"Off" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... off his stupor and took a few strides across the room. The piano attracted him and made him fearful. He looked away from it. As he passed it his hand could not resist it, and touched a note. The sound quivered like a human voice. Anna trembled, and let her sewing ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... of the Lord were as helpless and useless without Him as is a bough severed from the tree. As the branch is made fruitful only by virtue of the nourishing sap it receives from the rooted trunk, and if cut away or broken off withers, dries, and becomes utterly worthless except as fuel for the burning, so those men, though ordained to the Holy Apostleship, would find themselves strong and fruitful in good works, only as they remained in steadfast communion with the Lord. Without Christ what were they, but ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... who become universal in public opinion; and it then happens that the work itself meets with the singular fate which that great genius SMEATON said happened to his stupendous "Pharos:" "The novelty having yearly worn off, and the greatest real praise of the edifice being that nothing has happened to it—nothing has occurred to keep the talk of it alive." The fundamental principles of such works, after having long entered into our earliest instruction, become unquestionable as self-evident propositions; ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... them, on their own account entirely, and without any reference to us. When I recovered my self-possession a little, I threw forward my gun and fired; but owing to my endeavouring to hold the reins at the same time, I nearly blew off one of my horse's ears, and only knocked up the dust about six yards ahead of us! Of course Jacques could not let this pass unnoticed. He was sitting quietly loading his gun, as cool as a cucumber, while his horse was dashing forward at full stretch, with the reins ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... was a cloud," said Bill. "I see now that it is water, and away off there to the right I can see a big ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... windows of the nave, which shot up so gracefully above the heavy Romanesque coursed work. But they continued by the southern side-aisle, and the feeling of suffocation returned again. At the cross of the transept four enormous pillars made the four corners, and rose to a great height, then struck off to support the roof. There was still to be found a delicate purple-tinted light, the farewell of the day, through the rose windows of the side fronts. They had crossed the three steps which led to the choir, then they turned by the circumference of the apse, which was the very oldest ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... said. "Upon my word, and a very good thing you must make of it; for I see you dressed like a gentleman from top to toe. Are you not ashamed to go about the world in such a trim, with honest folk, I dare say, glad to buy your cast-off finery second-hand? Speak up, you dog," the man went on; "you can understand English, I suppose; and I mean to have a bit of talk with you before I march you to ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... empires until it won independence from notional British control in 1919. A brief experiment in democracy ended in a 1973 coup and a 1978 Communist counter-coup. The Soviet Union invaded in 1979 to support the tottering Afghan Communist regime, touching off a long and destructive war. The USSR withdrew in 1989 under relentless pressure by internationally supported anti-Communist mujahedin rebels. Subsequently, a series of civil wars saw Kabul finally fall in 1996 to the Taliban, a hardline Pakistani-sponsored movement that emerged ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... below. In the last section of it is the part of the small intestine at which in the embryo the yelk-sac opens into the gut. This long and thin intestine then passes into the large intestine, from which it is cut off by a special valve. Immediately behind this "Bauhin-valve" the first part of the large intestine forms a wide, pouch-like structure, the caecum. The atrophied end of the caecum is the famous rudimentary organ, the vermiform appendix. ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... the Great said, "From the fifteenth of Ab the influence of the sun declines, and from that day they leave off cutting wood for the altar fire, because it could not be properly dried (and green wood might harbor vermin, which would make ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... feign for their disport that the witch was come back again, and was awaiting her to play the tyrant with her; and Arthur fell in with her game, and kissed her and clipped her, and then drew his sword and said: By All-hallows I shall smite off her head if she but lay a ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... possession you have in your intellect, when there are so many things around to destroy it; and beware, lest before you use it in making the religious choice, God takes it away with a stroke. I know a good many of my friends who are putting off religion until the last hour. They say when they get sick they will attend to it, but generally the intellect is beclouded; and oh; what a doleful thing it is to stand by a dying bed, and talk to a man about his soul, and feel, ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... of you to blame you for taking me away from the fifteenth century," replied Hubert Marien, half seriously. "Ouf!—There! it is done at last. That dimple I never could manage I have got in for better or for worse. Now you may fly off. I set you at ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... assented Sylvia. "It seems real good to have him here again, and he's dreadful tickled with his new rooms. I guess he's glad he wasn't shoved off onto Mrs. Jim Jones or Mrs. Sam Elliot. I don't believe he has an idea of getting married to any girl alive. He ain't a mite silly over the girls, if they are all setting their caps at him. I'm sort of sorry for Lucy Ayres. She's a pretty ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the goblin royal family and the whole goblin people were on their way in hot haste to the king's house, each eager to have a share in the glory of carrying off that same ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... not going to develop into a new woman, Betsey," said John Coulson with alarm. "One never knows which way the wild streak is going to shoot off next." ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... Venado. The proprietor, Don Augustin Pena, was a man of great opulence. In addition to a rich gold mine which he worked, at no great distance off, he was the owner of countless herds of horses, mules, and cattle, that in a half-wild state roamed over the vast savannahs and forests that constituted the twenty leagues of land belonging to the hacienda. Such a vast tract of territory belonging to ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... "Pooh, pooh; leave off that affectation of cynicism: you are not a bad-hearted fellow; you must love mankind; you must have an interest in the ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... almost shouted Price. He took off his alpaca coat and hung it on a nail. Then he stepped up suddenly behind Patience, took the pen deliberately from her hand and pushed ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... being large, and of drawing very little water; the captain's cabin was at the stern; and the two or three men who formed his crew were berthed forward, in the bows. The whole middle of the boat, partitioned off on the one side and on the other from the captain and the crew, was assigned to me for my cabin. Under these circumstances, I had no reason to complain of want of space; the vessel measuring between ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... prepare a tomb for himself, and on a friend indicating what he thought to be a suitable spot, "Very true," said the pedant, "but it is unhealthy." And we have the prototype of a modern "Irish" story in the following: A pedant sealed a jar of wine, and his slaves perforated it below and drew off some of the liquor. He was astonished to find his wine disappear while the seal remained intact. A friend, to whom he had communicated the affair, advised him to look and ascertain if the liquor had not been drawn off from below. "Why, you fool," said he, "it is not the ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... usually laid out by rectangular co-ordinates (see Co-ordinates). Two lines are drawn at right angles to each other, one vertical, and the other horizontal. One set of data are marked off on the horizontal line, say one ampere, two amperes, and so on, in the case of a ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... at all sure that it means much that people get the moral results of their moral action in a particular department of life. If a person becomes a little bit callous and hard, wisely selfish and prudent, and so prospers in the affairs of this life, I am not sure that he is not as well off as anybody, perhaps a little better off, perhaps a little better off than a person who is sensitive, and worries because he does not reach his ideals; and it is possible that he serves the world after all quite as well." This is a kind of criticism, I say, that has ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... immediately, and colour came into it; and her slender hands were steady as she turned her bandage and cut off the thread. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... 'faith 'tis an ill wind blows nobody good. This earthquake, considered philosophically, is a great opportunity for heretics. You and I, for example, may sit here in the very middle of the square and talk blasphemy to our heart's content; whereas—" He broke off. "But I forget my manners. I ought to have started by saying that no one, having once set eyes on your Excellency's face could ever forget it; and, by St. James, that is no more ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... baleful witness, the living proof of a far-off sin, were not in existence, M. Fauvel would not have hesitated. Gaston de Clameran was dead; he would have held out his arms to his ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... be made good by subsidy would be reduced by the amount of the loss. Should it, however, be decided that Ireland is fairly entitled to a share of the large general profit earned by the Postal Services of the United Kingdom, the annual profit so attributable to Ireland would be set off against the annual subsidy as long as the subsidy lasted, and after it was at an end would be a clear item of revenue to Ireland. My own opinion, as I stated in Chapter X., is that the Irish postal system, whether standing ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... Vicare du? Oh, jar i!" said Shoni, taking off his hat to scratch his head, "there's a pity now. Essec Powell will nevare be willing for that; but nevare you mind, you ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... ma'am," explained the Wizard. "If a fly happens to light upon his tin body he doesn't rudely brush it off, as some people might do; he asks it politely to find some other ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... governess would exclaim, wrathfully, "Another heel off! One would think you did it purposely. And boots such a price! Just think of your poor father in South America, working day in and day out to provide you with boots, which you treat with no more consideration than if they were horseshoes—well, to the cobbler's ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... astonished Lady Agnes saw him stand up and dance, and complimented him upon his elegance and activity, the mendacious little rogue asserted that he had learned to dance in Paris, whereas Anatole knew that his young master used to go off privily to an academy in Brewer Street, and study there for some hours in the morning. The casino of our modern days was not invented, or was in its infancy as yet; and gentlemen of Mr. Foker's time had not the facilities of acquiring the science of dancing which ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... room into which I was ushered were raised seats, covered with seal skins, and the other end of the house was divided off with a species of black skin, into sleeping apartments for the master of the house and his family. There was not the least smell, as I anticipated before I entered ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... per cent, and seized by the stupendous thought of extending and increasing the marquisate of Froidfond by concentrating all his property there. Then, to fill up his coffers, now nearly empty, he resolved to thin out his woods and his forests, and to sell off the poplars in ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... very simple. Mart simply pulled Bunny's coat off, over the little fellow's head, and then Bunny was small enough to slip out of the trough himself. He had so wiggled and squirmed after getting into the tin thing like a bath tub that his coat was all hunched up in bunches. ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... November, 1793, Gobet, with the republican priests of Paris, had thrown off the gown and abjured religion. On the 11th, a 'grand festival,' dedicated to 'Reason and Truth,' was celebrated instead of divine service in the ancient cathedral of Notre Dame, which had been desecrated, and been named, 'the Temple of Reason;' ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... declared Shriver, "if I have to be carried off the field in a wheelbarrow. Never ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... "you're not married?" then, breaking off suddenly: "I don't care if you are, I don't! I love you—love you! Nobody would look after you as I would. I don't; no, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... still, To leave this inquisition unperformed. Long since ye should have purged the crime. But now I, to whom fortune hath transferred his crown, And given his queen in marriage,—yea, moreover, His seed and mine had been one family Had not misfortune trampled on his head Cutting him off from fair posterity,— All this being so, I will maintain his cause As if my father's, racking means and might To apprehend the author of the death Of Laius, son to Labdacus, and heir To Polydorus and to Cadmus old, And ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... about them. Still a greater was to watch the sea, in its changes of colour and varieties of agitation, and to get from Mr. Carleton, bit by bit, all the pieces of knowledge concerning it that he had ever made his own. Even when Fleda feared it she was fascinated; and while the fear went off the fascination grew deeper. Daintily nestling among her cushions she watched with charmed eyes the long rollers that came up in detachments of three to attack the good ship, that like a slandered character rode patiently over them; or ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... been engaged, and was waiting their arrival. Montigny, accordingly, in a letter enclosed within a loaf of bread—the last, as he hoped, which he should break in prison—was instructed, after cutting off his beard and otherwise disguising his person, to execute his plan and join his confederates at Hernani. Unfortunately, the major-domo of Montigny was in love. Upon the eve of departure from Spain, his farewell interview ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... took aback, but not to the extent of taking hisself off, which he ought to. "You're fair mad with me, an' no mistyke." His pale eyes were unmistakably good-natured; the loss of the yellow freckles, swamped in a fine, uniform, brick-dust colour, was an improvement, she could not help thinking. "But I only did my duty, Miss, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Pines were the original growth, they still constitute the larger sylvan assemblages, while the deciduous trees stand in scattered groups on the edge of the forest, and the contiguous plain. The verdurous Pine wood forms a picturesque groundwork to set off the various groups in front of it; and the effect of a scarlet Oak or Tupelo rising like a spire of flame in the midst of verdure is far more striking than if it stood where it was unaffected ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... soul, like that of other virginities, is irreparable. Desroches had not aspired to restore it to himself. He no longer risked anything ignoble or dishonest, but the good tricks admitted the code of procedure, the good traps, the good treacheries which could be legitimately played off upon an adversary, he was very ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... are lies while the latter are the truth, so that as time goes on and thought attains greater accuracy, the erroneous nature of these falsehoods becomes even more apparent whale the true tradition remains intact. In modern times, men from countries lying far off in the West have voyaged all round the seas as their inclinations prompted them, and have ascertained the actual shape of the earth. They have discovered that the earth is round and that the sun and the moon revolve ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... present at the first night of the representation of "Irene," and gave me the following account. "Before the curtain drew up, there were catcalls and whistling, which alarmed Johnson's friends. The prologue, which was 'written by himself in a manly strain, soothed the audience, and the play went off tolerably till it came to the conclusion, when Mrs. Pritchard, the heroine of the piece, was to be strangled on the stage, and was to speak two lines with the bow-string around her neck. The audience cried out 'Murder! Murder!' She several ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... into the parlor, and bring me off of the piano a book you will find there. It is a broad flat book, with ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... evangelical men, as Hengstenberg, Keil, and others, interpret the first verse of this book as meaning not that Solomon was himself the author, or that the writer meant to pass himself off as Solomon, but simply that he wrote in Solomon's name, as assuming his character; that monarch being to the ancient Hebrews the impersonation of wisdom. Their reasons for this view are chiefly two: First, that the state of things described in the book of Ecclesiastes does not suit Solomon's ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... tall man, Norman, but you look sound, and whole, and tough for your inches, like a Highlandman's dirk. Now be off on your errand, and when it is done, look for me yonder at the sign of 'The Crane,'" pointing across the parvise to a tavern, "for I keep a word to tell in your lug that few wot of, and that it will joy you to hear. To- morrow, lad, ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... small door off the hall, opposite the sinister glass portal, Mary entered a sleeping room profusely trimmed up with the brightest of chintz ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... slight collisions had occurred between them,—in which the Frenchman, gifted with greater cunning, had managed to come off victorious. But there had never arisen any serious matter to test the strength of the two men to that desperate strife, of which death might be the ending. They had generally fought shy of each other; the Frenchman from a latent fear of his adversary,—founded, perhaps, ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... look down upon the two courts, while Caspar goes to stand by thy dog. Thou shalt ride slowly along for a minute or two, until these preparations shall have been made; then shalt thou blow thy whistle, and set off at a gallop to round the castle, still ever and anon blowing thy whistle; by which means, if I should fail to see thy Marquis leave the castle, thou mayest perchance discover at least from which side of the castle he comes ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... happened if some one had not spoken like that, but as the group of new volunteers stood about the platform at the close of the meeting, the other young people, instead of wandering off and feeling themselves of no significance, came crowding about them, to say to them, boy-and-girl fashion, something of what J.W.'s little speech had suggested. Out of some four hundred Epworthians enrolled in the Institute, about forty had made ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... it is recorded to their honour, that upon the spoil of their enemies they laid not their hands. And all this suffering and blood was the result of the policy of Haman. The Jews were not the aggressors, although they came off victors. ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... time of year could produce; black overhead, slimy under foot, with a cold wind to dash the colder rain in one's face. The walk home took more than half an hour, and she entered her cottage much fatigued. Without speaking to the girl who admitted her, she went upstairs to take off her out-of-door things; on coming down to the sitting-room, she found her lamp lit, her fire burning, and supper on the table—a glass of milk and some slices of bread and butter. Her friends would have felt astonishment and compassion had they learned how plain and slight ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... means. "When my seeds," he observes, "have been chosen with care, I plant them, in the month of April, in good dry mould, in a position exposed to the morning sun, this position being the most favourable. At the time of flowering I nip off some of the flowering branches, and leave only ten or twelve pods on the secondary branches, taking care to remove all the small weak branches which shoot at this time. I leave none but the principal and the secondary branches to bear the pods. All the sap is employed in nourishing the seeds ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... two friends at once quit Lassalle and move off arm in arm talking, leaving Lassalle and Helene eyeing each other across the sofa. Her eyes flash defiance; he relaxes, smiles, paying no attention to her contradiction concerning Hamlet. He kneels on the sofa and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... that, Susy," said her mother. "And I wish, too, that you wouldn't always be late home. Be quick now; there's pease-pudding and pork for dinner. Tom is in a hurry to be off ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... little dorg off you?" said a Sergeant acquaintance in the D.A.C. "I couldn't, Corp'l. Why, I don't even know how I'm goin' to take the foal yonder"—he glared reproachfully at a placid Clydesdale mare and her tottering one-day-old; "and 'ow I'm goin' ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... lungs and stomach of the tree—in the leaves. During all the years of the growth of the plant, these organs are mainly occupied in breaking the strongly riveted bonds that unite oxygen and carbon in carbonic acid; appropriating the carbon and driving off most of the oxygen. In the end, if the tree is, e. g., a Sequoia, some hundreds of tons of solid, organized tissue have been raised into a column hundreds of feet in height, in opposition to the force of gravitation and to the affinities of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various
... sooner than he expected. As was their custom, the Indians at once placed food before their visitors, and the fare was just what John had wanted. There was one objection—the savages cooked the fish without cutting off the heads, but the boys did this for themselves. That they could not be over-particular in the wilderness, ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... him had been more kind than to his petulant friend. He was scarcely more than a boy—twenty-five, perhaps, from the looks of him—but physically a big man. He might have weighed a hundred and eighty pounds, and he was maybe an inch over six feet. But evidently where nature had left off there had been nobody to go on save the tailor. His gray suit was faultlessly correct, his linen immaculate, his hose silken and of a brilliant, dazzling blue. His face was fine, even handsome, but indicating about as much purpose as did his faultlessly correct shoes. ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... was it not a great blessing that the Marchesino should be prevented from throwing himself away in that manner? The first match in Ravenna to be carried off by an obscure and plebeian Venetian artist. Truly it was all for ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... We put off a boat at ten o'clock and rowed straight for the open beach. It was a gloriously clear night, with a heaven of blazing stars and a sea like flowing silver. The ship's boats made so many black shapes, like ocean drift in the pools of light; and Czerny's yacht, speaking of that ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... conditions it is easy to understand that, in spite of the efforts made by the anonymous editors of two or three prohibited papers, such as La Libre Belgique, the bulk of the population was practically cut off from the rest of the world and was compelled to read, if they read at all, the pro-German papers and the German posters. The only wells left from which the ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts
... pack lived some ten miles from Collins and the whole countryside had assembled to witness the first race. There were fewer riders in each chase as the novelty wore off but the days were few when the owner failed to take the dogs out for a run. Wolfhounds run only by sight and coyotes are slippery prey, doubling and twisting on their trails to throw their pursuers off, so the result was always in doubt and every chase ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... exquisitive sensitiveness that to evade capture they sacrifice, apparently without a pang, their wriggling legs piece by piece, and each piece, large or small, squirms and wriggles. The poet says that when the legs of one of the heroes of "The Chevy Chase" were smitten off, "he fought upon their stumps!" The voluntary dismemberment of the brittle star may be even more pitiful—in fact almost complete, yet it still strives to pack away its forlorn body in some crevice or hollow of the coral rock. It has been asserted that no one has ever captured by hand ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... "because I believe that this world could be made a better and a sweeter place if those who have lived and suffered would not be afraid to reach out their hands and cry: 'I know that road—it's bad! I steered off to a better place, and I'll ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... the Chadlands trees," answered the other. "It's rum how, in the middle of such an awful business as this, the mind switches off to trifles. Does it on purpose, I suppose, to relieve the strain. Yes, the trees will catch it to-night. I expect I shall hear a grim tale of fallen timber from Sir Walter by the time ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... We was there six days and not a soul from home seen us and everything came off just as we wanted it to, fine weather and horses and races and all. We beat our way home and Bildad gave us a basket with fried chicken and bread and other eatables in, and I had eighteen dollars when we got back to Beckersville. Mother ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... there came a knock at the front door; a stamping of feet on the circular steps, and a noise of shaking off snow. ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... wet snow kept sleepily falling, pausing, and falling again; it seemed perpetually beginning to snow and perpetually leaving off; and the darkness was intense. Time and again we walked into trees; time and again found ourselves adrift among garden borders or stuck like a ram in the thicket. Rowley had possessed himself of the matches, and he was neither to be terrified nor softened. "No, I will not, Mr. Anne, sir," ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... things in this world that mortal man can't compass, and to attempt to pour oil on the waves of a woman's wrath when they are just at the boiling point, and ready to overflow their confines, is like sitting down on a bunch of fire-crackers to prevent their going off. Let the water boil over, and there will still be enough left to brew you a cup of tea. Let the crackers explode, and you may sit down ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... then, when he did think, it was with remorse, and self-reproach, and consciousness of disloyalty, so bitterly and keenly painful—yet unaccompanied by that repentance, which steadily envisages past wrong, and determines to amend in future—that he shook off the recollection, whenever it returned, with wilful stubbornness; and resolved on forgetting, for the present, the being whom a few short hours before, he would have deemed it impossible that he should ever think of but with joy ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... Piranesi-like mystery. The gleam of the chestnut-roaster's brazier at a street corner deepens the sense of an old adventurous Italy, and the darkness beyond seems full of cloaks and conspiracies. I turn, on my way home, into an empty street between high garden walls, with a single light showing far off at its farther end. Not a soul is in sight between me and that light: my steps echo endlessly in the silence. Presently a dim figure comes around the corner ahead of me. Man or woman? Impossible to tell till I overtake it. The February fog deepens the darkness, and the faces one ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... dropped away through the gloom of the evening, brown nearby, but falling off through a faint blue haze and growing blue-black with the distance. A sharp wind, chill with the coming of night, cut at them. Not a hundred feet overhead shot a low-winging hawk back from his day's hunting and rising only high enough to clear the range and then plunge ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... looking lovely as usual. Marie Prune was sitting at the next table squinting dreadfully and, I think, rather drunk and obviously upset about her sister running away with a Chinaman—poor dear, she's had a lot of trouble but still even that's no excuse for looking like a blanc mange slipping off the dish, she should cultivate a little more vitality and never ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... the United States, was published in Florence, and republished in the Moniteur, with some severe strictures on the conduct of the United States, and a remark "that the French government had testified its resentment by breaking off communication with an ungrateful and faithless ally until she shall return to a more just and benevolent conduct. No doubt," adds the editor, "it will give rise in the United States to discussions which may afford a triumph to the party ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... upon thee, at such a crisis, this despondency that is unbecoming a person of noble birth, that shuts one out from heaven, and that is productive of infamy? Let no effeminacy be thine, O son of Kunti. This suits thee not. Shaking off this vile weakness of hearts, arise, O ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... forth at any minute, but that I was going to St. Louis to take care of my family, and would have no more to do with it. John begged me to be more patient, but I said I would not; that I had no time to wait, that I was off for St. Louis; and off I went. At Lancaster I found letters from Major Turner, inviting me to St. Louis, as the place in the Fifth Street Railroad was a sure thing, and that Mr. Lucas would rent me a good house on Locust Street, suitable for my family, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... galleries and ramparts where are the more splendid paintings, but the more sacred ones are taught in the temple. In the halls and wings of the rings there are solar time-pieces and bells, and hands by which the hours and seasons are marked off. ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells
... hat off to you," Grief said to Pankburn that night at dinner. "The situation is patent. You've reversed the scale of value. They'll figure the pennies as priceless possessions and the sovereigns as beneath price. ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... flowers; and the long-styled flowers produce spontaneously much more seed (as shown in the first chapter) than the short-styled, owing to the anthers of the long-styled form being placed low down in the corolla, so that, when the flowers fall off, the anthers are dragged over the stigma; and we now also know that long-styled plants, when self-fertilised, very generally reproduce long-styled offspring. From the consideration of this table, it occurred ...
— The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species • Charles Darwin
... kept gathering round the things to be auctioned off. The men looked wonderingly at many of the farming tools, which were of such old-time make that it was difficult to guess what they had been used for. A few spectators had the temerity to laugh at the old sleighs some of which were from ancient ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... to give her to me," he cried. "I'll swear you put her in my charge. I'll take her. It's that, or I'll pack you both off to the poorhouse. I'll make out the papers for you to sign. You'll do it; ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... Mr. Braden! I wish poor dear Mr. Crewe would get married—a wife could take so many burdens off his shoulders. You don't know Mr. Crewe very well, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... paramount in the university begins in the college. The more formal methods of disciplinary work at the beginning of a collegiate course gradually shade off, during the closing years, into the methods and spirit of original discovery adopted in university work. In the college there is kindled in the student the love of new truth and an enthusiasm for the advancement of learning. He is led to undertake creative work, and become ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... Sitting thus, they gossip with a passing neighbour, who stops to chatter as he sits propped upon the stair ladder, or they croak snatches of song, with some old-world refrain to it, and, from time to time, break off to cast a word over their shoulders to the wife in the dim background near the fireplace, or to the little virgin daughter, carefully secreted on the shelf overhead, in company with a miscellaneous collection of dusty, grimy rubbish, ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... far off as ever from capturing the city. Battering down the houses of Quebec brought him no nearer to his object, while Montcalm's main body still stood securely in its entrenchments down at Beauport. Wolfe now felt he must try something decisive, even if desperate; and he ...
— The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf • William Wood
... one of the boats and taken on board. Two other men, encouraged by the success of the first, attempted to reach the boats by the same means, but scarcely had they committed themselves to the water when a huge roller came roaring on, dashing over the ship, and as it receded swept them off far away to sea; for a moment their forms were seen struggling amidst the foam, and then they were hid for ever from human eye. The lives of the remainder on board seemed more than ever in danger. Should the storm increase, of which there seemed every ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... metaphysical meaning. I had just heard of the death of a dear little child, and was standing in our garden, looking at a rose-bush, covered in summer with hundreds of rose-buds and rose-flowers. While I was looking I broke off one small withered bud from the midst of a large cluster of roses, and after I had done so a question came to me, and I said to myself, What has happened? Is it only that one small bud is dead and gone, or have not all the other roses been touched by the ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... form borrowed words, however long, into monosyllables; and not only cut off the formative terminations, but cropped the first syllable, especially in words beginning with a vowel; and rejected not only vowels in the middle, but likewise consonants of a weaker sound, retaining the stronger, which seem the bones of words, or changing ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... their parents, come into the world with a constitution already enfeebled, which cannot be at once exposed to all the trials required to restore it to health. Little by little they must be restored to their natural vigour. Begin then by following this custom, and leave it off gradually. Wash your children often, their dirty ways show the need of this. If they are only wiped their skin is injured; but as they grow stronger gradually reduce the heat of the water, till at last you bathe them ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... the face of another general war with its attendant destruction of life and property, harm to American and other foreign interests, and danger of international complications (a British and a French man-of-war were already solicitously hovering off the capital), the American government took decisive action. With the consent of President Jimenez, it landed marines at old San Geronimo castle, on the Guibia ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... (1815) at Aix, whither he was sent to study law. At Aix he made the acquaintance of Mignet, cultivated literature rather than the law, and won a prize for a dissertation on Vauvenargues. Called to the bar at the age of twenty-three, he set off for Paris in the company of Mignet. His prospects did not seem brilliant, and his almost ludicrously squat figure and plain face were not recommendations to Parisian society. His industry and belief in himself were, however, unbounded, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... forsake His people. Could their eyes have been opened, they would have seen as marked evidence of divine presence and aid as was granted to a prophet of old. When Elisha's servant pointed his master to the hostile army surrounding them, and cutting off all opportunity for escape, the prophet prayed, "Lord, I pray Thee, open his eyes, that he may see."(307) And, lo, the mountain was filled with chariots and horses of fire, the army of heaven stationed to protect ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... it is not her fault!' Then I shiver. What is not my fault? Albert's death. Dear Albert, who frightened me so much sometimes, that I felt my teeth chattering! Do you know how he died? Nobody seems to know! Genevieve dear, the pearl collar strangles me sometimes. I promised not to take it off, but I must take it off to play 'Camille' in Musset's play. Mustn't I? She cannot wear pearls at the convent? When I promised that, I did not expect ever to appear on the stage any more; but now! Besides, when I am on the ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... with the islanders, some of whom came as much as fifteen miles out to them. The chief article of commerce was salt, which was of very good quality. On the 5th January the southern point of Owhyhee was rounded, and they lay off a large village, where they were quickly surrounded by canoes laden "with hogs and women": the latter are not held up as patterns of all the virtues. Vegetables seemed to be scarce, and Cook concluded that either the land could not produce them, or the crops had been destroyed by volcanic ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... did thoroughly, after procuring a lantern; but without finding any thing to reward their diligent search; and they finally drove off. ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... places they could distinguish traces, more or less recent, of the passage of a band of men—here branches broken off the trees, perhaps to mark out the way; there the ashes of a fire, and footprints in clayey spots; but nothing which appeared to ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... "He took off his hat," said she. "I think he must have been an officer. He was very distinguished looking. Perhaps you noticed him—a gentleman on the outside, very ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... verses when there came out upon him from among the trees a horseman of terrible mien covered and clad in steely sheen, who cried out to him, saying, "Stand, O riff-raff of the Arabs! Doff thy dress and ground thine arms gear and dismount thy destrier and be off with thy life!" When Jawamard heard this, the light in his eyes became darkest night and he drew his sabre and drove at Jamrkan, for he it was, saying, "O thief of the Arabs, wilt thou cut the road for me, who am captain ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... what the meaning of these movements could be, the attack of weakness which had alarmed him passed off, like the fleeing shadow of a cloud. It was followed by a natural rebound of spirits, and he too rose to his feet and ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... toiling slowly up the stairs, with a flat basket on her head. Her wrinkled face was all aglow with delight. As soon as she reached the threshold she set the basket down, and exclaiming, "Oh look, look, Signora!" lifted off the cover. It was full of fresh and beautiful anemones of all colors. She moved a few on top and showed me that those beneath ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... conceal his relief when the door closed and the fly drove off. "I ain't sorry the fence ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... American consulship with the ease that never left him even in such high places. The tintype establishment was soon to become a thing of the past, although its deadly work along the peaceful and helpless Spanish Main was never effaced. The restless partners were about to be off again, scouting ahead of the slow ranks of Fortune. But now they would take different ways. There were rumours of a promising uprising in Peru; and thither the martial Clancy would turn his adventurous steps. As for Keogh, he was figuring in his mind and on quires ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... with a malignant joy which she had never remarked in them before. The sight of this tall strong creature, with her fanatical ideas of savage honour, pride written on her forehead, and curled in a sardonic smile upon her lips, carrying off the young man with his weapons, as though on some death-dealing errand, recalled Orso's fears to her, and she fancied she beheld his evil genius dragging him to his ruin. Orso, who was already in the saddle, raised his head and caught sight of her. Either because he ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... same Mr. Phillips giving me the right hand of fellowship with beautiful loveliness and humility." The text is from Josh. v. 9: "And the Lord said unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you." ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... charge of this piece, but Frohman would not listen to the proposition about the mechanical device. He was unhappy over his experience about "Vim," and whenever Burgess tried to talk "The County Fair" and its machine Frohman would put him off. ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... by this time. Perhaps no one on board had yet missed her, or knew of her strange adventure. Down into a valley between the waves the coop swept her, and when she climbed another crest the ship looked like a toy boat, it was such a long way off. Soon it had entirely disappeared in the gloom, and then Dorothy gave a sigh of regret at parting with Uncle Henry and began to wonder what was going to happen to ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... the salute this time!—No, no, no! Don't be in such a hurry! Wait till the boat puts off! You want to make a mess of ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... rest of the Fleete before the PLAIE comming him selfe a shore, vvilling vs to burne the Tovvne and make all hast a boorde, the which was done by sixe of the clocke the same day, and our selues imbarked againe the same night, and so we put off to ...
— A Svmmarie and Trve Discovrse of Sir Frances Drakes VVest Indian Voyage • Richard Field
... Captain Corbet, of the ship Falcon, bound from Sydney to London, and these are some of my men. We saw this light last night about midnight, right on our weather-bow, and came up to see what it was. We found shoal water, and kept off till ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... in a faint voice, a restrained voice rather, that was insufficient for the multitude of thoughts it strove to express; and as he stammered helplessly he drew the grating toward him with such force that he broke off a piece of it. Then he staggered, fell to the floor, and lay there motionless, speechless, retaining only, in what little life was still left in him, the firm determination not to die until he had justified himself. That determination ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... leads to the banqueting hall, and you can comprehend my escape this evening," said he; "but our path is now downwards, unless you would like to go up and see the drunken beasts of murderers snoring off their debauch upon the floor as they fell; oh, that it were lawful for a Christian man to cut their throats as they lie; many innocent lives would be saved thereby, which those brutes will live ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... is a wonderful country," he said aloud, "where you get people studying Spanish in their off-hours." Ellen thought it rather wonderful too, and looked at her toes with a priggish blankness. "You've got a marvellous educational system...." He paused, conscious that he was too manifestly talking at random. "In two continents ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... of plans for helping them to escape from this angry God, and gave themselves up to superstitions, till they even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to devils, in some sort of confused hope of buying themselves off from misery and ruin. ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... selfish fears forgotten, she felt only terror for her friend. She exclaimed, "Clarendon, will you break off the marriage? Oh! Helen, what will become of her! Clarendon, ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... beat in my ears like the far-off cadences of the Sault Ste. Marie rapids, that rise and leap and throb—like a storm hurling through the fir forest—like the distant rising of an Indian war-song; it swept up those mighty archways until the gray dome above me faded, and in its place the stars came out to look ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... glimpse of sunset fading from a far-off wild, As I sat me down to fancy, like a thoughtful, wistful child— Sat me down to fancy what might mean those hollow, hopeless tones, Sooming round the swooning silence, dying out in smothered moans! What might mean that muffled sobbing? Did a lonely phantom wail, Pent amongst those ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... workmanship, possessing almost illimitable accuracy, is viewed in a very different light by the astronomer who makes use of it. No one can appreciate more fully than he the skill of the artist who has made that meridian circle, and the beautiful contrivances for illumination and reading off which give to the instrument its perfection; but while the astronomer recognises the beauty of the actual machine he is using, he has always before his mind's eye an ideal instrument of absolute perfection, to which the actual meridian ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... human nature has not improved, and hell is as great a fact now as then. God's love for men has not decreased. He is still interested in the human race, and the promise, as Peter put it, is "to all that are afar off."—Acts ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... from fibrous wastes had been confined practically to one large factory in Boston and one near New York. One concern, for a while, bought old rubber shoes and sent them to women in the country, whom they paid so much a pound for the rubber stripped off—a very expensive process. There were several claimants for priority in the matter of reclaiming rubber by the processes which finally became standard, and some conflicting interests were brought together under the head of the Chemical Rubber Company. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... Mr. Stuart and I went to the rhagodia bush for our things. As we approached, the branches appeared just as we had left them; but on getting near, we saw a bag lying outside, and I therefore concluded that the natives had carried off everything. Still, when we came up to the bush, nothing but the bag appeared to have been touched, all the other things were just as we left them, and, on examining the bag, nothing was missing. Concluding, therefore, that the natives had really discovered ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... as nether—had outwitted French watchfulness by stealing minutes enough on a day at Lakelands to declare himself. And no wonder the girl looked so forlorn: he had shivered her mediaeval forest-palace of illuminated glass, to leave her standing like a mountain hind, that sniffs the tainted gale off the crag of her first quick leap from hounds; her instincts alarmed, instead of rich ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of this passage it is to be inferred that the habit which Goethe describes applied only to the occasional short poems which he threw off at the different periods of his life. But are we to infer that the account here given of Goethe's occasional poems applies to the passionate lyrics which a few years later he was to pour forth in such abundance? ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... turkeys as surely as a dose of poison. For the first few days confine the poults to the limits of the coop and safety run; then, if all appear strong and well, give the mother hen and her brood liberty on pleasant days after the dew is off. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various
... for Western Canada! Is this but the dream of a far off future or can it be a reality within a few years?—There is the problem which now faces the Catholic Church of our Western Provinces and upon which, in our estimation, rests the influence the Church is to have in the formation of the new and most promising ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... morning, with Colonel Quinnox and a small escort, Beverly Calhoun set off in one of the royal coaches for Ganlook, accompanied by faithful Aunt Fanny. She carried the order from Baron Dangloss and a letter from Yetive to the Countess Rallowitz, insuring hospitality over night in the northern town. Lorry and the royal household entered merrily ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon |
