"Current" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... much as a publisher's "hack" in order merely to live. It was in this capacity that he probably wrote the famous story that follows—a story that stands at the beginning of the long and constantly broadening current of modern literature for children. While it has generally been attributed to Goldsmith, no positive evidence of his authorship has been discovered. It was published at a time when he was in the employ of John Newbery, the London publisher, who issued ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Again and again he has recounted the interminable details of cases in which I take not the smallest interest, and has ignored all my efforts to dam the unprofitable flood of narrative and to divert the current into more fruitful channels. He looks at everything from the Dawson standpoint, and cares for nothing which does not add to the glory of Dawson. Unless he fills the stage, an incident has for him no value or concern. Happily for me the most startling of his exploits, that of bending a timid ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... by Mr. Monro, Nutzhorn, and Grote, and denounced by Blass, that the origin of our Homer is a text edited by some literary retainer of Pisistratus of Athens (about 560-540 B.C.). The editor arranged current lays, "altered" freely, and "wrote in" as much as he pleased. Probably he wrote this passage in which Nestor describes the man of the iron mace, for "the tales of Nestor's youthful exploits, all of which bear the mark of late work, are introduced with no special applicability ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... his niece to be burnt alive, and her infants thrown into the Tiber. The river at that time being swollen above its banks, the persons appointed to dispose of the children could not reach the main current. The cradle in which the twins were exposed floated to a place of safety on dry ground; and the infants were suckled by a wolf until found by Faustulus, the king's shepherd, who carried them to his house, where they ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... than man, she exaggerates the value of the articulate, the organised. She has always been in love with 'accomplishments,' and she loves natures that are minted into current coin of ready gifts and graces. She cares more for the names of things than for the things themselves. Of things without names she is impatient. Talkative as she is said to be, and in so many modern languages, ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... very difficult in the reporting of the proceedings of the school parliament, because not only do you have the current speaker, but interspersed with it are comments by the raconteur and by the noisier of the boys. The printed book settled for a simplified version here, but we have done our best to give you a version that is more according to rule. ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... lover, but her aid, even if she could have afforded any, was no longer necessary, for Fernand rose from the crystal depths and bore his Nisida to the bank, while the corpse of the drowned bandit was carried away by the current. ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... he remained motionless, drifting back with the slow current of the stream, stunned by the thought that he had allowed Jeanne's captors to escape him. Had they heard him and dropped in to shore to let him pass? He swung his canoe about and headed down-stream. ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... The current which poured past then, its details in perfect view, carried along with it all the conditions and nationalities of the pilgrimage. Natives of the desert on bare-backed camels, clinging to the humps with one hand, while they pounded with the ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... would not talk. But I understand them, Pavlo, these poor simple fools. A pebble in the stream would turn the current of their convictions. Tell them who is the Moscow doctor. It ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... make of a father and friend a libertine! Malicious and hostile authors have asserted, without, however, adducing any proof, that a criminal intimacy existed between Bonaparte and Hortense. A falsehood, an unworthy falsehood! And this report has been generally current, not only in France, but throughout all Europe. Alas! can it, then, be true that calumny exercises so mighty a charm that, when it has once taken possession of a man, he can never ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... Iago. Like to the Ponticke Sea, Whose Icie Current, and compulsiue course, Neu'r keepes retyring ebbe, but keepes due on To the Proponticke, and the Hellespont: Euen so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace Shall neu'r looke backe, neu'r ebbe to humble Loue, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... is the certificate for the investment of the capital in the bank, the interest being earmarked for the current expenses ...
— Ghosts - A Domestic Tragedy in Three Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... started swiftly down the current. The mist, which was hiding both shores, was beginning to rise. The trees could be barely perceived, as through a veil, and the little clouds of fog were floating up from the water. When they drew near the island, the end of which is opposite Herblay, the two men slackened ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... stunning him for an instant, and he let go his hold upon the pony's tail. A high wave roared down upon him the next moment, and carried him his length and more down stream. He fought with all his strength against the swift current, but, faint and stunned, could barely hold his own. He shouted to Tuttle, who was just landing, and Tom threw the end of his lariat far out into the middle of the stream. Ellhorn felt the rope across his body, grasped it and called to Tuttle ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... became jammed between great cakes of ice, and it seemed as if they would all be swept down-stream with it. Washington planted his pole against the bottom of the stream and pushed with all his might, in hopes of holding the raft still until the ice should have gone by. Instead the current drove the ice against his pole with such force that he was jerked into the water and only saved himself from being swept down the roaring channel by seizing ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... improvements of Dryden shew to very little advantage beside the venerable structure to which they have been attached. The arrangement of the plot is, indeed, more artificially modelled; but the preceding age, during which the infidelity of Cressida was proverbially current, could as little have endured a catastrophe turning upon the discovery of her innocence, as one which should have exhibited Helen chaste, or Hector a coward. In Dryden's time, the prejudice against this unfortunate female was probably ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... the provision the king gave them, put water aboard, and stood for the north end of the island, designing to go round, believing their ship might be at the island of St. Mary. When they came to the north end, the current, which sets to the N.W. for eight months in the year, was so strong they found it impossible to get round. Wherefore they got into a harbor, of which there are many for small vessels. Here they stayed about three weeks or a month, when part of ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... object in life that stirs the current of human feeling more sadly than another, it is a young and lovely woman, whose intellect has been blighted by the treachery of him on whose heart, as on a shrine, she offered up the incense of her first affection. Such a being ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... There is no language so eloquent as the sufferings of his wife and children. All these things the drunkard knows, and knows perfectly, and knows as well as any other human being can know. At the same time, he feels that the tide and current of passion are beyond his power. He feels that he cannot row against ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... finally entering the wide river mouth. Here the first indication of a current was encountered, and the northern bank was followed closely that they might take advantage of counter eddies, and thus overcome the retarding ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... Requests began to come from far away countries, to which the little paper was finding its way, and news began to come of the beginnings of revival in the lives of God's people in various parts. Translations too were made into French and German. We had been caught up in the current of God's working beyond anything we expected or deserved. Indeed we had nothing to glory in, for it became evident that revival blessing was not so much the result of "Challenge," as that "Challenge" was the result of revival blessing. God ...
— The Calvary Road • Roy Hession
... and the current running out, we made but slow progress; and before we got far up the river the wind again failed us, and we were compelled to come to an anchor. Had it not been for Mr Worthy's report, we should have supposed that the ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... headed by the Duke of Athole. Many an incident of this and subsequent drives was watched by "Lightfoot," who was present, and whose pictures, under his name of Sir Edwin Landseer, have rendered the life of the red deer familiar to us, in mist, amid snow, swimming in the rapid of a Highland current, pursued and at rest, fighting and feeding, alive and dead, in every attitude, ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... flies, is game for you. Darting swiftly through the air Guided by the angler's care, Light upon the flowing stream Like a winged fairy dream; Float upon the water dancing, Through the lights and shadows glancing, Till the rippling current brings you, And with quiet motion swings you, Where a speckled beauty lies ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke
... of wine, turning out to be not up to the mark, brought the current of conversation against itself; not much to the dissatisfaction of Lottchen, who had already resolved to be in the churchyard of St. Stephen's at sun-down the following day, in the hope that he too might be favoured with ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... but with a singularly benevolent expression when she smiled. She, too, had received a good, plain education, and was one of those naturally well-mannered women who, whilst they are borne forward into greater respectability by the current of prosperity, can assume, without effort, the improved tone of better society to which ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... looking down into the place, forcing myself to do so quietly, and then following in a deliberate way, though all the time I could not help feeling a kind of shuddering sensation run over me, as if I had suddenly stepped out of the hot woodland into a current of ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... then makes no use of the current—the wire is grounded. Let any one of these revivalists write out his sermons and print them in a book, and no sane man could read them without danger of paresis. The book would lack synthesis, defy analysis, puzzle the brain and paralyze ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... bear in mind that the rare books of to-day were the current literature not merely of, but long posterior to, the period of their appearance. They suffered two kinds and stages of deterioration and waste. While they remained in vogue among readers and students, they necessarily submitted ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... but not unpleasant. There was scarce wind enough to fill the two sails carried by the boat, but the captain and his two hands frequently got out sweeps, to keep the boat in the middle of the current. They stopped for a day at Rouen, while the cargo destined for that town was landed. Patsey and Leigh were glad to spend the day in the town, visiting the cathedral, taking their meals at a restaurant, ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... royalty. But however liberal these ameliorations might appear to be, it was difficult for the nobles not only to concede privileges equal to those emanating from the throne, but also to ensure equal protection to those they thus enfranchised. In spite of this, however, the result was that a double current of enfranchisement was established, which resulted in the daily diminution of the miserable order of serfs, and which, whilst it emancipated the lower orders, had the immediate result of giving increased weight and power to royalty, ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... pleasure that the time was, when they could move us. Perhaps then, when we are quaint old folks and talk of the times when our step was lighter and our hair not grey, we may be even thankful for the trials that so endeared us to each other, and turned our lives into that current, down which we shall have glided so peacefully and calmly. And having caught some inkling of our story, the young people about us—as young as you and I are now, Kate—may come to us for sympathy, and pour distresses which hope and inexperience could scarcely ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... to the general truth contained in the last paragraph. Many a mother has—unconsciously at the time, but with no less certainty than if she had done it intentionally—given a direction to the whole current of her son's life; and this, too, at a very early period. The mother of Benjamin West, the painter, if she did not give the first tendency to his favorite pursuit, while he was yet a mere child, at the least greatly confirmed him in it, ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... their way to these regions; and it would be an unfavourable sign if a Chinaman were not to be seen there, for where the frugal Celestial cannot earn a living one may well assume there is little prosperity. Small Chinese coins (known as cash in the China Treaty Ports) are current money there, and I think, the most convenient of all copper coins, for, having a hole in the centre, they can be strung together. Chinese began to trade with this ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... "Maybe the current of the river carried her away and the planter got scared and left," suggested Songbird. "You'll remember, she ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... was great excitement. Up from the lower decks the electric current of expectancy ran until every one's steps quickened and those of us who were on wooden legs beat a constant tattoo on the decks. What means this eager, anxious thrill? To-morrow we would sight Australia! Only 43,200 seconds—720 ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... faster. The Hawaiian jerked a repair strip from a belt pouch and slapped it on the crack in Bradshaw's bubble. Rip wasted no time, either. By the time Koa had the strip in place he had pulled the connection from his belt light. He ran the tips of the wires over the edges of the strip. The current sealed ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... influence of the vibrations of the diaphragms) on one side or other of a position of normal potential, so that by the movement of a wire attached to a vibrating tympan along a fixed wire conveying a current from a battery, and thereby shunting the current at various positions along the length of the fixed wire, the strength of the current in the derived circuit, in which was included a suitable receiver, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... occupations as if the day had nothing particular in it. Between twelve and one, the hour of prayer in the mosque, the gates of the town were closed, and no one permitted either to enter or go out. There is a tradition, current amongst them, that on this day, and at this hour, their eternal enemies, the Nazarenes, will arrive to take possession of their country; on which account they hold ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... force, and they would have moved just as fast if he had been away; but because he shone brightest, he looked as if he led them." Bacon and Descartes are generally recognized as the "Fathers of Modern Philosophy," though they themselves were carried along by the rapidly swelling current of their age, then decisively setting in the direction of science. It is their glory to have seen visions of the coming greatness, to have expressed in terms of splendid power the thoughts which were dimly stirring the age, and to have sanctioned the new ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... low-voiced (a basses notes)—secret agents," says Madame de Motteville, "commissioned to negotiate in their favor." Paris was beginning to lack bread; it was festival-time, and want began to make itself felt; a "complaint of the Carnival" was current amongst the people:— ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... which led directly down to the water's edge. If a canoe could be brought overland on the other side of the river to that spot, and hidden there, it would be possible for him and Dorothy to get into it and escape. They could drift down with the current and land just above Croisettes. They would, however, have to take care to get into the proper channel, as one of them was a certain death-trap. It led through a horrible narrow canyon, which for some considerable distance was nothing more than a subterraneous ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... is a charmer; we are friends." Then tempo accelerate; he copied music for her benefit performance; later he apologised for not writing his brother—he was all monopolised by the singer. So he went swirling into the current. He tried to keep away; they met by accident; she reproached him; he promised to call; then his inveterate timidity palsied him, till Anton Rubinstein had to drag him to her ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... the whole field, and who, wherever he saw that the cause could be promoted by a timely benefaction, very simply and unostentatiously bestowed it. So when the College was almost entirely without funds and had but a small part of the income needed to meet its current expenses, he quietly paid the deficiency out of his own pocket and preserved it ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various
... was, it saved him from the mistake of marrying Nettie. Poor girl! She was in the grasp of her first great passion, and was as helpless as a broken-winged bird in the current of a river. She was feverishly happy and unaccountably sad by turns. The commands of her father not to see Bradley only roused her antagonism, and her mother's timid entreaties made no impression ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... Albanian Orthodox 20%, Roman Catholic 10% note: percentages are estimates; there are no available current statistics on religious affiliation; all mosques and churches were closed in 1967 and religious observances prohibited; in November 1990, Albania ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... we buried our gallant companions, amongst them our respected serjeant-major (Airey), in one deep grave; but a report was current, that shortly after our departure, the bodies had been disinterred and exposed in front of the grave, that every Affgh[a]n might witness and exult in the disgrace to which they had subjected the corpses of ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... Lincoln's-Inn Fields and passed down to Fleet Street. It was approaching twelve o'clock by this time, and streams of people were flowing in the direction of St. Paul's Cathedral. Glory turned eastward also and allowed herself to be carried along with the current which babbled and talked like a river in ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... there was as yet not a breath of wind. Far above the wind careered in a narrow current, which did not touch the surface of the sea but only bore onward the clouds. The agitation of the sky above contrasted with the stillness below made the latter not consoling but rather fearful, for this could be none other than that ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... that in the search for larger fields the smaller but not less important ones have been in a measure forgotten. The great stream of civilization flows from a thousand unnoted rills that make sweet music in their course, and swell the current as surely as the more noisy torrent. The conditions of the past cannot be revived, nor are they desirable. The present has its own theories and its own methods. But at a time when the reign of luxury is rapidly establishing false standards, and the best ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... disturbances among the Irish operatives in the manufacturing towns, had he gone, as he intended, to the north. Whatever were the motives that inspired it, their action in the matter cannot be remembered with complacency, but it was powerless to undo the significance of the great current of enthusiasm which had passed ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... rapid. Ere long he had been taken into the company as an actor, and was soon spoken of as a 'Johannes Factotum.' His rapid accumulation of wealth speaks volumes for the constancy and activity of his services. One fails to see when there could be a break in the current of his life at this period of it, giving room or opportunity for legal or indeed any other employment. 'In 1589,' says Knight, 'we have undeniable evidence that he had not only a casual engagement, was not only a salaried ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and receive delicious chidings for their naughtiness—rebukes which give immeasurable rebounds. Then came Mr. Gordon Graine, with his daughter, Miss Jenny Graine, an early friend of Rose's, and numerous others. For the present, Miss Isabella Current need only be chronicled among the visitors—a sprightly maid fifty years old, without a wrinkle to show for it—the Aunt Bel of fifty houses where there were young women and little boys. Aunt Bel had quick wit and capital anecdotes, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... stepped aside to wipe the razor, as he said, they were all surprised and astonished to find that Neptune had disappeared amidst the plunging of waters and blowing of sea-conchs. Scarcely had he gone when an immense current of water came down upon the head of the suffering Tickler, and which he was assured was nothing more than the tail-end of a water-spout, though in truth it was poured from buckets in the hands of a cunning rogue ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... man's strength gave way, his heart softened, and he allowed himself to be carried away by that current which buffeted him, surrounded him, and left him on the shore like a ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... with it, he gets it quickly into the upper air currents, which are always stirring more than those at the surface. It is sometimes necessary to run for a considerable distance before the kite reaches a sustaining current; but a real kite enthusiast will not mind taking trouble; indeed he had better abandon the whole business if he does. It is worth noting that even in a dead calm a kite may be kept up indefinitely as long as the flyer ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... principle Alison, or Miss Williams, as she was called in her vocation, was always reserved and discreet, and though ready to talk in due measure, Rachel always felt that it was the upper, not the under current that was proffered. The brow and eyes, the whole spirit of the face, betokened reflection and acuteness, and Rachel wanted to attain to her opinions; but beyond a certain depth there was no reaching. Her ways of thinking, her ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... however, are incidental to Smith's general theories of economics; the contribution of Malthus lay in taking this principle out of its limited context, giving it the character of scientific generalization, and applying it to current theories and programs ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... dynasty there cluster commonly a number of traditions, which have, more or less, a mythical character. The tales told of the Great, which even Herodotus set aside as incredible, have their parallels in narratives that were current within one or two centuries with respect to the founder of the Second Persian Empire, which would not have disgraced the mythologers of Achaemenian times. Artaxerxes, according to some, was the son of a common soldier who had an illicit connection with the wife ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... like the stream which falls from the mountain and is filled with ooze: its only merit is to swell the river into which it runs. But, sooner or later, a stronger current will purify it, and give clearness and brilliancy to it, without taking from it the merit of having increased ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... and mounted to the sun again. He had read of such pits as exaggerations. He had seen sorrow and always thought its expression too fantastic for reality. Looking down now into the noisome tunnel of his own tragedy, he could only wonder that its wretched walls and exit did not carry the red current of blood mingled with its own foul streaks. Nothing that he had done in his grief expressed more than a syllable of the pain he had endured. The only full voice to such grief would have been the wrecking of the world. Strange that he could now look calmly into ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... office of lord high admiral, for the time being, shall, on or before the said [first day of July] nominate and appoint such a number of the ships of war, as shall be sufficient for the purposes aforementioned, to be cruisers or convoys on this side cape Finisterre for the current year; and shall afterwards yearly, and every year, during the present or any future war, between the [first day of November] and the [first day of December] nominate and appoint a sufficient number of ships of war to be cruisers ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... still greater field was reserved for the Jewish-Russian literature that arose in the "sixties." It was called into being in order to present a vivid and true picture of the social and spiritual interests of the Jews. Proceeding from discussions of current political topics, this literature gradually widened its limits so as to include Jewish history, Jewish science, and the portrayal of Jewish life, and more and more approached the character of a normal ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... the "Critical Notices"—where small authorship comes to pick up chips of praise, fragrant, sugary, and sappy—always are to them! Well, life would be nothing without paper-credit and other fictions; so let them pass current. Don't steal their chips; don't puncture their swimming-bladders; don't come down on their pasteboard boxes; don't break the ends of their brittle and unstable reputations, you fellows who all feel sure that your names will be household words a ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... found that I had gained no information whatsoever about any matter of immediate interest. On such points as the history of the Zulu and kindred tribes, or the character of Chaka, the great king, or anything else that was remote she would discourse by the hour. But when we came to current events, she dried up like water on a red-hot brick. Still, Naya grew, or pretended to grow, quite attached to me. She even suggested naively that I might do worse than marry her, which she said Dingaan ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... current of events. With the publication of the Book of Mormon, opposition grew more intense toward the people who professed a belief in the testimony of Joseph Smith. On the 6th of April, 1830, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was formally organized ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage
... So opposed to current ideas was such a thought, that the disciples, accustomed to think that wealth meant happiness, were amazed. If the same doctrine were proclaimed in any great commercial centre to-day, it would excite no less astonishment. At least, many Christians and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... following morning they arose to find the Arctic Ocean beneath, and Greenland disappearing in the misty horizon behind them. The wind bore a point or so more easterly, and Dr. Jones was tempted to seek a more favorable current. He descended to the 2,000 foot level, but experienced ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... that move came the thought of Washington. He cast it from him angrily, yet when the swirl of business affairs closed around him he experienced a certain pleasure and relief in stemming its tides and battling with its current. True, the current was swift and boded the whirlpool, but the rage that was in him seemed to give him added strength, added foresight. At least in this struggle he was gaining, mastering the flood and directing it to his will. Would his mastery be proven in this other and more personal affair? ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... was not the least. About 1350 it broke out in a frightful manner with the dance of St. Guy, and was singular especially in this, that it did not act upon each person separately. As if carried on by one same galvanic current, the sick caught each other by the hand, formed immense chains, and spun and spun round till they died. The spectators, who laughed at first, presently catching the contagion, let themselves go, fell into the mighty current, increased the ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... pretended to be, and the lustre-dangling chandeliers had passed away. Lady Lichtenstein's books replaced the brown volumes I had browsed among—they were mostly presentation copies of contemporary novels and the National Review and the Empire Review, and the Nineteenth Century and after jostled current books on the tables—English new books in gaudy catchpenny "artistic" covers, French and Italian novels in yellow, German art handbooks of almost incredible ugliness. There were abundant evidences that her ladyship was playing with the Keltic renascence, and a great ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... Orleans and the Governor General," said Paul, as they pushed out into the bayou. There was no current here, but their powerful arms at the oars soon sent the boat into the Mississippi. There they set the sail which had been left unchanged, and as a good wind caught it they went on at a quickening pace. Wind, current, and oars combined made the low ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... although diligently searched for, ever discovered either dead or alive, a circumstance which led the Moslems to believe that he perished in the stream, the weight of his armor preventing him from struggling against the current, and he was drowned; but God only knows what ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... morning, ere two or even three out of the five fell sick. We thought it little wonder on the whole, for the sea kept contrary all night. I now made my bed upon the second cabin floor, where, although I ran the risk of being stepped upon, I had a free current of air, more or less vitiated indeed, and running only from steerage to steerage, but at least not stagnant; and from this couch, as well as the usual sounds of a rough night at sea, the hateful coughing and retching of the sick and ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... soft, moonlight night. The haze over the islands and the passages between could not be called a fog, but it was almost as shrouding as a fog. When Chess ran the launch outside into the main stream, where the current was broad and swift, the haze lay upon the rippling surface like ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... to himself, and the constant burden of his harangues was that these rookies did not appreciate the full gravity and responsibility of "the service." He considered that by a combination of foresight and dauntless efficiency he had raised himself to his current magnificence. He aped the particular tyrannies of every officer under whom he had served in times gone by. His frown was frozen on his brow—before giving a private a pass to go to town he would ponderously weigh the effect of such an absence upon ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... follow her, for late in September, after the House had risen, I met him in a railway-carriage. He was coming up from Scotland and I had just quitted some relations who lived near Durham. The current of travel back to London wasn't yet strong; at any rate on entering the compartment I found he had had it for some time to himself. We fared in company, and though he had a blue- book in his lap and the open jaws of ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... reached him with news of that General's defeat and his hurried retreat. Porter saw that it would not do for him to delay an hour. He had had great difficulty in getting his fifty vessels up the narrow stream, whose current was falling so rapidly that it already appeared impossible to get the fleet past the snags and shoals to the point of ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... too late. As he spoke, the horse and buggy plunged into the flood, and for a moment they were lost to view. Then the struggling animal seemed to strike rising ground; but the buggy was caught in the resistless current, and, with George Denham clinging to it, it dragged the horse down, and the swirling waters seemed to sweep over and beyond them. Blue Dave lost not a moment. Flinging himself into the flood from the vantage-ground ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... my sail down to Pera delightful: no sound broke upon the ear, save the rippling of the current against the caique as it glided lightly along, like the bird, which skims closely over the surface of the ocean, and appears to bathe its plumage in the waves, though in reality ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... with his own reality of lust, employed the octave stanza as a Turkish Bey might use an odalisque. 'The only rule worth thinking of,' he said, 'is to know how and when and where to break all rules, adapting ourselves to current taste and the fashions of the age.' His epic represents a successful, because a vivid, reaction against conventionality. The life that throbs in it is incontestable, even though that life may be nothing better than ephemeral. With like brutality of instinct, healthy because natural, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... distance is 430 marine leagues, and the difference may be easily accounted for by the operation of an eastern current, not observed or not ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... under the anti-romantic and satirical comic vision. I do not mean that he was not intensely serious in all that he wrote about the war. But his seriousness is essentially the seriousness of (in the higher sense of the word) the comic artist, of the disillusionist. He sees current history from the absolutely opposite point of view, say, to the lyric poet. He was so occupied with his satiric vision of the pretences of the diplomatic world that, though his attitude to the war was as anti-Prussian as M. Vandervelde's, a great number of ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... well known for its fine white wines; and beyond, is Sainte Croix de Mont, a village placed on rather a bold eminence. At Preignac the little river Ciron runs into the Garonne, and brings on its current wood from the Landes. Sometimes this small stream becomes so swollen, that it overflows, and renders the road in its neighbourhood dangerous. After the battle of Orthez, the mutilated remains of the French army crossed the valley, which this river had rendered a perfect marsh, at the ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... in favour of communal possession runs badly against the current economical theories, according to which intensive culture is incompatible with the village community. But the most charitable thing that can be said of these theories is that they have never been submitted to the test of experiment: they belong to the domain of political metaphysics. ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... between, for my back to settle down in. But I soon found that there came such a draught of cold air over me from under the sill of the window, that this plan would never do at all, especially as another current from the rickety door met the one from the window, and both together formed a series of small whirlwinds in the immediate vicinity of the spot where I had thought ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Trinity, however, has been taken by a ship of unspecified nationality ('false' might easily become corrupted into 'French'); and thus this ballad deals with three ships, while the Golden Vanity versions mention but two. The latter are still current in folk-song. ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick
... he had faith in her, and was sure that she could do nothing wrong. His Aunt Ruth, of whom he was very fond, and who had great influence over him, was a weak woman in some respects, and much more inclined to take the current of other's opinions than to give herself the trouble of opposition. Her innate sense of honor was a little disturbed at her sister's views of the case; but she failed to say the right words which were in her thoughts, and which, if spoken, ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... for solution of it is pressing on; and how little the world generally is yet aware what methods and principles, new, strange, and altogether contradictory to the shallow maxims and idle philosophies current at present, would be needed for dealing with it! This task he perhaps contemplated with apprehension; but he is not now to be tried with this, or with any task more. He has fallen, at this point of the march, an honourable soldier; ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... to 'dare all that became a man.' But every now and then a swell rolled in high enough to have cracked our sculls against the top, and out again deep enough to have staved the boat against the rocks. If we went to wreck, the current was setting strongly out to sea; and the Boca was haunted by sharks, and (according to the late Colonel Hamilton Smith) by a worse monster still, namely, the giant ray, {111a} which goes by the name of devil-fish on the Carolina shores. He saw, he says, one ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... tidings that Dame Nature, in spite of all the destruction wreaked by men, was carrying on her business. "And—I do not even know that I am a young lady. See there"—she blew a little puff of breath at the moving messenger, and it wafted away upon a new air-pilgrimage, and, rising, caught a stronger current, and soared out of sight—"that is me. It came from somewhere, and it is going somewhere. That is all I know about myself; perhaps as much as I shall ever know. Why ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... all forms but tarries with few. Many are called but few are chosen—chosen to lead the man-impulse upward. Myriads of forms are left behind, like driftwood caught in the eddies of a current. The clam has always remained a clam, the oyster remained an oyster. The cockroach is about the same creature to-day that it was untold aeons ago; so is the shark, and so are many other forms of marine life. Often where old species have gone ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... arms of native inherent protection. During the entire administrations of Governors Johnston and Dobbs, commencing in 1734 and ending in 1765, a strong tide of emigration was setting into North Carolina from two opposite directions. While one current from Pennsylvania passed down through Virginia, forming settlements in its course, another current met it from the South, and spread itself over the inviting lands and expansive domain of the Carolinas and Georgia. Near the close of Governor ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... not understand how to let himself be dragged on like a cork upon a stream, by the wave of daily events. He was determined to put his ideas into force, to give life and durability to his ministry. There was no use in being a minister if he must continue the habitual go-as-you-please of current politics. In that case, the first chief of bureau one might meet would make as ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... the night about three leagues to the west-south-west, the southernmost land in sight bearing west. On examining the coast and not seeing any sign of a settlement we bore away to the westward having a strong gale against a weather current which occasioned much sea. The shore was high and covered with wood, but we did not run far before low land again formed the coast, the points of which opening at west I once more fancied we were on the south part of the ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... proscribed by his material predicament, however, Casey Ryan set his face with a grin. Somebody was going to get the big jolt of his life before long, he told himself over a careful breakfast fire built cunningly far back in the crevice where a current of air sucked into the rock capping of the butte. Something was going on up here that shouldn't go on. He did not know what it was, but he meant to stop it. He did not know who was making Indian war on peaceful prospectors, but Casey ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... impalpably before him, and only slowly, like an approaching spectre, took upon itself shape and presence. A conversation between himself and his daughter on the second day after the accident, and his conduct immediately thereafter, may give us some apprehension of the current of his thoughts ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... Fingal of MacPherson), there occurs, as in the primitive poetry of most nations, a cycle of heroes, each of whom has some distinguishing attribute; upon these qualities, and the adventures of those possessing them, many proverbs are formed, which are still current in the Highlands. Among other characters, Conan is distinguished as in some respects a kind of Thersites, but brave and daring even to rashness. He had made a vow that he would never take a blow without returning it; and having, like other heroes of antiquity, descended ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... All our balls are self-finding," said Adonis. "The ball in use now is a recent invention of Vulcan's. They cost twelve hundred dollars a dozen. They are made of liquefied electricity. We take the electric current, liquefy it, then solidify it, then mould it into the form of a sphere. Inside we place a little gong, that begins to ring as soon as the ball lands. The electricity in it is what makes it fly so ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... the autumn; beyond the railroad bridge and the rocks; past the first dipping hemlocks; around the curve; below the old camp where they had had so many delightful picnics and watched the sunset from the rocks; and on, up above the rapids. The current was swift to-day. He wondered if Leslie had been able to pass them all alone, yet somehow he felt she had and he would find her up in the quiet haven where few ever came and where she would be undisturbed. ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... it, and soiled by the various tables on which it had lain. The old bachelor thus got through the day until it was time for dinner; over that meal he spent as much time as it was possible to give to it. Flore told him the news of the town, repeating the cackle that was current, which she had carefully picked up. Towards eight o'clock the lights were put out. Going to bed early is a saving of fire and candles very commonly practised in the provinces, which contributes no doubt to the empty-mindedness ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... covered with red boxes, all containing documents requiring attention, and which messengers were perpetually bringing or carrying away. Then there were long meetings of the Cabinet almost daily, and daily visits from ambassadors and foreign ministers, which prevented the transaction of the current business, and rendered it necessary that Lord Roehampton should sit up late in his cabinet, and work sometimes nearly till the hours of dawn. There had been of course too some arrears of business, for secretaries of state cannot indulge with impunity in Andalusian dreams, ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... full perfection shines; His wide research and patient skill displays What scarce was sketch'd in ANNA's golden days;[44] What only learning's aggregated toil Slowly accomplish'd in each foreign soil.[45] Yet to the mine though the rich coin he trace, No current marks his early essays grace; For in each page we find a massy store Of English bullion mix'd with Latian ore: In solemn pomp, with pedantry combin'd, He vents the morbid sadness of his mind;[46] In scientifick phrase affects to smile, Form'd ...
— A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the late Samuel Johnson (1786) • John Courtenay
... When it is remembered how near Eton is to London, and how frequent the communication, it will appear astonishing, but highly creditable to the authorities, that so little of the current slang of the day is to be met ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... only happy cup I ever knew? For, Arthur, at the best of times, I have not been a happy woman; I have always wanted love, and it has not come to me. Perhaps I should be, but I am not—a high ideal being. I am as Nature made me, Arthur, a poor creature, unable to stand alone against such a current as has lately swept me with it. But you are quite right, you must leave me, we must separate, you must go; but oh God! when I think of the future, ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard |
