"Literally" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... many that Simon Basset never removed a suit of clothes, after he had once put it on, until it literally dropped from him in rags. He was also said to have argued, when taken to task for this most untidy custom, that birds and animals never shifted their coats until they were worn out, and it behooved men to follow their innocent and natural habits as ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... would have screamed, a hand was clapped over her mouth, breaking her false teeth, and all her stifled shrieks, queries and expostulations were literally cuffed into a whimper. Five minutes later, toothless, half-dressed and trembling, she thrust a few things into a dressing-case, struggled into a fur coat, and passed with sagging knees downstairs, clinging to the arm of a bully whom she had known ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... died suddenly, in his sixth year, and within the month Mr. Stewart followed him. Great and overpowering as was our grief, it seemed almost perfunctory beside the heart-breaking anguish of the old man. He literally staggered and ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... Which was literally the case. Wenna was so much engaged in her talk with Mrs. Trelyon that she did not notice how far away they were getting from Eglosilyan; but Mabyn and her companion knew. They were now on the high uplands by the coast, driving between the beautiful banks, which were starred with primroses ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... and baskets remained empty, while the apple pickers rested and compared rents and bruises. Then Jo and Meg, with a detachment of the bigger boys, set forth the supper on the grass, for an out-of-door tea was always the crowning joy of the day. The land literally flowed with milk and honey on such occasions, for the lads were not required to sit at table, but allowed to partake of refreshment as they liked—freedom being the sauce best beloved by the boyish soul. They availed themselves ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... spies—and ordered summary executions often enough to show that you meant it, and kept the public ignorant: deaf-dumb-blind ignorant. The spy system was simplicity itself; you had only to let things get as tangled and confused as possible until nobody knew who was who. The executions were literally no problem, for guilt or innocence made no matter. And mind-control when there were four newspapers, six magazines and three radio and television stations was a job for a handful ...
— The Adventurer • Cyril M. Kornbluth
... that can be empty is empty! thought Spargo: there was literally nothing in it. They were all staring into the interior of a plain, time-worn little receptacle, lined out with old-fashioned chintz stuff, such as our Mid-Victorian fore-fathers were familiar ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... far as chivalry compelled both kings and knights to care for the right personal training of their people; it perished utterly when those kings and knights became demoboroi, devourers of the people. And it will become possible again only, when, literally, the sword is beaten into the ploughshare, when your St. George of England shall justify his name, and Christian art shall be known as its Master was, in ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... nearer. It had been a snug, trim little settlement. Perhaps twenty-five or thirty people had lived there, literally hewing a home out of the forest. His heart throbbed with a fierce hatred and, anger against those who had spoiled all this, and his gloved finger crept to the hammer ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... enfans, mon mari. Si jamais on fait un portrait du brave Nelson je le veux avoir dans ma chambre. Hip, Hip, Hip, Ma chere Miladi je suis follede joye." Queen of Naples to Lady Hamilton, Sept. 4, 1798; Records: Sicily, vol. 44. The news of the overwhelming victory of the Nile seems literally to have driven people out of their senses at Naples. "Lady Hamilton fell apparently dead, and is not yet (Sept 25) perfectly recovered from her severe bruises." Nelson Despatches, 3, 130. On Nelson's arrival, "up flew her ladyship, and exclaiming, 'O God, is it possible?' she fell ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... pious reflections of the faithful, the life of a man who proposed to himself to practise literally the precepts of the Gospel, to conform himself entirely to Jesus Christ crucified, and to inspire the whole world with ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... left to-day.... Colonel Corley has taken Corinne [Corinne Lawton] and me on a beautiful drive this morning to 'Bonaventure,' which is to be a cemetery, and to several places in its vicinity. I never saw anything more impressive and beautiful than the avenues of live-oaks, literally covered with long gray moss, arching over the roads. Tell Messrs. Owen and Minis I have seen their families, who are very kind to us. General and Mrs. Gilmer asked especially after Custis.... We think of going to Florida in a few days. Haven't heard ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... of Natchez were literally crammed with bales of cotton for the Liverpool market. These are carried to the water-side in carts, each drawn by two mules, horses being here little used. During Mr. Fearon's residence at this town, he twice visited the State legislature, which was composed ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... their ranks some of the most famous leaders in England: and, what was more, the court was densely crowded with scores of men of his own profession, every one of whom was, he felt, regarding him with curiosity not unmixed with pity. Then, there was the tremendous responsibility which literally seemed to crush him, though he had never ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... the general introduction, that Marryat's cruises in the Imperieuse are almost literally described in Frank Mildmay. We have also independent accounts of ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... dangers and death. He would twirl his cane and good humouredly say "Now boys, don't fear, I see no danger." On one occasion when engaged in the very thick of a most awful struggle he said, "Now my boys, I'm your officer, I lead, you follow," and he walked literally through a shower of lead and iron with as little concern apparently, as if he were walking across his own drawing-room; and he came out of the ...
— General Gordon - Saint and Soldier • J. Wardle
... [4] Groseilles, literally; gooseberries or currents; but we have taken the liberty here, and elsewhere, slightly to deviate from the original text, in compliment to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various
... of king, that that great Daitya of the name Dhundhu, the son of Madhu and Kaitabha was slain by Kuvalaswa and it was for this also that king came to be called by the name of Dhundhumara. And indeed, the name he assumed was no empty one but was literally true. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... came to Munich. I think we have not; though the opera has only just begun, and it is the vacation of the Conservatoire. There are first the military bands: there is continually a parade somewhere, and the streets are full of military music, and finely executed too. Then of beer-gardens there is literally no end, and there are nightly concerts in them. There are two brothers Hunn, each with his band, who, like the ancient Huns, have taken the city; and its gardens are given over to their unending waltzes, polkas, and opera medleys. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... rather amusing if it hadn't made me conspicuous. It was, as you remarked, something of a risk to appear at all in such a place on such an occasion, but I've trusted to luck so often and come out on the top of the wave (literally!) that I didn't mind, provided I could jog along quietly, and get in even one dance with my little princess. I felt safe under your respectable wing, and was looking forward to the fun of not exploding if Caspian had laid a fuse to blow me up. But Strickland, ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... that this beautiful white fur of winter, literally as white as the snow, might prove a disadvantage at times by making its owner conspicuous when the ground is bare in winter, as it frequently is even in the North; yet though weasels are about more or less by day, ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... duty to protect until proper dispositions for defense could be made. The day was excessively hot, one of those sultry debilitating days that had caused the suspending of all military exercises; and as most of the men were lounging or sleeping in their tents, we were literally caught napping. The alarm spread instantly through the camp, and in a moment the command turned out for action, somewhat in deshabille it is true, but none the less effective, for every man had grabbed his rifle and cartridge-box at the first alarm. Aided by a few shots from ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Helen, therefore, we must make allowance for his theory of divine intervention, and for his chivalrous judgment of ladies. But there are two passages in the Iliad which may be taken as indicating Homer's opinion that Helen was literally a victim, an unwilling victim, of Aphrodite, and that she was carried away by force a captive from Lacedaemon. These passages are in the Iliad, ii. 356, 590. In the former text Nestor says, "let none be eager to return home ere he has couched with a Trojan's wife, and ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... his own devices. He could not escape, for the removal of the plank from the sluiceway made the place literally an island. He sat down on a big stone, with his manacled hands resting on his knees. Ned was restless and heartsick, and the prolonged suspense grew more intolerable every moment. He was afraid that ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... heavy annual tribute of grain. His own laws continue in force, and the city deities remain supreme, although recognition may also be given to the deities of his conqueror. He styles himself a Patesi—a "priest king", or more literally, "servant of the chief deity". But as an independent monarch may also be a pious Patesi, it does not always follow when a ruler is referred to by that title he is necessarily less ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... Ned literally withdrew his soul within itself. He sought to shut out the influence that was radiating from this singular and brilliant figure, but he saw that Mr. Austin was falling ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was in the olden times," said Frank; "besides, it's poetic language, you must not take it so literally as you seem to do. Do you know what lies at the bottom of all these superstitions? Ignorance; nothing but the lack of education. Among men of knowledge, nothing of this sort is ever heard of. They do not believe in witches riding on broomsticks. Ah!" he added, ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... been stalking us for two hours, and—welt upon welt, chill as the grave—the drive of the interminable main fog of the Atlantic. We slowed to little more than steerage-way and lay listening. Presently a hand-bellows foghorn jarred like a corncrake, and there rattled out of the mist a big ship literally above us. We could count the rivets in her plates as we scrooped by, and the little drops of dew ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... telle where: Where it went I cannot tell you, as I was not there. Tyrwhitt thinks that Chaucer is sneering at Boccacio's pompous account of the passage of Arcite's soul to heaven. Up to this point, the description of the death-scene is taken literally ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... than his wife, who was kept awake by a formless foreboding. For the week that followed she had the sense of literally pushing the hours away, so that at times she found herself breathless, as if from some heavy physical exertion. At such times she was frantic with the wish to have the days gone, and the day of their sailing come, but she kept her impatience from her husband and children, and especially from Ellen. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... piece was then tied around the calf, thigh, waist, around the chest, right wrist, elbow, upper arm, throat, forehead, then around the upper left arm, elbow, wrist, thigh, left knee, calf, and ankle. Thus the man was literally obscured with a mass of pine. He sat in an upright position with the legs extended and arms falling by his sides. A chant was sung by the song priest, and in a few minutes Naiyenesgony and Tobaidischinni appeared. Naiyenesgony drew his stone knife in front of the invalid over the ...
