"Acrobatic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sudden reaction of mad delight, he began to dance a wild jig in the middle of the room, a jig mingled with bits of can-can and the contortions of the cakewalk and the whirls of a dancing dervish and the acrobatic movements of a clown and the lurching steps of a drunken man. And he announced, as though they were the ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... flew low over the fleet. Some naval officers, who had previously seen little of aircraft, expressed the opinion that the planes flew low because they could not fly high, and that their performance was an acrobatic exhibition, useless for the purposes of war. These and other doubters were ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... almighty thud that it seemed as if the cars must fly into splinters. They rattled and shook and cracked. The passengers executed further acrobatic feats upon the floor; they clutched at things and fell over ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... as of the nature of a tour de force. You took it as you took a leap. It was spiritually acrobatic. You didn't understand but you believed. The less you understood the more credit your belief became to you. The more hidden and difficult and mysterious and unintelligible God made Himself the greater your merit in having faith ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... The words, perhaps, in this free-spoken world, were gross enough to make a carter blush; and the most suggestive feature was this feint of shame. For such parts the women showed some disposition; they were pert, they were neat, they were acrobatic, they were at times really amusing, and some of them were pretty. But this is not the artist's field; there is the whole width of heaven between such capering and ogling, and the strange rhythmic gestures, and strange, rapturous, frenzied ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lion ceased to retreat, till the moment when he ceased to live, about fifteen minutes elapsed. During that time the spectators saw a greater variety of acrobatic feats than they had ever witnessed in one scene before. As soon as the creature was declared dead, the Bushmen cut off its paws and carried them back ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... and all professions (motoring, cycling, acrobatic and circus feats) which demand audacity, activity, love of adventure, and intense efforts followed by long periods of repose are eminently suited to criminals. There are cases on record in which young men ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... injury; or in pure description, where it is hardly less offensive. Thus in "The Egoist" we read: "Willoughby shadowed a deep droop on the bend of his neck before Clara," and reflection shows that all this absurdly acrobatic phrase means is that the hero bowed to the lady. An utterly simple occurrence and thus described! It is all the more strange and aggravating in that it comes from a man who on hundreds of occasions writes English as pungent, sonorous and sweet as any writer ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... when a chasse machine is almost invisible at that height, and despite its speed of two hundred kilometres an hour. On a gray day, when we are flying between twenty-five hundred and three thousand metres beneath a film of cloud, they repay the honor we do them by our acrobatic turns. They bracket us, put barrages between us and our own lines, give us more trouble than all the other batteries on ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... both danced again for the people and Horatio had given them an acrobatic exhibition, they strolled away through the evening loaded down with luxuries of all kinds. The villagers went with them to the outskirts, and called good luck after them. As they passed into the quiet shadows of ...
— The Arkansaw Bear - A Tale of Fanciful Adventure • Albert Bigelow Paine
... by one we descended the narrow stairway at the side of the ship, and then leaped at opportune moments to the decks of the dancing steam launches below. How it ever came to pass that each of us, ladies and all, in succession went through with this mid-air acrobatic performance without serious accident is a matter of profound wonder; but we did, and the launches when loaded danced away over the bay and entered the mouth of the Pasig River. At the wharf we were informally ...
— An Epoch in History • P. H. Eley
... sat conversing by the fire. It was three weeks after Mrs. Henchard's funeral, the candles were not lighted, and a restless, acrobatic flame, poised on a coal, called from the shady walls the smiles of all shapes that could respond—the old pier-glass, with gilt columns and huge entablature, the picture-frames, sundry knobs and handles, and the brass rosette ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... witness the half hangings and the hideous disembowelling which followed, while the poor wretches, found guilty of treason, were yet alive, had pretty much the sensation with which a gathering nowadays sees a dangerous acrobatic performance. ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... Rocambeau. And what a difference! They had a few uninspiring horses and riders for convention sake. But the haute ecole had vanished. Not even a rouged and painted ghost of Mademoiselle Renee Saint-Maur remained. It was a ragged, old-fashioned acrobatic entertainment, with the mildewed humour of antiquated clowns. But they had a star turn—a juggler of the school of Cinquevallis—an amazing fellow. And then I remembered having seen the name on the last week's bill, printed in the great eighteen inch letters which were ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... frightened women. To the Eagle Nest. An acrobatic performance, and some retaliation at the author's expense. Over the mountains to Pu-peng A magnificent storm, and a description. In a "rock of ages." Hardiness of my comrades. Early morning routine and some impressions. Unspeakable filth of the Chinese. Lolo ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... for fire-lighting, the poles being made into hurdles or sold to the crate-makers in the potteries for crates in which to pack earthenware goods of all descriptions. The men employed at the lopping had to stand on the heads of the pollards, and it was sometimes quite an acrobatic feat to maintain their balance on a small swaying tree, or on one ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... said Bezdek, whose mind was nothing if not acrobatic. "Suppose you are from Mars. Tell me why your people object to our movies. Surely they aren't seeing them ...
— Reel Life Films • Samuel Kimball Merwin
... performs some wonderful acrobatic feats with human nature; gives love of oriental luxury to the woman with nothing a year; appreciation of all that is beautiful and artistic, to the ploughman; an epicurian taste to the starving mechanic; ...
— Wise or Otherwise • Lydia Leavitt
... Napoleon, was doomed to meet her Waterloo. Her last and most disastrous exploit ended sadly both for herself and others. It happened in this way. Polly went to the circus. From that time forth her daring acrobatic feats supplied the gossips of L—— with plenty of material for conversation. They would tell how Polly broke her horse's leg by urging him to jump over a stone wall, and how she almost dislocated her collar-bone in turning ...
— Harper's Young People, July 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... The acrobatic performance fascinated Gladys even while it horrified and almost made her sick. She watched every contortion of the bodies with the most morbid and intense interest, though feeling it to be hideous all the time. It excited her very much, and her cheeks flushed, her eyes shone with unwonted ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... picture in black and silver. She lay there motionless as the trees on the beach, and the reason for her state was clear. Her forefoot soared stiffly aloft till it was almost clear of the water; her stern was depressed; her decks listed to port till it was an acrobatic feat to make ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... the boys wished they could do some of the acrobatic work that Mart was to do on the stage. But though some of the lads of Bellemere, like Bunny Brown, were pretty good at turning somersaults or flipflops, none of them was equal to Mart, who had been on the stage for several ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... him sitting idly atop a rock, napping in the sun, dreaming apparently; thus for days and months he is idle, always harmless—a condition that does not apply to human beings under similar circumstances. He is energetic, ambitious, courageous, and acrobatic. He is the scout of the mountain top, ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... full swing and the folks below were standing around talking and drinking, and gazing with only partial interest at the feats of a woman acrobatic dancer. Bill was looking at her, too. But his thoughts were on the girl at Fort Mowbray and this man who ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... to see you listening to the same mass as he.'—'Ah!' she exclaimed, 'then I have made you jealous!'—Oh! I only wish I could be!' said I, admiring the pliancy of her quick intelligence, and these acrobatic feats which can only be successful in the eyes of the blind. 'But by dint of going to church I have become very incredulous. On the day of my first cold, and your first treachery, when you thought I was in bed, you received the Duke, and you told ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... gorgeous of all, the Feast of the Wedding of the Adriatic. He has faithfully preserved the ancient ceremonial which accompanied State festivities. In the "Fete du Jeudi Gras" (Louvre) he illustrates the acrobatic feats which were performed before Doge Mocenigo. A huge Temple of Victory is erected on the Piazzetta, and gondoliers are seen climbing on each other's shoulders and dancing upon ropes. His motley crowds show that ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... in for acrobatic performances on the top of one of the highest, rockiest hillocks. Poising myself on one leg I take a rapid slide sideways, ending in a very showy leap backwards which lands me on the top of the lantern I am carrying to- day, among miscellaneous rocks. There being fifteen ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... comes, the little ones emerge. In view of their acrobatic habits, I have placed a bundle of slender twigs at the top of the cage in which they were born. All of them pass through the wire gauze and form a group on the summit of the brushwood, where they swiftly ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... and there were hoarse shouts from the men who witnessed Joe's fall. At first some thought it was only part of the acrobatic trick, but a single glance at the desperate struggles of the young trapeze performer dispelled ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... even in an amiable one. In the first place, its rhymelessness is a caprice, a will-worship. Except blank verse, every rhymeless metre in English has on it the curse of the tour de force, of the acrobatic. Campion and Collins, Southey and Shelley, have done great things in it; but neither Rose-cheeked Laura nor Evening, neither the great things in Thalaba nor the great things in Queen Mab, can escape the charge of being ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... Orange red, pale blue, E flat minor, acrobatic, Ariel-like in its changes. Sometimes it made her careen heavily toward the curb—that was the time it made her head seem big and her feet very far away. Sometimes she could walk but she wanted to scream, sometimes she felt like a volcano, a ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... old man. I've heard Mrs. Berry tell about him. His room is just opposite hers, two floors beneath this very room we're in now. He has a parrot that chatters and annoys Mrs. Berry, but the old man is honest, I'm sure. And he's too old to be agile enough to do such an acrobatic thing as you suggest." ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... trio in sight was Toby Jucklin. While Toby was certainly agile enough when it came to acrobatic stunts, and such things as boys are fond of indulging in, his vocal cords often loved to play sad pranks with his manner of speech. As the reader has already discovered, Toby was fain to stutter in the most agonizing fashion. When one of these fits came ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... the loop, his upside-down flights, his general acrobatic feats in the air are all of the utmost value to pilots throughout the world. We shall have proof of this, I am sure, in the near future. Pegoud has shown us what it is possible to do with a modern machine. In ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... witnessed Tim's acrobatic performance in the stable yard, did not take advantage of ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... "Yes; to give acrobatic performances in the street, and so pave the way to a position as a millionaire. Who ever heard of a man rising from a respectable competence to a fortune? According to the papers, you must start with nothing; that is the first ...
