"Pit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of wedding-law slighted, Penance of maidens and bootless task, Wasting of water down leaky cask, Crime in the prison-pit slowly requited. ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... fear and hate: Some sickening round of long endeavour, No light, no rest, no outlet ever: All at a pace that must not slack, Tho' heart would burst and sinews crack: Fog in one's eyes, the brain a-swim, A weight like lead in every limb, And a raw pit that hurts like hell Where once the light breath rose and fell: Do you but keep me, hope or none, Cheery and staunch till all is done, And, at the last gasp, quick to lend One effort more to serve ...
— Thoughts on religion at the front • Neville Stuart Talbot
... upon the iron door and burst it in. On the other side stood Udea's seven brothers, who said, 'Come, rest yourself a little on this mat.' And the man-eater sat down, and he fell right into the burning pit which was under the mat, and they heaped on more wood, till nothing was left of him, not even a bone. Only one of his finger-nails was blown away, and fell into an upper chamber where Udea was standing, and stuck under one of ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... Abdul. Ah, thank goodness!" Michael gave an exclamation of pleasure; he had caught a glint of sunshine, had felt a breath of desert air. The Living Aton was penetrating the rat-pit. ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... the days when Joseph's brothers gambled for his coat of many colors when they put him in the pit, the desire to venture in games of chance has been rampant in the human breast, and even "men of the cloth" have proved no exception to the rule. I recall an instance when I was going down the river on the Natchez. As I got aboard the boat I said to myself, "Everything looks blue; I've got no ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... or Rascal's Corner. They are the sons of one Beastly, whose mother bore them in Flesh Square: they live at the house of one Shameless, at the sign of the Reprobate, next door to the Descent into the Pit, whose retainers are Mr. Flatter, Mr. Impiety, Mr. False-Peace, Mr. Covetousness, who are housed by one Mr. ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... sick, but were fain to leave them there aloft, in the sunshine, like Dives in his torments, crying aloud for a drop of water to cool their tongues; and every man a great stinking vulture or two sitting by him, like an ugly black fiend out of the pit, waiting till the poor soul should depart out of the corpse: but nothing could avail, and for the dear life we must down again and into the woods, or be burned up ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... the flag was raised, and a chamber of stone work, large enough to receive a moderately-sized crock or pit, was disclosed. Alas! it was empty. But in the earth at the bottom of it, Miss Baily said, she herself saw, as every other bystander plainly did, the circular impression of a vessel: which had stood there, as the mark seemed to indicate, for a very ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... Armstrong said: "If such are the evidences of justification and a saving faith, then have I had them, too; but why bring they to me no confidence or holy joy? Why is my soul cast down, and why do I feel like one who stumbles towards a pit? Alas! my flesh quivers and my heart trembles at the thought ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... tawdriness from disuse and neglect, and a rather garish effect which marched evenly with the brick-and-terra-cotta fronts in Texas Street and the American-Tudor cottages of the suburbs, it was a creditable relic. The auditorium was well filled in pit, dress-circle and gallery when Kent and his guest edged their way through the standing committee in the foyer; but by dint of careful searching they succeeded in finding two seats well around to the left, with a balcony pillar to separate them ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... a convicted felon to escape the doom justly imposed upon him for such heinous offence as the murder of an innocent girl, it was simply the attempt of a clever attorney to remove the stigma attached to an unfortunate and much-maligned client. The dead body of Mary Ashford was found in a pit of water in Sutton Coldfield, on the 27th of May, 1817, she having been seen alive on the morning of the same day. Circumstances instantly, and most naturally, fastened suspicion of foul play upon Abraham Thornton. He was tried at Warwick, at the Autumn Assizes of the same year, and acquitted. ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... Macready; but on one pint all agree, & that is that Ed draws like a six ox team. Ed was actin at Niblo's Garding, which looks considerable more like a parster, than a garding, but let that pars. I sot down in the pit, took out my spectacles & commenced peroosin the evenin's bill. The awjince was all-fired large & the boxes was full of the elitty of New York. Several opery glasses was leveld at me by Gothum's farest darters, but I didn't let on as tho I noticed it, tho mebby I did take out my sixteen-dollar ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... is that civilised man moves in a much too narrow range of affinities. He has forgotten the rock from which he was hewn, and the hole of the pit from which he was dug. He has reduced the keyboard of his sympathies by whole octaves. The habit of shutting up his body within walls, has produced the corresponding habit of shutting up his mind within walls. Hence Nature, which should be an object of delight to him, becomes ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... bits of money that Shakro gained by begging made but little difference in the state of our affairs, for his belly was a bottomless pit, which swallowed everything that fell in its way; grapes, melons, salt fish, bread, or dried fruit; and as time went on he seemed to need ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... Unitarian wickedly interrupted, to remind his Presbyterian brother that his own church had quenched those very certain fires that once burned under the pit in which lay ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... let me tell you," answered Tommy, laughing heartily. He had not time to say more. The shout of "Tally ho!" and the merry sound of the huntsman's horn, put all the pack in motion. The lane led up hill, and then widened out on some wild open rounded downs, with here and there a white chalk-pit, showing the character of the soil. Up it they tore—for the scent was strong, and they were eager to make up for the time ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... brows at him, and said gravely, 'This is the temptation thou art falling into, as have thousands before thy time. Give him the rein a second time, and he will bear thee to the red pit, and halt upon the brink, and pitch thee into it among bleeding masses and skeletons of thy kind, where they lie who were men like to thee, and were borne ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of tempering the gun-tubes was also witnessed by the Board. The excavation of the pit is, as at St. Chamond, 15 meters deep, with the furnace at one end and the oil tank (100 tons) at the other. One side of the upright furnace is constructed in the form of a door, which, by a convenient arrangement for swinging, is made to turn on its hinges. Thus, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... is set down in its principles, and he that doth any way confute that spirit, presently it falls a raging, and cries out, serpent, liar, wolf, dragon, devil, be silent with thy serpentine wisdom, and smoke of the bottomless pit. Now in this the devil is wonderfully cunning; for least he should indeed be discovered, he doth set the face hard against the truth, and counteth it such a deadly enemy, that he will not, cannot bear it; but lets ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... makes Joe grin and stagger, whereat the Old Un, standing upon his chair, hugs himself in an ecstasy, and forgetful of such small matters as five-dollar bills, urges, prays, beseeches, and implores the Guv to "wallop the blighter on the p'int, to stab 'im on the mark, and to jolt 'im in the kidney-pit." ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... standards and are glad to put away what is inferior for what is better. Therefore we can never excuse ourselves for resentment or resistance because other people resent or resist. There can be no possible excuse for resistance to the behavior of others, and it is safe to say that we must never pit our wills against the wills of other people. If we want to do right and the other man wants us to do wrong, we must pass by his will, pass under it or over it, but never on any account resist it. There has been more loss ...
— The Freedom of Life • Annie Payson Call
... I would not let slip: I took notice that now poor Christian was so confounded, that he did not know his own voice; and thus I perceived it: just when he was come over against the mouth of the burning pit, one of the wicked ones got behind him, and stepped up softly to him, and whisperingly suggested many grievous blasphemies to him, which he verily thought had proceeded from ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... dirt, eight hundred feet thick, that shut out from me the light of day, I rested for awhile. I had done no physical work for ten years. I was physically soft. To put me down in the mines and set me to digging coal was wicked. It was murder. Down in that dark pit how I suffered! There was no escape from it. There was the medicine. I had to take it. I do not know, but it seems to me that when a man is sent to that prison who has not been in the habit of performing physical labor, he should not be put to work in the mines until he becomes accustomed ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... Hell! I know thee now; thou cam'st But once in thine own form, and ever since Hast been too near me in a worser one. Back to the pit, I say! No more ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... and a letter of warning coming at the same time to Mr. Stewart, he and his Chinamen took refuge with the Protestant missionary in Atuona. That night the store was gutted, and the bodies cast in a pit and covered with leaves. Three days later the schooner had come in; and things appearing quieter, Mr. Stewart and the captain landed in Taahauku to compute the damage and to view the grave, which was already indicated ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Martian engineers in fitting it artificially to support life, had roughed it into a sphere and pulverized quantities of the rock into soil. Here, at the apex, was a ring of rough naked hills enclosing a pit into which the sun could not look. Ling, catching up with Parr on the brow of the circular range, pointed ...
— The Devil's Asteroid • Manly Wade Wellman
... other great ladies had their hair so, though I do not like it; but my wife do mightily—but it is only because she sees it is the fashion. Here I saw my Lord Rochester and his lady, Mrs. Mallet, who hath after all this ado married him; and, as I hear some say in the pit, it is a great act of charity, for he hath no estate. But it was pleasant to see how every body rose up when my Lord John Butler, the Duke of Ormond's son, come into the pit towards the end of the play, who was a servant—[lover]—to Mrs. Mallet, and now smiled upon her, and she on him. I ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... was near believing myself in the neighbourhood of a certain evil place, where I should be punished for all my croakings. We travelled at this rate, I dare say, fifteen miles, without seeing a single shed: at last, one or two miserable cottages appeared, darkened by heath, and stuck in a sand-pit; from whence issued a half-starved generation, that pursued us a long while with their piteous wailings. The heavy roads and ugly prospects, together with the petulant clamours of my petitioners, made me quite uncharitable. I was in a dark, remorseless mood, which lasted me till we reached ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... Grammar, by the aid of which he gained some knowledge of the structural rules of English. He had already become acquainted with Paradise Lost, and was another proof of Matthew Prior's axiom, 'Who often reads will sometimes want to write,' for he had begun to write verse when only 'a bonnie pit lad.' For more than forty years of his life he laboured in 'the coal-dark underground,' and is now the caretaker of a Board-school in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. As for the qualities of his poetry, they are its directness and its natural grace. He has ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... furious drive against the Duke. There was a moment of suspense. The Duke did not give way. His arm shot out and the unfortunate Count turned completely round and fell. Charles de Morlay's sword had pierced beneath the right arm pit, entering the lung. The blood streamed from the wounded man's mouth. The Doctor and the seconds carried him into the room which Jeanette had prepared. The Duke, sorely moved, followed them. Albert saw him and held out a hand which the Duke pressed gently, bending his head. The ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... till the "pits" are worked out. It was my task to cart clay in the afternoon to fill them up again. It was an idle enough kind of job. All I had to do was to walk alongside my horse, a big white beast with no joints at all except where its legs were hinged to the backbone, back it up to the pit, and dump the load. But, walking so in the autumn sun; I fell a-dreaming. I forgot claybank and pit. I was back in the old town—saw her play among the timber. I met her again on the Long Bridge. I held her hands once more in that last meeting—the while I was mechanically ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... not the slightest fear," Sir George answered dryly. "Besides, I don't think any class of women workers—not even the pit-brow women—are necessarily coarse and masculine. And I differ from you, too, with regard to that head," he added, fixing his keen, kindly eyes deliberately on Beth's cranium till she laughed to cover her embarrassment, and put up ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... ideas, or interrupt the laying on of a broad flat wash. Now and again, lazily, I lean back to watch the witless hoverings of a big butterfly, or sleepily listen to the increasing sound of the tom-toms and the yells of the beaters, whose voices, as those of demons of the pit, rend the peaceful air and add to ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... influx to the Tuileries. Marks of attachment were exhibited even in external symbols; the women wore enormous bouquets of lilies in their bosoms and upon their heads, and sometimes even bunches of white ribbon. At the play there were often disputes between the pit and the boxes about removing these ornaments, which the people thought dangerous emblems. National cockades were sold in every corner of Paris; the sentinels stopped all who did not wear them; the young men piqued themselves ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... possibilities of steam. Wind was extremely inconvenient for the purpose of pumping, because in these latitudes it is inconstant: it was costly, too, because at any time the labourers might be obliged to sit at the pit's mouth for weeks together, whistling for a gale or waiting for the water to be got under again. But steam had already been used for pumping upon one or two estates in England—rather as a toy than ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... Molly, squirming on the ground, for she had struck the pit of her stomach on a round rock the size of a football and the wind was knocked out ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... of heretics, that the daemons were the authors, the patrons, and the objects of idolatry. [38] Those rebellious spirits who had been degraded from the rank of angels, and cast down into the infernal pit, were still permitted to roam upon earth, to torment the bodies, and to seduce the minds, of sinful men. The daemons soon discovered and abused the natural propensity of the human heart towards devotion, and artfully withdrawing the adoration ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... plans.' In his right-hand pocket were two notes, a rosary, and his seals. In the left his ink-stand, a small looking-glass, and a comb. His watch was kept in the breast of his coat, and in another small pocket, nearly under his arm-pit, was his purse. ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... to the Downes, or towards Boulogne, where they say the Dutch fleet is gone, and stays. We concluded upon private meetings for a while, not having any money to satisfy any people that may come to us. I bought two eeles upon the Thames, cost me six shillings. Thence with Sir W. Batten to the Cock-pit, whither the Duke of Albemarle is come. It seems the King holds him so necessary at this time, that he hath sent for him, and will keep him here. Indeed, his interest in the City, being acquainted, ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... go? It was difficult to find a house that satisfied the whole family. One was too far off, and looked into a tan-pit; another was too much in the middle of the town, next door to a machine-shop. Elizabeth Eliza wanted a porch covered with vines, that should face the sunset; while Mr. Peterkin thought it would not be convenient to sit there looking ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... sat himself down on the very same piece of timber—took his pit-cap off his head—slowly wiped with it the perspiration from his hair and face—and then, looking for some seconds into the hole or shaft close beside him through which he had been lifted, as if he were calculating the number of cubic yards that had been excavated, he quite coolly, ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... More frequently it was difficult. Occasionally it was impossible. When a landing was accomplished, they used to set to work without delay. There was no time to lose. Some bored holes in the rock for hold-fasts; others, with pick and chisel, cut out the foundation-pit. Then the courses began to be laid. On each occasion of landing the smith had to set up his bellows, light his fire, and work in hot haste; because his whole shop, except the anvil, had to be taken down, and carried away every tide! Frequently, in fine weather, this ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... a battle," said Zherkov to Bolkonski, pointing to the accountant, "but he feels a pain in the pit of his stomach already." ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... and how much there be. Then we will go away quick, before it gets into our eyes and steals away our judgment. And in this way we may return in the end, with more grub, and possess it all." So we looked upon the great vein, which cut the wall of the pit as a true vein should, and we measured it, and traced it from above and below, and drove the stakes of the claims and blazed the trees in token of our rights. Then, our knees shaking with lack of food, and a sickness in our ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... all—from Dardale Moss, as black as pitch and as rotten as the grave, up that zigzag wall you call a road, that looks like chalk in the moonlight, through Dunner Cleugh, as dark as a coal-pit, and down here to the George and the Dragon, where you have a roaring fire, wise men, good punch—here it is—and a corpse in your coach-house. Where the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together. Come, ...
— Madam Crowl's Ghost and The Dead Sexton • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... comin' at. Well, I caught a sight at the woman; knew her at the glance. I got a sight at her one night in the Pit at the House of the Nine Nations. 'Here! I wants you,' says I, takin' what there was left of her by the arm. She shrieked, and crouched down, and begged me not to hurt her, and looked wilder than a tiger at me. And then the whole den got into a fright, and young ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... let me go! Please—please let me go!" She struggled frantically against him. Then, finding herself helpless in his grasp, she covered her face with her hands, pressing them hard against her cheeks. But she might as well have tried to pit her puny strength against an avalanche. In a moment he had forced down her shielding hands, bending her slender body backwards so that her face lay just below his lips—shelterless and at his mercy. And then she felt his mouth crushed savagely on hers and the turbulence of his passion ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... 5: The audience, whenever an individual hisses against the sense of the house, always silence the offender by crying, "there's a goose in the pit (or wherever it is) turn him out," and if he persists they expel him by force. It is to be hoped our audiences would follow the example. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... before Henry Clay started his cigar business, y'understand, and when them boys gets a craving for schnapps after July 1st, they would oser go to the nearest Carnegie Library and read over the Prohibition Amendment to the Constitution till that gnawing feeling at the pit of the stomach had passed away, understand me. At least, Abe, that is what I think is going to happen, and from the number of people which is giving out prophecies to the newspapers about what is going ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... verily believe (said Luther) that the day of judgment draweth near, and that the angels prepare themselves for the fight and combat, and that within the space of a few hundred years they will strike down both Turk and Pope into the bottomless pit of hell. ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... happen that the earth had been fresh turned. While he stood, the young bulls pressing behind suddenly put their horns to his flanks and urged him forward. Mawoh! The old bull stepped on to the newly turned earth, and went down into a pit that the hunters had dug. He called to the troop to run from the danger, and they crashed through the wood ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... the burial of the dead. Never did Cranston take the field without Margaret's stowing in the corner of his saddlebag a little prayer-book of her church, and this the captain had handed silently to Davies. Side by side the forms of the two sergeants and their comrade troopers were laid in the sandy pit. Reverently the bearded, war-worn men uncovered and stood with drooping heads while their grave young officer read the solemn words. Here and there along the big circle of their surrounding foe the faint distant crack of ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... the muir. As we cam' through the scented birks, we saw a trottin' burnie wimplin' 'neath the white-blossomed slaes and hirplin' doon the hillside; an' while a herd-laddie lilted ower the fernie brae, a cushat cooed leesomely doon i' the dale. We pit aff oor shoon, sae blithe were we, kilted oor coats a little aboon the knee, and paidilt i' the burn, gettin' geyan weet the while. Then Sally pu'd the gowans wat wi' dew an' twined her bree wi' tasselled broom, while I had a ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... manifest their decided conviction, that the appointment of all the means of grace, flowed from that glorious transaction concerning which it is said, "As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... cruelly your innocence you tell: Shew heaven, and damn me to the pit of hell. Now I believe you; 'tis not yet too late: You may forgive, and put a stop to fate; Save me, just sinking, and no more to rise. [She frowns. How can you look with such relentless eyes? Or let your mind by penitence be moved, Or I'm resolved to think you never loved. You are not cleared, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... are just a woolly lamb and want a dog to look after you. Who is he? On a first night he gives away his stall and sneaks into the pit. When you send him to a picture-gallery, he dodges the private view and goes on the first shilling day. If an invitation comes to a public dinner, he asks me to go and eat it for him and tell him what it's all about. ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... tarts; for sliding and skating in the Regent's Park and the Serpentine, when the weather permitted; for going to the play, whither they were often conducted, by Mr. Osborne's orders, by Rowson, Master George's appointed body-servant, with whom they sate in great comfort in the pit. ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... in faith the leadings of the Holy Spirit, and, through divine strength, to become as a whole burnt sacrifice on the altar of that gracious Redeemer, who had, in his rich mercy, plucked her from the pit of destruction. Having had much forgiven, she loved much, and shrunk not from the many and deep humiliations which were involved in such a course of dedication to her Lord. Even her external appearance strikingly bespoke her ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... of "cherry lips"[54:1] and "cherry-nose,"[54:2] and the game of "cherry-pit."[54:3] We have the authority of Pliny that the Cherry (Prunus Cerasus) was introduced into Italy from Pontus, and by the Romans was introduced into Britain. It is not, then, a true native, but it has now become ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... into Agrippina's snare. Fury at Nero's madness for his wife. Now what if we could raise Poppaea up As Agrippina's chief antagonist: We match the mistress 'gainst the mother—pit Passion 'gainst gratitude—a sudden lure 'Gainst old ascendency, the noon of beauty Against the evening of authority, The luring whisper 'gainst the pleading voice, The hand that beckons 'gainst the arm that sways, And set a woman to defeat a woman. To Nero I have whispered that she dotes Upon his ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... sooner closed his speech than clamour prevailed, all crying at once: Blast! burn! annihilate! to the pit with them! to Tartarus! to the Giants! Zeus ordered silence again, and then, 'Your wishes,' he said, 'shall be executed; they shall all be annihilated, and their logic with them. But just at present chastisement is not lawful; you are aware that we are now in the four months of the long ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... divided against itself and cannot stand. It is going to pieces. Jesus in his revelation to St. John caused to be written these words: "And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... to join him in the venture, the Snibston estate was purchased in 1831: and shortly after, Stephenson removed his home from Liverpool to Alton Grange, for the purpose of superintending the sinking of the pit. He travelled thither by gig with his wife,—his favourite horse "Bobby" performing the journey by ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... representation is also mentioned by Spence, in a letter to his mother:-"In spite of the excellence," he says, "of the actors, the greatest part of the entertainment to me was the countenances of the people in the pit and boxes. When the devils were like to carry off the Damned Soul, every body was in the utmost consternation and when St. John spoke so obligingly to her, they were ready to cry out for joy. When the Virgin appeared on the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... her in an open coffin, and began their march to the place of burial, the husband walking at the head of the company. They proceeded to a high mountain, and when they had reached the place of their destination, they took up a large stone, which covered the mouth of a deep pit, and let down the corpse with all its apparel and jewels. Then the husband embracing his kindred and friends, suffered himself, without resistance, to be put into another open coffin with a pot ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... intervals of six or eight feet, leaving each chamber entirely open like a stall upon the passageway which passed through the centre of the house from end to end. At each end was a doorway covered with suspended skins. Between each four apartments, two on a side, was a fire-pit in the centre of the hall, used in common by their occupants. Thus a house with five fires would contain twenty apartments and accommodate twenty families, unless some apartments were reserved for storage. ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... part?—thy worse! A loathsome ulcer, reeking with the stench from the pit! Better have given thy body to the stake, than have let in one unhallowed desire upon thy soul. How far ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... lions also. I left a large party of them cutting up the elephant, and walking on, shot a zebra. The body, I knew, would attract the lions, so I signed to Bigg to get a hole dug near the spot, that it might serve as a rifle-pit for us. He and I took up our post there, while the natives hid themselves away in the surrounding bush to watch my proceedings. I had not long to wait before some jackals came screeching up to partake of the banquet they had ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... won them their bread. But most of the men who were in the outer court rushed up to the inner gates within which stood the alabaster shrine of the Hathor. Some flung themselves upon the ground and clutched at it, as in dreams men fling themselves down to be saved from falling into a pit that has no bottom. Yet as in such an evil slumber the dreamer is drawn inch by inch to the mouth of the pit by an unseen hand, so these wretched men were dragged along the ground by the might of their own desire. ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... able to do his friend a good turn! [Footnote: Common Journals, Nov. 20, 1643; Baillie, II. 101 (and note), and 120-121. Baillie, at the very time he was privately wishing he had his friend Rowallan's Psalms to pit against Rous's, was becoming acquainted with Rous; to whom in a month or two he dedicated a sermon of his preached before the Commons. He there calls Rous his "much honoured friend." Rowallan's Psalms remain in MS. to this day; but specimens of them have been ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... to safer ground, 'my brother Tom is in London, and in wretched health. His angel is from the wrong quarter, from the nethermost pit. I seriously believe that she has a plan for killing her husband. You remember my mentioning in a letter his horse-accident? He has never recovered from that, and as likely as not never will. His wife brought him away from Madeira just when ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... to make love to her. He was far too clever for that. He knew that with a woman like Kitty, in Kitty's state of mind, he had nothing to gain by making love. Neither did he propose to pit his will against hers. That course had answered well enough in the time of his possession of her. Passion, which was great in her, greater than her will, made his will powerless over her. His plan was to match the forces of her brain with superior, ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... went up to Gnitaheid, and there found Fafnir's slot, or track, along which he crawled to the water. There on the way Sigurd made a large pit, and went down into it. When Fafnir crawled from the gold he blew forth venom, but it flew over Sigurd's head. When Fafnir crept over the pit, Sigurd with his sword pierced him to the heart. Fafnir shook himself, and beat with his head and tail. Sigurd leapt from ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... used to stop for a moment or so on my way to or from the pit head and watch these poor women at work. Some of them went barefoot, but the most of them wore wooden shoes. They appeared to be pretty much of one class, uneducated, dull, and just about as ruggedly built as their men. They seemed quite capable of handling ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... was then carried, in procession round the village, preceded by music, and on returning to the post a hog was sacrificed to ... the village deity ... the blood from the carcass being allowed to flow into a pit prepared to receive it. The victim, made senseless by intoxication, was now thrown into the pit, and his face pressed down till he died from suffocation in the blood and mire, a deafening noise with instruments being kept up all the ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... stem and pit cherries (there should be two cups when pitted). Heat to boiling point in their own juice, then chill them. Line a perforated pie pan with Rich Paste, moisten the rim with cold water and lay around a strip of pastry one inch wide, press lightly. Brush the pastry over with slightly ...
— Fifty-Two Sunday Dinners - A Book of Recipes • Elizabeth O. Hiller
... do in fancy, a causal being can do in reality. The most colossal imaginative human intelligence is able, in mind only, to range from one extreme of thought to another, to skip mentally from planet to planet, or tumble endlessly down a pit of eternity, or soar rocketlike into the galaxied canopy, or scintillate like a searchlight over milky ways and the starry spaces. But beings in the causal world have a much greater freedom, and can effortlessly manifest their thoughts into instant objectivity, without any material or ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... threatened to enforce my order, and punish severely any man who assisted; and placed a police guard for the purpose of seeing that no one did so. She remained sitting by the edge of the water without eating or drinking. The next day the body of her husband was burned to ashes in a small pit of about eight feet square, and three or four feet deep, before several thousand spectators who had assembled to see the suttee. All strangers dispersed before evening, as there seemed to be no prospect of my yielding to the urgent solicitations ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... their own throats Against the splintered gates of audience 'Twere wholesomer to take them in at mouth Than ear. These shall burn first: their ignible And seasoned substances—trunks, legs and arms, Blent indistinguishable in a mass, Like winter-woven serpents in a pit— None vantaged of his fellow-fools in point Of precedence, and all alive—shall serve As fueling to fervor the retort For after cineration ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... and her words full of contempt. The white ring of her gun barrel covered him squarely. It was directed at the pit of his stomach, while her eyes, alight with cold purpose, stared unflinchingly into his drunk and ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... <Hole, cavity, excavation, pit, cache, cave, cavern, hollow, depression, perforation, puncture, rent, slit, crack, chink, crevice, cranny, breach, cleft, chasm, fissure, gap, opening, interstice, burrow, crater, eyelet, pore, bore, aperture, orifice, vent, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... the depths of the pit that Chaka had dug for me, and blessed my Ehlose who had put into my heart those words which I should answer. I hoped also that Chaka would now let me go; but it was not to be, for this was but ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... ridge up to which the ranked furrows rose like aspiring angels. No valley, confused with needless cottages and towns, can have been so utterly valleyish as that abyss into which the down-rushing furrows raged like demons into the swirling pit. ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... it is not worth a visit at the present day, for the trees have grown too thick and choked it. But when Rickie was up, it chanced to be the brief season of its romance, a season as brief for a chalk-pit as a man—its divine interval between the bareness of boyhood and the stuffiness of age. Rickie had discovered it in his second term, when the January snows had melted and left fiords and lagoons of clearest water between the inequalities of the floor. The place looked as big as Switzerland ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... hit wat[gh] a brem brest & a byge wrache, [Sidenote: The devil would not make peace with God.] & [gh]et wrathed not e wy[gh], ne e wrech sa[gh]tled, Ne neu{er} wolde, for wylnesful, his wory god knawe, Ne pray hym for no pit, so proud wat[gh] his wylle, 232 [Sidenote: Affliction makes him none the better.] For-y a[gh] e rape were rank, e rawe wat[gh] lyttel;[13] a[gh] he be kest into kare he kepes no bett{er}. [Sidenote: ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... springs, (Priscus, p. 42.) Dubos (Hist. Critique, tom. i. p. 475) observes, that the magazines which the Moors buried in the earth might escape his destructive search. Two or three hundred pits are sometimes dug in the same place; and each pit contains at least four hundred bushels of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... lost, and wandered back through the darkness, one by one, into heaven; but the last, lighted on by their own lurid splendours, said, 'Wherever we go, there is heaven!' And deeper and lower descending, lost their shape and their nature, till, deformed and obscene, the bottomless pit closed ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... these two men divided the political power of Athens between them, until in the end Aristides said that the city would have no peace until it threw the pair of them into the pit kept for condemned criminals. So just was Aristides that, on one of his enemies being condemned by the court without a hearing, he rose in his seat and begged the court not to impose sentence without giving the accused ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... resolved to pit the resources of the outer world against the militarism of Napoleon; and, drawing the resources of the tropics to the new power-looms of Lancashire and Yorkshire, they might well hope to pour their unequalled ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Restormel iron-mines. She was one of the comparatively few ladies who have ventured into the nether darkness of a pit. She saw her underground subjects as well as those above ground, and to the former no less than to the latter she bore the kindly testimony that she found them "intelligent good people." We can vouch for this that these hewers and drawers ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... a shock," was the answer. "I have been dragged back into the black pit of twenty ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... was beginning at Pont-a-Mousson, for the town was always as black as a pit. On my way home I saw a furtive knife edge of yellow light here and there under a door. The sentry stood by his shuttered lantern. Suddenly the first of the trench lights flowered in the sky over the long dark ridge of ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... sent to bring you here was merely a ruse of mine. Murderer and treacherous dog that you are, so you thought to get me here in the house among your hired assassins by means of the letter which you compelled my dear mistress to write? Are you mad that you should pit your paltry ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... prayer, Hezekiah's life was prolonged fifteen years, the grateful king rendered to God a tribute of praise for His great mercy. In this song he tells the reason why he thus rejoices: "The grave cannot praise Thee, death cannot celebrate Thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for Thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise Thee, as I do this day."(964) Popular theology represents the righteous dead as in heaven, entered into bliss, and praising God with an immortal tongue; but Hezekiah could see no such glorious prospect ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... men-at-arms of the French party went before and lay in ambush, waiting to surprise them. They intended to capture the damsel, cast her into a pit, and keep her there beneath a great stone, in the hope that the King who had sent for her would give a large sum for her rescue.[458] It was the custom for freebooters and mercenaries thus to cast travellers into pits delivering them on payment of ransom. Eighteen ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... wide, sneering mouth, who seemed disquietingly familiar and in whom I gradually recognized one of my Antomir teachers—one of those who used to punish me for the sins of their other pupils. The past suddenly sprang into life with detailed, colorful vividness. The black pit of poverty in which I had been raised; my misery at school, where I had been treated as an outcast and a scapegoat because my mother could not afford even the few pennies that were charged for my tuition; the joy of my childish existence in spite of that gloom and martyrdom—all ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... been shut up in a coal work, from the falling in of the pit, and have had nothing to eat for two or three days, have been as much intoxicated by a bason of broth, as a person in common circumstances with two or three ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... saved, and the piquancy of the double sensation was the hidden drug of Annie's life. She dallied with thoughts of eternal suffering as a Flagellant with imagings of torture, and when her mind was reeling at the very edge of the pit she would pull herself back with a loud outcry on the Almighty, followed by a collapse as sensuous ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... his very solicitude Lanyard emerged from the skylight hatch, waved a hand in gay salute, then turned to stare down into the flaming pit ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... way to the window and bought a couple of pit-stalls; the mate, who had not consulted him, bought upper-circles, and, with a glance at the ladies, pushed ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... he'd ha hoisted his broad pendant afore this, would old Ding-dong, pit-boy and powder-monkey and all, only for that. And as I'd ha gone h'up with him as he went h'up, so I goes down with him when he goes down. I know'd old Ding-dong. He was the man for me. Talk o fightin!—Dicky Keats, Ned Berry, the ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... formed of a rude people, emerging from fetish and demon worship, can be readily supposed. I suspect the converts made by the monk Augustine and his companions had not a little in their character and conduct to show the pit from which they had been taken; and yet that was the dawning of a day for the Anglian and Saxon race in our country for which we have abundant reason to be thankful. There is no doubt much imperfection in Kol and Santhal converts, but we may well anticipate ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... the potato pit, as we now have it, in Ireland was the following advice given in Pue's Occurrences of ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... Toulan, and is buried with him, and I cart then enjoy my life, and shall not need to live in anxiety, and in perpetual fear of being betrayed. But," he continued, after a brief pause, "what is done, must be done quickly, otherwise I may fall into the very pit I have digged for Toulan! If the little Capet is fairly carried to a place of safety, and escapes out of the republic, Toulan can avenge himself by reporting the whole story and bringing me to misfortune. I must, therefore, while I am secure, take away from the fellow the means of betraying ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... too sure that it is impossible," replied I; "a horse once cleared the mouth of a chalk pit with me on its back, when I was a boy; Lawless remembers it." "Eh! what? Mad Bess!" returned Lawless; "I should think I did too; I rode there afterwards and examined the place—a regular break-neck-looking hole as ever I saw in my life. Tell ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... pure delight to Mr. and Mrs. W. Keyse. The Waterloo Arrival platform sent thrills through their boot-soles to the roots of their hair. They sat in the Pit at the Oxford that night, and there was a South African sketch on with two of the chronic-est jossers you ever see, gassing away in khaki behind earthworks of sacks stuffed with straw, and standing up to chuck sentimental ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... brush of the broom and then pad the hollow part with cotton batting, covering it with a piece of cloth sewed in place. Such a crutch does not heat the arm pit and there is an elasticity about it not to be had in the wooden crutch. The crutch can be made to fit either child or adult and owing to its cheapness, can be thrown away when no longer needed. —Contributed by Katharine ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... curved tiers. The operating pit paved with white tiles. The usual operating table has been pushed to one side, and in place of it there is a small glass-topped bedside table. On it, a large roll of aseptic cotton, several pads of gauze, a basin of bichloride, ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... made the house of Dogon to shake from its very foundation; and the hopes of the lords of the Philistines even while their hearts were merry, and when they were anticipating the joy of plundering this continent, were at that very time buried in the pit they had digged. The People shouted; and their shout was heard to the distant end of this Continent. In each Colony they deliberated and resolved, and every Stampman trembled; and swore by his Maker, that he would never execute a commission which he ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... before him, and his Butler at the Head of his Footmen in the Rear, we convoy'd him in safety to the Play-house, where, after having marched up the Entry in good order, the Captain and I went in with him, and seated him betwixt us in the Pit. As soon as the House was full, and the Candles lighted, my old Friend stood up and looked about him with that Pleasure, which a Mind seasoned with Humanity naturally feels in its self, at the sight of a Multitude of People who seem pleased with one another, and partake of the same common Entertainment. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... me no light on the formation of this world, which is not a shapeless mass of a philosophical abstraction called matter, but a regular and beautiful building, composed of a great variety of matters. Was it so from eternity? No man who was ever in a quarry, or a gravel pit, will say so, much less one who has the least smattering of chemistry or geology. Do you assert the eternity of the fifty-seven single substances, either separate or combined in some other way than we now find them in the rocks, and rivers, and atmosphere of the ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... abominably. For two years he had contrived to hide his secret. He had marched, counter-marched, fed, slept, and fought with his comrades; had dodged with them behind cover, loaded, fired, charged with them; had behaved outwardly like a decent soldier, but almost always with a sickening void in the pit of the stomach. Once or twice in particularly bad moments he had caught himself blubbering, and with a deadly shame. He had not an idea that at least a dozen of his comrades—among them Dave and Teddy—had seen it, and thought ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... forty guineas by opening his box door and allowing those in the lobbies to take a peep for a guinea apiece. We made an attempt on Saturday to get into the pit, but it was quite impossible. I would not for the world but have been here during the fever, although what many people complain of is very true, that it spoils all conversation and society, and ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... lean over him and put down in the middle of the table a structure in white sugar. It expressed Frescobaldi's conception of a derrick, and a touch of nature had been added in the flame of brandy, which burned luridly up from a small pit in the centre of the base, and represented the gas in combustion as it issued from the ground. Fulkerson burst into a roar of laughter with the words that recognized Frescobaldi's personal tribute to Dryfoos. Everybody rose and peered over at the thing, while he explained the work of sinking ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... agreeably to the Vicar's argument and my own inclination, it is a great question whether the plague would not have proved too strong for Betty Nasroth, and her prediction gone to lie with me in a death-pit. As things befell, I lived, hearing only dimly and, as it were, from afar-off of that great calamity, and of the horrors that beset the city. For the disease did not come our way, and we moralised on the sins of the townsfolk with sound bodies and ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... lilies of France on his shield. But let us on to the sweets, for we have dined well, and need a toothsome morsel. If you could see, mon vieux, and had set eyes on her, I should have my doubts of you also, for she is as the fairy light that draws the unwary into the Pit of Death. Can you guess? No! Then I will tell you. What think you of the Demoiselle de Paradis? Yes! Hiss, hiss! Sus, sus! On ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... behind the structure was the smoking hut, or defumador, as it is called. Inside this are a number of sticks inclined in pyramid form and covered with palm-leaves. In the floor a hole was dug for the fire that serves for coagulating the rubber-milk. Over this pit is hung a sort of frame for guiding the heavy stick employed in the smoking of the rubber. At this time the process had not become for me the familiar story that it was destined to be. Beneath the hut were several unfinished paddles and a canoe under construction. The latter are invariably ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... exercise such as only boys, at that time, were accustomed to. She became expert in rowing, riding, skating and shooting, developed great endurance, filled her room with snakes and insects and birds' nests, and in a clay pit at the end of her father's garden modelled rude ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... middling sort of people, as citizens, their wives and daughters, and other jilts. The boxes are filled with lords and ladies, who give money to see their follies exposed by fellows as wicked as themselves. And the pit, which lively represents the pit of hell, is crammed with those insignificant animals called beaux, whose character nothing but wonder and shame can compose; for a modern beau, you must know, is a pretty, neat, fantastic outside of a man, a well-digested bundle of costly ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... darkness in the woods is the darkness of the pit itself. She found a fallen tree, and climbed on it to rest and think. Night in gloomy places brings an eerie feeling sometimes to the bravest—dormant sense impressions, running back to the cave age and beyond, become active, ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... for 'em, waitin'. Of course the New York parties who helped Robert, policemen, doctors, and nurses, thought very little of it, it wuz so common, all over the land, they said, such things was happening all the time from the same cause. And we knew it well, we knew of the wide open pit, veiled with tempting covering, wove by Selfishness and Greed, scattered over with flimsy flowers of excuse, palliation, expediency that tempts and engulfs our brightest youth, the noblest manhood, old and young, rich ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... purpose of the text are somewhat obscure. It is one of a string of proverb-like sayings which all seem to be illustrations of the one thought that every kind of work has its own appropriate and peculiar peril. So, says the Preacher, if a man is digging a pit, the sides of it may cave in and he may go down. If he is pulling down a wall he may get stung. If he is working in a quarry there may be a fall of rock. If he is a woodman the tree he is felling ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... caper in connection with taking snap shots these days is to buy a developing outfit and upset the household from pit to dome while you are squeezing out pictures of every dearly beloved friend ...
— Get Next! • Hugh McHugh
... I dream that I should bring such a blow upon you, my best friend, my guardian angel! I have come to tell you that your friend is ruined, that he is falling into the pit, and would not drag you down with him, but save me... no! even you cannot save me. I should push you away; I am ruined, Tatyana, I am ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... that uncontrollable appetite for enjoyments which should be the prerogative of men endowed with giant powers; the men who feel the need of counterbalancing their gigantic labors by pleasures which bring one-sided mortals to the pit. ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... young man, and right glad am I to find one who thinks with me. For the other practices, they are none of mine, and is it not written 'In the same pit which they laid privily is ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... In a pit about eight feet deep, twenty feet long, and ten feet wide, laid up on the sides with stones, a fire of hickory had been made, over which, after the wood had burned down to coals, a whole ox, divested of its hide and entrails, had been suspended on an enormous spit. Being turned ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore |
