"Float" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had stepped into a light skiff that was moored near the boom, and was pulling towards the stranded raft. He first examined its position, and assured himself that very little labor would be necessary to float it; then he stepped aboard, and very nearly lost his customary self-possession upon the receipt of Winn's warm greeting. He was on the point of returning it in a manner that would have proved most unpleasant for poor Winn, when he discovered that his supposed assailant was only a boy, and ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... another test for you. Climb through the conning tower, run forward and dive off the bow. But, first of all, grab a life-belt and strap it to you. Don't ask questions. Have confidence in me. When you get in the water, work your way rapidly around the bow of the Dewey to starboard. Float there in the shadow of our hull. Keep close up. All will ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... rooms in which they had so often been confined and pestered with wearisome tasks and studies, the passages they had played in, the walls which had always been kept so carefully clean, all falling before the mason's hatchet and the carpenter's axe,—and that from the bottom upwards; to float as it were in the air, propped up by beams, being, at the same time, constantly confined to a certain lesson or definite task,—all this produced a commotion in our young heads that was not easily settled. But the young people felt the inconvenience less, because they had somewhat more space for ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... the facts of a seance will be given by a believer and a sceptic. A whole party of believers will affirm that they saw Mr. Home float out of one window, and in at another, while a single honest sceptic declares that Mr. Home was sitting in his chair all the time. And in this last case we have an example of a fact, of which there is ample illustration, that during the prevalence of an epidemic delusion, the ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett
... I knew all the people around these parts," he said, while Sylvia let the boat float. "I never saw ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... he addressed Pompeius as Imperator in the Roman language and Achillas saluting him in Greek invited him to enter the boat, because, as he said, the shallows were of great extent and the sea being rather sandy had not depth enough to float a trireme. At the same time it was observed that some of the king's ships were getting their men on board, and soldiers occupied the shore, so that it appeared impossible to escape even if they ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... the beach fishermen and crofters were hard at work hauling up spars and barrels as fast as they were tossed ashore. None of them had seen any bodies, however, and they explained to us that only such things as could float had any chance of coming ashore, for the undercurrent was so strong that whatever was beneath the surface must infallibly be swept ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the weevils. That is the only way that I know of for disposing of the weevils. Eat them up. (Laughter.) You can pick out the weevil chestnuts fairly well if you toss all of the nuts into a cup of water and pick out the ones that float. Pound them up with a mallet and throw them into ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various
... method of describing the arrangement of the pleura is to state that it forms two sacks, right and left, that enclose the lungs. The lungs are the essential organs of respiration. The tissue that forms them is light, will float in water, is elastic and somewhat rose-colored. Each lung is divided into lobes, and each lobe into a great number of lobules by the supporting connective tissue. The lobule is the smallest division of the lung and is formed by capillary bronchial ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... through whose suffrages they have been placed in office. In very many cases they do not represent them at all: they form an entirely dissimilar class,—a class as thoroughly different from the solid mass of the community, on which they float like froth and spume on the surface of the great deep, as that other class from which, because there are unhappily scarce any other men in the field, we have to select our legislators. The subject is one of importance. In the Sabbath controversy ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... a funny gesture utterly composed (composed silently and entirely) of merde. Merde! Merde. A wee tiny absurd whistle coming from nowhere, from outside of me. Two men opposite. Jolt. A few houses, a fence, a wall, a bit of neige float foolishly by and through a window. These gentlemen in my compartment do not seem to know that La Misere exists. They are talking politics. Thinking that I don't understand. By Jesus, that's a good one. "Pardon me, gentlemen, but does one change at the ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... attempt," which would be almost as good. Partly to see how the crowd was taking it, and partly to rest myself, I turned over on my back and floated. This do doubt was a tactical error; for as a rule a hero does not float out to save any one's life. In my case it did not much matter, for the first thing I perceived as I turned was my drowning man's head bobbing up merrily between me and the shore, having enjoyed his long dive and wholly unaware of the "gallant attempt" ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... ride upon white donkeys. Yet a donkey of venerable and unhappy appearance did nightly help to swell the ranks of the country's patriots, and the beast which he knew enjoyed a sort of honor: it drew an illuminated "float" wherein rode a greatly ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... that old account," he said, turning over on his back to float. "He saved me last time. He's the cause this time of my ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... present in whole roasted coffee, can be picked out and identified microscopically. In the case of ground coffee, sprinkle some of the sample on cold water and stir lightly. Fragments of pure coffee, if not over-roasted, will float; while fragments of chicory, legumes, cereals, etc., will sink immediately, chicory coloring the water a decided brown. In all cases identify the particles that sink ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... desert is so fine that its particles are almost impalpable, and the action of the wind causes it to accumulate into heaps ten or twenty feet high, divided by deep valleys. Even in calm weather a great number of particles float in the air, giving rise to a mirage of a peculiar kind, and getting into the traveller's eyes, mouth, and nostrils, cause an excessive irritation, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... with the master and the 'bibi' as far as the water on which great pirogues of the white people float." ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... of catching wild ducks and other water-birds. Empty jars and calabashes are allowed to float upon the water for several days, until the birds are accustomed to the sight of them. A man then enters the water, places one of the jars upon his head, and advancing gently, seizes the feet of any bird which allows him to come near ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... with a startled bound, for in her hand the maiden bore a lighted lamp. I could see the blood in her delicate finger tips, as she spread them for a screen before the dancing flame. She came down to the stream, and set the lamp upon the water, and let it float away. The flame flickered to and fro, and seemed ready to expire; but still the lamp burned on, and the girl's black sparkling eyes, half veiled behind their long silken lashes, followed it with a gaze of earnest intensity. ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... the snawy hoord, [thaws, hoard] An' float the jinglin' icy boord, Then water-kelpies haunt the foord, [-spirits] By your direction, An' 'nighted travelers are allur'd To ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... though suddenly snatched away, still lives and will always live; for I loved the virtue of the man, which is not extinguished. Nor does it float before my eyes only, as I have always had it at hand; it will also be renowned and illustrious with generations to come. No one will ever enter with courage and hope on a high and noble career, without proposing ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... fits a little boat, A little lead best fits a little float; As my small pipe best fits my ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... looking for ferns. In some parts we hardly dare step, for fear of crushing something beautiful. We look down upon a bank of green moss, and find snowy, shell-like fungi, so delicate that we hold our breath lest they should float away. Farther on are orange-colored ones, and some shaped like callas, translucent, and in color a pale pink carnelian. Wandering on, we enter a grove of pine-trees, in the midst of which a spring is bubbling up, and the ground is covered with a carpet of ferns, mosses, and wild ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... information it yielded us. For we found that we had forty-eight feet of water before the vessel and much less behind her. It was then proposed that we should throw our cannon overboard, in the hope that when our ship was lightened of so much heavy metal she might by good hap be brought to float again. I remember as well as yesterday the face of Cornelys Jensen when this determination was arrived at. He saw that it must be done, but the necessity pricked him bitterly. 'There's no help for it,' he said aloud to Hatchett, with a sigh. Captain Marmaduke took the expression, as ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... 'tain't the clean pertater, is it, for a superintendent t' lay into a chap at Sunday School for things what he done outside? S'pose I float Tinribs's puddlin' tub down the creek by accident, with Doon's baby in it when I ain't thinkin', is it square fer him to nab me in Sunday School, an' whack me fer it, pretendin' all the time it's 'cause I stuck a mouse ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... placed vertically, which did fairly well and lasted to the end (about 1,000 ft.), although it was not altogether satisfactory, and the last eight or ten sections built had to be rubbed down with a wooden float in order to ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 - The Bergen Hill Tunnels. Paper No. 1154 • F. Lavis
... learned to swim. Peacock also notices his habit of floating paper boats, and gives an amusing description of the boredom suffered by Hogg on occasions when Shelley would stop by the side of a pond or mere to float a mimic navy. The not altogether apocryphal story of his having once constructed a boat out of a bank-post-bill, and launched it on the lake in Kensington Gardens, deserves to be alluded to ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... heartbreaking work. For a few moments the boats would float, plunging the men beyond their depths. They would swim and flounder perhaps a boat's length, clinging to the gunwale, before the boat would once more run aground. Again they would drag their clumsy burden a hundred yards over sand that sucked hungrily at their sodden boots. This passed, came ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... frozen sea now; and that is the present scene of our heroic games. Sometimes, in the splendor of the dying light, we seem sporting upon transparent gold, so prismatic becomes the ice; and the snow takes opaline hues from the gems that float above as clouds. It is eminently the hour to see objects, just after the sun has disappeared. Oh, such oxygen as we inhale! After other skaters appear,—young men and boys,—who principally interest me as foils to my husband, who, in the presence of ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... energy at his command, and steadily pushed the float toward land. Now and then, while doing so, he shouted to his sister, without hearing ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... discovered by watching an ordinary street row between a couple of men, or still better, women. A Chinese crowd of men—women keep away—is a good-tempered and orderly mob, partly because not inflamed by drink, when out to enjoy the Feast of the Lanterns, or to watch the twinkling lamps float down a river to light the wandering ghosts of the drowned on the night of their All Souls' Day, sacred to the memory of the dead; but a rumour, a mere whisper, the more baseless often the more potent, will transform these law-abiding people ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... Byron's and the bell story, and the notion started in me that I was having a happy hour. (Though perhaps my best moments I never jot down; when they come I cannot afford to break the charm by inditing memoranda. I just abandon myself to the mood, and let it float on, carrying me in ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... I get a carrot for Blackhawk, let us make a raft of some of them, and put the rest on, and let them float away ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... its falling straight down from its original height, so breaking the sleigh; that a thin slice of salt pork well peppered is good when tied about a sore throat; that choking a horse will cause him to swell up and float on the top of the water, thus rendering it easy to slide him out on the ice from a hole he may have broken into; that a tree lodged against another may be brought to the ground by felling a third against it; that snowshoes made of caribou ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... prepared remains uncontaminated indefinitely, in spite of its susceptibility to change when exposed to the air under conditions which allow it to gather the dusty particles which float in the atmosphere. It is the same in the case of urine, beef-tea, and grape-must, and generally with all those putrefactable and fermentable liquids which have the property when heated to boiling-point of destroying ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... the annual Zola are unknown, and they must take their excitements where they can find them. The dim light, the unhealthy commerce of fictitious ghosts, the unreality of act and sentiment, the unwonted abandon, form an atmosphere in which these second-hand mystics float away into a sphere where the morals and the manners are altogether different from those ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... breath of balm upon the clover meads. The perfumed words soothe me into a dream; My thoughts float to her ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... passionately he may long, and however earnestly he may strive, to regulate his life by it, he will find himself "carnal, sold under sin;" he will "find another law in his members warring against the law of his mind, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin and death." It is easy to float with the stream, and the stronger the current the more buoyantly and exultingly it bears you on. But try to breast the current. You will soon find that you have undertaken a task which is "impossible with men," and will sink exhausted and undone with the vain endeavour. Alas! Satan is in very ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... farther back, the claws began to work, and those of his harmonies which you would have chosen as the purest exponents of passion began to float through the room. Selections from Weber, Beethoven, and others whom I have forgotten, followed. At the close of each piece, Tom, without waiting for the audience, would himself applaud violently, kicking, pounding his hands together, turning always to his master for the approving pat on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... offensive animals must be infinitely minute and numerous; yet they strongly affect the olfactory nerves. An analogy more appropriate is afforded by the contagious particles of certain diseases, which are so minute that they float in the atmosphere and adhere to smooth paper; yet we know how largely they increase within the human body, and how powerfully they act. Independent organisms exist which are barely visible under the highest powers of our recently-improved microscopes, and which probably are fully as large as the ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... in a crimson sea, Out of whose bright depths rising silently, Great golden spires shoot into the skies, Among the isles of cloudland high, that rise, Float, scatter, burst, drift off, and slowly fade, Deep in the twilight, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... But to that, which they urge against me, I reply after this sort:—That I am of weight I acknowledge, having been often weighed in my time; wherefore, in answer to the fair that have not weighed me, I affirm that I am not of gravity; on the contrary I am so light that I float on the surface of the water; and considering that the sermons which the friars make, when they would chide folk for their sins, are to-day, for the most part, full of jests and merry conceits, and drolleries, I deemed that the like stuff would not ill beseem my stories, written, ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Its nature was kept a profound secret for centuries, but the material is now believed to have been a mixture of nitre, sulphur, and naphtha. It burned with terrible fury wherever it fell, and it possessed the property of being inextinguishable by water. Even when poured upon the sea it would float upon the surface and still burn. It was used in warfare for a considerable time after the discovery of gunpowder, but gradually fell into the disuse as artillery became more effective. The name is still sometimes used to designate ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... those birds in India who bung their astral bodies about—the chaps, I mean, who having gone into thin air in Bombay, reassemble the parts and appear two minutes later in Calcutta. Only some such theory will account for the fact that he's not there one moment and is there the next. He just seems to float from Spot A to Spot B ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... of that godless life which they lead, and they shape all as it pleases them; they care neither for worldly authority, nor the word of God; they are neither under external nor internal government, whether divine or human; they float about between heaven and earth in their lust, just ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... he thought. "She's got to sleep sometime. If I could sneak around the beach and push the dugout in! No matter how quick she woke once I was afloat. Oh! it would do my heart good to float just out of her reach and tell her a few things. On a night like this I could paddle anywhere. She's got some food and a blanket. Serve her right, anyhow. I could send some one ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... whatever precious metal it contained; and he requested the merchant to procure him some specimens of the slag, and to forward them to Paris for examination, promising, if the tests were satisfactory, to include the Genoese in the company which he was sure of being able to float for the exploitation of the concern. Although the merchant did not forward the specimens, Balzac consulted some specialists in Paris, Monsieur Carraud amongst others, who all concurred in pronouncing the enterprise feasible. Finally, the novelist decided to proceed to the ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... We cannot afford to float along ceaselessly on a postwar boom until it collapses. It is not enough merely to prepare to weather a recession if it comes. Instead, government and business must work together constantly to achieve more and more jobs and more and more production—which mean more and more ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the earlier hours of the day. Then, if he has a passion for polyps, and wishes to imagine how they could ingulf good-sized ships in the ages of fable, he can see one of the hideous things float from its torpor in the bottom of its tank, and seize Avith its hungry tentacles the food lowered to it by a string. Still awfuller is it to see it rise and reach with those prehensile members, as with the tails of a multi-caudate ape, some rocky projection of its walls and ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... the northern side of the Himalaya there are large and beautiful ones, while the southern slope is almost destitute of them. Spitzbergen and Greenland are famous for their extensive glaciers, coming down to the sea-shore, where huge masses of ice, many hundred feet in thickness, break off and float away into the ocean as icebergs. At the Aletsch in Switzerland, where a little lake lies in a deep cup between the mountains, with the glacier coming down to its brink, we have these Arctic phenomena on a small scale; a miniature iceberg may often be seen to break ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... crown of the arch, made for their safety in case of accidents. No injury was sustained by any of the men. I was not satisfied, at the time, of the real extent of the bad soil, and I ordered a boat to be brought, with a rope of sufficient length to enable us to float to the shield. The boat was brought, but the rope attached to it, and by which we were to be hauled into the shaft, was shorter than we had ordered it. This deficiency probably saved our lives. We had not proceeded far in the boat when I perceived, by ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... is the twilight hour On the river-lake. Sweetly the plaintive note Gushes from whippoorwill's throat, Gently, gently we float, Light as a fine snow-flake, Down the river-lake. The dripping oars at rest Their murmurous music wake, And ripple o'er the breast Of the ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... love!—more like an out-of-tune Worn viol, a good singer would be wroth To spoil his song with, and which, snatched in haste, Is laid down at the first ill-sounding note. I did not wrong myself so, but I placed A wrong on thee. For perfect strains may float 'Neath master-hands, from instruments defaced,— And great souls, at one stroke, may ...
— Sonnets from the Portuguese • Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
... musicians formed an important part of the equipment. Sanudo says that in going into action every vessel should make the greatest possible display of colours; gonfalons and broad banners should float from stem to stern, and gay pennons all along the bulwarks; whilst it was impossible to have too much of noisy music, of pipes, trumpets, kettle-drums, and what not, to put heart into the crew and ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... we paddled back to Willow Clump Island, crept past the slumbering intruders and waded out to the old water wheel. After a good deal of exertion we managed to dislodge the smaller tower, letting the wheel drop into the river and float away. Then we made for the cantilever bridge. It didn't take us very long to cut away the wire bindings, unhook the frames and drop them into the lagoon. But the task was quite a perilous one, as the night was pitch black. Finally, nothing remained of the bridge but the two ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... be placed in the basket, not too many at a time or too close together, and then lowered gently into the fat. They generally will sink to the bottom for a minute or two, and only float when they have begun to brown. When a bright golden brown, take up the basket and let the fried things drain in it, over the hot fat, for a few seconds. Then take them out gently one by one, and lay them on a sheet of brown or ...
— The Story of Crisco • Marion Harris Neil
... first thing that occurred to him. He took a letter from his pocket, tore it slowly into small pieces, and let the fragments float away on the breeze. This device appeared to be successful for a few seconds; but when the scraps of paper had disappeared or fallen to the ground the pigmies resumed their stealthy silent advance. Smith had another idea. Whistling the merry air of the "Saucy ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... change the subject, won't you?" begged Nick, turning as red in the face as a turkey cock. "My time will come, and I'm going to astonish you fellows. Why, I can float right now, though ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... if not intelligible, at least acceptable to our reason; but in that universe float thousands of millions of worlds limited by space and time. They are born, they die and they are born again. They form part of the whole; and we see, therefore, that parts of that which has neither beginning nor end themselves begin and end. We, in fact, know only those ...
— Death • Maurice Maeterlinck
... an apple-tree with golden and silver apples," says the first; "whoever plucks an apple will immediately burst." Says the second, "I will become a spring—on the water will float two cups, the one golden, the other of silver; whoever touches one of the cups, him will I drown." And the third says, "I will become a golden bed; whoever lies down upon that bed will be consumed with fire." Ivan, in a sparrow's form, overhears all this, and acts as in the preceding story. ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... head clear and my feet steady enough to venture a dance with him. The constantly suspicious attitude of my mind, to be sure, interfered with my pleasure very considerably. I was in a too observant mood to float on the topmost wave of enjoyment, and besides an extraordinary disquietude had seized upon me, a contraction about the heart that was quite new to me, such as sensitive people undergo before a storm or in anticipation of momentous changes of fortune. I wandered about restlessly. ...
— The Gray Nun • Nataly Von Eschstruth
... the lifted loop Of cloud-veil upward cast? With sea-veiled limbs, a sleeping group Of Nereids dreaming past. Swim on, my boat; who knows but I, Ere night sinks to her grave, May see in splendour pale float by The Venus of ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... human family to cease enlarging, lest they should overflow the borders of the world? Was God himself literally to desert his ancient abode, and, with the celestial city and all its angelic hierarchy, float from the desolated firmament to Mount Zion, there to set up the central eternity of his throne. We cannot believe that such is the meaning, which the seer of the Apocalypse wished to convey by his ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... the houseboat was safely in the creek. This stream of water was narrow, though it was deep enough to float the Bluebird easily. The shores were so close, at times, that the tree branches overhung the deck, and brushed ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat • Laura Lee Hope
... I have followed out my fate. And I propose in spite of my numerous iniquities, by the recollection of my many joys in the glories of this earth, as by corks, to float myself in the sea of nothingness until I reach the regions of the Blessed ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... Ark of our happy childish memories is built, if not of gopher-wood, at least upon the lines laid down in Scripture. Has Hammy ever tried to get his to float? Mine invariably used to sink—straight to the bottom of the bath. Perhaps that continually-recurrent catastrophe had something to do with the sapping of my infant faith, or the establishment of a sinking-fund of doubt regarding the veracity of the ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... float down the fast running stream. [Strangely enough, progress by water is here designated by footprints instead of using the outline of a canoe. The etymology of the Ojibwa word used in this connection may suggest footprints, as in the ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... baptisme when they Covenant with the Devill, water being the sole element thereof, and therefore saith he, when they be heaved into the water, the water refuseth to receive them into her bosome, (they being such Miscreants to deny their baptisme) and suffers them to float, as the Froath on the Sea, which the water will not recieve, but casts it up and downe till it comes to the earthy element the shore, and ...
— The Discovery of Witches • Matthew Hopkins
... breathe, the captain watched the sphere float over the ashes of its victim for a moment; then, apparently satisfied that the man no longer lived, ...
— The Whispering Spheres • Russell Robert Winterbotham
... divine fire to bless and inspire. But such vessels very often go on the reefs of passion, and if Milly had not been so thoroughly normal in her instincts, she might have suffered shipwreck before this. Otherwise, they float out at middle age more or less derelict in the human sea, unless they have been captured and converted willy-nilly to some other's purpose. Now Milly was drifting towards that dead sea of purposeless middle age, ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... some unseen influence that seemed to envelope him in waves of exquisite sensation. It was as though the vast silence of the night had poured into the room and, like a dark tepid sea, was lapping about his body and rising to his lips. His thoughts, dissolved into emotion, seemed to waver and float on the stillness like sea-weed on the lift of the tide. He stood spell-bound, lulled, yielding himself to ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... Did you feel that?" (A puff had caught the schooner, and he was forced to put the wheel up rapidly to keep her out of the wind.) "'Tis no egg-shell'll float on this sea an hour come, an' it's a stroke iv luck for them we're ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... Let every instrument of music play, Ancient and modern; those which drew their birth (Punctilios laid aside) from Pagan earth, 120 As well as those by Christian made and Jew; Those known to many, and those known to few; Those which in whim and frolic lightly float, And those which swell the slow and solemn note; Those which (whilst Reason stands in wonder by) Make some complexions laugh, and others cry; Those which, by some strange faculty of sound, Can build walls up, and raze them to the ground; ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... an opening in the rocky cliff which bore the appearance of being the outlet of a torrent stream; being low-water, there was not in many parts sufficient depth to float the boat; but after pulling up for half a mile, a muddy channel was found, which, at the end of another half mile, was terminated by a bed of rocks over which the tide flows at high-water. The ravine is formed by steep precipitous rocks which are at least two hundred and fifty feet high; it appeared ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... bowel, which squeeze much of it into little glands at the back of the bowels. These are called the mesenteric glands; and, as each one receives its portion of chyle, a wonderful thing happens. About half of it is changed into small round bodies called corpuscles, and they float with the rest of the milky fluid through delicate pipes which take it to a sort of bag just in front of the spine. To this bag is fastened another pipe or tube—the thoracic duct—which follows the line ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... a sketch of a portion of a dreadnought file. This has superseded the old-fashioned home-made float used to clean out the ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham
... or something," said Dave, "and it crackles and works on itself until it makes star dust, and it shakes this together till it makes lumps, and they float round, and pretty soon they're big lumps like the moon and like this little ball of star dust we're riding on—and there are millions of them out there all round and about, some a million times bigger than this little one, and they all whirl and whirl, the little ones whirling round the big ones ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... banners of Liberty float in the breeze That plays light o'er the regions our fathers defended; Hear the voice of the million resound o'er the leas, As the deeds of the past are proclaim'd and commended; And in splendour on high Where ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... though the name of chinampa is still applied to the gardens along the canal. These gardens very much resemble the floating islands in their construction of mud, heaped on a foundation of reeds and branches; and though they are not the real thing, and do not float, they are interesting, as the present representatives of the famous Mexican floating gardens. They are narrow strips of land, with a frontage of four or five yards to the canal, and a depth of one hundred, or a hundred and fifty yards. ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... or appendage of it still existing in those states. 4th. To abolish when they do. 5th. To increase or abate its rigor when, how, and as the same are modified by those states. In a word, Congressional action in the District is to float passively in the wake of legislative action on ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... present quickly adjusted to its head, Harry Frere taking up a hole or two here and there till a perfect adaptation was made, when as if proud of its new finery the noble charger tossed up its head, making the scarlet hanging plume float about in the glowing air, and then stood motionless with head erect. Once more there was a loud outburst from the chief's assembled followers, and he stood looking as proud as the horse. Then he walked round it, giving it a caress or two, and finally ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... paper with a saturated solution of bichromate of potash, made quite acid with acetic acid. After printing, wash the prints in running water for twenty to thirty minutes, then float them face down on a weak solution (five to ten per cent.) of protosulphate of iron for five minutes, and wash as before. If preferred, the iron solution may be washed over the prints, or they may be immersed in it, but floating seems preferable. After the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various
... rather jolly and very funny, even with a dislocated shoulder. Also the great Urquhart would, when he remembered, take a little notice of Peter—enough to inflate the young gentleman's spirit like a blown-out balloon and send him soaring skywards, to float gently down again at ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... skins with Johnnie and Crusoe, nor capture the drifting Hispaniola along with Jim Hawkins. She had no taste even for a lively massacre. And as Johnnie was equally determined neither to bury Cora again nor float upon a death barge with the Maid of Astolat, they compromised upon Aladdin and the Princess ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... the smaller temples, saw the great ships with gorgeous sails and swinging pendants pass up and down the sacred way, and heard the chant of evening song float forth from many a shrine. Still, on she went, footsore and weary, to find, alas! the door of her asylum closed; then, gazing for a moment at the mighty structure within the parabolus walls, she uttered a faint ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... songs grow faint as they float over the water, then die away. After that the flags and banners still tell of joy and hope, until they too are invisible. The day draws to a close, darkness drops down and envelops the seven ships sailing ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... know why she had spoken of him at all; but his kind face had seemed to float into her mind with the touch of Jimmy's lips. She was glad she had liked him. He was Jimmy's friend; now he would ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... but really the dresses are wonderful. Then the mystery is so delightful. I can't recognise any one now under the masks. Look, who is that?" She glanced towards a lady dressed as Undine, who seemed to float by them, so light were her movements, on the ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... her companionship, However roughly from the east her breath Came as if all the icebergs of Grand Bank Were giving up their forms in that one gust,— Now while on orchard-trees the struggling blossoms Break from the varnished cerements, and in clouds Of pink and white float round the boughs that hold Their verdure yet in check,—and while the lawn Lures from yon hemlock hedge the robin, plump And copper-breasted, and the west wind brings Mildness and balm,—let me attempt the task ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... odours of the meat, The cabbage and sweets all merge as in a pall, The stale unsavoury remnants of the feast. Here, with abounding confluences of onion, Whose vastitudes of perfume tear the soul In wish of the not unpotatoed stew, They float and fade and flutter like morning dew. And all the copper pots and pans in line, A burnished army of bright utensils, shine; And the stern butler heedless of his bunion Looks happy, and the tabby-cat of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various
... over there, the symbol of peace and the only lovely thing in that gruesome region. Another minute and I must have gone with them. It was too late to think of getting out of the tangle then; the water behind was heavy with trailing silks and flowers. We were jammed together almost like one huge float and in that latter ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... time we were beginning to observe fish, birds on the wing, and other signs of land not far off; and we shortly saw men, practising a mode of navigation new to us; for they were boat and crew in one. The method was this: they float on their backs, erect a sail, and then, holding the sheets with their hands, catch the wind. These were succeeded by others who sat on corks, to which were harnessed pairs of dolphins, driven with reins. They neither attacked nor avoided ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... or nothin' else—is goin' to float on top of a person's head. Froth floatin', that's all right, you understand; but even if you took froth right out of the water and slapped it up onto anybody's hair 'twouldn't FLOAT up there. If ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... gentlest zephyrs with him play.— Just curl the ripples on his breast, Then sighing, sink with him to rest. Beside the streams are pleasant bowers Adorned with ever-greens and flowers, Where insects float with gayest wing, And birds with sweetest voices sing, And happy spirits, free from care, Pluck the wild flowers that blossom there; Their forms are beauteous to behold, White silken wings, spangled with gold, Help them with easy grace to rise From this fair world to ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... we passed our days and nights in the fields and the woods, looked after horses, stripped the bark off the trees, fished, and so on.... And, you know, whoever has once in his life caught perch or has seen the migrating of the thrushes in autumn, watched how they float in flocks over the village on bright, cool days, he will never be a real townsman, and will have a yearning for freedom to the day of his death. My brother was miserable in the government office. ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... when properly dried will hold its shape. The annual rings are not distinctly marked, medullary rays fine and numerous. The green wood contains much water, and consequently is heavy and difficult to float, but when dry it is as light as basswood. The great amount of water in the green wood, particularly in the sap, makes it difficult to season by ordinary methods without warping and twisting. It does not check badly, is tasteless ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner
... men, I felt, might dwell here, and none but pure men might enter at its gates. There were white sentinels at its portals; rows of white houses formed its exterior; and in the middle of the city, floating above it,—for it seemed to float rather than to rest on foundations,—was its snow-white temple,—a place too holy almost, as it seemed, for human worship and human worshippers; and then the city had for battlements a glorious wall, white as alabaster, which rose to ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... Noah. "The boys must help me float the Ark. One of the rubber-tired wheels is crushed and it will take a lot of hard ...
— The Cruise of the Noah's Ark • David Cory
... I returned from a row, we would often see the children waiting for us, running like sand-spiders along the beach. They always liked to swim in company with a grown-up of buoyant temperament and inventive mind, and the float offered limitless opportunities for enjoyment while bathing. All dutiful parents know the game of "stage-coach"; each child is given a name, such as the whip, the nigh leader, the off wheeler, the old lady passenger, and, under penalty of paying a forfeit, must get up and ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... avail. I tried cotton cloth, carbide, lamb's wool blankets, Panama Canal, literatoor, X rays, hens' eggs, Standard Oil, the school mom, reciprocity, and the tariff; not a mite of change, all his idees swoshin' up against them islands, and tryin' to float off our minds there with hisen. I thought of what I'd hearn Thomas J. read about Tennyson's character, who "didn't want to die a listener," and I sez in a firm voice, "I've had a letter from Cousin Faithful Smith. She's comin' here next spring ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... to your fishing, whom watch ye to-night? A man of mean, or a man of might? Is it layman or priest that must float in your cove, Or lover who crosses to visit his love? Hark! heard ye the Kelpy reply, as we pass'd,— "God's blessing on the warder, he lock'd the bridge fast! All that come to my cove are sunk, Priest or ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... the isle I go, up stream and down, and dive and float and wallow with bliss there is no telling—till the waters all dry up and disappear, and I am left wading in weeds and mud and drift and drought and desolation, and wake up shivering—and such ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... point the Prophet's brain began to swim. Sparks seemed to float before his eyes, and amid these sparks, nebulous and fragmentary visions appeared, visions of his beloved grandmother companioned by scorpions and serpents, in close touch with camelopards and bovine monsters, ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... seizes the opportunity to pass from the male to the female, and quietly waits until it lays its eggs. It then leaps on the egg, which serves as a support for it in the honey, devours the egg in a few days, and, resting on the shell, undergoes its first metamorphosis. Organized now to float on the honey, it consumes this provision of nourishment, and becomes a nymph, then a perfect insect. Everything happens as if the larva of the Sitaris, from the moment it was hatched, knew that the male Anthophora would first emerge from the passage; that the nuptial flight would give it the ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... prose has its surge and undertow. That is why his is never a "painted ship on a painted ocean"; by the miracle of his art his water is billowy and undulating, his air quivers in the torrid sunshine, and across his skies—skies broken into new, strange patterns—the cloud-masses either float or else drive like a typhoon. His rhythmic sense is akin to Flaubert's, of whom Arthur Symons wrote: "He invents the rhythm of every sentence, he changes his cadence with every mood, or for the convenience of every fact; ... he has no fixed prose tune." Nor, by the same token, has Conrad. He seldom ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... true, sir," said the old remnant of the wars, carrying his hand to his brow, "but it were imprudent to communicate all the remarks which float through an old man's brain in the idle moments of such a garrison as this. One stumbles unawares on fantasies, as well as realities, and thus one gets, not altogether undeservedly, the character of a tale-bearer and mischief-maker among his comrades, and methinks I would not ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... to float around, and of all quarters of the globe that were mentioned "Egypt" was believed to be "it," and it was not long before we found out that that indeed was ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... suppose that the addition to the currency of the country intended as its result will be a public benefit, are reminded that history demonstrates that the point is easily reached in the attempt to float at the same time two sorts of money of different excellence when the better will cease to be in general circulation. The hoarding of gold which has already taken place indicates that we shall not escape the usual experience in such cases. So if this silver ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... requesting readers not to run off and read Mr. MORRIS'S poem, after gazing on the above title. My very respectable reader, you're smart, very smart indeed, but let me assure you that you haven't discovered from the float which I have placed on the surface, which way my string is drifting, so, if you get on ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... took her in greedily. Under the large straw hat, with its poppies and corn, her face showed exquisite, a face that might float tantalisingly across a painter's vision, and vanish after but allowing him the merest glimpse. Though she was clad in a simple dark blue serge dress, the grace of her figure seemed to him a revelation, and a ravishing sprig of cornflower peeped from her waistband. There was a repose, ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... testimony proves very plainly that it never again enters the stalk or flower, but evaporates like water. We all know that animal matter when putrid will be dissolved into particles small enough to float in the atmosphere, too minute for the naked eye. When passing off in this way this real flesh and blood would escape notice perhaps altogether, and never be detected, were it not for the olfactories, which on some occasions notify us of its presence very forcibly. In passing ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... the banks of a stream which evidently fell into the main river. As Ned observed its course, the thought occurred to him that if he could find a canoe, or for want of one a log of timber, he might float down with the current and reach the boats, which he felt sure would be sent to look for him. To do this, however, he must first elude his guards, who were, he found to his satisfaction, less watchful than at first, being apparently ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... trouble you. But if not hers, whose? Let me look, let me look! Why, there seems to be two of them, head-wives, I mean, and I thought that white men only took one wife. Also a multitude of others; their faces float up in the water of your mind. An old man with grey hair, little children, perhaps they were brothers and sisters, and some who may be friends. Also very clear indeed that Mameena whom you do not wish ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... thirty, and in each of them he put no more than four mariners. So he sailed to Tiberias with haste, and kept at such a distance from the city, that it was not easy for the people to see the vessels, and ordered that the empty vessels should float up and down there, while himself, who had but seven of his guards with him, and those unarmed also, went so near as to be seen; but when his adversaries, who were still reproaching him, saw him from ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... sit here," the boy said. He had risen, of course. "The benches are wet enough to float me as the river did. Come over to the other end. The wind doesn't drive ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... also obtained with the arrangement shown in Fig. 6. Between the two drums there is introduced a body sustained by a float such as represented at a, Fig. 4. Various results may, then, be obtained according to the combinations adopted. Let us suppose that the phases are alike, and that the interposed body is heavier than water; in this case it is repelled ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various
... a file of soldiers and—then let him be up against it." Something,' goes on Denver, 'like the way they've treated Hobson and Carrie Nation in our country. So the General had to flee. But he was thoughtful enough to bring along his roll. He's got sinews of war enough to buy a battleship and float her off ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... were stationed at 100-mile and later 500-mile intervals, to track the missiles by radar and correct their courses. At a set time, when their fuel was almost exhausted, the disks came down vertically and landed in the ocean. Since part of the device was sealed, the disks would float; then a special launching ship would hoist them abroad, refuel them, and launch them back toward a remote base in Australia, where they were landed ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... quietly thrust into a pigeon-hole labelled "Crazy and trashy." He did not haunt the anteroom of Congressman Somebody, who would promise to bring his plan before the House, and then, bowing him out, give general orders to his footman, "Not at home, hereafter, to that man." He did not float, as some theorists do, ghastly and seedy, around the Adyta of popular editors, begging for space and countenance. He wisely determined to keep his theories to himself until he could illustrate them by living examples. He first put himself in thorough training. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... for swiftness as well as cargo and, her builders having been junk builders since the time of Tiberius, she was a failure, sailing like a dough dish; and the yard that built her, having seen her float off, ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... Vi—Vi keeping Su-San near by—made some boats out of old pieces of wood they picked up around the ranch house. These boats they tied strings to, and let float down the creek, pulling them back from time to time and starting ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Uncle Fred's • Laura Lee Hope
... glowing fruit, their lips and cheeks are smeared and dyed; Their snowy bonnets brush the grass like lifting top-sails on a tide; And when their little pails brim red and rosy hands will hold no more, They steer long shadows down the waves that float their tired feet ...
— England over Seas • Lloyd Roberts
... that they praise "the rapid flight of the moist clouds, which veil the brightness of day" and "the waving locks of the hundred-headed Typho" and "the impetuous tempests, which float through the heavens, like birds of prey with aerial wings, loaded with mists" and "the rains, the dew, which the clouds outpour."[504] As a reward for these fine phrases they bolt well-grown, tasty mullet and ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... boilers of a ship which is ashore and in a position of peril, in endeavouring to refloat, shall be allowed in G.A., when shown to have arisen from an actual intention to float the ship for the common safety at ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... time when no stimulant can hold it and the last breath is drawn. Then the silver cord, of which the Bible speaks, and which holds the higher and the lower vehicles together, snaps in the heart and causes that organ to stop. That rupture releases the vital body, and that with the desire body and mind float above the visible body for from one to three and one-half days while the spirit is engaged in reviewing the past life, an exceedingly important part of its post-mortem experience. Upon that review depends its whole existence from death ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... their original investment, there is a prevailing idea that the certificates of its stocks are no longer good for any thing, except to light the fire. That's a mistake. Long after the company has foundered, its shares float, like the shattered debris which the sea casts upon the beach months after the ship has been wrecked. These shares M. Latterman collects, and carefully stores away; and upon the shelves of his office you may see numberless shares ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... uproarious as on the previous day. Sally mothered them all, keeping a watchful eye on them, and calling to them when they went out too far. She swam staidly backwards and forwards while the others got up to their larks, and now and then turned on her back to float. Presently she went out and began drying herself; she called to the others more or less peremptorily, and at last only Philip was left in the water. He took the opportunity to have a good hard swim. He was more used to the cold water this second morning, and he revelled ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... antiquity, you deify the basest traits of the fleshly organism; you exalt an animal incident of life into the end of life. You drive out of the lofty temples of the soul the noble and pure aspirations, the great charities, the divine thoughts, which should float there forever on the pinions of angels; and you cover the floor of the temple with crawling creatures, toads, lizards, vipers—groveling instincts, base appetites, leprous sensualities, that befoul the walls of the house with their snail-like markings, and ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... It is a change of scene. Away up in the morning sky, oh, how blue it is! and the light fleecy clouds, how they float in folds of white ether! The Sun has climbed higher. It is now above the tallest of the poplars; and the long shadows cast by trunks and stems and branches are visibly shortened. And see! the cattle are again lowing in the fat meadows, and by degrees beating a safe retreat from the coming ...
— The Story of a Dewdrop • J. R. Macduff |