— Ceremonial of Hasjelti Dailjis and Mythical Sand Painting of the - Navajo Indians • James Stevenson
... about varieties, for surely the good ones are good enough to use up all the legitimate adjectives upon which seedsmen would care to pay postage. But such is not the case. Every season sees the introduction of literally hundreds of new varieties—or, as is more often the case, old varieties under new names—which have actually no excuse for being unloaded upon the public except that they will give a larger profit to the ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... Philip, with surprise, "it is not like you to take playfulness literally. You must have been in St. Ogg's this morning, and brought away ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... chest went right between his horns, and, as a matter of course, I continued the race upon nothing, head first, for a distance of about thirty yards, and brought up on the bridge of my nose. My poor dear father used to say I was a bull-headed rascal, and, upon my word, I believe he was more literally correct than he imagined; for although I fell with a fearful crash, head first, on the hard plain, I rose up immediately, and in a few minutes was able to resume the chase again. My horse was equally fortunate, for although thus ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... them the sun darted many a smile at his tear-stained mistress. At last they took themselves off like ill-affected meddlers in a love match, and the day grew bright and warm. By evening, spring, literally and figuratively, had more than regained lost ground, for, as Mr. Clifford had predicted, the lawn had a distinct emerald hue. Thenceforth the season moved forward as if there were to be no more ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... the round iron frame, and gazed at the furious sea, all covered with its white foam, but there was nothing visible for a time. Then all at once something swung by as the ship rose after careening over and literally rolling in the hollow ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... Therefore, he cherished it: triumph for its own sake. Alternatively, he'd end at the bottom in a burlesque clutter of chrom-alum splints and sticks, with maybe a broken bone to clinch the decision. For some men, death is literally more tolerable ...
— A Matter of Proportion • Anne Walker
... he began to plant his laurels. He wrote very early his first long poem, "The Court of Love." This, like most of his earlier writings, is full of allegory and imagery. Though very gorgeous in coloring, and often literally overflowing with rich fancy, these first poems are rather wanting in the human interest ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... during which they kept up an incessant cannonade, to which the English field guns attempted no reply. To me, and the officers of this troop, it seemed impossible that any force could advance to the attack of Hyder's position without being literally swept away by the crossfire that would be opened upon it; but when I expressed my ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... silver-mounted stick on the carriage panels, again and again stamped her foot, lifting a most variable emphatic countenance. Princess Ottilia tried to intercede. The margravine clenched her hands, and, to one not understanding her speech, appeared literally to blow the little lady off with the breath of her mouth. Her whole bearing consisted of volleys of abuse, closed by magisterial interrogations. Temple compared her Highness's language to the running out of Captain Welsh's chaincable, and my father's replies to the hauling in: ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... three weeks ago, she was so agitated, so moved! She saw me sad and unhappy, she would not let me go. It was at the door of the castle. I was obliged to tear myself, yes, literally tear myself away. I should have spoken, burst out, told her all. After I had gone a few steps, I stopped and turned. She could no longer see me, I was lost in the darkness; but I could see her. She stood there motionless, ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy
... "medio-passive" voice of Greek); -(a)ti- is a reciprocal element, "one another"; -wa-ch(i) is the third person animate plural (-wa-, plural; -chi, more properly personal) of so-called "conjunctive" forms. The word may be translated more literally (and yet only approximately as to grammatical feeling) as "then they (animate) caused some animate being to wander about in flight from one another of themselves." Eskimo, Nootka, Yana, and other languages have similarly complex arrays of suffixed elements, ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... to his father. The Archbishop was visiting Vienna and had brought with him his best musicians whom, however, he treated shabbily. At length the rupture came; Mozart was dismissed—literally with ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... has stolen an inscription from me, and that she has altered it, moreover, by putting it into verse. You will find it on page 109 of her book: 'A shade may weep over a shade.' You hear, Madame? 'A shade may weep over a shade.' Well, those words are translated literally from a funeral inscription which I was the first to publish and to illustrate. Last year, one day, when I was dining at your house, being placed by the side of Mademoiselle Bell, I quoted this phrase to her, and it pleased her a great deal. At her request, ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... will!" said his mother, and she hurried upstairs, only to be met by her husband, who was literally tumbled downstairs by the ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... railway bridge, being in direct opposition to the destructive statesmanship and constitutional conventionality of the lower residential quarter embracing the timber-yard, Elijah Square, and Aunt Martha's Soda Fountain. Naturally Jabez Puffwater, whose modest store stood figuratively and literally at the crossing of the ways, was always in a somewhat uncertain state of mind as to which side he should ultimately pin his colours. Perhaps on a Tuesday St. John Eddle, a staunch upholder of the C. and P.P., would enter Jabez's store and hit him in the face ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... body and in soul; and when that is used up, the man must sink down into some sort of second childhood, and end, like Hereward, very much where he began; unless the grace of God shall lift him up above the capacity of the mere flesh, into a life literally new, ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... the first of August, literally "the loaf-mass" day or festival day at the beginning of harvest, one of the cross quarter days, Whitsuntide, Martinmas, and Candlemas being the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... for her as milliners, dressmakers, shop-attendants, cooks, maids. But, as she now realized, it is one thing to pass upon the work of others; it is another thing to do work oneself. She— There was literally nothing that she could do. Any occupation, even the most menial, was either beyond her skill or beyond her ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... would be sorry for me if you knew how very bitter was my disappointment when I found that, these bright promises were only figurative expressions which I had taken literally. Doubtless I should not have fallen into such a ridiculous mistake if my great need had not made my wishes fathers to my thoughts. Nobody was at all to blame but myself; nobody at all. I'm blaming no one. Forgiving sins, I should have known, is not blotting, ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... infinite variety of lobsters, crayfish, crabs, and all their minor congeners. The polypi, echini, asterias, and other radiata of the coast, as well as the acalephae of the deeper waters, have shared the same neglect: and literally nothing has been done to collect and classify the infusoriae and minuter zoophytes, the labours of Dr. Kelaart amongst the Diatomaceae being the ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... a stop sharply. The sharp edges, where the roots had been cut away had worked through the skin and his hands were literally caked with mud and stained red. Bull looked down at his ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... Greek, sun with, and ekdexesthai, to receive), is a figure of speech which expresses either more or less than it literally denotes. By it we give to an object a name which literally expresses something more or something less than we intend. Thus: we speak of the world when we mean only a very limited number of the people who compose the world: as, "The world treated him badly." Here we use the whole ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... believe that a larger sum is assessed in the city of New York, than would cover the expenses of the general government at Washington? Constructive mileage may be considered as the principle of the party, and literally runs through everything." ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... "brother" literally mean? If we consult the dictionary we shall see it defined as "a male born of the same parents; anyone closely united with or resembling one another; associated in common interests, occupation," etc. It is therefore obviously absurd to say that men of such different races as those referred ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... with a rickety abandon almost paternal; and, replying literally, Hamil admitted his excellent ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... not propose to tell the familiar story of the revival at any length. As far as the present subject is concerned, it was literally a Renascence, or re-birth, of Greek ideas. Constantinople having been taken by the Turks (1453), hundreds of Greek scholars, with their old literature, sought refuge in Europe, and the vigorous brain of the young nations brooded over the ancient speculations, just ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... than one such opportunity. The pledge which he had given had therefore been amply redeemed; and he did not conceive that he was bound to abstain longer from exercising his undoubted prerogative. But, though it could hardly be denied that he had literally fulfilled his promise, the general opinion was that such a promise ought to have been more than literally fulfilled. If his Parliament, overwhelmed with business which could not be postponed without danger to his throne ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... javalies, although several of them lay stretched behind her heels, were uttering their shrill grunts, and rushing at her shanks whenever these rested for a moment upon the earth. There were more than a hundred of them around her feet. The ground was literally covered with their dark forms, crowding each other, and springing ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... he and his descendants care to do so. The dollar, invested in the business of the steel corporation, by the technical processes of bookkeeping, is constantly renewed. Not only does it pay a return to the owner, but literally, it ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... VI. died at the age of sixteen, and the two remaining sovereigns of the dynasty were women, of whom it is true that Elizabeth was a strong and vigorous ruler, but in the nature of things had no opportunity for showing "marvellous personal courage." Henry VII. literally found his crown in the heart of the melee on Bosworth field, it matters not which of the alternative stories is correct, that he himself killed Richard, or that Richard was killed in the act of striking him a desperate blow. But Henry at Bosworth in 1485 still belonged ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... is at her tasks—trimming her lamp—you know, the parable of the wise virgins," continued Father Wynn hastily, fearing that the convert might take the illustration literally. "There, there—good-by. Keep in the right path." And with a parting shove he dismissed Charley and ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... I have translated this passage literally and kept the word daemon, which is the best way of enabling the reader to judge of the meaning; of the text. If the word "daemon" is here translated "fortune," it may mislead. A like construction to the words [Greek: to daimoni summetabalein to ethos] occurs in the Life ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... arrived at the point where we have determined— literally, not metaphorically—to crack the outer shell known as the mortal coil or body, and hatch out of it, clothed in our next. This "next" is not spiritual, but only a more ethereal form. Having by a long training and preparation adapted it for a life in this atmosphere, during ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... of Dewey's ships, the "Concord," disengage herself from the rest of the fleet and head straight for a large Spanish gun-boat that was lying off to herself and whose sole business it seemed was to keep up a deadly fire on Dewey's flagship, the "Olympia." The Concord literally disembowled her. ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey
... way of seeing things, it owes its being to the break-down which the last fifty years have brought about in the older notions of scientific truth. 'God geometrizes,' it used to be said; and it was believed that Euclid's elements literally reproduced his geometrizing. There is an eternal and unchangeable 'reason'; and its voice was supposed to reverberate in Barbara and Celarent. So also of the 'laws of nature,' physical and chemical, so of natural history classifications—all were supposed to ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... for "Baits That Catch Fish," do you see these spinners in the store where you buy tackle? You will find here twelve baits, every one of which has a record and has literally caught tons of fish. We call them "The 12 Surety Baits." We want you to try them for casting and trolling these next two months, because all varieties of bass are particularly savage in striking these baits ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... (I thank my honourable friend for that cheer.) If any man had told me then that I should be as hard up at the present time as I literally find myself, I should have—well, I should have pitched into him," says Mr. Jobling, taking a little rum-and-water with an air of desperate resignation; "I should have let fly at ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... woman's heart to say how it came to pass that towards five o'clock, when I heard the sound of wheels and going on to my balcony saw a jaunting-car at the front entrance, and then opening my door heard Martin's great voice in the hall, I flew downstairs—literally flew—in my eagerness ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... genius, procure him an establishment which might exempt him from the necessity of writing for bread. Otway, though a professed royalist, could not even procure bread by his writings; and he had the singular fate of dying literally of hunger. These incidents throw a great stain on the memory of Charles; who had discernment, loved genius, was liberal of money, but attained not the praise ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... room are mostly tabourets, covered with Cordova leather, embossed in gold and colors and tooled by hand in free arabesque designs. Two long tables extend through the room, and a smaller one occupies the dais: these tables are literally 'boards'—heavy planks jointed together resting on solid, richly-carved trestles, all black with age. They are apparently covered with a full service for a grand banquet, and the intendant said they had never been disturbed since they were prepared ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... and finding two or three footholds, began to climb in the dark, and had reached the height of six feet or so, when he came to a horizontal projection, which, for a moment only, barred his further progress. Having literally surmounted this, that is, got on the top of it, he found there a narrow vertical opening: was it but a shallow recess, or did it lead into the heart of ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... Stewart very closely, gives[189] the first paragraph of the above quotation, but makes no reference to the exploit of Macneil. Keltie who copies almost literally from Dr. Browne, also gives[190] the first paragraph, but no reference ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... from the beachcomber's drunken companions we pulled out into deeper water and safety, and then, shipping my oar, I sprang to Te Manu's aid. The bullet had struck him in the back of the right hand and literally cut off three of the poor fellow's knuckles. I did what I could to stop the loss of blood, and told him to sit down, but he refused, and although suffering intense pain, insisted on steering with his left hand. As soon as we reached ...
— The Flemmings And "Flash Harry" Of Savait - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... hither. The truth is, I have not been at all settled here for three days together: nay, nor do I know when I shall be. I go tomorrow into Sussex; in August into Yorkshire, and in September into France. If, in any interval of these jaunts, I Can be sure of remaining here a week, which I literally have not been this whole summer, I will certainly let you know, and will claim ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... Derjavin's Ode to God, universally esteemed as one of the sublimest effusions of the Russian Muse, I beg leave to say that my aim has been to render it into English as literally as the genius of our language would admit, without adding or suppressing a single thought, or amplifying a single expression, to accomplish which metrically ...
— The Bakchesarian Fountain and Other Poems • Alexander Pushkin and other authors
... he always used, Joe started on his journey across the wire. The cat felt his coming, and turned its head, as it crouched down, and looked at him. But it did not move. The creature was literally "scared stiff." ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... Administration, which, if it was not contumelious, certainly was not courteous. When at his death the Duke assumed the Government, his disclaiming speech was thrown in his teeth, but without much justice, for such expressions are never to be taken literally, and in the subsequent quarrel with Huskisson, though it is probably true that he was aiming at domination, he was persuaded that Huskisson and his party were endeavouring to form a cabal in the Cabinet, and his ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... [Greek: amphiballe moi to ton pareidon sou oregma]: that is, genarum ad oscula porrectionem. It can not be translated literally. The verb [Greek: amphiballe] is to be supplied before [Greek: oregma], and before [Greek: ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... the day when Nick played his final prank in the hunting field,—his maddest prank, in which Baccarat failed him. The horse was shot where he lay. His rider was carried home half dead; and half dead, literally, he had been for ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... my mind when I arrived the other night early at the theatre, and was for a time, literally, the only occupant of the house. I fell to marvelling at the skill of the architect who has been so successful in the acoustic arrangements of this theatre. Not a sound, so it is said, is lost from the stage upon any part of the house. The lowest sob of a dying heroine, in her very last agony, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... on, and now there was question of another dress—a silk dress, light pink, with a large jabot of lace down the front. Raoul literally dazzled Martha by his inexhaustible fertility of wise expressions and ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... in the theory which connected coronal forms with fluctuations in solar activity, it might be anticipated that the vast equatorial expansions and polar "brushes" of 1878 would be found replaced by the star-like structure of 1871. This expectation was literally fulfilled. No lateral streamers were to be seen. The universal failure to perceive them, after express search in a sky of the most transparent purity, justifies the emphatic assertion that they were not there. Instead, the type of corona observed in India eleven years earlier, ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... landed at Fort York. Embarking in batteaux they ascended the Nelson River, and at the end of twenty days reached Lake Winnipeg, and after encountering all manner of discouragements arrived at the mouth of the Red River, only to learn that the locusts or grasshoppers had been before them, and had literally destroyed all the crops. With heavy hearts they proceeded up the river thirty-five miles to Fort Douglas, near the site of the present Fort Garey, then the principal trading post of the Hudson Bay Company. Governor Alexander McDowell and the other officers of the company ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... calendar—anniversary of Bloody Sunday, was celebrated all over the country by great demonstrations which were really demonstration-strikes. In St. Petersburg fifty-five thousand workers went out—and there were literally hundreds of other smaller "strikes" of a similar nature throughout the country. In April another anniversary of the martyrdom of revolting working-men was similarly celebrated in most of the industrial ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... social instincts; and so travellers have observed that the moral is the last step in mental progress. His Moors are the savage Dankali and other negroid tribes, who offer a cup of milk with one hand and stab with the other. He translates literally the Indian word Hth (an elephant), the animal with the Hth (hand, or trunk). Finally he alludes to the age of active volcanoes, the present, which is merely temporary, the shifting of the Pole, and the spectacle to be seen from ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... for yielding her affections to Herod, who had embrued his hands in her father and brother's blood; in this perhaps she cannot be easily defended, but the poet had a right to represent this as he literally found it in history; and being the circumstance upon which all the others depended. Tho' this play is one of the most beautiful in our language, yet it is in many places exposed to just criticism; but as it has more beauties than faults, it ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... satisfied with their spiritual conquests, and not sought to subvert the government of the country, all might have gone well, and Japan, ere now, been a Christian country. But no; true to themselves and to their Order, they came not to bring peace, but literally a sword, and the innocent were made to suffer for the ambitions of ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... went on. The victims were led or carried out. The sight that met the public eye made the crowd literally groan with horror and shout with indignation. "We saw," wrote the editor of the "Advertiser" next day, "one of these miserable beings. The sight was so horrible that we could scarce look upon it. The most savage heart could not have witnessed the spectacle ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... this time, the expedition against the Umbiquas had been still more successful than that against the Crows; and, in fact, that year was a glorious one for the Shoshones, who will remember it a long while, as a period in which leggings and mocassins were literally sewn with human hair, and in which the blanched and unburied bones of their enemies, scattered on the prairie, scared even the wolves from crossing the Buona Ventura. Indeed, that year was so full of events, that my narration ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... sits up; literally this time slang is unknown to him; and re-reads it. That girl has come! There can't be any doubt of it. He had almost forgotten her existence during these past tranquil months, when no word or hint about her reached ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... terrified of them. . . . I dare not tell you morer but I may say Ljuma (an Albanian tribe) no longer exists. There is nothing but corpses and ashes." A Franciscan, who went there, told me of the bodies of the poor little bayoneted babies. "There are villages of 100, 150, 200 houses where there is literally not a single man. We collect them in parties of forty to fifty and bayonet them to the last one," The paper says it cannot publish the details, "they are ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... back into the temple to take a look round, lanthorn in hand, and then had literally to drag themselves away from the sight of the vast treasure they were compelled ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... was silent simply because he had not yet made up his mind what he would say. If his face was outwardly calm and rigid as marble, while the flames of hell were raging in his heart, it was because his limbs for the moment refused to obey his will; but, in spite of this, Norbert was, for the time, literally insane. ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... them not, lest my people forget it, but scatter them abroad among the heathen," had been the prophecy of the Psalmist; and thus it has remained even to the present day. The piteous words of Moses have been literally fulfilled, and among the nations they have found no ease, neither has the sole of their foot found any rest; but the trembling heart, and failing eye, and sorrowful mind, have always been theirs. They have ever been loathed and persecuted ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Moses, dictated by the Divinity himself, was announced a text, which, as interpreted literally, having been inserted into the criminal code of all Christian nations, has occasioned much cruelty and bloodshed, either from its tenor being misunderstood, or that, being exclusively calculated ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... at, except that she was like a great sacred, sacrificial figure; she might have come there to pray, or to offer something, or to pour out a libation. She was tall and grave, and gave the effect of something white and golden. In her black gown and against the yew trees she literally shone. ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... shall flow rivers of living water, John vii. 37. The next day, in allusion to the servants who by reason of the sabbatical year were newly set free, he said, If ye continue in my word, the truth shall make you free. Which the Jews understanding literally with respect to the present manumission of servants, answered, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayeth thou, ye shall be made free? John viii. They assert their freedom by a double argument: first, because ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton
... had better define these primal forms of all vegetation, as well as I can—or rather begin the definition of them, for future completion and correction. For, as my reader must already sufficiently perceive, this book is literally to be one of studies—not of statements. Some one said of me once, very shrewdly, When he wants to work out a subject, he writes a book on it. That is a very true saying in the main,—I work down or up to my mark, ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... men of the Fourth discovered those other fellows they had literally sat down in the snow to die. Not a man of them knew how to pack a mule. Their meat pack slipped, going along one of those high trails, and scared the mule, and in trying to kick himself free the beast fell off the trail—mule ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... autobiographical, as is the description of student life in Paris by which afterwards the uninspiring environment is replaced. The continuation of the studentship at Antwerp, the consultation with the specialist at Dusseldorf, completes the story of du Maurier's life until he came to London. There is literally nothing that a biographer could add to it. And du Maurier wrote his autobiography thus, in tales, which are histories too, in their graphic description of the aspect of places and people at a given time. Up to the day when the artist came to London to seek employment from the publishers ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... The Winnebago was literally unable to move or speak, and Deerfoot, motionless himself, held him thus for several seconds. Then with the gun still pointed, he said ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... was this. Everything in Aunt Anne's house went by clock-work, and everything was polished and scrubbed and dusted within an inch of its life. When we arrived, we scraped our shoes before we kissed Aunt Anne, and when we departed, we felt that she literally swept us out—. We had hours for everything, and nobody thought of doing as she pleased. It was always as Aunt Anne pleased, and the meals were always on time, and nobody was ever expected to be late, and if she ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... rarer in the midst of enjoyment even than that of a man condemned to death, was one for which many a splenetic Englishman would certainly pay a high price. The Baron lay there, horizontal still, and literally bathed in cold sweat. He tried to doubt the fact; but this murderous eye had a voice. A sound of whispering was ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... discover any substantial ground for this contemptuous pride in those literati, who have most distinguished themselves by their scorn of Behmen, Thaulerus, George Fox, and others; unless it be, that they could write orthographically, make smooth periods, and had the fashions of authorship almost literally at their fingers' ends, while the latter, in simplicity of soul, made their words immediate echoes of their feelings. Hence the frequency of those phrases among them, which have been mistaken for pretences ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the world; but till I had made this voyage, I never had a sufficient conception of the degree of this superiority. I have no hesitation to say, that for one French vessel there were two hundred English. The English fleet has literally swept the seas of all the ships of their enemies; and a French ship is so rare, as to be noted in a journal across the Atlantic, as a kind of phenomenon. A curious question here suggests itself—Will the English Government be so enabled to avail themselves of this maritime superiority, ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... satellite, had no knowledge of a self-propulsive space-suit. The success of his raid depended entirely on keeping the two gravity mechanisms intact. If they were destroyed, or failed to function, he would be locked to the ground in a prison of metal and fabric: clamped down, literally, by a terrific dead weight! The suit was extremely heavy, particularly the boots, and Carse learned that the wearer was able to walk in it only because a portion of the helmet's repulsive force was continually working to approximate a normal ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore
... that extended description is unnecessary. The invitations are precisely the same as for teas, simply substituting the word, "Coffee," or "Kaffee Klatsch" in the corner of the card instead of "Tea." The German term, "Kaffee Klatsch," is frequently used. This, literally translated, would be "Coffee Chat" or "Gossip." The entertainment is of German origin, and was adopted to fit the fiction that the stronger sex, of whom the lateness of the hour captures many a willing or unwilling victim, do not revel ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... (not that I quite understand this part of "Mr. HICKSON's" argument): and, lastly, I assert that I believe that Neues, in the phrase "Was giebt's Neues?" is not the genitive, but the nominative neuter, so that the phrase is to be literally ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 30. Saturday, May 25, 1850 • Various
... reformados; literally "reformed," but referring to those who belong to religious houses ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... and they cover, wisely and well, almost every department of domestic, social, public, and national life. The worst that can be said of his political writings is that they are in advance of the age,—literally Utopian;(24) for it would be well with the country which was prepared to embody his views. But, unfortunately, his principles have no power of self-realization. They are like a watch, perfect in all other parts, but without ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... junco, literally, reedtail, is the tropic bird or Phaethon. The name "boatswain-bird" is applied to some other kinds of birds, besides the tropic bird. Cf. Alfred Newton, Dictionary of Birds (London, 1896). Ferdinand Columbus says: rabo ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... head of the steps, and there Dr. Cairn turned and hurled the candle at a monstrous spider that suddenly sprang into view. The candle, still attached to its wooden socket, went bounding down steps that now were literally carpeted ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... The fact that he'd heard it a hundred times didn't make it any less true. Big Joe, armed with every weapon known to Terran technology, was literally the battleship to end all battleships. Ending battleships—and battles—was, in fact, her job. And she did it well. For the first time, the galaxy ...
— A Matter of Magnitude • Al Sevcik
... was a rare one every way, I must give some account of him. There was a good deal of "personal appearance" about him; in short, he was a corpulent giant, over six feet in height, and literally as big round as a hogshead. The enormous bulk of some of the Tahitians has been ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... cotton fibres in their passage through this machine consist of a number of cylinders or rollers of various diameters, but practically equal in width. Some of these rollers are merely to guide and conduct the cotton forward, but the more important are literally bristling all over with a vast number of closely set and finely drawn steel wire teeth, whose duty it is to open, and comb out, and clean the ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... by certain fixed laws. I proceed to illustrate my meaning by instances. A parrot hangs from the wires of his cage by his beak or by his claws; or a monkey from the bough of a tree by his paws or his tail. Each creature does so literally and actually. In the first Eclogue of Virgil, the shepherd, thinking of the time when he is to take leave of his farm, thus ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot |
