what might be the result of our new expedition; so, when the other men were all busy about their own effects, or asleep, I first took the precaution to roll it up in a covering of pitch, so that, if taken from me or lost, it might not be known to be a diamond, and then I sewed it up in a piece of leather, which I cut from an old glove, putting a strong leather lanyard to it, so that I might wear it round my neck. Having done this without any one taking notice, and ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... Before Wilbur knew it he had settled himself to his new life, and woke one morning to the realization that he was positively enjoying himself. Daily the weather grew warmer. The fifth day out from San Francisco it was actually hot. The pitch grew soft in the "Bertha Millner's" deck seams, the masts sweated resin. The Chinamen went about the decks wearing but their jeans and blouses. Kitchell had long since abandoned his coat and vest. ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... a shop?" repeated M. Chebe, red as an Easter egg, and raising his voice to its highest pitch. "Why, because I'm a merchant, Monsieur Risler, a merchant and son of a merchant. Oh! I see what you're coming at. I have no business. But whose fault is it? If the people who shut me up at Montrouge, at the gates of Bicetre, like a paralytic, ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... regular practitioner, who is very irregular, cannot. If there is one good doctor I have not consulted, I would like to know his name. I was doing editorial work in X and broke down. Still the doctor said that if I liked my work, I should go back to it and pitch in. I did. It lasted a few days and then I had to give up altogether, couldn't grind out another word. Then to another doctor——also the best in the city. He told me to give up all work, which I did, and then I went on a farm for six months. That did not help me either. Later I went west ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... many instances rolling over and over in the muddy streets for a considerable distance, being generally well primed with bang or opium. There are occasional disturbances between the fanatics of the different castes, for many of these work themselves up to a pitch of frenzy by the use of narcotics and other stimulants, but the Government always take steps to prevent any serious outbreak, by having the troops posted in different parts of the town, ready to turn out at a moment's notice, and a strong ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... My friend described to me how Rosas placed several of his rough police at the doors of every church, and any lady who did not exhibit the obligatory red bow on her black dress (in Spanish-speaking countries the women always go to Mass in black), received a dab of pitch on her cheek, on to which the policeman clapped a rosette of red paper. She told it all so graphically that I could almost see the stream of frightened, black-clad women issuing from the church, whilst their husbands and lovers stood expectantly below (South American men rarely enter a ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread— Stitch—stitch—stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,— Would that its tone could reach the Rich! She sang this 'Song of ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... "It struck me the moment I saw the sign, outside. You mean, don't you, a certain lack of balance? The god is leaning over too far on the leg that carries him. He looks as though he were going to pitch forward." ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... thought, set Rome on fire in order that he might enjoy the sight of the burning city, tried to turn suspicion from himself by accusing the Christians of the crime. He punished them by tying them to poles, smearing their bodies with pitch, and burning them at ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... excesses. The altered character too, of his letters in this respect cannot fail, I think, to be remarked by the reader,—there being, with an evident increase of intellectual vigour, a tone of violence and bravado breaking out in them continually, which marks the high pitch of re-action to which he had ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... pitch to Renner. "Maragon has a connection with these Psis—it's all over town that he got Keys Crescas off. This Crescas can find Mary Hall—you know how Psis stick together." Renner nodded rapt agreement. "And," Dunn added, ...
— Modus Vivendi • Gordon Randall Garrett
... brandy-flask into the hands of the performer, and urging him to "drink it all, every drop, and then give us another!" Our mountain Paganini, I fear, interpreted the behest too literally; or else H.'s enthusiasm never afterwards rose to so high a pitch; at any rate, he was never known to manifest it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... or of inquisitive adults like Kipling's mongoose, Riki-Tiki-Tavi, which made it his business in life to find out about things. But in monkeys the habit of restless experimenting rises to a higher pitch. They appear to be curious about the world. The psychologist whom we have quoted tells of a monkey which happened to hit a projecting wire so as to make it vibrate. He went on repeating the performance hundreds of ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... moreover he said, "If any one shall ask why you have taken them down, say, it is to clean them and scour them from the rust which they have gathered since the owner of this house went for Troy." And as Telemachus stood by the armour, the lights were all gone out, and it was pitch-dark, and the armour gave out glistening beams as of fire, and he said to his father, "The pillars of the house are on fire." And his father said, "It is the gods who sit above the stars, and have power ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the popular dissemination of printed matter (of a superficial nature perhaps, but that is an indispensable preparatory stage,) and have gone in common education, so-call'd, far beyond any other land or age. Yet the high-pitch'd taunt of Margaret Fuller, forty years ago, still sounds in the air: "It does not follow, because the United States print and read more books, magazines, and newspapers than all the rest of the world, that they really have therefore ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... "Pitch it right out in the middle, squire," cried Griggs, and the fragment quitted the boy's hand, to fall with a sharp sound upon stone, as near as they could guess some ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... can be turned through a complete circle by a pinion gearing into a machine-moulded toothed ring bolted to the top of the truck; this ring is 11 ft. 4-7/8 in. in diameter, and contains 172 teeth 21/2 in pitch. The slewing pinion is driven by intermediate gearing from the bottom of the vertical shaft mentioned above. For the turning motion two distinct sets of rollers are provided; these are carried by cross-girders placed ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... in the nature of a religious revival than of a political election campaign. It was also a culminating point in the great labor upheaval. The enthusiasm of the laboring people reached its highest pitch. They felt that, baffled and defeated as they were in their economic struggle, they were now nearing victory in the struggle for the control of government. Mass meetings were numerous and large. Most of them were held in the open air, usually on the street corners. From the system ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... held out to them to establish here several branches of manufacture which they had previously carried on to great advantage at home. This accession of skill and industry soon raised the woollen fabrics of England to a pitch of excellence unknown in former ages, and repaid with usury to the country this exercise ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... yacht, and there were one or two false alarms. At length, when The Firefly was approaching the Spanish coast, Dane, who was on deck with a glass, gave the alarm. It was a misty, grey day, with absence of sun and wind. The ocean was heaving like masses of liquid pitch with an oily look, and the yacht cut sheer through the terrific waves that threatened to overwhelm her. Suddenly a wind rose, there was a blink of sunshine, and about a mile away a bark was seen rolling in the trough of the sea. "There she ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... the four parts of the world, in allusion to the command of Christ: "Go teach all nations, baptising them" (Matt. XXVIII). He then dips the paschal candle three times into the water, singing, and each time raising his voice to a higher pitch than before: "May the power of the Holy Ghost descend upon the fulness of this font"; as when He descended, says Gavant, "in the form of a dove at the baptism of Christ represented by this candle plunged into the ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... to such a pitch that they acted half insane. Forward they charged in howling masses—but the bullets and arrows pelted them thickly, more warriors fell—they scattered and ran away. ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... Plassans was perhaps not mistaken in suspecting that Felicite had some blue blood in her veins. The passion for indulgence, which became formidably developed in the Rougons, and was, in fact, the family characteristic, attained in his case its highest pitch; he longed for self-gratification, but in the form of mental enjoyment such as would gratify his burning desire for domination. A man such as this was never intended to succeed in a provincial town. He vegetated there for fifteen years, his eyes turned ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... light suited to wonder and uncertainty. It had fallen dark before I rode into the straw-yard. Two young bullocks snuffled at me, a sleepy hen got up and ran off with a tremendous shrieking. I stabled the horse, and walked round to the back. It was pitch black under the apple-trees, and the windows were all darkened. I stood there a little, everything smelled so delicious after the rain; suddenly I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was being watched. Have you ever felt like that on a dark ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to ourselves. The rain and bad roads made travelling so very wearisome, that before we had proceeded far it was unanimously agreed that we should halt and pitch our first encampment. "Pitch our first encampment! how charming!" exclaims some romantic reader, as though it were an easily accomplished undertaking. Fixing a gipsy-tent at a FETE CHAMPETRE, with a smiling sky above, and all ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... at once, Antonin, a perfect wreck at thirty-six years of age, fell seriously ill. Lepailleur forthwith declared that if the scamp had the audacity to come home he would pitch him over the wheel into the water. Antonin, however, had no desire to return home; he held the country in horror and feared, too, that his father might chain him up like a dog. So his mother placed him with some people of Batignolles, paying ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... fellow whose blond complexion was getting rather patchy as he bit his lip with mortification. Fred was struggling with many thoughts. Mr. Garth had been so kind and encouraging at the beginning of their interview, that gratitude and hopefulness had been at a high pitch, and the downfall was proportionate. He had not thought of desk-work—in fact, like the majority of young gentlemen, he wanted an occupation which should be free from disagreeables. I cannot tell what might have been the consequences if he ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... simplicity of mind was contrasted with the savant's coldness of soul, and he was adduced as an instance that the gifts of God are absolutely free. All this created a deep division of feeling in the college. The mystics worked themselves up to such a pitch of mental tension that several of them died, but this only increased the frenzy of the others. M. Gosselin had too much tact to offer them a direct opposition, but for all that, there were two distinct parties in the college, the mystics acting under the immediate guidance ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... holding on, it was abandoned as impossible. The men sat about under the bulwarks, and a few amused themselves and the rest by trying to play various games, such as laying a penny on the deck, and seeing which would pitch another to lay nearest to it, from a distance of five yards. The difficulty of balancing oneself in a heavily rolling vessel, and of pitching a penny with any degree of accuracy, is great, and the manner in which the coins, instead of ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... instantly tied tightly round the upper part of the arm to stop the rush of blood, and the stump was then dipped into boiling pitch, and Sweyn, who had become almost instantly insensible from the loss of blood, was carried to his father's tent. According to custom handsome presents of swords and armour were made to Edmund by those who had ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... enough. And that is enough by virtue of this text" (meaning 1 Cor. xi. 16). And after he saith, that we are taught by the Apostle's example in "points of this nature, of ceremony or circumstance, ever to pitch upon habemus, or non habemus ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... by a border of cement that looked like pitch and gravel; and the major noted, even as he drove his pick into this cement, that both the stone and the border were enclosed by a massive circle of gold with the lower part studded ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... home in all the storm, for I had only run over to tell you about Mrs. Farnham's baby, and hadn't expected to stay. I couldn't but jest get along, the wind and rain beat in my face so; and somehow what I had seen here took away all my nat'ral strength; besides, it was dark as pitch, and before I got home there wasn't a ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... affair, being nothing more than a plate of iron somewhat larger, perhaps a fourth, than the lens to be ground to the corresponding curvature. In order to insure its changing to fit the glass, it is covered on the interior with a coating of pitch from an eighth to a quarter of an inch thick. This material is admirably adapted to the purpose because it gives way certainly, though very slowly, to the pressure of the glass. In order that it may have room to change its form, grooves are cut ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... tones, without rhythm of any sort or apparent rule, and my daughters say it is very difficult to note down; yet there is some kind of method and similarity in it as one hears it shouted out at the loudest pitch of the voice, the last note dwelt upon and drawn out to an immeasurable length. The words are frequently improvised by the singers, who answer one another from a distance, as they work in the fields. I have been told this ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... my lady,' he said, 'it won't do. Mr. Churchill is a man above hocus-pocus. Well I know it that have had dealings with him. But ... well, the long and the short of it is, my lady, that you can't touch pitch and not be defiled; or, leastwise, people'll think you've been defiled—those that don't know you. The foreign nations are all very well, and the grand duchy—and the getting hold of Greenland, but what touches me is this—My neighbour Slingsby had a little money, ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... a certain sense makes the soul in its resolves independent of the physical influence of all other creatures. This spontaneity, hitherto little recognized, which exalts our command over our actions to the highest pitch, is a consequence of the System of Pre-established Harmony, of which I must give some explanation here. The Scholastic philosophers believed that there was a reciprocal physical influence between body and soul: but since it has been ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... still more impossible that she should do anything. Then you have nothing to fear but Russia and England, and it will be easy for you to keep up friendly relations with these two powers. Take my advice; sell your iron, timber, leather, and pitch; take in return salt, wines, brandy, and colonial produce. This is the way to make yourself popular in Sweden. If, on the contrary, you follow the Continental system, you will be obliged to adopt laws against smuggling, which will draw upon you ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... formidable magician, who seemed inspired rather with the fury of a demon than the valour of a man, had made an abrupt appearance in the ranks of the Moslems. Wherever the Moors shrank back from wall or tower, down which poured the boiling pitch, or rolled the deadly artillery of the besieged, this sorcerer—rushing into the midst of the flagging force, and waving, with wild gestures, a white banner, supposed by both Moor and Christian to be the work of magic and preternatural spells—dared every danger, and ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... its height and decline (if indeed the passion does not die out in a total relaxation of the body), which leaves the excited spirits time to resume their harmony, and the organs to recover. Hence, the highest pitch of rapture, of fear, and of anger, are the same as weariness, weakness, or fainting. But sleep vouchsafes more, for ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... himself lay out all night among the men, encouraging them. One morning at daybreak he observed that the agger was smoking. The ingenious Gauls had undermined it and set it on fire. At the same moment they appeared along the walls with pitch-balls, torches, fagots, which they hurled in to feed the flames. There was an instant of confusion, but Caesar uniformly had two legions under arms while the rest were working. The Gauls fought with a courage which called out his warm admiration. He watched ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... of all sins. O king of men, they remember thy prowess on the field, and that of Arjuna, who taketh the lead in the field of battle. They remember Bhima wielding his mace when the sound of the conch-shell and the drum rises to the highest pitch. They remember those mighty car-warriors, the two sons of Madri, who on the field of battle career in all directions, shooting incessant showers of shafts on hostile hosts, and who know not what it ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... romances of adventure and love. They are hastily done, as we have said, and there is no attempt at subtilty of characterization or at any moral or philosophical meaning; nevertheless the reader's interest in the vigorous and picturesque action is maintained throughout at the highest pitch. Furthermore, they contain much finely sympathetic description of Scottish scenery, impressionistic, but poured out with enthusiasm. Scott's numerous lyrics are similarly stirring or moving expressions of the primal emotions, and some of ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... floor. I am well aware that this vibrating house exaggerates every sound during the silence of night; but all the same, I am puzzled to know what my mousme can be doing. Chink! chink! is she amusing herself with quoits, or the 'jeu du crapaud', or pitch-and-toss? ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... at the curb, a low voice of undeniable tensity, high laughter that shot up in joyous geysers. It was a fifteen-minute process from the curb to the first of the porch steps, and then Mrs. Goldstone leaned forward, her voice straining to keep its pitch. ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... came out here a long time ago, married a native of the country, and rejoices in a brood of half-breeds, among whom are four girls, rather dusky, but not ill-favored. Next in order is the government-house,—that pitch-coated structure near the flag-staff. This is the only building, you observe, that can boast of a double tier of windows. Next, a little higher up, you see, is my own lodge, bedaubed with pitch, like the other, to protect it against the assaults of the weather, and to stop ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... perhaps, ill concealed, was Madame Rosalie's evolutions on these occasions. I fancy, now, that I see her slight figure skipping into the room, dancing a jig round the table, never at rest, screeching all the while at the highest pitch of her voice, with every limb in motion, as if she had St. Vitus's dance, or, as they say, went on wires. I can only compare the play of her limbs to that of one of those children's puppets of which all the limbs—head, legs, and arms—are ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... party of Irish, who are playing antics in some corner of the ship. Considering that we are all hemmed in within the space of a few feet, and that it is the amusement of the great restless ocean to pitch us constantly into each other's arms, it is hard indeed if we do not pick up something new ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... opened shutters in a pitch-dark room, letting in the blessed light, Jan remembered there was ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... dispute that point.' When the laugh was over, I resumed,—for I was determined not to let him off so easily. 'Sure I met you at Mrs. Cayle's,' said I; 'and, by the same token, it was a Friday, I remember it well,—may be you didn't pitch into the salt cod? I hope it didn't ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... is true indeed that no action can remain long at the pitch of its intensity. And the goal of contemplation is to attain to the uniformity of Divine contemplation, as Denis the Areopagite says.[404] Hence, although in this sense contemplation cannot last long, yet it can last long as regards its ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... snow had fallen the day before, and the walking was very bad. Presently he caught sight of a little piece of scarlet cloth fastened to a stick that stood upright in a drift. It ought to have been another warning to him, but it only roused his curiosity to a still higher pitch, as the trapper knew it would. He sat down in the snow and considered. The thing didn't really look as if it were good to eat, and yet it might be. The only way to find out would be to go up to it and taste it. But, eatable or not, such a bright bit of color was certainly very ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... upon his heels, his every sense upon the alert, his nerves keyed to the highest pitch of excitement. This was life! For the instant he forgot his resolutions of a few minutes past to hasten to the coast at some other point than that at which he had landed and make his way immediately back to London. He thought ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to the highest pitch. "And this utterance of two words is then beyond your ability? It appears you cannot speak two words with proper emphasis!" [Footnote: In a letter to Madarae Denis, Voltaire wrote: "Tout le monde me reproche que le roi a fait dos vers pour d'Arnaud, des vers qui ne sont pas ce qu'il ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... and inserted it was simply with an idea of supporting the part over which the third and fourth strings were stretched, and that as the tension of the strings became greater in consequence of the rise in the pitch, so the bar had to be increased in strength, that is, longer and deeper. The discovery or unearthing of an old master in its original condition will therefore be followed by the opening and re-barring for the emission of the tone according to modern ideas; these may ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... instinct of simian mimicry they all tend to copy each other. Each one, without knowing it, acquires the gestures, the tone of voice, the manner, the attitudes, the very countenance of others. In six years Dinah had sunk to the pitch of the society she lived in. As she acquired Monsieur de Clagny's ideas she assumed his tone of voice; she unconsciously fell into masculine manners from seeing none but men; she fancied that by laughing ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... intrusion, he snatched up the knife near his pillow and sprang like a cat out of his bed; and then began a strange and bloody fight, one man, stark naked, with a short-bladed knife in his hand, against seven men with their long facons, in a small pitch-dark room. The advantage Jack had was that his bare feet made no sound on the clay floor, and that he knew the exact position of a few pieces of furniture in the room. He had, too, a marvellous agility, and the intense darkness was all in his ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... and melancholy man carries gloom with him wherever he goes. Eloquence, which, if we were to hear it addressed to us personally and individually, in private conversation, would move us very little, will excite us to a pitch of the highest enthusiasm if we hear it in the midst of a vast audience; even though the words, and the gestures, and the inflections of the voice, and the force with which it reaches our ears, were to be precisely ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... ranged down in here—and he did not believe, anyway, that this was any range horse. It did not sound like Silver, but it might be the pigeon-toed horse of Miss Allen. And if it was, then Miss Allen would be there. He took a deep breath and went up the last steep pitch in a spurt ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... sternly and confidently, wafting into the air strong, powerful tones, which sounded like blows. And suddenly, changing the tempo of the song and striking a higher pitch, she began to sing, as slowly as her ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... you beds in the fort, but I think if you were to pitch your tents outside the fort, on the glacis, you would be better than on the hill; your baggage would be safer, and I should be more able to render you any attention ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... place where there was floor space to spread a blanket. Then came an order to march to the main village and join Major Corbley. At least a dozen of the men could not get their shoes on by reason of their feet being swollen, but we finally set out on a pitch black night through the thick mud. We staggered on, every man falling full length in the mud innumerable times, and finally reached our ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... strength remaining; but as it was, she preferred to sacrifice herself, and obey her mother. "Father always told me," she had said to Mr. Mordacks, when he asked her how so sharp a child could let things come to such a pitch, "that when he was out of the way, the first thing I was to mind always was to do what mother told me; and now he can't come back no more, to let me off from ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... Harold, as soon as the season is over, and I get back home, I am going to unite with the church? Have I astonished you! I am going to do this from a conviction of duty. You need not imagine that I have been wrought up to such a pitch of excitement that I don't know what I am about. I assure you there is nothing of the kind. I have simply concluded that it is an eminently proper thing to do. So long as I believe fully in the church and ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... thought brought relaxation from the great physical strain and mental anxiety that had spurred him to activity and keyed his nerves to a high pitch since leaving his snow cavern early in the morning, and with the relaxation he was overcome by emotion. Tears sprang to his eyes, and suddenly he ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... trees in harmony with the landscape. A light was burning in the cottage, visible through the inner curtain of muslin, and the outer one of frost. As he approached the door, he heard the sound of a voice; and from the even pitch of the tone, he concluded at once that its owner was reading aloud. The measured cadence soon convinced him that it was verse that was being read; and the voice was evidently that of David, and not of Margaret. He knocked at the door. ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... the arts, until some spirits, more audacious than the rest, became restive under the slow march of events, which led them towards perfection at a rate ill-suited to their fiery impatience. At this time, the mechanic arts were at the highest pitch of perfection amongst us—we have since, in a great measure, abandoned them, as unsuited to, and unnecessary for, an advanced state of civilization—we wore clothes, constructed canals, and effected other works that were greatly esteemed among the species from which we had emigrated. ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... mile or so farther, as the sun was fast disappearing, we searched for a suitable spot to pitch our tents. There was no sign of any water, only the stony bed of a dried rivulet. We were discussing the situation, when a faint sound as of rushing water struck our ears. It grew louder and louder, and then we ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... my beliefs you want," continued the old man, "I'll pitch 'em at you fair and free. My beliefs is that Spite Calderwood is gone an' took Lucindy outen the county. Bless your heart and soul! when Spite Calderwood meets the Old Boy in the road they'll be a turrible scuffle. You ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... committed by ignorant savages, who had been dragged from all they held most dear; whose patience had been exhausted by a cruel and loathsome confinement during their transportation; and whose resentment had been wound up to the highest pitch of fury by the lash ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... said the man, sitting down astride of one of the old cannon. "Think I was going to pitch ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... direction, as it is towards the settlements. Besides they can't trail me in the darkness. Ha! what am I thinking of?—not trail me in the darkness! What! I had forgotten the bloodhound! O God, preserve me! These fiends can follow me were it as dark as pitch! ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... her transportation. She accordingly left her ambulance and dressed wounds until midnight. By this time the army was in full retreat and passing the hospital. The surgeon forgot his promise, and taking care of himself, left her to get away as best she could. It was pitch dark and the rain pouring in torrents. She was finally offered a part of the front seat of an army (medicine) wagon, and after riding two or three miles on the horrible roads the tongue of the wagon broke, and she was compelled ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... I see your inveterated humors. It required courage and required conditions that feuilletonists are not the persons to name or qualify, this writing Rabelais in 1850. And to do this alone.—You must even pitch your tune to suit yourself. We must let Arctic Navigators and deepsea divers wear what astonishing coats, and eat what meats—wheat or ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... already aware of the danger to which the prelates were exposed; and were raised to the highest pitch of anxiety and attention with regard to the issue of this extraordinary affair. But when they beheld these fathers of the church brought from court under the custody of a guard, when they saw them embark in vessels on the river, and conveyed towards the Tower, all their ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... eating. He felt rather upset, and weak in the joints, and as for the lad's stomach it had revolted at sight of the very first egg. But luckily the last meal before a game has little effect one way or the other upon the partaker, since he is already keyed up, mentally and physically, to a certain pitch, and nothing short of cold poison ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... close for comfort. Colonel Oakford, Lieutenant-Colonel Wilcox, and I were sitting on our horses as close together as horses ordinarily stand, when one of these ugly missiles dropped down between us. It came with a shrieking, screeching sound, like the pitch of an electric car with the added noise of a dozen sky-rockets. It did not explode. It created considerable consternation and no little stir with horses and men, but did no damage further than the scare and a good showering ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... Tobago Pitch Lake, on Trinidad's southwestern coast, is the world's largest natural ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... rising to take the heavy tray from the knotted, trembling hands; "you know that I will not allow you to carry those heavy things upstairs yourself." He raised his voice to sing-song pitch near the withered old ear. "I have already told you that when Renny is not at home, I can take my ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... myself, but after all, I don't quite like to see a lady become one. I shan't lead her astray. I wouldn't have said any thing to-night if it hadn't been for that miserable hypocrite of a Van Anden; the fellow must learn not to pitch into me if he wants to be let alone; but I doubt if he accomplished much this time. What a witch she is!" And Dr. Douglass removed his cigar long enough to give vent to a hearty laugh in remembrance ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... some Barbadoes Sugers, and not mountaines of Suger candy, which did frighten him, that he would goe no further, complaining that he was furnished but for 4 months, & that he had neither Sailes, nor Cord, nor Pitch, nor Towe, to stay out a winter. Seeing well that it was too late, he would goe no further, so brought us back to the place from whence wee came, where wee were welcome, although with great losse of goods & hope, but the last was not quite lost. Wee were promissed 2 shipps for ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... a fiercer pitch of intensity the next day. The Mexicans seemed to have an unlimited supply of ammunition, and they rained balls and shells on the Alamo. Many of the shells did not burst, and the damage done was small. The Texans did not reply from the shelter of their ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... loves Misanthropus, and the marks whereby he may be known peevishness and spleen, wrath and rudeness and abhorrence. If ever one burning to death should call for help against the flames, let me help—with pitch and oil. If another be swept past me by a winter torrent, and stretch out his hands for aid, then let mine press him down head under, that he never rise again. So shall they receive as they have given. Mover of this resolution—Timon, ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... back, but Evan lunged and lunged and lunged again like a devilish piston rod or battering ram. And high above all the sound of the struggle there broke into the silent evening a bellowing human voice, nasal, raucous, at the highest pitch of pain. "Help! Help! Police! Murder! Murder!" The gag was broken; and the tongue ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... said, "I'll pitch a few balls to you somewhere, if we can get a bat and a ball, and perhaps that'll help you in ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland
... haven't seen her, but you look so woebegone that I thought she had been having a pitch battle with you for neglecting something or other, and you wanted me to get ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... arm in his, feeling a strange emotion as she touched his muscles that were hard as steel. Thus they went on in the darkness, through the woods to the river. In the wood it was pitch-dark, as if all the trees had been fused and melted ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... ramparts, which connect it with the great gate. We walked on the wall four abreast, and played that we were knights and ladies of the olden time, walking on the ramparts. And I picked a bough from an old pine tree that grew over our heads; it much resembled our American yellow pitch pine. ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... deplorable state of Hungary and to seek redress. He was treated with the utmost indignity; was detained for hours in the ante-chamber of the emperor, where he encountered the most cutting insults from the minions of the court. The indignation of the high-spirited noble was roused to the highest pitch. And when, on his return to Hungary, he found his estates plundered and devastated by order of the imperial governor, he was all ready to ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... Songo a small State Post in charge of a native from Sierra Leone. Here we pitch our tents in a clearing and proceed to re-arrange the baggage, for we shall have now to travel in canoes, the river not being navigable for steamers for some distance. Immediately above Songo indeed is the first of the Ubangi ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... his hands, jumps up and down, grasps the shaking Daemones convulsively and communicates his excitement to the audience. It is a piece of thrilling theatrical declamation and must have wrought the spectators up to a high pitch. In general, the Rud. is ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... sinned, therein shall he be the more heavily punished. There shall the slothful be pricked forward with burning goads, and the gluttons be tormented with intolerable hunger and thirst. There shall the luxurious and the lovers of pleasure be plunged into burning pitch and stinking brimstone, and the envious shall howl like ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... limited, and our Gentile friends who surrounded us, and whose ire had been aroused to the highest pitch, were not likely to allow us to remain longer than the appointed space. The killing of the Prophet Joseph and Hyrum had led to other acts of violence, and many Mormons whose houses were burned and property destroyed, and who had come to Nauvoo for protection and ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... lighthouse buildings, to the west—and in the direction of the village—were five miles of nothing in particular. A desolate wilderness of rolling sand-dunes, beach grass, huckleberry and bayberry bushes, cedar swamps, and small clumps of pitch-pines. Through this desert the three or four rutted, crooked sand roads, leading to and from the lights, turned and twisted. Along their borders dwelt no human being; but life was there, life in abundance. Ezra Payne, late assistant ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection. ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... o' night an' dark as pitch. Miranda Griscom, you ken go up to your room an' not come down tell ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... blue of the skies, through rents in the cloud-rack, and away off in another quarter were drifting clouds of a delicate pink color. In one place hung a pall of dense black clouds, like compacted pitch-smoke. And the stupendous wagon wheel was still in the supremacy of its unspeakable grandeur. So you see, the colors present in the sky at once and the same time were blue, green, pink, black, and the vari-colored splendors ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and drove in that direction till they were clear of the last houses of the town; then, extinguishing the lamps, returned upon their course, and followed a by-road toward Glencorse. There was no sound but that of their own passage, and the incessant, strident pouring of the rain. It was pitch dark; here and there a white gate or a white stone in the wall guided them for a short space across the night; but for the most part it was at a foot pace, and almost groping, that they picked their way through that resonant ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... words, aimed directly at the heart, sank, never to be forgotten, into my memory. To this day I can repeat the most of them—though not without a break of voice—while too much dwelling upon them would stir me to a pitch of feeling which a life of activity in very different walks and ways and a certain self-control I have been always able to command would ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... in due time afterwards, and was going to slip off to bed, for the poor lad was greatly worn and agitated, and his high-strung nerves had been at almost a maddening pitch when a summons came to him by John the old footman, whose countenance bore a very ominous look, that his mother ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that all fixed. I'd put on my other clothes and pitch my uniform away and that night would get me twenty-five miles where nobody'd think of ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... somewhat impelled by the opinion that he both sang and wrote with taste, the surgeon set about complying with the request in sober earnest. Some little time was lost in clearing his throat, and getting the proper pitch of his voice; but no sooner were these two points achieved, than Lawton had the secret delight ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... to the Castle wound through a pitch-black fir-wood, where we could see nothing save the ragged patch of stars above our heads. Presently, however, it opened up, and there was the Castle right in front of us, about as far as a carbine would carry. It was a huge, uncouth place, and bore every mark of being exceedingly ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... opinion, the disturbed state of government to which he had referred in his address was at this time brought to the highest pitch by the committees of correspondence recently established throughout the province—an event long desired and now brought to pass by Samuel Adams. That something might be done by a coordinated system of local committees was an "undigested thought" that dropped ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... preserved of Beethoven, during this period, are difficult to arrange in a chronological order. We read of a joke played at the expense of Heller, the principal tenor singer of the Chapel, in which that singer, who prided himself upon his firmness in pitch, was completely bewildered by a skilful modulation of the boy upon the piano-forte, and forced to stop;—of the music to a chivalrous ballad, performed by the noblemen attached to the court, of which for a long time Count Waldstein was the reputed author, but which in fact was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... between Mushgreelia and Housa than between Rosetta and Cairo on the Nile of Egypt. A great many villages are on the banks. There are boats of the same form as those of Tetuan and Tangiers, but much larger, built of planks, and have ribs like those of Barbary; instead of pitch or tar, they are caulked with a sort of red clay, or bole. The sail is of canvas of flax (not cotton) brought from Barbary, originally from Holland; it is square. They row like the Moors, going down ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... chromatic profanity, ran from the gallery. "Captain Alden" drew herself up the top rounds of the ladder, emerged wholly from the companion and likewise started for the wounded interloper. Both, as they ran aft toward the fallen man, zigzagged with the pitch and yaw of the stricken airship, slipped on the plates, staggered ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... 'New Brunswick Collection,' and the 'Strum Way,' and the sweetest melodies that Thomas Hastings ever composed. I think that every pillar in the Somerville and Bound Brook churches knew his happy voice. He took the pitch of sacred song on Sabbath morning, and lost it not through all the week. I have heard him sing plowing amid the aggravations of a 'new ground,' serving writs, examining deeds, going to arrest criminals, in the house and by the way, at the barn and in the street. When the church choir would break ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... and white ties looked enviously at the girl candidate, the only one, in her white waist and light skirt. They envied her, too, her apparent indifference to a crisis that paled the masculine cheek. In fact, Mildred was nervous, but her nerves were strung up to so high a pitch that she was sensitive neither to temperature nor to fatigue, nor to want of sleep. And at the service of her quick intelligence and ready pen lay all the stored knowledge ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... told you no lies?" interrupted May, her voice at the high pitch of exasperation. "Wait a moment. This man has told you that he came down from London in the train with me; but did he tell you what he talked about? The first thing he disclosed to me was that the engagement between him and Miss Bride was a mere ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... on the bed with the artless freedom of an animal, the yearning of a plant for the sun, the airy motion of a branch waltzing to the breeze. As she unbuttoned the wristbands of her sleeves, she began to sing, not in the pitch that won her the applause of an audience at the Fenice, but in a warble tender with emotion. Her song was a zephyr carrying the caresses of her ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... me 'n' Peewee Simpson is playin' pitch on a bale of hay with a lantern. Butsy Trimble is settin' beside the bale readin' a ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... time—from the very instant of departure, through three days and a night of screaming winds and cataracts of water, through the delays where we rode at anchor below the Chain and Dobbs Ferry, under a vertical sun that started the pitch in every seam—Elsin Grey, radiant, transfigured, drenched to the skin, faced storm and calm in an ecstasy ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... are in my experience a great many different kinds of hells. There are almost as many kinds of hells as there are men and women upon this earth. Now, your hell wouldn't terrify me in the least. My own makes me no end of trouble. Talk about burning pitch and brimstone: how futile were the imaginations of the old fellows who conjured up such puerile torments. Why, I can tell you of no end of hells that are worse—and not half try. Once I remember, ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... our way in this pitch darkness?" she asked. "I don't know how many matches you have with you, but at the most they can't last long. And the time may come when a match would be more ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... when you ought to be within fifty feet of it. You can't see a snag in one of those shadows, but you know exactly where it is, and the shape of the river tells you when you are coming to it. Then there's your pitch-dark night; the river is a very different shape on a pitch-dark night from what it is on a starlight night. All shores seem to be straight lines, then, and mighty dim ones, too; and you'd run them for straight lines, only you know better. You boldly drive your boat right into what seems to be a solid, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... that the wings might move and turn without turning the men under them. You might wonder why he would say "... wings went ..." instead of "... wings turned...." When a light breeze moves the blades of an inoperative helicopter the blades not only turn, but they change their pitch and plane in a ...
— The Four-Faced Visitors of Ezekiel • Arthur W. Orton
... alarmed than ever. He saw that Randy was ready to pitch into him on the instant. He looked around, saw an opening, and darted away at ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... rig, Prescott," urged Badger, leading his principal to one side. "How are you, boy?" he whispered, anxiously. "Feeling right up to the fighting pitch?" ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... M'Clellan's cocked hat for example: I dare say he was eager enough to wear it, and he has learned that it is by no means cheerful wear. There were the military beavers of Messeigneurs of Orleans:* they wore them gallantly in the face of battle; but I suspect they were glad enough to pitch them into the James River and come home in mufti. Ah, mes amis! A chacun son schakot! I was looking at a bishop the other day, and thinking, "My right reverend lord, that broad-brim and rosette must bind your great broad forehead very tightly, and give you many a headache. A good easy wideawake ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... good fellow. But what I mean is, what I was going to say was that my recollection of her in that one moment would have been the one precious thing left for me to treasure through the pitch-darkness.... You remember—or perhaps not—that about a hand's breadth of it—the desert, you know—shining alone in ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... echoed the other, her voice never for an instant varied from its even and highbred pitch; "woman suffrage must remain a practical impossibility until the idea can be eradicated from society that the initiative in passion is ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... days of peace, and whose intervention would count for something. But alas! the vision of dark, cruel and uncompromising faces that met her gaze, gave her no hope. They had all been wrought up to such a high pitch of excitement that murder itself was but an item in their programme. Her heart sank within her, but still her mind was active. She was not one of the sort who submit tamely to what appears to be the inevitable. She came ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... nothing more than marking out a living mosaic of human beings. And even here men of the same color are like the ivory keys of one instrument where each resembles all the rest, yet varies from them in pitch and quality of voice. And those creatures who are for a time mere echoes of another's note are not unlike the fable of the thin sick man whose distorted shadow, dressed like a real creature, came to the old master to make him follow as a shadow. ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... dying away; suddenly, bells all around him were striking. He must be in the midst of the fleet of transports; it was four o'clock, the hour to change the watch. He heard once more the bell of the Old Brick,—he could tell it by its pitch. Wind, tide, and the meetinghouse bell enabled him to calculate his position: he could not be far from the Castle; he resolved ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... conquest of the rest of the family by his exquisite good-nature and cordial, easy manner. Respectful and simple with Madame Gerard, whom he intimidated a little, he paid very little attention to Maria and did not appear to notice that he was exciting her curiosity to the highest pitch. He modestly asked Father Gerard's advice upon his project of painting, amusing himself with the knickknacks about the apartments, picking out by instinct the best engravings and canvases of value. The good man was enchanted with Maurice and hastened to show him his private museum, forgetting ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... But Dr. Heinrich Hertz, a few years later, by a series of experiments, demonstrated the correctness of Maxwell's surmises. What are now called "Hertzian waves" are waves apparently identical with light waves, but of much lower pitch or period. In his experiments Hertz showed that, under proper conditions, electric sparks between polished balls were attended by ether waves of the same nature as those of light, but of a pitch of several millions ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... controversy dragged on through the years 1768-69, but in the summer of the former year an event occurred which roused the people to a high pitch of excitement. Some of the custom-house officers seized a vessel belonging to John Hancock. For this they were assailed by a mob which burned the boat of the collector of customs. The officers fled to the castle. It was for this business that a body of British soldiers ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... his work. Now he stretched himself at full length on the edge of his chair, his arms extended above him; now he drew up his legs, fixed his feet on the chair, and locked his hands round his knees; thus perched, he swayed his body backwards and forwards, till it seemed likely that he would pitch head foremost on to the floor. Barfoot knew these eccentricities of old, and paid no ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... steal, and you'll have to pay for it.' That was true; but the temptation was too strong for me. My curiosity broke my heart, so to say, and, 'Come what may, I'll risk it,' I said. I push the huge gate just wide enough to let me in, and here I am in a large garden. It was pitch dark; but, quite at the bottom of the garden, three windows in the lower story of the house were lighted up. I had ventured too far now to go back. So I went on, creeping along stealthily, until I reached a tree, against which I pressed closely, about the length of ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... thinks I'm proud and stuck-up, 'cause I won't pitch pennies and play 'craps' with 'em, and they says I'm stingy and trying to own the earth, 'cause I won't chew tobacco and drink beer, or buy the stuff for 'em. They says my father must be a king, for I wears ...
— The Children's Portion • Various |