— The Folly Of Eustace - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... subject to exceptions. Sometimes, without releasing its prey for a moment, the insect proceeds from the thorax to the next segments and completes its operation in a single spell. The joyous entr'acte does not take place; the convulsive movements of the wings and the acrobatic ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... learned. As to climbing, there is some evolutionary reason for suspecting that an instinctive tendency in this direction might persist in the human species, and certainly children show a great propensity for it; while the acrobatic ability displayed by those adults whose business leads them to continue climbing is so great as to raise the question whether the ordinary citizen is right when he thinks of man as essentially a land-living or surface-living animal. As to swimming, ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... beggars, including infants, to excite compassion. Either she or one of her crew had picked up the child and disposed of his clothes; and then finding him too old and intelligent to be safely used for begging purposes, she had sold or hired him out to these acrobatic performers, who had gone off into that vague and unknown region, the country. Liz had no notion what was their real name, nor where they would go, only that they attended races and fairs; and as soon as the actual pleasure of communicating information was ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bound he sprang into the cage, while Brent, garbed in carnation and white, stood unheralded and unremarked close by outside among the armed attendants. There seemed no need of precaution, however, so lightly the trainer frolicked with the savage creatures. He performed wonderful acrobatic feats with them in which one hardly knew which most to admire, the agility and intrepidity of the man or the supple strength and curious intelligence of the beasts. He wrestled with them; he leaped and rolled among them; he put his head into their ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... sat on around the fire, and used for acrobatic performances—yes, I see. I'll re-cover them right away. I'd do it to-night while I wait if I had the stuff—if I could sit still long enough. I want to go all over the house—and if it wasn't raining I'd go out in the garden and through the pine grove ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... end. My companion, however, bade me stop, while she went herself into the room, shutting the door after her. I was left alone with the boy, who immediately took me under his protection, and for my undivided benefit performed a series of highly meritorious acrobatic performances upon the feeble banisters, to his own danger, but apparent satisfaction. Suddenly, just as he was about to commence what promised to be the most successful item in his repertoire, he paused, lay flat on his stomach upon ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... way to the distant river. Slimy reptiles bask in the warm sun and glide lazily over the black, oozy soil. At intervals the stillness is broken by the splash of a gigantic bullfrog returning to his favorite pool. This acrobatic feat is usually accompanied by a deep-throated cry of satisfaction, not unlike the twanging of an ill-tuned guitar. On the edges of the marsh mud-covered terrapins drag themselves through the weeds and disappear with surprising swiftness when ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... mother's amazed view the picture of little Vivian. It was taken in stage costume, and represented Vivian in one of her clever acrobatic feats. Her pretty child-face wore a sweet smile, and the whole effect of the photograph was dainty and graceful. Across a corner was scrawled the word "Vivian" ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... with the "Follies," wearing type of costume (bathing suit) preferred for Limbering and Stretching and Acrobatic Dancing. ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... the fearful, great boa-constrictor ... which turned out to be a double-jointed, lithe, acrobatic, boy-like girl whom we knew as Jessie ... Jessie, they whispered, was marked for death by consumption, if she didn't look out and stop smoking so many cigarettes ... she was slender and pretty—but spoke with ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... fellows at my boarding-house got me to go to a theatre on Baltimore street last night. It was a variety show, a mixed programme of acrobatic feats, singing and girls dancing. I thought it all fine, but the crowd didn't like every bit of it, for at places they began to yell "Get the ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... foreboding in the reflection that too much success may lead the winners into the professionalism which is so associated with betting and so close to pugilism. Candor, however, compels me to state that a long acquaintance with the acrobatic folk who have to do with the circus, a large number of whom practice in our gymnasium every winter, has raised our estimate ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... is marvellous. She runs fast and easily. She delights in acrobatic jumps, many of them unnecessary, at all times during her play. She is a wonderful gallery player, and wins the popularity that her dashing style deserves. She is a brilliant court general, conducting her attack with a keen eye on both the ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... twenty-three, arrived in Paris. She had known him when he was "Le Petit Prodige"—when she was a girl with dreams and he but a child. She wished to see how he had changed, and so went to hear him play. He was insincere, affected and artificial, she said—his mannerisms absurd and his playing acrobatic. At the next concert where he played she sought him out and half-laughingly told him her opinion of his work. He gravely thanked her, with his hand upon his heart, and said that such honesty and frankness were refreshing. After the concert Liszt remembered this woman—she was the only ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... his guests might leave him. Chairs had been brought out on the balcony. Muchross and his friends had adjourned from the supper-room, bringing champagne and an hysterical lady with them. Snowdown and Platt were with difficulty dissuaded from attempting acrobatic feats on the parapet; and the city faded from deep purple into a vast grayness. Strange was the little party ensconced in the stone balcony high above the monotone of ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... unable to rise, spatting the wind, breathing heavily. Such annoying energy I have never seen. We were now mad, muddy, and very resolute. We held him down till he lay quite still. Any well-considered, properly bred animal would have been ground to bone dust by such wondrous acrobatic movements. He was skinned in one or two places, the hair was scraped from his nose, his tongue bled, but all these were mere scratches. When we repacked him he ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... the same direction as ourselves on the level, dusty road two miles southwest of Ghent. As we approached a cross-road marked by a tavern, a couple of direction-posts, and nondescript stucco buildings, we made out two Belgian sentries, with their rifles lifted overhead and indulging in some acrobatic exercises which we interpreted as a signal to halt. Van Hee swapped cigarettes with them and gossiped in their native tongue, in return for which they gave us some good advice. They warned us to pay no attention ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... dancing, one will therefore include those gesticulations or movements of the body suggesting an idea, whether it be the slow movement of marching, or the rapid gallop, even some of the movements that we commonly call acrobatic. It is not intended here to include the more sensual movements of the East and the ...
— The Dance (by An Antiquary) - Historic Illustrations of Dancing from 3300 B.C. to 1911 A.D. • Anonymous
... sufficiently lofty point of view, must and do always agree, in an actor, in a romanticist, in an idealist, and in a Christian, there is always a yawning chasm between the two, which, whatever well-meaning critics may do, cannot be bridged posthumously by acrobatic feats in psychologicis. ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... Steenkamps, who fortunately had not heard him, came to his assistance and with many expressions of sympathy helped him on his horse, Roux carefully wiping his leggings clean with his handkerchief. After proceeding a little further the "Tommies" asked their "Colonel" what he meant by that acrobatic performance. Whereat the "Colonel" answered: "That was a very fortunate accident; the Steenkamps are now convinced that we are English by the ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... and fill the river with a solid mass. As the great sticks come dashing along, turning porpoise-like somersets or leaping up twice their length in the air, he must be everywhere, livelier than a monkey in a mimosa, a wonder of acrobatic agility in biggest boots. He made the proverb, "As easy as falling off ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... adorned with four feet of stone let into the pavement, and defying each other from the four corners of the bridge. Finally, even these contests were given up and the Castellani and Nicolotti spent their rivalry in marvelous acrobatic feats.] This fair, which was established as early as 1180, was an industrial exhibition of the arts and trades peculiar to Venice, and was repeated annually, with increasing ostentation, till the end, in 1796. Indeed, the feasts of the Republic at last grew so numerous that it became ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... taking nourishment, work and pleasure, the Sageman was careful about his exercises, assiduously devoting from two to three hours each day to physical culture. He practiced all manner of games and acrobatic performances, in order to bring the body up to its best possible shape. Suppleness, agility, and gracefulness were desired in preference to brute strength. Running, jumping, swimming, and flying were considered a necessary part of every one's daily routine, ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... close of the 'fifties, and the double plot was abandoned, the character of Harlequin began to be played by women, the origin of what is now known as the "principal boy," and some acrobatic turns, or other speciality business, began to be introduced during the course of the Pantomime, which greatly discounted the efforts of Harlequin ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... noise, which would wake the whole house. After I had refused to do this, he said he would very likely break his neck when he jumped, as clearing the pots would mean hitting his head against the window frame. Fearing an explosion of temper, I weakly removed the flower-pots and watched his acrobatic ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... miracles and monsters to our very doors, as it were, and we had no more miserable boys. But we had plenty of boys who aspired to be miracles and monsters, or boys who essayed the trapeze, the tight rope, the flying leap and all sorts of possible and impossible acrobatic contortions ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... skillful feats of horsemanship and acrobatic displays by juvenile actors, rope-dancing, high vaulting and other daring gymnastic feats seen in any of our present-day circuses are interesting, but not new. The Romans had many clever tight-rope walkers, and I do not think they used the long pole loaded at the ends to enable ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... as Master of the Ring, Mr. Punch has ever been particularly fond of the old-fashioned equestrian entertainment. The Ring to which he has just made allusion is, it need hardly be added, The Circus, and The Book is a novel by Miss AMYE READE. Mr. P. is not sweet upon any gymnastic and acrobatic shows in which the chances of danger appear, and probably are, as ten to one against the performer; and especially does he object to children of very tender years being utilised in order to earn ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 5, 1892 • Various
... actress, was to blame, I think, for our unfeelingness. Somehow, to connect woe, ruin, sadness, melancholy, or distress, in a word, of any kind with our landlady's opulent figure, we found a difficult acrobatic mental feat. She presented to the eye outlines and features that could only be likened, in point of prosperity, to a Dutch landscape. Like certain of the mediaeval saints presented by the earlier delineators of the martyrs as burning above a slow ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... as if she were going to shake him on the spot, and to prevent any such catastrophe Denham suddenly seized the little fellow and put him through a number of acrobatic feats in breathless succession, till he was fairly hustled into good temper and everybody around was laughing, even Gerald. Jake Dexter was instantly incited to display some marvellous limber-jointed powers of his own, and had just demonstrated to the assembled company, to his and their ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... culinarily disgusted. Because there are no buckwheat cakes, no codfish cakes, no hot bread, no pork and beans, no mammoth oysters, stewed, fried and roasted, he can find nothing fit to eat. The English cannot cook. Because he can find no noisy, clattering, dish-smashing restaurant, full of acrobatic waiters racing and balancing under immense piles of plates, and shouting jargon untranslatable, unintelligible and unpronounceable down into the lower ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... was uncomfortable and uneventful. The only remarkable feature was the acrobatic skill displayed by the mess staff, transferring meals from the kitchen-cattle-truck to the officers mess-cattle-truck. Even at the usual speed of a French troop train, it is no easy task to drop off the train with a pile of plates in one hand, a dish of potatoes in the ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... from Mars succeeded in delivering his maiden speech, to the effect that British soldiers' heads should be protected against shrapnel-fire. The SERJEANT-AT-ARMS, who had had a narrow escape, goes further, holding the view that his own head should be protected from acrobatic ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 5, 1916 • Various
... Monument, were merely incomprehensible. She could not understand what they were doing. The comedians she found amusing, when they did not shock her—Bertie had explained to her one or two of the jokes she could not understand. The "song-scenas" and acrobatic displays filled her with rapture. She would have liked that sort of thing the whole time.... Albert said it was a dull show, he grumbled at everything, especially the turns Joanna liked. But gradually the warm, friendly, vulgar atmosphere of the place infected him—he ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... nothing had happened, too. He did not succeed, for the ravens who had been addressing him most particularly soon addressed themselves personally to him; and before he knew just how it all came about, they had summoned a quite amazing and unexpected aerial acrobatic power, and were shooting and diving, striking and flapping, about his regal head in a manner that even he could not pretend any longer to ignore. No one, not even a king of all the birds, feels comfortable ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... the idea of producing a filmed version of Mrs. ASQUITH'S Diary has been shelved for the present, owing to the difficulty of procuring actors for the more dangerously acrobatic incidents. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various
... faith! What an acrobatic performance to try and reconcile a Father's personal care for His poor little sparrows and His indifference at seeing so many of them stretched bleeding ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... there was to be a novel kind of entertainment: a sort of vaudeville show in which were to figure a palmist, a gentleman set down in the programme with its gilt printing as the "Celebrated Professor Cheireman"; several singers; a couple of acrobatic performers; and a danseuse: ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... which had a history as mysterious and subtle as their fragrance. Lastly, the Merryweathers, declaring that they had no gift but themselves, and that if Mr. Montfort would be graciously pleased to accept them, they were his, proceeded to go through a series of acrobatic performances, which brought cries of admiration from ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... hounded along the trail, perhaps he might overhaul the other two. Then, then if he did perish in the Desert, he would not have perished for naught! It was then, the earth performed the acrobatic feat of heaving up, and he fell! This time, he knew he had fallen. It was no trip. He was down and out and done for; and he knew it. He rose to his knees steadying himself on his Service axe. Then, it came again, the silver strip of mountain on the sky line with the cool ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... inconsiderately succumbed, at this eleventh hour, to the prevailing grip-epidemic, and the lady threw herself confidently on the well-known generosity of the Bines male—"like one of the big, stout nets those acrobatic people fall into from their ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... in Helen's parlor, and in as crooked an attitude as a man ever compassed. He had so managed to dispose of himself over three chairs as to give the general effect of having been suddenly arrested in the midst of an acrobatic feat of unusual difficulty, and with a cigar in his long, nervous fingers, was watching Mrs. Greyson, who occupied herself in tidying ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... When the acrobatic reader has fetched his breath and looks back at the fearsome list of Geographers he has skipped—Strabo, Anaximander, Hecatoeus, Demoeritus, Eudoxus, Ephorus, Dicoearchus, Erastothenes, Polybius, Posidonius and Charles ...
— This Giddy Globe • Oliver Herford
... they had very little in common with George Sand's attitude of mind. To her the theory of art for the sake of art had always seemed a very hollow theory. She wrote as well as she could, but she never dreamed of the profession of writing having anything in common with an acrobatic display. ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... and his third doughnut. "I could eat a whole rabbit or a squirrel myself." And then, feeling in fine fettle, he proceeded to pull himself up on a near-by tree limb and "skin the cat," as it is called by acrobatic boys. ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... swing-bridges without assistance; human arms are no longer suited to brachiation. I might have managed it once; but at present, except as a desperate final expedient, it was out of the question. Rafe or Lerrys, who were lightly built and acrobatic, could probably do it as a simple stunt on the level, in a field; on a steep and rocky mountainside, where a fall might mean being dashed a thousand feet down the torrent, I doubted it. The trailmen's bridge was out ... but what ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... casement upon the spectacle of Bruce and Mr Peter apparently engaged in mortal combat. The collie had realised that he was off the chain and about to take a walk, and was expressing himself not merely in frenzied yells, but in acrobatic feats that threatened to overwhelm his master. The latter, tall-hatted, frock-coated, lavender-trousered, with a cane in his hand and a flower in his button-hole, jumped and dodged wildly to escape the leaping mass, his face puckered ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... They were bloated with science as with the puffiness of a toad, proud of their pedantic and all-sufficient intellectuality. Sons of sophistry and grandsons of cant, they had considered themselves capable of proving the greatest absurdities by the mental capers to which they had accustomed their acrobatic intellects. ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the world swam dizzily, and went suddenly mad. The floor rose, and the roof fell, while cars and people performed impossible acrobatic feats above, below, and around him. Then, from afar off, he ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... or, better still, a strong-woman turn on the Halls. There was the episode, for instance, where, having to prostrate herself before the Baron, she insisted upon a backward exit (with the usual result) and then made an acrobatic ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... this great honor was actually thrust upon him, and he hardly knew what reply to make, when Ben ceased his acrobatic exercises, and, with Bobby and Reddy, stood waiting for him to give ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... cried Lucenay, anew. Then he turned and twisted himself on the sofa, accompanying his loud cries with a series of somersaults that would have astonished a rope-dancer. The acrobatic evolutions were interrupted by ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... and, the doors being locked, a number of them, among whom Mr. Lincoln's tall figure was prominent, jumped from the windows of the church where the Legislature was then holding its sessions. "I think," says Mr. Joseph Gillespie, who was one of those who performed this feat of acrobatic politics, "Mr. Lincoln always regretted it, as he deprecated everything that savored ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... will be horrified at finding the characters on one occasion engaging in a regular "mill," on more than one corking each other's faces during slumber, sometimes playing at pyramids like the bounding brothers of acrobatic fame, at others indulging in leap-frog with the servants, permitting themselves practical jokes of all kinds, affecting to be drowned by an explosive haggis, and so forth. Every now and then he will ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... circus performers, of the 22d Indiana Regiment, gave an exhibition of "ground and lofty tumbling" for the entertainment of their fellow prisoners. They had somehow contrived to retain the gaudy costume of the ring. They were really skillful. While we were watching with interest the acrobatic performance, a squadron of the Confederate General Imboden's Cavalry dashed past us. Sergeant Reed, who had just made me an offer for my watch, sprang to his feet, exclaiming: "I swear! there must be a battle going on in front, for there goes Jimboden's Cavalry to the rear! Sure sign! I'll ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... ground, with all his legs gathered up under him, turns his horned head, which is set on an unduly long neck, for the purpose of inspecting his pursuers. No better origin for the ancient tradition of the cow who jumped over the moon could be adduced. And what shall we say of the acrobatic antics of Leofwine and Gyrth when meeting their deaths in battle? These warriors are turning elaborate handsprings in their last moments, while horses are represented as performing such somersaults that they are practically inverted. In the border of this ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... daring. Indeed, I got so far as to walk a rope fairly easily myself with the help of a balancing-pole. I had made the rope out of cords twisted together and stretched across the courtyard, and even now I still feel a desire to gratify my acrobatic instincts. The thing that attracted me most, however, was the brass band of a Hussar regiment quartered at Eisleben. It often played a certain piece which had just come out, and which was making a great sensation, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... things "all damned rot." Few functions connected with the arts appealed to his frankly Philistine spirit, which rejoiced in celebrations linked with the glories of the body; boxing and wrestling matches, acrobatic performances, weight-lifting exhibitions, and so forth. He regretted that bear-baiting and cock-fighting were no longer legal in England, and had, on two occasions, travelled from London to South America solely in order to witness ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... caulk a ship by forcing oakum into the seams. Hence the verb to caulk is explained as coming from Mid. Eng. cauken, to tread, Old Fr. cauquer, caucher, Lat. calcare, from calx, heel. This makes the process somewhat acrobatic, although this is not, philologically, a very serious objection. But we caulk the ship or the seams, not the oakum. Primitive caulking consisted in plastering a wicker coracle with clay. The earliest caulker on record is Noah, who pitched[163] his ark within and without ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... such a project," began Glogowski calmly, "but because our public has not yet reached the point where it is ready for such a theater and does not feel the need of such a stage. In the meanwhile, give them the farce full of acrobatic stunts and leg-shows, a half-naked ballet, cancan howling, a little, cheap kitchen sentimentality, a heap of empty phrases on the subject of virtue, morality, the family, duty, love, ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... the nesting season approaches, both birds make curious acrobatic flights above the tree-tops; then, after a short sail in midair, they return to their perch. This appears to be their only giddiness and frivolity, unless a dust-bath in the country road might be considered ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... all this acrobatic frolic There's a core of sanity behind Madness that is never melancholic, Passion never cruel or unkind; And, although his wealth of purple patches Some precisians may excessive deem, Still the decoration always matches Something rich ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917 • Various
... Lamuse was a farm-servant, Paradis a carter. Cadilhac, whose helmet rides loosely on his pointed head, though it is a juvenile size—like a dome on a steeple, says Tirette—owns land. Papa Blaire was a small farmer in La Brie. Barque, porter and messenger, performed acrobatic tricks with his carrier-tricycle among the trains and taxis of Paris, with solemn abuse (so they say) for the pedestrians, fleeing like bewildered hens across the big streets and squares. Corporal Bertrand, who keeps himself always ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... acts in the circus tent Sometimes he would omit the "vanishing lady" act, as Helen wanted to put through some extra work with Rosebud, and there was not time for both. Again he would leave out some of his acrobatic work, or perhaps not do the trick of seeming to catch fire and extinguishing the flames in Benny Turton's tank. Once in a while he would omit the ten ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... occupants of the front row of seats very forcibly reminded me of a similar locality at the Capital Theater in the City of Roses, on similar occasions, where many of my old friends with gaze intent loved to congregate. The performance was spectacular and acrobatic, with usual evolutions, with more "abandon" and very artistic. Passing through the cafe, where hundreds of finely-dressed men and women were sitting at tables quietly talking, smoking and drinking wine or coffee, ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... precipitated head foremost into the hole, with his heels in the air, and Lilla at the same moment coming to a halt in her acrobatic descent, beheld the apparition of a pair of legs, feet upwards, and a coarse pair of knickerbocker stockings dragged over ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... of the captain did acrobatic feats like a strange demon upon his chin. His eyes stood perilously from his head. The suspender wheezed and tugged like the tackle of ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... with an all-around acrobatic exhibition. The Dodo performed on the trapeze. The Mock Turtle and the Cheshire Cat took turns on a diminutive springboard. The March Hare and the Dormouse energetically jumped over a small barrel. The Queen and the Duchess had a fencing match, the Queen using her sceptre, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... or postal authorities. This done, I seized upon the unfortunate Osborne, spirited his luggage through the Custom-house, and sent the ship to sea again. That part was easy. I have written a great deal for the comic papers, and acrobatic nonsense of that sort comes almost without an effort on my part. With equal ease I got Osborne to Newport—how, I do not recollect. It is just possible that I took him through from New York without a train, by the ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... this sympathetic statement Bernard cannot be said to have enjoyed his lunch; he was thinking of something else that lay before him and that was not agreeable. He was like a man who has an acrobatic feat to perform—a wide ditch to leap, a high pole to climb—and who has a presentiment of fractures and bruises. Fortunately he was not obliged to talk much, as Mrs. Gordon displayed even more than her usual vivacity, rendering her companions the graceful ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... the hillside their quaint "Spring o' the year," the song sparrows sang their tinkling melody from the live oaks, catbirds mewed from the thicket, and occasionally a linnet sang its rollicking solo as it performed queer acrobatic ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... popular operatic air. At the left of the pump stretched a narrow mirror, reflecting he gaily-colored wine-glasses and decanters which stood on each other's shoulders, and held up lemons, and performed various acrobatic feats on a shelf in ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... also, but there was an English boy in the school, very supple and muscular, who was proud of his strength, and ambitious to make himself a thorough gymnast. He persuaded me to take lessons in the most difficult acrobatic feats with him, as two had ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... acrobatic turn of mediocre quality, and the boys waited impatiently for it to finish, for Tim and Larry were billed to appear in the next act. With a moderate meed of applause, the acrobats retired. The orchestra struck up a catchy tune and ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... been very much prolonged. It is no longer sufficient that he learns to fly and to master various types of machines. He now completes his training in schools where aerial shooting is taught, and in others where he practises combat, group manoeuvres, and acrobatic stunts such as looping the loop and the more difficult tricks. In all it requires from seven to ...
— Flying for France • James R. McConnell
... from my window a funeral procession on its way from the church to the cemetery. The Padre was not there, and this no doubt accounted for the acrobatic display given by the three men in cassocks and surplices, who led the way, bearing a cross and two candles. They started by playfully kicking each other, and this soon developed into angry words, so ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... digest; May corn-cobs be snared without hope in their hair, And frequent impalement their pleasure impair. Disturbed be their dreams by the awful discourse Of audible sofas sepulchrally hoarse, By chairs acrobatic and wavering floors— The mattress that kicks and the pillow that snores! Sons of cupidity, cradled in sin! Your criminal ranks may the death angel thin, Avenging the friend ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... the next floor was a sort of private party room; a back room on the same floor contained no furniture and was devoted to the use of new and ambitious performers. In this room song and dance teams practiced their steps, acrobatic teams practiced their tumbles, and many other kinds of "acts" rehearsed their "turns." The other rooms of the ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... chiseled out of it to a further depth of over fifty feet. At first the path struck inland, astutely making a chord to the river's bow, an unsuspected sign of intelligence in a path. It was adventurous, too, for soon after coming out above the brink, it began upon acrobatic feats in which it showed itself nationally proficient. A narrow aqueduct had been cut out of the side of the cliff, and along its outer embankment, which was two feet wide, the path proceeded to balance. The aqueduct had given way in spots, which caused the path to take to some rickety boards put ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... A furore of acrobatic groaning marked a scene wherein the Wildcat was doing the best he could to pry himself loose from something that clung to various parts of his anatomy with a beak and eight ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... to play in semi-human style, performing marvellous acrobatic feats on the clothes-line, and lying on its back juggling with a twig as some "artists" do with a barrel in the circus. A white-eared flycatcher took up its abode near the house, and the magpie, after a decent ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... Aiguilles du Midi, Cols des Grandes Jorasses. Thus shall I onward march from peak to peak, Till there are no new conquests left to seek. O the wild joy, the unutterable bliss To hear the coming avalanche's hiss! Or place oneself in acrobatic pose, While mountain missiles graze one's sun-burnt nose! And if some future season I be doom'd To be by boulders crushed, or snow entombed, Still let me upward urge my mad career, And risk my limbs and life for honour dear! Sublimely acquiescent in my lot, ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... stopped. The humming ceased. The spell was broken. We looked at one another, and then we laughed. How we laughed! Officers and men were doubled up with mirth as they watched the acrobatic antics of this mechanical marvel—this ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... into the buggy with the agility to be expected from a lad of his acrobatic accomplishments. The two almost immediately fell into conversation upon perhaps the only subject of common interest between them. Before the town was reached, Tryon knew, so far as Plato could make it plain, the estimation in which ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... in begging that you will not expect me to adopt the acrobatic style, or require me to instantly attain sanctification per saltum! You must be satisfied with the assurance that you are indeed my 'Royal Highness,' and that in my creed it is written the king can do no wrong. There, dear, I am not at all addicted ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the most extraordinary phrases, the most far-fetched, unnatural, and out-of-the-way expressions. Their sentences perpetually stalk about on stilts. They take so much pleasure in bombast, and write in such a high-flown, bloated, affected, hyperbolical and acrobatic style that their prototype is Ancient Pistol, whom his friend Falstaff once impatiently told to say what he had to say like a man of ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... and the other at Kinshassa, on the Lower Congo, nearly two thousand miles away. My locks were not shorn for seven weeks. I had to do what little trimming there was done with a safety razor and it involved quite an acrobatic feat. Take shaving. The water in most of the Congo rivers is dirty and full of germs. More than once I lathered my face with mineral water out of a bottle. The Congo River proper is a muddy brown. For washing purposes it must be treated with a few tablets of permanganate of potassium which ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... observed by the Hare and Hounds when "commercial gentlemen" were in residence. Closing time was ten o'clock, but the "commercials," being cheery souls, became nominal hosts on such occasions, and their guests were in no hurry to depart. Robinson saw that he had probably jumped to a conclusion, an acrobatic feat of reasoning which Furneaux had specifically warned him against. At any rate, he resolved now to leave well ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... along smooth rocks, where lianas served as ropes and roots as a foothold; and I was greatly surprised to find many fields on top, to which the women have to climb every day and carry the food down afterwards, which implies acrobatic feats ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... Duke of Highanlow! A misunderstanding with a wizard having caused his head to face the wrong way round, he was so often said good-bye to at the very moment of arrival, that he gradually lost his enthusiasm for social enterprises and confined himself to his own palace, where his acrobatic dexterity in supplying himself with soup was a constant source of admiration to his ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... the William Bayliss of New Bedford. We boarded her with some difficulty on account of the jagged ice floes on the beach to which she was moored. It was an acrobatic feat to jump from the slippery ice, lay hold of a jibboom towering overhead, and scramble over the bows. But once aboard, Captain Cottle loaded us with good things (including a tin of sorely-needed tobacco), and all would now have seemed couleur-de-rose had ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... then, as Jules, less bulky than Stuart, yet of formidable size when it came to free movement in this narrow tunnel, contrived by some acrobatic feat to turn himself about and face the pit from which they had started this adventure. Then he crawled back towards the hut on all fours, listening to the suspicious sounds which he had heard, wondering ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... "I don't think such acrobatic tricks should be allowed," said Madeleine disapprovingly; she had been forced to grab Dove's arm to keep ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... be the junior member of an acrobatic troupe, just the same," said Mr. Poole; but Neale had slipped away from them for the time being and the farmer got no chance to ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... carried, he contrived to make M. Thiers oppose it violently, upset the government upon it, come into power upon his victory, and then take the measure up himself and carry it through. The Duc de Broglie was not a politician of this adroit and acrobatic type. His yea was yea and his nay, nay in politics as in private life. He kept aloof from the Second Empire, as his grandfather, Mr. Carlyle's 'War-god Broglie,' had kept aloof from the first. But he never fell into the Republican folly of pretending ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... eyes and inflated his cheeks, and wriggled so much that the detective expected an acrobatic performance, and was disappointed when it did not come off. "I really can't be sure on that point," he said softly. "I have not yet examined the papers contained in the safe of my deceased and esteemed client. He would never allow me to make ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... valise which he had left carelessly on the floor the night before was now making an excursion backwards and forwards from the bunk to the sofa, and the books that had been piled up on the sofa were scattered all over the room. It was evident that dressing was going to be an acrobatic performance. ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr |
